A/N: So this chapter was mostly inspired from too much of the game "The Evil Within." More specifically, Chapter 10 of the game, where you are venturing through an industrial heater and creepy music is looping in the background while you are fighting monsters.

Although Richter is back, this is still very much Jaune's story, and his team(Plus Ruby.) Still have a part to play in it, don't worry!

Also, would like to say the story is now over 4k views, so thanks for everyone that's reading!

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One year before the 80th Vytal Festival Tournament

"Uh, Jasmine? Why did you bring me here?" Jaune asked his sister. They were on the high cliff of Mountain Arkahn, which overlooked the Arc family home. Looking below, Jaune could see their house which was a tiny spec and a slightly larger dot which marked the lake. The trees surrounding the house almost looked like broccoli, but he quickly swept that thought away, thinking about food right now would make him hungry and they weren't going to eat for a few hours.

"What do you mean?" Jasmine asked, "Aren't you enjoying the view?"

Jaune looked over at his sister, who had undid the bun she usually had on the back of her head. The wind was rushing through her hair and her azure eyes were closed. A small smile played across her lips as she let out a content sigh. She was really enjoying it up here. Unlike him, high places made him nervous, he didn't have the best balance and knowing that there was a possibility he could slip and fall to his death didn't help matters.

"Yeah uh, I mean it's great and all, but isn't it a little…you know….dangerous?" He asked, doing his best not to sound nervous.

"Mountain Arkahn has been here since our ancestor's time. It's not like it's going to cast us into the jagged rocks below." Jasmine explained, she turned to him with a reassuring smile, "That's never happened."

Jaune let out a sigh of relief. "Oh, okay."

"Except for our great-great Uncle Harold, one day a strong gust of wind just shot him off the cliff, swatted him away like he was a fly. No one ever heard from him again."

Jaune audibly gulped "W-What!?"

Jasmine's smile turned mischievous, "Gotcha."

The younger Arc pouted, "Not funny." Jasmine responded with a chuckle. "Did you just bring me here to troll me?"

The older Arc sibling shook her head. "No, no. Today I have bigger plans than that."

"Oh joy." Jaune replied dryly.

Jasmine turned to face him fully. "Close your eyes and hold out your hands."

Jaune raised a skeptical eyebrow. "You're not handing me a snake are you? Because Prescilla did that last week and my heart has yet to beat normally again."

Jasmine laughed again. "I'm not handing you a snake Jaune, honest. Just close your eyes and hold out your hands."

Jaune reluctantly complied, following his sister's instructions. He nearly fell forward as something heavy was placed in his hands, but fortunately he recovered. Opening his eyes, the younger Arc found himself staring at a sword in a white metal sheathe.

"Whoa. What is this?" He asked.

"This…is Crocea Mors." Jasmine started, pointing at the weapon in his hand. "…It was a weapon our great-great Grandfather wielded during the Great War. He won many battles with this blade."

"A-and you're giving it to me? You sure that's a good idea?"

"I am." She responded with no hesitation. "Perhaps it'll be the first step for you."

"The first step for what?"

"Becoming a huntsman."

Jaune looked his sister in the eye then. "You really think I can do it?"

Jasmine placed her hands on his shoulders. "Jaune, I know you can. There is a path laid out for you. It may be a path less trod upon, but it's still there. All you have to do is find it."

Jaune was surprised in his sister's confidence in him. Out of all his siblings, he was the one who failed the most. While the rest of his sisters could make wielding a greatsword similar to dancing, he made it look like he was a drunken brawler that was one tequila shot away from eating the floor with his face. He stared down at Crocea Mors once more, perhaps it would be different with this weapon.

"Thanks." He said and meant it. Most of his conversations with family were usually him getting berated, it was nice to be praised for a change.

The two Arcs sat in comfortable silence at the cliff's edge. Jaune tried to savor his time with Jasmine as much as he could, she would be heading back to Beacon soon to finish her final year there. Once he was gone it would be back to belittlement by his father and he was not looking forward to that in the least.

