I just want to throw a quick warning here, that is in no way about White Sheep. This Saturday is an update weekend for "A Hunter or Something", but due to some rather important work College Fool has, that cannot be avoided, College Fool won't have time to look over what I've done or make changes and suggestions. Since it's CF's story and not mine, I can't just publish it when CF isn't happy with it.

As such, there may or may not be a tiny update for it this Saturday – like 1000-1500 words max. But what there will be is a full update for Relic of the Future, my newest fic. It'll just be switching around the dates to cover for CF's busy timescale, which means HOS will be delayed until the 5th May, while Relic will be this Saturday, 28th March.

Beta: College Fool

Cover Art: Kegi Springfield

Chapter 64

Cinder wasn't unused to anger, but this time it felt so much worse. Her blood boiled and she wanted nothing more than to take hold of the bastard responsible for this and rip him into little pieces. And she knew just who to blame, of course.

"Adam," she hissed. "I'll destroy him."

"The White Fang? I thought you said you'd call them off."

"I did, but it seems the fool refused to accept it," she explained, standing. When Mercury, Neo and Emerald made to do the same, she shook her head. "Stay here. We can't have our entire team vanishing when we might be called up for the next fight. If that happens, Mercury and Emerald should fight it."

"What about you?" Emerald asked.

"I will go and deal with this new problem, along with Jaune." Cinder glanced to him at that, earning a nod in agreement. If there were Grimm to deal with, he would be useful to have along. "Good. I think it's time we cut ties with dear Adam. Permanently."

The two of them slipped from the bleachers and into the tunnels connecting the stands to the amenities and tunnels of Amity Colosseum. They'd been heaving with life and activity but now, with the matches on, they were all but abandoned.

Cinder waved a hand for Jaune to take the lead. "You can sense where they are. Take me there."

Jaune did so, leading her to the left. "This really isn't your doing, is it?" he asked.

"I wouldn't waste my time making life harder for myself, not when you've so easily laid everything I want before me. I tried to convince Adam the attack had merely been rescheduled, but it seems he saw through me. I must be losing my touch." Or Adam had simply been too bloodthirsty to wait, a possibility given how pointlessly angry the fool was. "It matters little. Adam's forces aren't large enough to attack on their own; they need the Grimm. If we can shut those down, either killing them or with you ordering them away, then he will have to call the assault off."

"And what do we do with Adam?"

"We kill him."

"Can't we just arrest him?"

It was just like him to try and take the easy route, though in this case it wasn't an option. "Adam knows my identity, and that I work with your Grimm form." She refused to call it Hentacle. "That information would come out in interrogation, and the moment suspicion falls on me, it would fall on you by association."

"I-I see…"

Cinder sighed. "If you're feeling squeamish you can leave the final blow to me. You deal with the Grimm. Adam is mine."

"Alright. Take a left here – into the restricted section."

Cinder opened the door, ignoring the sign warning them against it, and slipped inside with Jaune. The new corridor was brightly lit, though far less organised than the pedestrian ones – with lockers, crates and cleaning equipment stacked haphazardly against the walls. Again, thanks to the fights taking place in the main ring, most of the employees would either be spectating or working on various aspects of them.

Still, that didn't explain how Adam had managed to smuggle Grimm into the Colosseum under their noses, or how he'd managed it with so many. "You said hundreds of Grimm, right? Are you sure on that number?"

"That's what it feels like."

"How accurate is this feeling?"

"Absolutely," he replied, and the certainty in his voice convinced her. Whatever skills Salem might have given her, she could not feel the Grimm in the same way Jaune and his siblings did.

How could Adam have hidden so many Grimm here, though? It doesn't make sense. Vale might have been naïve when it came to security, but Grimm were neither small nor subtle, and neither were faunus in Grimm masks moving huge shipping containers of growling, snarling monsters. Amity Colosseum was also hundreds of metres up in the air, making the feat even more of a logistical nightmare.

Not even she could have managed it, so Adam having done so raised a lot of questions. Although in the end, it doesn't matter. The `how` isn't the issue we have to deal with.

"Avoid transforming if you can help it," she whispered. "Our combat is bound to draw attention and there might be security cameras about. We can explain away our presence by saying you felt the Grimm and we decided it was our duty to intervene, but we can't do that if you transform."

