Blake was fairly sure Alcohol was overrated in its worth as a substance. Yes, she did enjoy the fermented spike fruit bottle that Sun had shared with her from time to time. Even last night's engine-oil/fermented-skag-bile/medical-alcohol combination started to taste better as the evening wore on, though perhaps that was her taste buds deadening. But still, even with those points in its favor, there was no denying that alcohol was the only drink which actively punished people for partaking in it.

With a bottle of water in hand, a handful of aspirin in her stomach, and sunglasses over her eyes, she was ready to face the day, even if there was still a distinct piercing pain every time someone raised their voice or slammed a door.

Which Weiss was doing deliberately. The heiress hadn't drunk anything at all the night previous, and seemed to take a certain amount of sadistic pleasure in making Blake's morning even worse than it was should have been. Yang hadn't woken yet, but presumably she would be getting the same treatment from the Schnee that Blake did.

Blake felt overwhelmingly relieved when she stepped outside, away from the heiress's high pitched voice, and off to do her business for the day. And business was what it almost always was for her, acquiring information. She had been one of the White Fang's most active agents prior to her betrayal, and the main part of her work was keeping abreast of corporate activities on Pandora. After all, there was no point bombing a building full of Hyperion employees if they were just blue collar workers, better to find out the name of a local business head and targets his family, or maybe sabotage all his projects so Jack killed the man for them.

Blake didn't trust anyone in the business of corporate espionage, but if there was one man she'd acknowledge as never having sold her bad intl or never having betrayed her, it would be Ozpin. He was also, coincidentally, the only information broker she knew operating out of the city of Opportunity itself.

Descending down a ramp into the indoors part of Opportunity, she breathed a sigh of relief as she left direct sunlight. Even with her glasses, the brightness of the sun was bitingly unpleasant. Ozpin's 'office' was in the under level's of Jack's city, just a level above the sewer line and far below all the half finished skyscrapers that were going to be the main hub of the town.

As she approached his door, a camera in the wall turned, tracking her movement. The door was automatic, like most in Opportunity, but it was locked from the inside and would only open if Ozpin deemed the person outside 'safe', though when in the espionage business that was a relative term.

After a second, the door opened and Blake stepped through.

Ozpin was sitting at a simple wooden oak table, a mug of hot chocolate steaming away as he simply gazed at the ceiling. There was no weapon in sight, not even a knife or pistol as he sat there, perfectly still.

Blake kept all her weapons concealed too.

"Hello," she greeted quietly, taking a seat.

"Welcome, Miss Blake, you know, there is no reason to hide yourself." He put down the mug and laced his fingers together. "You have nothing to fear from me."

She tilted her head in reply. "I don't see how that's relevant."

He merely chuckled and shook his head. "I forget how literal you faunus may be. Would you like something to eat or drink, or shall we get down to business?"

"I have already eaten, and brought my own drink." She said, raising her water bottle so he could see it.

"So business it is then. What would you like to know?"

"Have you heard any news regarding me?"

"Some. Most think you died up on your last mission." Ozpin held up two fingers. "Two more questions and then I'm afraid you'll have to pay."

"Do you know anything about Atlas' board of investors?"

"That, I'm afraid, will cost you. Some information is more valuable than others," he said, almost sounding apologetic.

"Then that doesn't count towards my three questions." Blake said, and didn't wait to give him a chance to object. "What can you tell me about someone operating under the moniker, 'Angel'?"

"I'll let you in on a little secret, I don't know everything."

She would have sighed if she were human. "Do you have any information on the location of a second vault?"

"Unfortunately not, but I do have a lead." His drawer slide open and a small thumbdrive came out. "This will cost you two questions though and a bit of money."

"How about an exchange of information?" Blake proposed. "I know something that might be valuable to you."

He cock an eyebrow and leaned in. "Oh? Please, go on."

"Skintilt, of Atlas' board of director's, is dead and not in hiding."

"Is that so…" He rubbed his chin. "I know of a couple of people who would find that information very interesting. Very well, you have a deal." He slid the drive over the table. "A pleasure doing business with you, Miss Blake."

She nodded, before taking it. "If you hear anything about a women operating under the alias, 'Angel', please contact me."

He simply nodded and gestured at the door. "Do not fret, I will."

Without another word, she pocketed the drive and left. Thanks to the bottle of water and the fresh air, by the time she got back to Yang and Ruby's suburban house she was feeling somewhat better. Not bothering to knock, Blake stepped inside and made her way to the echo console.

Taking out the drive, she plugged it into the machine and found several files on it. Opening the first of the few images, there was a satellite view of what looked like a mountain falling apart. In the next image, the ruins of the mountain had fallen away to reveal what looked like a number of white and purple columns, arranged in a grid pattern several hundred meters across.