"The wind is nice isn't it?" Jasmine suddenly spoke.

Jaune nodded. "Yeah."

"I come up here sometimes. I like to sit here with my head raised high and my eyes closed tightly as the wind flows by." She confided, "It almost feels like I'm flying, like the weight of all my problems are lifted from my shoulders and I'm free."

Deciding to try it out, Jaune closed his eyes and let the wind tease his face and hair. The younger Arc's lips curled upward into a smile almost instantly. It really did feel like he was flying.

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Present Day

Jaune knew what an interrogation was. He had seen it on many cop shows he'd watch growing up. Usually it would involve one cop getting extremely animated and passionate and yelling in the person's face. Almost every time the person being interrogated would then give up the information the cops needed. The type of interrogation he was witnessing from Richter Bremen was nothing like that. It was far more brutal.

"Cinder Fall…." Richter hissed the name at the downed faunus, who was pinned down with the grey-cloaked demon's sword in his back. "…Where is she?"

"I-I don't know!" The lieutenant replied in a pained voice. Richter twisted the blade and the lieutenant cried out in pain. "I swear it! Our leader is looking for her as well!"

"You mean Adam Taurus?" Richter asked.

"Yes!"

"Why is your leader looking for her?"

"Because she botched our original plan to take down Vale! Cinder's identity was compromised and her infiltration failed! She didn't live up to her end of the deal! And so Adam moved on to plan B!"

"Plan B?"

"Cinder went missing a few months ago, and since then Adam has taken over the labs she had hidden throughout Vale. He's taken her research and is trying to copy it on a grand scale."

"The altered, so he plans to create an army then."

"That's only half his plan."

Richter's eyes widened slightly, then narrowed. "Really? Please fill me in on the other half, I'm very curious."

"I don't know what it is! All I know was that he was looking for something in one of these labs."

"You sure you don't know what your leader was looking for?"

"I don't I swear! I've told you everything! The database at the lab might have more though!"

Jaune watched as Richter wrenched his sword out of the white fang lieutenant's back. The big faunus took in deep lungfuls of air, his unmasked face contorted in pain. He looked up at the grey-cloaked demon, his eyes wide with uncertainty. "Does this mean you'll let me go?"

Richter responded by cocking his head to one side. "I never said anything about letting you go." His right hand was wrapped around the lieutenant's throat before Jaune could even blink. With one arm, Richter hoisted the big faunus up. Ruby's friend wasn't tall enough to pull the lieutenant off of his feet, but his grip on the faunus' neck was ironclad. It was an unreal sight, to see such a big faunus being manhandled by a guy barely taller than Ruby.

The white fang lieutenant tried in vain to free himself from Richter's grip. Grey flames appeared on the shorter man's right hand and quickly spread to the big faunus' body, engulfing him. Jaune cringed as the lieutenant's screams of agony reached a new fervor. The young Arc watched in horrified fascination as the grey flames devoured the lieutenant. Richter inhaled deeply and the smoke from the flames and charred corpse of the lieutenant was pulled towards his face, where it seeped in through the eyeholes and the edges of his mask. In a handful of seconds, the lieutenant's body was gone along with the grey flames. Jaune blinked slowly and took a careful step backwards, maybe if he was quiet enough, Richter would forget his presence.

Luck was not with the young Arc as Richter's head snapped to his left to spot him. Jaune instantly froze in his tracks, like a deer caught in the headlights.

"You're not White Fang..." Richter observed.

"Nope, not me, no sir, I'm a huntsman." Jaune nervously blurted out.

The orange glowing eyes behind the grey-cloaked demon's mask narrowed. "What's a huntsman doing out here all alone in the middle of nowhere?"

Jaune took a deep breath, this was the moment of truth. "I'm here on a mission with Ruby Rose."

"Ruby…" Richter breathed, his tone had changed and for the first time he actually almost sounded like a human being. He placed his left hand on his left temple and shook his head slightly, as if shaking some cobwebs out. "...No, it's too soon." He mumbled to himself, the grey-cloaked demon returned his gaze to the young Arc. "What is your name huntsman?"