"I can still order the Grimm in this form, but it might be hard to explain that if someone sees it…"

"Leave that to me. I have a plan."

Thankfully, Jaune accepted her words without demanding an explanation, which was fortunate given that her plan was just to kill any witnesses. He didn't need to know that and hopefully it wouldn't be an issue. Salem would have her head if a hair on his was harmed, however. Bad enough she'd gotten him involved with terrorists, but the last thing they needed was Ironwood discovering his true identity.

"How far is it?" she asked.

"Deeper. It's two floors below, down in the basement area."

The engineering and storage compartments below the crust of what formed the floor of Amity. Much of the workings of the flying arena were stored beneath ground – though the term itself was a little off given what it was. Perhaps the `hull` of Amity Colosseum would be a better term.

"We need to hurry. They're getting more aggravated. Something is stirring them up."

"Or someone," Cinder whispered. "Lead on. It's time we finished this."

/-/

In Ruby's defence, it was her sister down there kicking butt. That was why she'd completely failed to notice Jaune slipping away until she turned, eager to point out some cool move Yang had just done, and found no one beside her.

Where was he? Yang would be hurt if she knew he'd bailed on her fight. And if Yang was hurt, that meant he'd be hurt, because her sister had a forgive and forget mentality that only applied after she'd taken out her annoyance in a spar.

"He left ten or so minutes ago," Pyrrha said. "He didn't say what for, only that it couldn't wait. Maybe he went to the bathroom."

"Maybe…" Ruby bit her lip. When she looked around, she couldn't help but notice that Cinder was also missing. It wasn't hard to imagine they were together, though she wasn't sure why.

But Cinder had once said she knew Jaune's mother, and if that mother was who – or what – Ruby thought she was, then… well… that was something not so easily explained. Ruby tried to ignore it, to accept it as being nothing, but she wasn't quite able to.

"I'll go see if I can find him."

Pyrrha looked surprise. "Do you want me to come with you?"

"I'll be okay on my own."

Everyone else was too engrossed in the fight to pay much attention to her, and Ruby whispered a silent apology to Yang for skipping out as she left the stands. Maybe this was nothing and maybe she'd look stupid later for it, but there was something in her gut telling her otherwise. Part of it might have been paranoia, but another part – as much as she didn't like to admit it – was probably because she knew what Jaune was.

Not that I'm judging him by it, she quickly thought, even though she not only totally was, but totally should. I'm just… I'm giving Jaune a chance to prove me wrong. Yeah, that's it. It's not that I don't trust him; it's that I trust him to prove my doubts wrong.

But didn't having those doubts mean she didn't trust him?

"Ugh, this is complicated. Come on, Jaune, would it have killed you to just sit there?" She was going to be pretty embarrassed if he had just gone for a toilet break. "Maybe I should check the toilets just in case."

There were loads of them in Amity, obviously, but she tracked down the closest ones and found no queue outside, which meant Jaune wouldn't have gone for any further away. She paused outside the men's side, wondering how to go about this.

"Jaune?" she called. "Hey Jaune, are you in there?"

There was no answer, not even the flushing of a toilet or running of a tap. She figured most people would hold it in with the fights on, but when you had to go, you had to go. Frustrated, she stomped her foot.

"Jaune!? Jaune, please – are you there? Answer me!"

Maybe she should call his scroll? No. If she did, she'd have to have a reason as to `why`, and `I'm suspicious about you` probably wouldn't be a good reason. Nervously, she looked left and right, before she took a deep breath.

"No one has to know," she whispered, inching a foot into the men's side of the toilets. "No one has to find out."

Ruby peeked her head around the edge of the tiled wall, hoping against all hope that she wouldn't come face-to-face (or worse) with a row of men using the urinals. To her relief, it was empty, and she stepped inside more fully with a long exhale.

The men's toilets weren't that much different from the women's, except for the inclusion of the urinal, which Ruby had always thought looked ridiculously unhygienic – not to mention embarrassing. When she'd told Yang that once, her older sister had told her about `archaic rules` men had around those, with a strict order that involved not selecting one next to someone already in use, and never looking.