The next file was a video, shot on someone's echo device as he watched what looked like an endless barrage of moonshots rain down on the mountain from above. Under the sustained fire, the mountain began to deform before finally a moonshot smashed into the person filming the event. If the wet squishing sound was anything to go by, the cameraman didn't survive the experience.

The next file was an archeological report, speculating on the presence of a large Eridian ruin, somewhere on the east coast of the continent. With a sinking feeling, she opened the last file. It was a list of coordinates and craters impacts for all the moonshot landings and all four corners of the ruin.

Just as she feared. It was the White Fang base that she and Yang had almost entered in search of Angel's survivors.

Turning off the echo console, and pocketing the drive, she went to find Yang. Instead, she found herself being thrown into a chair as a very large and definitely not compensating for something sniper was shoved into her face.

"Blake! When did you get here? Nevermind about that, look! I finished Karl, isn't he a darling? Sleek Hyperion scope with counter balance weight to improve stability, Vladof grip to reduce recoil and super comfy, Maliwan scope 'cause Maliwan scopes are just awesome and then my pride and joy, the chamber-thingie. It's not a chamber, but I'm calling it a chamber 'cause I made it from a chamber, but it's not really a chamber." Ruby spun the six glowing... 'chambers'. "Fire, shock, corrosive, normal aaaaaaaaaaaaand slag. No explosive though, couldn't get it to work, but isn't it awesome? I can rapidly switch between each one depending on what element I want and boom!"

The gun fired, impacting the wall, cutting through it as though it didn't even exist, leaving behind a nice neat hole that was slowly widening as acid ate through the plaster. Ruby's constant manic grin and heavy bags under her eyes, did not reassure Blake in the slightest.

"Headshot!" Ruby nuzzled it. "Isn't it the best?"

"It seems over engineered." Blake pointed out. "Unless all elemental effects are applied to all shots, having an inconsistent variety of attacks will only be unhelpful if a fire shot is acciden-"

"Well duh, it's got a proper magazine thingie and then each one of these chambers is a different Maliwan powercell with a different elemental affinity so I have manual control over the chamber like so." Reaching forward, Ruby spun the chamber, clicking the red one into position. "And now it's a fire pew-pew gun! Got a little indicator at the bottom of the scope, see? So now if I fire-"

The cleaning lady was promptly set on fire.

"-it burns stuff instead! The normal one is just, you know, no powercell and last one is for when I figure out how to make explosive work."

Blake nodded in understanding. "It seems over engineered." She repeated. "Even with manual control over which elemental effect is fired, the increased number of complex mechanical parts, not to mentioned the presence of multiple dangerous elements in close proximity to the actual chamber would wildly increase the chance of failure, or critical failure. Maintaining the gun in the field without specialised equipment will be almost impossible."

"Bah! Karl is a sexy, sexy beast and you know it."

"I think finding a gun arousing is a problem you should discuss with a professional."

"Whatever, now where's that…" Ruby blinked. "Huh, when did we have a kitchen sink?"

"It looks like its been in place since the house was constructed."

"Weird…" Ruby slowly spun around. "Did we move house? I don't recall us having a red carpet or beige walls or, hey! Mr Fluffy!" Ruby ran over to the dining room table and poked the stuffed cat. "I haven't seen you in years."

"Weiss hired a cleaning company." Blake offered as an explanation.

"When?"

Blake checked her watch. "Twenty one hours, thirty three minutes ago. Approximately."

"The last cleaning company we hired said it'd take a month to clean everything. Just ended up burning everything." Ruby slowly turned around, taking in the room. "We really should repaint the entire thing."

"You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I'm interested in anything you've said during this conversation. I apologise if I've mistakenly given you that impression, but I have something important to discuss with you and your sister."

"You know, you need to work on your people skills. Step one, smile!" Ruby reached up and grabbed Blake's cheeks, pushing them upwards into smile.

"Smiling indicates happiness, which would be an inaccurate portrayal of what I'm feeling right now." Blake grabbed Ruby's hands, firmly moving them away from her face.

"There's always something to be happy about!"

"Potentially true, but I currently have more to be irritated about. Where's your sister? I have a lead on the vault."

"Why didn't you say so?!" All of a sudden, Blake found herself being dragged up the stairs far faster than she thought possible, half stumbling over the steps and half tripping over her own feet. "She's in her workroom."

"I find you to be a troublesome conversationalist." Since when was Ruby able to move this fast?

"And I find you to be silly. Boop." Blake blinked as Ruby poked her nose, but before she could react, she found herself being shoved through a door.