"Jaune, Jaune Arc." He informed the grey-cloaked demon.

"Jaune, since you know Ruby I'll give you this warning." Richter said, sheathing his sword. "Leave. Now."

"I can't. We still have a mission to complete." Jaune informed him. "You're heading to this secret lab right? Well if that lab is full of experiments and soon-to-be altered then it's our mission to destroy them, we can't ignore that. They're a danger to Turthus and the communication tower."

"Don't worry." Richter replied, turning his back to the young Arc. "Nothing in that lab will survive. Just stay out of my way." He finished coldly, leaping away, his tattered grey cloak billowing in the wind.

Jaune watched as he dipped below the treeline and out of sight, his mind racing. He didn't doubt Richter's ability to destroy everything in the White Fang's secret lab. Theoretically, it would make his team's mission in Turthus much easier. Except there was one glaring problem.

Pyrrha was headed in the same direction Richter was moving now.

The young Arc bit his lip. If Pyrrha ended up making it to the lab, then she'd be right in Richter's crosshairs. Things could get very messy very fast and Pyrrha could wind up getting hurt, or worse. No, he needed to head to that lab, to be sure she was safe. But before he did, he needed to find Crocea Mors and his scroll. He would most definitely need backup.

Doing his best not to breathe in the smell of blood, Jaune searched the bodies of the dead White Fang. One of them had to have his stuff. After a good fifteen minutes of searching, he found Crocea Mors in the severed arm of a White Fang soldier. His scroll he might never have found had someone not tried to call it. The familiar ring tone of Ruby calling him filled his ears and he quickly pinpointed the source, picking the scroll up out of the snow, near another dead body. The screen was cracked and Jaune winced, he hoped it still worked.

"Ruby, are you guys alright?" Jaune asked as he answered his scroll.

"Jaune! Yeah we're fine, we took down the altered. I'm having a real hard time hearing you though." Ruby replied.

"My scroll got damaged, might be messing with the signal."

"Where are you? We found the body of the other altered, but you're not here."

"I got captured by the White Fang."

"Did you just say White Fang?"

"Yes, they have a lab hidden somewhere to the west of Turthus." He hesitated for a moment. "Also, I saw your friend Richter, he killed the White Fang who had me captive."

"Richter's here!?" Ruby exclaimed, Jaune had to hold the scroll away from his ear for a moment due to the loudness of the exclamation.

"He is, so is Pyrrha. I have to follow him, head west from Turthus and you should catch up with me."

"Jaune you're breaking up, what about Pyrrha and Turthus?"

Jaune went to repeat his instructions, but a beep signaled that the call was dropped. The young Arc tried to call Ruby again, but found the device was unresponsive. He let out a curse and pocketed the scroll. He was on his own for now, hopefully enough of his message got through.

Jaune quickly picked up Richter's trail, all he had to do was find the warped trees. Ruby's friend was not being discreet, but then again when you rip a chainsaw apart with your bare hands, you could probably forego discretion. The young Arc kept up a brisk pace, senses alert for any threats, grimm, White Fang, or otherwise.

Eventually, he came to an alcove, deep into a hill. Within the alcove was tall, thick steel door. At the bottom-center of the door was a hole large enough to fit an Ursa through. It looked like Richter's work. Jaune took a deep breath as he gathered his thoughts. Richter was here, but had Pyrrha come the same way? Or did she wander off elsewhere?

"Jaune!" Pyrrha's voice sounded from beyond the steel door. The young Arc instantly went on alert, that answered that question. While he was overjoyed to have found Pyrrha once more, now things were going to get complicated. As Richter was in the lab too.

"Pyrrha! I'm coming!" Jaune shouted back, he wasn't sure if she could hear him, but it didn't hurt to try. He ran through the hole in the steel door and found himself on a concrete ramp sloping downwards. He followed the ramp down to another steel door with a similar hole as the first one and charged through.

Right in to a nightmare.

