"This is going to be so much fun!" Came the high pitched squeal from Ruby.
"Oh yeah!" Yang chimed in, excited.
"This is going to be uh-maze-ing!" Nora sang excitedly.
"Yeah, it'll be nice." Jaune agreed quietly, a smile on his face.
He looked around at all his friends nodding and smiling. They had been selected for a co-op mission, and they were all excited. Team's RWBY and JNPR had become good friends, but had never gone out together on an official mission. Unofficial missions, sure, but never with the authority of Beacon.
They sat around one of the tables in the cafeteria, everyone buzzing with an excited energy. Jaune scooped some food off the platters onto his plate. He had noticed that as he got better at fighting and in better shape, he needed to eat a lot more to fuel himself. It had been three and a bit years since he had arrived at Beacon, and he probably ate close to three and a bit times as much now.
Beside him, Pyrrha laughed melodiously as she saw her leader go for another large turkey leg. Jaune shot her an angry look, but it was halfhearted. Though Pyrrha was still in better shape than him, she somehow managed to survive on a normal amount of food. She had hypothesized that his appetite had something to do with his large aura reserves, but Jaune wasn't convinced. Yang's fat jokes didn't help either.
"When do we leave?" Blake asked, ever the reasonable one.
"Ozzy said it'll be a weekend mission, so we've got a few days to get ready." Ruby said, still practically sparking with excitement.
"Hey, do you guys think we should invite Emerald and Mercury?" Jaune asked, the thought suddenly cutting into his mind. The duo had remained at Beacon after the Vytal Festival, along with a few others like Sun and Neptune, and though they didn't have a full team, they worked well enough together to make up for the missing two bodies. They had become friends with team RWBY and team JNPR over the years, and the ten of them had partaken in a fair amount of shenaniganry together.
"Nah," Yang said, "I talked to them the other day. They said they were meeting up with some old friends this weekend. They'll be busy anyways."
"Who'll be busy?" Came the ever sarcastic sound of Mercury's voice from over Jaune's shoulder. He slid into the bench beside Jaune, and Emerald sat down on the other side of the table.
"It seems like all of us now." Jaune replied.
"Cool, what are you guys doing?" Emerald asked with a smile on her face.
"Joint mission. We'll be going to Forever Fall. Apparently there's been a lot of Grimm activity in there lately."
"More than usual?" Mercury asked in his cocky tone.
"So it would seem." Blake said, monotonously, still reading that notebook of hers. Jaune had always been curious about what that was in that black, leather bound book, but he shrugged it off. He hadn't managed to find out in the past three and a half years, it would simply have to remain a mystery indefinitely.
"And who are these friends of yours that we don't know?" Nora asked, her voice wobbling a little. Over the years, Jaune thought she was the one who had changed the least. Sure, she had gotten better at fighting, but other than that Nora was pretty much still... Well, Nora.
"Just some old flames you could say." Emerald said with a twist to her lips, as though something about what she said was funny and only she knew why.
"Alright, keep your secrets." Yang said in mock suspicion.
"Maybe we should get going." Pyrrha said in her lilting voice. "Class starts in a few minutes."
"What?" Mercury exclaimed. "But we just got here!"
"Then maybe you shouldn't spend most of your lunch hour disappearing off to who knows where to do who knows what." Weiss reprimanded. The two teams stood, leaving Mercury and Emerald fuming at the table, picking away at their lunches. Yang laughed as they walked away.
The day was pretty ordinary as far as days could be when you were the leader of a team with Nora on it. For the most part, Ren dealt with the excitable girl's antics for the rest of the day though, so it wasn't too hard on Jaune. Nothing exciting happened in class, and Jaune was relieved when the final bell rang. He walked out of the class alongside Pyrrha, the two of them heading up to the roof for the daily bout of sparring.
Jaune squared off against his partner, taking his stance across from her. Pyrrha crouched down, holding Milos up at shoulder height facing him and Akuo between the two of them. Jaune held his shield in front of him, keeping his sword low but ready by his side. He looked into his partner's eyes to find her own bright green eyes staring back at him.
Their eyes stayed locked as they slowly circled each other, waiting for the other to make the first move. After what seemed like an eternity, Jaune noticed Pyrrha step slightly more forward than sideways and he tensed himself. Pyrrha exploded into motion, blurring towards Jaune. Only from countless hours practicing against that same opponent was Jaune able to raise his shield in time to meet the deadly strike that was heading straight for his neck.