Rather fed up with being dragged around by the questionably sane human, Blake twisted her hand out of the girl's grip. "I would strongly prefer it if you never did that again." She readjusted her sunglasses before turning to face the room. "Yang."

Only for what appeared to be a dumbbell to fly straight at her face. She only barely avoided it by tilting her head to the side.

"I thought I told you to get out!"

"I do not believe we discussed me leaving." Blake replied, glancing at where the weighted metal had left a dent in the wall. "But if I'm mistaken then-"

"Oh, it's you, nah, it's fine, come in." Yang leaned to the side, looking past Blake. "Yo, Ruby, done with your husband? Sure he's not overcompensating for something?"

"He's not my husband!" said Ruby before adding under her breath, "Not yet anyways."

"And sorry about that, thought you were the cleaning ladies Weiss hired." Yang shuddered. "They need to be locked up in a Vault."

"Now that you've mentioned vaults, they are relevant to the conversation. As per social convention, I'm making vault hunting the official topic of this conversation. Any deviation from this topic from this point forward is officially unwelcome." Blake declared, tired of the randomness and stupidity of humans in general in this pair in particular. Why did she even leave the White Fang again?

"Um… sure?" said Yang.

If Blake was human, she would have smiled at successfully navigating the confusing currents and tides of human conversation. Instead, she just continued on topic. "I have a lead that could potentially direct us to the location of a vault."

"I sense a 'but' coming," said Yang.

"Posteriors are not relevant to vault hunting." Blake looked at Yang. "Please refrain from mentioning them for the duration of vault hunting as a conversational topic." With their discussion successfully rerailed, she continued. "Unfortunately, it's in the location we just came from. Handsome Jack and a significant force of loaders have already moved to secure the area, and presumably the Pyrrha Nikos will be there working for him."

"I dunno Blake, Pyrrha does have a nice butt." Behind her, Ruby snickered. "But seriously, we just sneak in and sneak out, easy. Loaders aren't very smart."

"If I were going in alone I would be more confident with that assessment, but in the brief time I've known you two, never once have I known either of you to be silent." She looked directly at Yang. "Not even in your sleep."

"Hey, are you say-"

"Yes, Yang, yes she is," said Ruby. "There's a reason why I never take any stealth missions and all the ones you take end up like that one time at The Fridge."

"Oh yeah!" Yang grinned as she stared off into space. "Damn, Mister Torgue would have been proud of that explosion."

"That's really not an apt point of comparison." Blake tilted her head. "Mister Torgue is as equally enthusiastic about stars going supernova as he is about firecrackers in mailboxes."

"It was awesome," drawled Yang.

"Yeeeeaaaaah, moving on…" Ruby turned to Blake. "We could probably sneak past them. It's the coming back that's an issue. Yang is a bit trigger happy."

Blake nodded in understanding. "I have noticed she smiles an inordinate amount while firing her gun."

"Be glad she's on our side. Come on, we should get to the mission room, it'll be an hour before Yang snaps out of it."

"That sounds agreeable." Blake followed Ruby out of the room.

It was nothing the world had ever witness before. There was Jaune, sun shining down on him through the smoky clouds, turning his blonde hair into a brilliant halo while his perfect teeth glinted in the rays. Beneath him, in a junk pile a mile deep, lay the corpses of his enemies. Limbs rent from limbs, eyes gouged out of their sockets and weapons broken in half over his manly shoulders.

Shoulders that carried the fate of the world.

Though blood poured from the gash in his side, he stood tall and proud, cape billowing in the wind. Long ago had his gun jammed on the electronic blood of his prey, but that didn't stop him. With nothing but his bare fists and his radiant masculinity, he took them down three at a time.

'He's so gorgeous,' they would sing.

'Look at his manly biceps,' cooed another.

Yes, there was nothing in this world quite like Jaune Arc. With just one look he would leave all the females in a two block radius pregnant and all the males would turn ga-

"I would like to kill you." Commander Velvet said, staring out at the ruined mountainside. "I've had an intense dislike of you fef-"

"Shhhhhh~" said Jaune as he gazed out at the majestic mountain side. A true testament to his power.

With just one look he would leave all the females in a three bl-

"It's only in the last ten minutes that I realised what true hatred is." Velvet said. "It's what I feel now, when I'm looking a-"

"Shhhhhhhh."

With just one lo-

"Handsome Jack was originally my personal image of everything wrong with the universe, but you just supplanted him. Which is saying something, given the continued genocide and experimentation he conducts on my people."

"Look, lady, I'm trying to have a moment here. A private moment, can't this wait?"

