Author's Note: Wow, things are starting to get busy again. I guess I'll give you guys an update on where I'm at in terms of writing. I'm currently rewriting and continuing Coming to Terms, I've planned ahead on this story. I've been reading a ton of other stories for inspiration, some here on this site, some unrelated stories on other sites, and mostly from the books that I'm currently reading. I might disappear for another several days because things are starting to pick up speed in my life, both as a professional and as a student. So from your (hopefully) favorite shit-bag, enjoy another chapter of a mediocre at best story. On a side note, I wanna see how many people know what song the lyrics are from in this chapter.

Yang sped down the forest path, stopping at the fork in the road. She looked up at the sign that pointed in opposite directions, one where Kuroyuri was crossed out and written to the side was the word 'Bandits' in what she assumed was spray paint, the other pointed to Mistral. The brawler contemplated on giving chase to what might not be what she was searching for. Turning her bike towards the path marked 'Mistral,' she smirked and thought out loud, "You are in so much trouble when I find you."

Yang followed the path for several hours until she came upon the gates of a small town. Finding a safe place to store her bike, she chained it to the post, securing the body of her bike. She looked around for a place to eat, settling for a noodle shop with an eerily familiar old man running the register. Without saying a word, she looked at the old man, nodded and slid a lien card across the counter. As she gulped down her cup of water, she quietly observed a rather large faunus blacksmith waltz over to the counter to ask for his usual.

The blacksmith looked over to greet Yang, "Howdy there, miss. I don't think I've seen your face around here before, what brings you out here?"

"I'm looking for my sister," Yang replied, "She must have come through here. I'm guessing you must have spotted her?"

"There was a group of huntsmen that came through here about a month ago," the faunus recalled, "Two young men and two girls, one looked like he was one of us, the other was a blond kid, one of the girls was pretty short with red highlights, and the other girl was an energetic ginger. They said they were headed to Haven academy, not sure why after what happened to Beacon."

"I don't think they know either," Yang commented, "Thanks for the info."

Yang looked down at the large bowl of noodles set down in front of her. Picking up her fork, she sighed and thought to herself, "What the hell are you doing, Ruby?"

Jaune smirked as he kept his eyes fixated on Ruby. With weapons drawn, they circled each other, waiting for either to make the first move. "Don't go easy like last time," Jaune bantered, striking a nerve.

Ruby's face contorted with rage, irritation easily forcing its way through her body, the reaper launched herself and prepared for a high-speed swing. As she followed through, saw Jaune's silhouette flicker for less than a moment and felt no resistance as her scythe passed through his body. Stopping herself several feet behind Jaune, she turned to find the knight unscathed and still wearing his cocky grin. Ruby gritted her teeth and began to circle Jaune using her semblance. Hoping her speed would confuse her sparring partner, she began firing rounds at different angles, aiming to score a few hits.

Jaune's smile faded as he closed his eyes and concentrated. His perception of time began to slow once more as he sped his thoughts, focusing his aura to the soles of his feet. Opening his eyes, he saw the first bullet moving towards him at a decelerated pace, to which Jaune simply cocked his head to one side, letting the bullet whiz past his ear.

'I've always wanted to do that,' Jaune chuckled to himself before turning to find himself surrounded by a circle of bullets. Jaune pulled up his shield to bat the closer bullets out of his way before Jumping backwards between two bullets, one of which had grazed the bit of unprotected flesh on his right arm, though, still protected by aura, the pain was still present. Using his soles of aura, Jaune sped up to intercept Ruby's path as she fruitlessly attempted to ward him off with more bullets, only to be met with the edge of Jaune's shield. Ruby closed her eyes to brace herself as the shield's edge made contact with her midsection, causing her to fly in the opposite direction.

Jaune took off running in Ruby's direction and past her to catch the flying reaper. Misinterpreting the gesture as an attack, Ruby unfolded Crescent Rose to fire a round to propel herself towards Jaune, readying a strike as a battle cry escaped her mouth. Using the momentum of her fall, Ruby turned her body and swung as hard as she could, her scythe extended to its war-scythe form. Seeing an opening, Jaune tucked and rolled as he dodged forward, allowing Ruby to sink the blade of her weapon into the ground. While Ruby struggled to unearth her scythe, she quickly let go, hunched over and brought her forearms together in front of her chest to protect against flip-kick from Jaune, which sent her tumbling away from Crescent Rose.

