"~Wish we could turn back time~" Russel sang, one earphone in his ear while Crue held his scroll in front of them and had another earphone in his own ear.

"~To the good old daays~" Crue continued on. The two had been circling the perimeter of the town for a while now, listening to music as they investigated for anything strange.

There was very little to be found, or as Crue would put it… "There's fuck all out here." Russel sighed slightly, taking out his earphone and handing it back to Crue.

"Is that really a bad thing though?" The green haired boy asked, stretching his arms high. "I mean, if there's nothing to be found, that means there's nothing bad going on. What was that saying? Something about news…"

"No, there's 'nothing going on' and then there's 'suspicious'. This is definitely the latter." Crue frowned, staring out at the forest. He scratched behind his ears in slight confusion, trying to pick up on something.

"Maybe we should go where the others went." Russel suggested, standing next to the Faunus and staring out at the forest. "The therapist, or was it psychologist?" His question was met with a bark of laughter from Crue.

"Yeah, sure." He chuckled. "Russel you would not survive very long in a horror movie let me tell you that." Crue pat his back, before walking on, intent on completing one more circle of village.

"What? Why?" Russel caught up beside him, wanting to know about his apparent early death in forms of grotesque media.

The Faunus sighed and smiled. "If the therapist is the first person you see in a town, you know somethings up." He cleared his throat slightly and made his voice sound rather dangerous. "Welcome to our town, please visit this person trained specifically to get inside your head, everything will be fine."

"You know what I do if that happens?" Crue asked rhetorically. Russel shook his head. "I get the fuck outta dodge." The Faunus laughed, before shaking his head and shoving his hands into his pockets.

Russel remained quiet for a short while. "Does that mean that the others are in trouble?" His question caused Crue to freeze in place.

"Ahh shit."

…

"Hm, three hunters in training, and a fully-fledged huntsman." Alice White smiled cruelly as she stared at the four males before her. "A nice catch, truly." She pressed her hand against the stationary face of Qrow.

"It's almost a shame how little a fight you put up." She felt his rough shave and frowned. "I wonder if I should make you shave that disgusting thing off." She gave his chin a soft slap, and then turned away, grabbing her scroll from her table.

She rang up a number and waited. "Hello? This is, uh, Chicken Pow Noodles." A voice came across rather unamused.

Alice sighed. "That is the worst cover I've ever heard." She spoke calmly.

"Well it's better than answering every call with 'Hello this is the White Fang, who may we terrorise today?'" The Faunus on the other end of the line replied angrily. Behind her, at the mention of White Fang, Cardin seemed to twitch.

"You seem to have some serious anger issues." Alice responded coolly. "I wonder if we can't do something about that." The Faunus on the other end of the call shifted warily.

"I'll send them to you shortly. There should only be one more person to round up. Hunter Teams are always in groups of four." On cue, there was a knock at the door. Alice smiled, and hung up her call without a goodbye.

She made her way towards the door, and plastered a fake pleasant smile on her face. Alice opened the door, and tilted her head slightly. "Hello. Welcome to the Looking Glass. How may I help you?"

Alice hesitated slightly as she took in the knocker's appearance. His face seemed to be morphed into a deadly scowl that was directed at her- no… not at her. At something she said? "God damn puns…" He cursed.

He met Alice's eyes, as two different shades of blue clashed. "My name is Crue. I was wondering if you'd seen my team."

…

"Sunny!" Russel exclaimed, rushing into the room he was staying in the previous night and squatting down by the hole Crue had made with his head.

"Russel?" Sunny called back somewhat groggily. She walked over to the hole and bent down, forcing Russel to maintain concrete eye contact lest Crue beat the ever living hell out of him. "What's going on?"

"Ok…" Russel began. "I'm like 80 per cent sure that my entire team was hypnotised by that therapist. And Crue went down there a while ago because he trusted me to get you."

Hazel eyes stared at Russel. "He sent you to get me? Wouldn't that be because he'd want you out of danger instead?" Sunny asked.

The mohawked teen opened his mouth to respond, before it fell into an expression of fear and horror. "Oh no."

…

"Well, you may be the therapist but I'm fairly sure you have OCD." Crue commented, wiping a finger across a wall and finding not a speck of dust on his fingers.

"Yes, well, I tend to go a tad overboard with my cleansing. Usually whatever is leftover that I have no use for, I simply end up burning." Alice informed him, all the while looking for an opportunity to get Crue under her spell.