It sounded weird. Why didn't they just have more stalls like girls did? Sure, men could stand and do it, but it wasn't like they had to, right? Why bother when sitting worked just as well and didn't carry the same risk of embarrassment?

"I'm getting distracted," she realised, shaking such thoughts away. She stepped past the urinal on tip-toes, eyes wide for any spillage. She also ignored the odd machine on the wall selling mints and various-shaped balloons, to reach the stalls themselves. Tentatively, she knocked a hand on each, leaping back when they opened and peeking once it was clear no one was inside each.

Once all five were open and revealed empty, Ruby sighed and planted her hands on her hips. "Where is he?"

"Where's who?" a bored voice asked.

Ruby yelped, spinning around to find herself caught by a silver-haired teen, one of Cinder's teammates, and worse, in the men's toilets. Mercury was leaning on the wall that hid the entrance from view, blocking anyone outside from seeing in. His arms were crossed and he had a raised eyebrow.

"So," he drawled. "What are you doing in here?"

Mortification spread through Ruby, congregating in her cheeks. Her eyes were wide and flicked left and right, looking for inspiration in the tiled walls. She realised one had a crudely drawn penis on it, but funnily enough, that didn't help her any. "M-Me?" she stammered. "I, uh, well, I… What are you doing here?" she demanded, going on the attack.

"I'm a man," he said. "And this is the men's toilets. I think that should be self-explanatory."

Oh yeah, now that she thought about it, that sounded like a fairly good excuse. "W-Well, I'm looking for a man," she said.

Mercury's brows rose even higher. "Aren't you, like, fifteen?"

It took Ruby a second to realise what he meant. When she did, she gasped so hard she choked. "Not like that! I didn't mean it like that!"

"Then how did you mean it?"

"I'm looking for Jaune!"

"In the men's toilets?"

"Anywhere," she whined, face so red she could feel it burning up. "I'm just… ugh, can we forget about this? I just need to find Jaune and get back to the stands."

"Why?" Mercury asked, pushing himself off the wall a little. "Just go back yourself and wait for him. He won't be too long."

Ruby's hands, which had been covering her face, lowered. "You know where he is," she realised.

Mercury didn't deny it, not that he could, but the way he shrugged and looked up towards the ceiling made it clear co-operation wasn't on his mind. "Eh, not like I have any idea now, but I knew when he left, sure. It's none of your business, though. He'll be back in a bit. Just wait for him."

"What is he doing?"

"That's his business."

"He's with your team leader, isn't he?" she asked. "What are they doing?"

"That would be her business, or theirs. You should just leave them be." Mercury sighed. "It's not like they're getting up to anything frisky if that's your concern. Come on, I'll take you back to the stands."

Normally, she might have accepted that, but there was something about the fact he'd found her, and the fact he apparently didn't need the bathroom, that set off her warnings. "If this is nothing, then why are you following me? There's something going on here. I know Jaune and he wouldn't just leave like that during Yang's match."

Mercury laughed. "You don't know him as well as you think."

He knew. Mercury knew. It was confirmation she hadn't expected, but it meant all of Cinder's team knew the truth of Jaune, which meant they were aware of what he was and maybe who his mother was. Ruby had no idea what to do with the information. She couldn't go to anyone about it, obviously, but for some reason the idea of a team who willingly knew – and kept his secret – didn't calm her down any, especially not when one of them had her cornered in a men's bathroom.

"I should go," Ruby said, trying to brush past him.

He cut her off with a side-step. "Back to the stands?"

"Sure."

"Mind if I accompany you?"

"Don't you need the toilet? That's why you came here after all." Ruby smiled, hoping he couldn't see her sudden panic. "I'll wait for you."

"I can hold it in," he offered. "I'll walk you back."

"People will talk."

"I have a girlfriend already."

"Then people will really talk."

"Velvet isn't like that."

Ruby's eyes narrowed. "You're awfully determined to escort me back to the stands."

"You're awfully determined not to be," he countered.

The two stared at one another; a battle of wills across a white-tiled toilet, a urinal to the left, stalls to the right, and three sinks sitting ominously in the background. Ruby felt a bead of sweat run down her brow.