As Ruby struggled to get up, Jaune sheathed Crocea Mors, took off his gauntlets, and threw the three articles to the side. Ruby panted, but slowed her breathing to quickly calm herself. At the end of her exhale, she inhaled sharply and adopted her sister's brawler stance, to which Jaune mirrored Ruby's southpaw stance but lightly bounced diagonally. The two advanced carefully as the air between them grew tense.

Jaune threw a right cross, to which Ruby threw her body along with the punch while pivoting on her right foot and bringing her left leg up and over towards Jaune's face, dodging the blow. Jaune could do nothing but watch Ruby's foot approach the defenseless side of his face, knocking the knight to his left. Jaune stuck his left foot out, catching himself and swiftly regaining his composition before catching Ruby's right hook. Determined not to let herself be beaten again, Ruby swung her body, wrapping both legs around his arms and snaking them behind Jaune's back before giving a hard pull. Unable to endure the pain and maintain the concentration to hold Ruby up, Jaune fell backwards, hoping the fall would cause the girl to let go.

"Okay, you win this round," Jaune screamed out through the pain coursing through his arm and shoulder.

"Alright, that's one to one," Ruby jeered as she let go of Jaune's arm, causing him to audibly sigh in relief.

"You didn't have to take my arm off like that," Jaune nagged as he swung his left arm in a circle while massaging his shoulder to relieve the residual pain.

"That's payback for the bruised rib," Ruby shrugged as she attempted to pull Crescent Rose out of the ground. After struggling for a while, Ruby sighed and relented, "A little help?"

"Sure thing," Jaune stood up and gripped the handle of the weapon with his good arm, pulling the scythe out effortlessly. Jaune folded up Crescent Rose and reached to clip the weapon to the small of Ruby's back again, but was taken out of his hands.

"I- I got it, Jaune," Ruby said, the red tint on her face hidden by the brightness of the rising sun, "You don't need to do this for me."

"Yeah," Jaune played it off as best as he could while clumsily walking over to his weapons and gauntlets, "Force of habit, I guess."

"I think I'm ready for a shower before I get some laundry done today," Ruby stretched out and leaned backwards, falling onto the soft grass.

"I never thought I'd ever hear someone excited to do laundry," Jaune said as he sat down next to Ruby.

"Jaune, after living in the same outfit for almost a month, I think I'm ready to wear clean underwear again," Ruby argued as she got up and hugged her legs.

"I could go for a cold shower too," Jaune sighed as he wiped the sweat from his brow, "One more round before breakfast?"

Ruby smirked and unfolded Crescent Rose as she stood up, "You're on."

Ren set the plate of pancakes next to the plates of bacon and eggs, taking off his apron with the message 'Do Nothing To The Chef' written across the front, he sat across a still tired Nora who sipped on her mug of coffee. Without saying a word, he grabbed an empty plate and set Nora's usual stack of seven pancakes with a side of some eggs and a few strips of bacon before making his own plate. As Nora lazily shoveled a rather large slice of the pancakes, Jaune and Ruby drudged through the inn's kitchen door and collapsed in their seats. Ruby piled several pancakes and a large portion of the eggs onto her plate while Jaune swallowed the last handful of jerky left in his mouth before taking a moderate amount of eggs and bacon along with two pancakes.

"You two shouldn't overdo it, we still don't know where to go after talking to professor Lionheart," Ren reminded as he lifted two medium sized pieces of pancakes to his mouth, "or if we'll need to fight our way out of here."

"If we have to fight our way out of here, I'd like to make sure I'm ready to get us out alive," Jaune argued, intense determination roared in his eyes, "besides, we all need to get better. The closer we get to the root of everything, the stronger each thing we come up against will be."

"Jaune's just bummed out because I kicked his butt twice before breakfast," Ruby gave a teasing smile in Jaune's direction, bacon hanging out of her lips, before turning her attention back to her breakfast.

"Since when were you any good at martial arts?" Jaune shot back, "I thought Yang was supposed to be better at fighting without a weapon?"

"That doesn't mean my dad didn't teach me anything," Ruby teased more.

"You know what?" Jaune stood up, finger in the air, mouth agape, but unable to vent his frustration, "whatever."

Ruby smirked at Jaune, who sat down in defeat before angrily stabbing at his eggs. Ruby took a few more bites to let the tension die down before speaking up, "Today, Uncle Qrow is going to take us to meet with Headmaster Lionheart. With his help, hopefully we can get some information on Cinder, and a ride to Atlas."