"Pyromaniac too." The Faunus nodded. "I suppose I'm a bit of one too. I once made a glove that show fire. Just cause I could." Crue smirked and pointed the palm of his hand at Alice, making a soft hissing noise, mimicking his device.

Alice raised an eyebrow in surprise. Pyromaniacs tended to come under her control much easier, with simple promises of being able to play with the dangerous element. The blonde smiled. "Well," She reached a hand out, as Crue had his back turned to her, inspecting a small clock. "Let's see if we can't get you a little warmer."

Crue turned around almost instantly at the words, face contorted in confusion. Once he saw Alice's hand reaching for him, he did the only logical thing in his mind. He leaned back. Alice moved her hand closer. Crue leaned back further.

"The hell are you doing!?" The Faunus exclaimed, slipping to the side as Alice practically chased after him.

"I'm trying to help you with your mental problems!" The therapist shouted, gripping at hairs as Crue once more dodged away from her hands.

"What the hell has that got to do with putting your hands on my head!?" Crue jumped away, seriously becoming tempted to take out his claws.

"I can get inside your head that way." Alice explained, stamping down on the white rug that covered the floor and tugging it sharply, causing Crue to lose his balance.

As Crue fell backward, Alice lunged. "Trust me," The Faunus began, as Alice's hands came down upon him. "You wouldn't like to be in there." Crue grabbed Alice by the wrists, preventing her from falling any closer to him.

Once he hit the ground, Crue leaned back and placed a knee against Alice's stomach, and pushed. Alice went soaring overhead, crashing into a plain white door.

Crue rolled onto his stomach and looked up to where she crashed. The door had been swung open, revealing what was inside. Or rather, who was inside. "There you are!"

Qrow, Cardin, Sky and Dove were stood still as statues, staring blankly forward. The Faunus ran up to them, shaking the nearest one roughly. "The Hell is wrong with you!" He shook Qrow back and forth.

"You won't be able to wake them." Alice chuckled, slowly getting to her feet. "They are in a trance deeper than any other." Crue growled slightly, before seeing Cardin twitch. He smirked.

"Fiver says I can get at least one of them awake." The Faunus opened his palm and brought his hand back, a stupid smile on his face.

"What are you-" Alice's question was cut off by the noise of the smack that Crue had delivered upon Cardin, while shouting "WAKE UP FUCKNUTS!"

"Bastard!" Crue felt a pain in his nose as Cardin punched him, but smiled all the same, as Cardin was currently glaring daggers at him. After his exclamation, Cardin looked around, realising what was going on.

His eyes landed on Alice, who looked at him in shock and terror. "You!" Cardin pointed a finger at her, his other hand reaching around his back to grab his mace. Alice realised there were now two hunters in training very angered with her, so she frowned and raised her hand to them.

"GET THEM!" Dove, Sky and Qrow all turned to face the Faunus and Human.

"Oh shit." Crue muttered, eyes going wide. "Leg it!" Both he and Cardin ran out of the room, and out of the building, the trio of hypnotised hunters hot on their tail.

"What's going on!?" Cardin questioned Crue as they ran away.

"Your one was hypnotising you all. I only got you out cause I could see you were resisting it." Crue explained. "I sent Russel off to get Sunny cause I figured we could use extra help. And I didn't want him getting in trouble."

Cardin nodded through all of this. "I think the Mayor might be hypnotised too." When he saw Crue frown at him, he continued. "I'm not saying that cause he's a Faunus! He got all distant and quiet when we asked about the Therapist."

Crue grumbled. "Great. So we might have the entire town after us at some point." The Faunus glanced back to check if they were still being chased, only to find the street they were running down empty.

"Hold up." Crue slowed to a halt, and Cardin did the same. "Where'd they go?" Cardin looked around, concern evident on his face.

"Cardin! Crue!" The two turned around, seeing who called out to them. Russel was running towards them, along with Sunny. They made sure to focus on Russel.

"You guys are ok!" Sunny smiled. Once they got close enough, Russel smacked Crue over his head.

"That's for tricking me." He frowned. The Faunus rubbed the spot where he hit, but nodded in fairness.

"So, what do we do?" Sunny asked, hoisting her sniper rifle over her back. She looked at Cardin and Crue for an answer, the two glancing at one another.