He stepped into the swing, forcing Pyrrha back and building momentum, transferring it into a quick swipe of his blade. Pyrrha easily blocked it, and came back with a low strike towards Jaune's legs. Jaune dove to the side and rolled back to his feet in a split second, eyes locked once again on his Mystralian partner.
This time it was him that struck first.
He came in with a low feint, swinging it back up high at the last possible moment. Pyrrha anticipated his move though, and caught his blade on her own. Akuo flashed out towards Jaune's chest, and he was forced to spin away from Pyrrha to avoid the blow. As he came about, he found Milos already flying towards him. Instinctively, Jaune tensed his aura. It congealed in front of him, making a solid pane that the javelin bounced off of. Taking advantage of Pyrrha no longer having a primary weapon, Jaune lunged forward. He collided with Pyrrha's shield, shoving her backwards. While she was off balance, he swept at her legs trying to trip her.
His mistake was thinking Pyrrha Nikos could ever be off balance. As he swung low, Pyrrha bounded off her one leg and twisted over him. Jaune felt Akuo hit his back hard, and though his aura absorbed most of the impact, he had to take a step forward before whipping around. As he turned, he saw Pyrrha stand from picking Milos up.
Great, he thought, She has her spear back.
Pyrrha twirled the spear around her wrist, and when she caught it back in her hand, it was a sword. Jaune eyed it fearfully. He was pretty sure he had gotten more bruises from that sword than anyone had been injured by any object in the history of Remnant. He had done the research at one point. He was pretty convinced that he held a record there.
Jaune didn't wait for Pyrrha to make a move. He charged her, but she was charging him right back. When he was a split second away from her, Jaune dropped to the ground and slid. He had lined it up so his shoe would collide with her ankle, but at the same time that he started dropping Pyrrha left the ground. Jaune raised his shield as Pyrrha flipped over him, blocking her upside down swing. He dug his right foot into the ground, using his momentum to stand up. He kept his eyes on Pyrrha as he stood, watching her land and twist seamlessly, striking out towards his chest.
Jaune managed to deflect the blow with his shield, but only barely. She swung with her shield, and Jaune had to swing his sword into it with all his might to stop its momentum. The two consecutive defenses left him on his heels though, and before he could react, Pyrrha dropped low and hooked her leg behind his foot. She straightened her leg as she stood again, and Jaune's leg came up. He fell onto his back hard, and Pyrrha followed him down, pressing Milos to his throat.
Jaune didn't move. He was panting hard, and he could feel the cold metal of Pyrrha's blade scraping his throat ever so gently. He could feel her body pressed against his own, his face growing hot, and some part of his mind registered how intimate this position would be if there wasn't a sword against his throat.
A peal of melodious laughter broke the tense silence as Pyrrha got up smoothly, reaching down to offer Jaune a hand. He accepted it gratefully, letting her pull him to his feet.
"That was excellent Jaune!" She said, joy radiating through her smile. "I think that's the best you've ever moved. I wasn't sure I could win for a moment." Jaune listened to the rise and fall of her voice, enjoying the smooth flow of her musical tones.
"Yeah, too bad no one can beat you though." Jaune said jokingly. "Pyrrha Nikos, the invincible girl!" He proclaimed, pumping his fist in the air. He knew that such flattery made Pyrrha uncomfortable, though she would accept it graciously. She smiled at him thinly, and Jaune laughed.
The two returned to the dorms,walking beside one another in comfortable silence. Jaune would have talked, but he was thinking about the weekend. He would have to talk to Ruby at some point, figure out what the game plan was. They were going to be going up against a lot of Grimm, and he wouldn't mind having a few joint training sessions with team RWBY. They were both strong teams, and they had done a lot of work together, but this was going to be a bit different than the discreet missions they had gone on before. Jaune and Pyrrha rounded the corner to find that RWBY's door was ajar.
"I can't believe it," Jaune heard Weiss whisper. Everyone else was silent. Jaune looked over at Pyrrha, then the two walked up to the door and knocked on the wooden frame, peering into the room.
Weiss, Yang and Ruby were sitting across from each other on team RWBY's ridiculous bunk beds, looking solemnly at their scrolls. Blake was leaning against the window sill, the window thrown wide open. The breeze was toying with the faunus' hair, making a few ink black curls tickle across her neck. Jaune couldn't see her face, but her fists were clenched so hard that a small trickle of blood glided down her fingers.