/-/

Cinder's patience was already near its limit as Jaune led her deeper into the bowels of Amity Colosseum. Only the fact none of this was his fault stopped her snapping at him, and even then that would not have saved anyone else.

"How much longer is this going to take? Our absence won't go unnoticed."

"I'm taking us there as fast as I can. It's really deep in here."

"How could the White Fang get so many Grimm so far into Amity? This is impossible."

"I know what I'm sensing," Jaune said, lifting his head as though to sniff the air. His eyes narrowed. "We're close. They're on this floor."

Cinder breathed a sigh of relief, eager to get the whole mess over with and hunt down Adam in her own time. This was all a risk she didn't need. She needed to be on best behaviour for Ozpin, and being caught red-handed down here would work against that. At least if it was red-handed stopping Grimm from attacking innocents, she would have a viable excuse, but still – it was all too much risk at a time when she didn't want any.

"Hey Cinder, what is it you actually want the maiden's power for?"

She wasn't sure if he was bored or not, but the question was innocuous enough, so she answered. "Isn't it obvious? I want the maiden's power because it's mine. I earned it when I attacked the Fall Maiden."

"Yeah, but why attack her in the first place? Did you need the power?"

"Need and want do not always go hand in hand. Why did you want to leave the safety of your home and come out here, risking your life to join Beacon?"

"Because it was my dream," he said. "Because I wanted to make friends."

"And my reasons are no different. I wanted that power, and so I attacked the maiden. Friendship may be considered more innocent, but we're both just acting on our desires." Hers just happened to be more logical, and not quite so puerile. "Besides, your mother also has a vested interest in controlling the maidens."

"So, mom is involved in this."

"Of course. I would not have risked drawing attention to myself without her permission."

"What does she want the maidens for?"

"That is a question best asked to your mother," Cinder replied. "Suffice to say, the maidens are weapons against us, so while it could be self-defence, I cannot provide you with the full story. My task is just to become the Fall Maiden. Nothing more. Well, and to look after your hide."

"And this was worth arranging an attack on Beacon?"

"To me, yes."

"Why?" he asked, voice pained. "Why do that much and go so far?"

"Why not? I don't care for anyone in Beacon and there is no one here who I hold dear to me. You attacked the White Fang numerous times despite having no affiliation to or against them – and you did this to support your companions in their objectives. I do the same here, except that I support your mother."

"But… But it's wrong. The White Fang are terrorists, so fighting them is different to arranging an attack on innocent people."

Cinder rolled her eyes, disgusted. "When will you realise that innocence is not so easily defined? Those people up there would happily kill you if they knew what you were, and they'd do so without bothering to know you."

"They're not my enemies." he insisted.

"No, but you are theirs. You may be willing to stand there with a smile while they try to kill you, but I am not. This conversation bores me," she snapped. "Goodness knows you won't change your opinion, even if they tried to kill you, so why should I bother listening to yours? How close are we?"

"They're in here," Jaune said gruffly, still annoyed but at least focused on the task at hand. He tapped his hand on a metallic door to a storage room of some kind. Calling it a door was perhaps less than accurate, since it was more like a large roll-up warehouse storage bay. Amity needed storage rooms the size of warehouses for all the dust it needed to run.

"Inside here?"

"Yes."

"And you can still sense well over a hundred?"

"Easily," he replied. "Maybe even two hundred."

Madness. Cinder spared a glance behind her, checking for any witnesses, and when she found none summoned her twin swords. She dug them into the thin metal, piercing through and then wrenching the blades down to cut a small opening.

"After you," she said, stepping back. "The Grimm won't attack you."

They wouldn't her, either, but that was only if she invoked the power of her own parasite, which was the only thing that made her – in a sense – part-Grimm. That would take a few seconds, however, and such time wasn't always possible. Jaune could do it passively, being part-Grimm by birth, and thus recognised by any he came across.

He nodded and slipped under the opening, not even bothering to draw his weapon as he straightened up inside.

"Well," she demanded. "Do you see anything?"

"Lots of containers…"

"I meant, do you see any Grimm?"

"No."

Cinder scowled and ducked into the opening, standing tall in the dimly lit room beyond. Much like she'd expected, it was a warehouse-like interior, with numerous crates stacked tall. This one didn't appear to be dust, for the snowflake symbol was missing. It might have instead been supplies, food or just tools and material for repair and maintenance.