"This is your team. It's your call." Crue told him. Cardin blinked in surprise, before nodding.

"I don't know how long I was in that, trance or whatever it was. But I can remember her talking with the White Fang." He frowned, trying to recall what happened while he was out of it. "I think she was going to send us to them."

"So we just need to track them." Sunny questioned. At her words, Russel instantly reached for his Scroll.

"We can track our teammates through our Scrolls." He brought up the application and stared at the map. "It looks like they're heading into the forest. Pretty quickly." Russel rotated himself slightly, before stopping.

"That way."

…

Alice panted, out of breath after running through the forest, the hypnotised huntsman stopping behind her, showing no signs of exertion. "Damn… Heels…" She was close to the outpost now, she could see the shining metal of a stolen Atlesian Paladin.

Instead of running herself ragged again, she turned to the tallest of the hunters. "Carry me." Qrow lifted her bridal style. "Go that way." He began walking, the two students following him.

After a minute, they arrived into a manmade clearing, the grass flattened by people constantly walking over it. Several tents were propped up, White Fang members moving in and out of them, some carrying weapons and some carrying supplies.

One of them spotted the group approaching, and called out to other members, all of them turning their weapons on the intruders. They quickly lowered their guns once they saw the bright blonde hair and white attire.

"Alice." A Faunus with a black and purple tail strode forward quickly, almost too happy to see the human. "How nice of you to choose the path that lead you here."

"It wasn't much of a choice, Cheshire." Alice replied once Qrow had let her down. "I was unable to get the last hunter, and one of them broke through my hypnosis with the aid of another."

"They did?" Cheshire gasped in mock surprise. "How did they break him out?" Cheshire placed both hands under her chin and bat her eyes.

Alice sighed, rubbing her eyes with her index and thumb. "Slapped him across the cheek and shouted 'wake up fucknuts'."

Cheshire couldn't help but snigger. "Ooh, I'd like to meet him. Should we send the Rook out after them?" She turned to look at the Paladin, which was being operated very carefully by one of the Faunus.

"Yes. And get me my weapon." Cheshire lost all glee as a distant look came over her. She nodded, then moved to follow the request. Shortly afterwards, the Paladin began to stomp past Alice, who grew a rather devious smirk.

"Good. The two of them can't hope to face this alone, especially with such bad teamwork." Alice walked towards the supplies, intent on procuring an outfit for the new White Fang members.

…

"They've stopped moving." Russel informed the group, as they slowed down to stare at his Scroll. "I think they might be at the White Fang base."

"Why would the White Fang be recruiting humans? Isn't their whole thing about Faunus?" Sunny asked, looking through her scope to the direction they were heading.

"Yes." "No." Crue and Cardin answered at the same time. They briefly glared at each other, and Crue spoke slowly. "The White Fang are bad. Faunus aren't."

Cardin frowned, but did not respond. "Uh, not to worry anyone." Sunny spoke up, still looking through her scope. "But there's a giant robot heading right for us."

"WHAT!?" The three boys exclaimed, looking in the direction that Sunny's rifle was pointing. They could see bright white metal, and could faintly feel the vibration it's footsteps were causing.

"It must be one that survived the Breach." Crue realised. "You two! Go hide." He pointed to the forest while staring at Russel and Sunny. Before they could argue, Crue continued. "Alice doesn't know about either of you. We're keeping it that way."

With reluctance, the two moved away from Crue and Cardin, who both drew their weapons. "You ever fought one of these before?" Cardin asked, gripping his mace tightly.

"Yeah, but there was a bit more than just two then." The Faunus replied, thinking back to the breach. He began to form a ball from Dust, something he hadn't done in a long time. The mech seemed to notice them, and picked up speed.

"Any ideas?" Cardin asked.

"Just one." Crue answered, as he tossed the ball up, and Cardin brought his mace back over his shoulder.

"SWING!"

My dudes I have literally no idea what to say here except sorry for the wait and enjoy.

My only excuse is that I was trying to catch up on college work, and with the new Volume coming out I watched it trying to figure out how Crue would fit in. Still kinda confused about that one. Might just end up killing him off or something lol.

But anyway. I apologise for the update. I've gotten back into the groove now so hopefully the next one will be sooner. I think that's everything. If you have any comments, whether it be about my shitty uploading schedule or the story itself, please leave them.

Until Next Time

-Friday