"Let's not forget about this Salem person," Nora Chimed in, her plate empty and her face seemed more energetic, "She seems to be at the center of all this."

"That's right," Jaune spoke up, "We'll decide on what our next move is after our meeting tonight, for now, Ruby and I will go out and pick up some supplies. Ren, you and Nora go ask around for information about what the White Fang is up to. Don't be afraid to use some not-so-careful persuasion if things get rough."

"Let's meet a couple hours before our meeting. If things don't go how we want it to, we're gonna need to be ready to leave when push comes to shove," Ruby added to the plan, "We don't know if Cinder or Salem or whoever's behind all this, we don't know if their forces have gotten to Headmaster Lionheart, so we need to be ready."

The breakfast meeting ended shortly after, the group coming to a mutual agreement with their two leaders. The team split, Ruby and Jaune headed into the marketplaces of Mistral while Ren and Nora departed towards the valley in the opposite direction.

"Be careful, remember what Qrow said," Jaune warned one last time before the other pair faded from sight, "the lien speaks for itself, but there are some dangerous figures around here."

"Don't worry, Jaune,"Ren assured, "I grew up around these parts, so I should remember my way around."

Jaune anxiously watched as the remaining members of his team disappeared into the bustle of the city around them. Ruby wrapped around Jaune's good arm to comfort the knight, "They'll be fine. C'mon, we have work to do."

"Yeah, they're better at fighting than I am anyways," Jaune feigned a smile, going along with Ruby's charade of joy.

The pair of leaders walked the streets, Ruby eyeing every piece of rifle modification while Jaune carried the bulk of supplies. As he waited outside yet another gun shop, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a familiar glimpse of white, to which he unconsciously followed. Ruby exited the shop to find Jaune turning the corner. A slight tinge of panic washed over her face as she immediately gave chase to. Her eyes darted to every shop entrance before spotting the orange of Jaune's hood before the door closed shut. The reaper took a moment to compose herself before calmly walking over and entering the shop.

The door closed behind her with the ring of a bell, the sound of an unfamiliar instrument rang throughout the store along with Jaune's voice in an unfamiliar pitch. She walked around a shelf to find their bags of supplies in a pile at the base of a stool, Jaune holding what seemed to be an extremely small guitar. The chords Jaune played sounded cheerful, but the lyrics she heard contradicted the feeling. With his eyes closed, lost within the lyrics of the song, Jaune's face twisted in pain as he approached the chorus.

"One final shoulder

Here before we're none

And then there were none

This last call could be all we can do for each other

Embrace for a dear old friend

Bring wine to bed

We'll toast what could have been

My dearly departed

To my dearly departed"

Jaune opened his eyes as he inhaled to continue on to the second verse to find Ruby tearing up in front of him. He stumbled on his words before awkwardly putting the instrument back on its display.

"That was beautiful," Ruby sniffled, wiping away the tears before they fell.

"It's nothing, just some thoughts that I didn't know how to get out," Jaune's gaze fell from Ruby's face to the floor, "I just wish I could have done something."

Bringing her hands to meet his, Jaune met Ruby's eyes once again, "It's just me, Jaune. Let it all out."

Jaune nodded before picking back up the instruments. After playing several measures of chords, he inhaled and continued the song.

"I don't know how to mend it

But this chapter ended

When all of my plans have depended on you

But at least tonight we still pretend

Hold each other close like it's not the end

And you can send me balloons

And we can laugh at the doom

We both thought of that

Doesn't it say something too

Oh, my dearly departed

My dearly departed

We never sent the cards

They're all still on the table

Wanna throw them out

But I'm just not able

My dearly departed

My dearly departed"

Jaune quivered as he inhaled, putting the instrument back in its place, "C'mon, we still have lots of stuff to pick up before we see Lionheart."

"Yeah," Ruby agreed softly, "Why'd you come in here anyway?"

"I thought I saw someone," Jaune answered as he gathered their bags of supplies, "But I lost them when I turned the corner, so I decided to kill some time while you check out weapon mods that you can't buy."

"One day I'll be able to afford all the attachments I want," Ruby pouted.

"But today is not that day," Jaune bantered as he walked beside his partner for the moment, only to be stopped by the figure he was chasing.

"Jaune, Ruby?" the figure smiled, "I thought it was you two."