"No, it really can't." Velvet's normally blank face wasn't look so devoid of emotion. She actually almost seemed mildly irritated, which by Faunus standards must have meant she was utterly livid.

"Fiiiiiiiiiiiiine." With a roll of his eyes, Jaune folded his arms. "Look lady, I took out at least a hundred loaders with those explosives and bought us a good thirty minutes, you should be thanking me."

"Except you exposed an Eridian ruin, essentially giving it straight to Jack. You were not asked to place explosives, you did not warn us that you did it, ultimately it will be your fault if Jack gets his hands on a second vault."

"Hey, I didn't know they were there and you didn't tell me they were there and please, no need to act surprised that I figured out that tiny detail." Pause. "Seriously, act surprised will you?"

"I'm incapable of acting surprised." Velvet replied.

"Fine, whatever. And you know, Jack would have found it in five seconds once he sent those loaders out to scout. You should be thanking me, by doing that, and by that I mean the totally awesome explosion, we brought us even more time!"

"We were taking steps to cover the entrance of the vault when you detonated that mountain. At least eight faunus are almost certainly dead."

"Eight faunus or one hundred loaders. Eight… or a hundred…" Jaune began counting on his fingers. "I dunno about you, but one hundred is a lot higher and seriously? Cover the entrance. That was your big plan. Against Handsome Jack, the guy who has a million loaders and even more money."

"One hundred loaders will be replaced in the first five minutes of operation one of Jack's large scale constructors."

"And the time it takes to dig through the tunnels due to the cave in?" Jaune shook his head. "I swear I'm talking to people who failed basic maths."

Velvet turned to face him, opened her mouth to say something, then stopped herself. Her fists were clenched hard enough that Jaune could see the blood drawn by her nails digging into her palms. Without saying anything, she turned away and stalked towards her vehicle.

"Idiot," muttered Jaune under his breath as he turned back towards the ruin.

It was a thing of absolute beauty. Made of what looked like marble stone, but clearly wasn't given its resistance to gunfire and explosives, it had purple veins spider webbing across its surface. A giant, square almost courtyard like structure, perfectly flat save for various gatelike arches hanging in the air and stone columns, each more than ten metres tall jutting up into the in perfect row after row, spaced exactly ten metres apart.. Atop some of the pillars were statues, unharmed by being buried under a mountain, even though a couple of clumps of dirt stuck to them in places. There was no pattern to which columns had the angelic, strangely feminine statues atop them. Disturbingly, all the statues wore grim masks.

Maybe he could get a couple taken up and planted in his front yard, that'd be pretty sweet.

Hopping out of the truck and making his way over to the makeshift encampment they had set up, he stalked into the tent and sat down. A quick tap on the side of the sunglasses he wore and the heat signatures of those around him popped up. No one seemed to be listening in, that was good. He idly flicked through his contacts, deleting the three dozen emails from his 'girlfriend' before settling on one final name.

As he dialed her number, an all too peppy and sugary song played over the headphone. Five seconds in and he already had diabetes and if it wasn't because they were just so fucking good at their job, he'd have them assassinated personally. Along with whoever the artist of the song is.

Then the music suddenly cut off, and there was the sound of wind in the background.

"Yo, Ren, buddy, it's me!"

The phone hung up.

With a roll of his eyes, Jaune dialed the number again.

Once again it was 'answered', though Ren didn't say anything.

"Aaaaaaaanyways, there seems to be a temple here that looks like it was made by the same people who made the Vault. Probably want to get your butts down here." A couple taps of the screen and Jaune sent photo and video evidence as well as co-ordinates. "Better get down here quick or bandits will get all the goods!"

There was a pause, before the phone hung up again.

Jaune just stared at the echo device. "Oh come on! Bah, should have called Nora."

Then his phone rang, Nora's number appearing on the screen.

He flicked it open and kicked back in his seat. "Nora, baby, long time no hear!"

"Jaune? Ren says you have an Eridian ruin, he seemed excited! Well, not really he seemed, you know, interested, but that's a lot coming from him! You really have one?!"

"Yep! The real deal, gimme a sec." He resent all the data. "Gonna be swarming with bandits soon, so get down quick, if you're interested, I can set you up with a Hyperion ship."

"No, we're already nearby. There was some giant lava crab worm thingy that we got hired to kill on the east coast but this seems waaaaaaaaaay cooler! The giant worm can wait, it'll only kill like, a dozen settlements in the meantime anyway, right? We'll totally be right there, don't let anyone get all the good stuff first."

"Sweet, have fun, and we're totally even now, yeah?"

"Only if there's loot!" Then she hung up.

"I swear I'm going to kill that girl someday." Jaune closed his eyes and grinned. "Now, time to watch the skag hit the windshield."