"The original plan was for the White Fang to use stolen Bullheads to transport Grimm onto both Amity and Beacon," she explained, moving forward with Jaune beside her. "At the same time, we would cause a diversion in the main ring, both to keep attention on us while they approached, and also to add to the negativity, driving the Grimm into a fury."

"You'll be pleased to know that I didn't really expect all that many innocents to die from it," she added, rolling her eyes when his lit up. "Don't get excited, I didn't decide that for their sake, but for simple convenience. Our main goal was Beacon, so having Ozpin and the other huntsmen distracted protecting the civilians would help us move about freely. The attack on Amity was little more than a diversion to draw attention away from Beacon, allowing me to strike and claim the Fall Maiden's powers for myself."

"What does that mean for us here?" Jaune asked.

"It's too late for Adam to change all his plans, especially after all the training and preparation his people will have gone through, so I expect his objectives will be much the same. Obviously, I couldn't convince him to support us just so that I could have the Fall Maiden. I had to make it sound like it was about him, or that he'd get something he wanted."

"And what was that?"

"The fall of Beacon."

"What!?" Jaune spun on her, eyes wide. "Cinder!"

"I've told you before I have no loyalty to Beacon, certainly not when they're training people to kill us. Regardless, Adam wants a victory for the White Fang; something so large and obvious that no one can ignore it. Beacon was to be it, and so our plans coincided."

"But that's not necessary anymore," she said, shaking her head. "I will soon have what I want, so Adam can go drown for all I care. Still, the point I was trying to raise is that the plans never called for Grimm to be smuggled into Amity. I thought it too difficult, and not at all effective. What use would Grimm released down here be in causing panic? Vale could simply seal the tunnels and lock them here to deal with at their leisure."

It didn't add up and that was the issue. Adam's ability to get the Grimm here, his decision to – and the fact that it was utterly against the plan she'd so carefully crafted for him. But that didn't change the fact that it had to be dealt with – preferably before it incriminated her.

"Are they in all these containers?" she asked, looking at them all. There was easily over two hundred, so it was possible – though if so, the Grimm were very quiet.

"No. They're a little further in."

Jaune led them through several aisles between the crates, eventually coming to one stacked a little haphazardly on the floor. They were curious due to the snowflake symbol, which had been absent from any other.

"This is it," he said.

"You mean this is one of them, right? You said hundreds of Grimm."

"I… I still sense that many."

Jaune and Cinder shared a moment of silence, before, as one, they moved to the container and took hold of the steel handles on the front, twisting them aside to unlock it, and then dragging back to wrench the thing open with a mighty groan.

The noise alerted the contents – which poured out in a cacophony of shrieks, flutters and black feathers. Nevermore. They poured out and into the warehouse, crashing into other containers, the floor, or any storage racks as they tried to fly about. There were hundreds of them easily, and they'd been packed into the container, but they were each of them tiny. The Nevermore were juveniles at best and roughly the size of an average bird.

"Damn birds," Cinder said, swatting one aside when it flew too close to her face. She ignored Jaune's rebuke, and the way he held his arms out, instantly becoming a scarecrow for about fifty of the blasted things. "This is all of them? These are the Grimm you sensed?"

"I think so. It's kind of hard to get a specific read when I'm like this," Jaune said, voice muffled by feathers as the Nevermore landed on every part of his body they could. Some squawked angrily at one another, jealously fighting for a chance to perch on his shoulder.

Something was wrong here, Cinder realised. There were hundreds of Grimm, and slipped into Amity like Jaune had feared, but it was a wasted effort. Even ignoring the low chance these things could make their way up top, they were just too small to be any real threat.

Really, they would only serve as a distraction at best, irritating people as they made their way to the evacuation points. But who would Adam want to distract, and why?

The answer struck her a moment later.

Right as an explosion rocked the colosseum.

/-/

Ruby flinched when a distant roar cut through their standoff, an explosion of some kind, though it sounded like it was distant and muted. The ground shook, threatening to spill her over. An alarm started to angrily blare throughout the stadium.