What Jaune had walked into couldn't be a secret lab. It was far too dark, with Dust lamps at fixed intervals on the ceiling all the way down the current hallway. The lamps did little to stave off the foreboding darkness, which almost seemed alive. Bits of rust clung to the metal walls, floor and ceiling, Jaune could also hear the clinking of chains echoing further in. The clinking was drowned out however, by the screams of people in torment, too many voices for him to keep track of. Drawing Crocea Mors and attaching the shield firmly to his left hand, Jaune continued cautiously down the dimly-lit hallway.

Several thick metal doors lined the walls. The doors had small rectangular viewpoints that a person of average height could use to see inside. Jaune peered inside one and nearly recoiled in horror at what he saw. Beyond the metal door was a man hanging from the ceiling by chains. Several metal hooks were dug into the flesh of his arms. Jaune also spotted numerous plastic tubes attached to his torso. That wasn't the worst part however, the man raised his head out of the shadows and into the sole light in the small room. Half the man's face was normal, but the other half was a black melted mess, the flesh looking more like wax than skin. The man locked his bloodshot eyes on Jaune and croaked out two words through cracked lips.

"Kill me…."

This time Jaune did backpedal away from the door, his mind running a mile a minute. What was this place? This was supposed to be a hidden lab? Was this how altered were being created? What a sick and twisted thing to do to someone.

"Jaune!"

The young Arc jolted upward at his name. That was Pyrrha again, she sounded further into the lab. He sprinted down the hallway, not failing to note that some of the doors in the hallway were ripped off of their hinges. He caught sight of grey flames burning the bodies within. Richter had been here. He needed to find Pyrrha before Ruby's friend did.

One of the doors on Jaune's right was suddenly blown off its hinges, crashing hard into right shoulder and knocking him onto the left side of the hallway. The young Arc tried to get up, but quickly found himself straddled by a woman who's mouth was full of needle-like teeth the color of ebony. She tried to sink her teeth into his face, but he was able to get his shield up to divert her just to the right of his neck. The woman let out an inhumane shriek and raised her head high, preparing to try and bite into him again. Seeing his opening, Jaune let out a battlecry fueled by panic and fear, piercing the woman's throat with his sword. Dark warm blood flowed down his right arm as he shoved her now limp form off of himself.

Jaune had just got back to his feet when he was knocked off of them again by something hitting his shield. Landing on his back, the young Arc hastily propped himself up on his elbows to find what had hit him. He was greeted by the sight of a man with six eyes and what looked like a smaller version of the tail of a deathstalker attached to his back. The six-eyed man opened his mouth and let out a roar that no human vocal cords would ever be able to replicate. The scorpion-like tail darted forth, heading straight for Jaune's chest.

The young Arc managed to roll to his left to avoid getting impaled. He quickly got to his feet, just in time to see the six-eyed man lunging forward with his tail again. This time however, he was ready. Planting his feet. Jaune took the full force of the blow with his shield, this time not moving at all. The six-eyed man howled in frustration and executed three more stabs with his tail in quick succession. Jaune blocked the first two with his shield and on the third stab he sidestepped to his right and brought his sword down on the stretched tail, severing it.

The six-eyed man let out an inhuman scream of pain. Jaune did his best to ignore it and rushed forward, opening up the disfigured man's chest with a diagonal slash. The six-eyed man fell onto his back, his body twitching a few times before going still.

Jaune did his best not to look back at the two things he had just killed. They used to be people, and the White Fang had twisted them into something very unnatural. How could one sink so low as to do that to another living being? He couldn't fathom it. He looked down at his left hand and saw it was shaking. Jaune quickly realized he was afraid, but he swept the fear aside, closing his left hand into a fist. He couldn't afford to let his fear run rampant, not now.

The young Arc continued down the hallway, which eventually started branching out in different directions. Jaune surmised the branching paths led to other wings of the lab, normally this would make searching for Pyrrha more difficult. But he could hear the sounds of combat coming from the corridor on his left. Sounds accompanied by Pyrrha's voice as she let out battlecries, apparently she was fighting quite the intense battle. Judging by the grey flames he found periodically sprinkled down the corridor, he suspected it was with Richter. Which meant he needed to hurry.