"What the hell's going on?" Mercury asked, turning for a second.

That was her chance. Ruby zipped under his arm and away, ignoring his panicked cry for her to wait. He tried to give chase but didn't have a chance with her Semblance and she blurred down the corridor, away from the bathroom and back towards the stands.

En route, she stopped as a display screen caught her attention, a news report that had before been focused on the tournament matches. Now, it was pointed at a column of smoke that seemed to billow up from the stadium itself, thankfully not in the crowds, but off to the side.

Worse, a second plume of smoke rose from Beacon.

Had Jaune…?

No, surely not. She wouldn't believe it.

Ruby's eyes watered.

She couldn't believe it.

"Warning; this is a Level-4 alert," a mechanised voice called over the speakers. "All civilians are advised to make their way to designated locations for immediate evacuation. All huntsmen are instructed to escort and protect civilians. I repeat, this is a Level-4 alert. This is not a drill. All civilians are-"

Her team. She had to find her team. Ruby stumbled away, wide-eyed and breathing heavily as panic coursed through her. There had to be a reasonable explanation for this.

Her scroll buzzed.

"Ruby," Weiss snapped. "Where are you!?"

"I'm in the tunnels. I saw what's going on – I'm looking for Jaune."

"He's not with you!?"

"N-No, he's with Cinder."

Weiss cursed on the other end of the line, and Ruby heard her passing the message on and talking hurriedly with someone else. "Okay look, we're going to head back to Beacon – it's under attack from the White Fang and a huge army of Grimm. You need to find Jaune and make sure he's okay, and then get him back to Beacon with you."

Ruby nodded, even as she bit her lip. The White Fang were attacking Beacon? Wasn't it funny how Hentacle had always helped the White Fang in the past?

Funny, except that she wasn't laughing.

"O-Okay, I'll try my best…"

The call ended and Ruby paused, flicking open her scroll and using the team tracker to locate Jaune's. He was in Amity still, but much deeper than her – in the bowels of the colosseum itself. It was somewhere he had no right being and that made her heart ache.

"Please prove me wrong, Jaune," she whispered, charging for the nearest access door. "Don't make me fight you."

Either way, she had to know the truth.

/-/

Adam chuckled as he landed on the gardens outside the school of Beacon, the bullheads flying around above and behind as yet more White Fang landed, and even more carried containers deeper into Beacon, disgorging their deadly cargo.

He should thank Cinder for her strategy, and for being so efficient that it could continue even if she didn't want it to. Delay the attack, indeed. As if he would. An attack during the Vytal Festival that struck down Beacon – the whole world would know of this. The White Fang's name would be whispered in fear and awe. If the people of Remnant could not rely on huntsmen to protect them, then who could they turn to?

"Sir," one of his men said. "What are your orders?"

"Spread out and secure the main school building. Kill anyone you come across."

The faunus smiled savagely and hefted his cleaver, leading his brethren on with a whoop of pure joy. This day had been so long in the making that the excitement had reached a fever-pitch. Adam turned away with a dark laugh, looking toward Amity Colosseum so far away. Bullheads and other transports were hurrying there to protect the civilians, but while the huntsmen were away, the White Fang would play.

And Cinder, their once ally, now working with them. Well, he'd see how far that lasted once her latest plans were ruined. Would she side with Beacon still, or would she default onto their side, throwing her lot in with them now that he'd struck the first blow? Only time would tell.

"There's still time for you, Cinder. But it's running out. Make your decision wisely."

So, a few people rightfully pointed out last chapter how unrealistic it was to suggest `hundreds of Grimm` could be smuggled into Amity, and I tip my hat to you. Well done for noticing the hint. It was all a trap for Jaune and Cinder, with Adam trusting Cinder would keep her ace close to her sleeve in case anything went wrong, and also that she would respond full-force to what she saw as a threat to her plan. Lo and behold, he's not as dumb as he looks! Or acts, in the case of Canon.

Anyway, this chapter is a teensy bit short than my usual ones, though only by about 600 words or so. It's not really any issue causing that, but rather the chapter reached a natural point for an ending, and any extra bits I wrote just felt like they were better saved for being in next chapter.

Next Chapter: 3rd May

P a treon . com (slash) Coeur