Jaune found his progress impeded by more human and faunus experiments. Their twisted forms and nightmarish shrieks tested his courage as he dispatched them. Parts of the corridor were starting to come apart, burying certain rooms and people under a pile of metal and concrete. After a handful of minutes, the young Arc found his progress completely halted by a pile of rubble blocking the corridor. He frowned at the sight, he could maybe stick his hand through an opening at the top of the rubble, but that was it.

The sounds of blades clashing alerted Jaune to someone fighting on the other side of the rubble. He peered through the small opening at the top of the debris to see red hair flowing through the air. Jaune's breath caught in his throat as he saw Pyrrha land in a crouching position. It looked like something had knocked her back.

"Pyrrha!" He exclaimed. She turned her green eyes towards him and he saw a small smile play on her lips.

Which quickly turned into a frown. Confusion swirled in Jaune's head, why was she frowning? Did he do something wrong?

He got his answer as a gout of grey flame sped towards Pyrrha, who nimbly side-flipped out of its path. She landed and continued deeper into the lab, away from Jaune.

"Pyrrha wait! I can help!" The young Arc shouted, extending his hand through the opening in the debris as if he could pull her back through sheer willpower alone. Moments later, a familiar figure in a tattered grey-cloak appeared in the same room Pyrrha had just occupied. Richter surveyed the destruction he was causing, the way his eyes darted back and forth, he seemed to be looking for something.

"Richter listen to me!" Jaune yelled to him, Richter cast him a sidelong glance. "Pyrrha is my friend! She's not your enemy!"

"There are no friends in this hell of a lab, Jaune, surely you've seen that by now." Richter replied.

"Pyrrha's different! She hasn't been experimented on! She's normal! She won't try to hurt you if you don't attack her." Jaune told him. The grey-cloaked demon looked at him for a long moment and the young Arc felt himself holding his breath, had he got through to Richter?

"I gave you a warning to leave." Richter suddenly spoke. "You should have taken it." With that, the grey-cloaked demon turned his back on Jaune and continued down the corridor Pyrrha had just went down.

Anger and fear spiked within Jaune. "Richter! Don't do it! Don't you dare hurt Pyrrha! If you do I swear to everything that is holy that I will hunt you down!" Richter didn't respond, continuing down the corridor until he was out of sight. "RICHTER!" Jaune screamed, slamming his right fist into the rubble in frustration. What the hell was wrong with that guy? Was he really Ruby's friend?

Jaune took a deep calming breath. He wasn't going to save Pyrrha if he went into a frenzy. The corridor was blocked, but Richter had to have made it past through conventional means, he wasn't a ghost who could just slip through the walls. Backtracking, the young Arc checked all the open steel doors in the corridor's walls. After a minute or two of searching, he found what he was looking for. In one of the empty rooms there was a hole large enough for a person to walk through. His shield ready, Jaune ventured through the hole, which led to a tunnel that went back towards the blocked portion of the corridor. Careful not to step on any of the lingering grey flames, Jaune walked through the tunnel, occasionally stepping over piles of ash that had once been a sentient being.

The young Arc was rewarded with making it to the other side of the blocked corridor. Now in the same large square room that Richter and Pyrrha had occupied a few minutes before. He felt his spirits lift, he was catching up.

He was just about to head after them when two large beings dropped in from the ceiling, effectively blocking him from pursuing Richter. They looked to be human, but their proportions were all wrong. They're arms and legs were too long, their torsos too small and there was some sort of tumor that was growing out of a large portion of their back. Long dark hair covered milky white eyes and the only sound to come out of their cracked lips was growling. Each of the brutes was carrying a club as tall as they were in their right hands. And as Jaune watched, they raised those clubs in preparation to squash him.

The young Arc growled, he didn't have time for this.

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A/N: Next Chapter: Jaune desperately tries to save Pyrrha from Richter. Does he succeed? Does he fail? Or is there a third outcome?

See you then!