"What is it?" Jaune asked, quietly. Instead of answering, Ruby tossed him her scroll. Jaune caught it deftly, remembering a time when he would have fumbled with the device to catch it, if he would catch it at all. Jaune looked down at the screen, reading the text therein. His stomach slowly dropped as he read, and he passed the scroll to Pyrrha. She took it from him without question, and the room grew silent for a moment before Ruby spoke.
"He's back."
/
"You have to let us go after him!" Blake said forcefully, barely able to stop herself from screaming at the headmaster. How could he not understand? Roman Torchwick, the man who had been responsible for threatening the safety of the very kingdom, had escaped from jail, and Ozpin wasn't going to let them hunt him down.
"Please sir," Ruby grabbed Blake's arm forcefully, but gently, pulling her back from the headmaster's desk. "We know him better than any other hunters out there. We stand the best chance of finding him and bringing him back to justice." The silver haired man studied the four of them closely, hands clasped under his chin.
When they had found out that Roman Torchwick had escaped from prison, they had been shocked, outraged and outright angry, but they had all thought they would be able to find him and put him right back in that cell. Blake knew how dangerous the man was first hand, and she couldn't imagine anyone would let him walk free.
"Ladies, please do calm down. I-"
A sharp rap on the heavy oak door interrupted the headmaster. The door opened, and Jaune stepped out from behind it, his team following suit. Everyone was quiet and respectful, but Blake could see the tenseness of their posture. They were all on edge. JNPR walked towards Ozpin's desk, forming a semi circle on either side of team RWBY. Blake looked at them in confusion, then turned back to the headmaster. He must have called them up for whatever reason.
"Um, hi." Ruby said to the new arrivals, but it came out as more of a question than a greeting.
"Sir," Jaune began, leaning over and planting his hands on the headmaster's desk. "I don't think we should go after him, not yet."
Blake looked at him in shock. Jaune hadn't been really involved the first time Roman was captured, but since then he had learned everything that team RWBY had been through. She couldn't help but feel betrayed by him, like he had thrown the past few years out the window.
"How can you say that?" She said, feeling her voice rise in anger. "He's one of the most notorious criminals that Vale has ever seen. He almost destroyed the city last time, we need to stop him before he has the chance to plan anything."
"Blake," Jaune said, his voice steely and calm. "How do you think he broke out? Roman was never the mastermind behind the whole plan. Whoever broke him out must have something planned, and last time he got locked up it just delayed their plans. Something big is happening, and we need to find out what it is. Keeping Roman out of jail is the best way to do it, and given your history with him, we know we can stop him when it comes to the end of it."
"We need to run against the devil we know." Ozpin added, nodding slightly.
Blake felt rage boiling inside of her. They couldn't possibly be saying what she was hearing. Yes, they knew Roman, which is exactly why they should lock him up until he wasted away. An unknown enemy was better than one that she knew could cause havoc and mayhem on a massive scale.
"We've seen what Torchwick can do, how can you say we should just let him go?"
"Blake, we all want to go after him as much as you," Ruby said, her voice rather soft. "But he wasn't working alone last time. Maybe we should follow him to whoever is running this whole thing, before they act without us knowing."
Blake looked at her leader, feeling nothing but hurt. Of everybody there, she had expected Ruby to be on her side. The younger girl was the only other one to have similar experiences with Torchwick as her, and she was sure that her team leader would understand what she was saying. Yet, the small redhead seemed perfectly content to agree with Ozpin and Jaune, knowing how much Torchwick could hurt the kingdom. She looked over at her partner, Yang, for support, but the blonde just lowered her eyes. It felt like someone had punched her in the stomach. She was infuriated, how could they just let him go? She whipped around and stormed out of the room, throwing the heavy oak doors open behind her.
"Blake!" She heard someone call from behind her, but the roaring of her pulse in her ears drowned it out and no one else called for her.
She walked into the elevator, fuming and hurt. Roman Torchwick had been a bigger threat than anyone had realized except for her. She had been right last time to convince her team to go after him, and if they hadn't, hundreds of people could have died when that train crashed through Vale's city wall. That was the sort of danger Torchwick posed to the city, and they were planning on just letting him do it? They were wrong. They should lock Torchwick up right away and then find out who had broken him out of jail. She pulled her scroll out of her pocket, quickly finding a number and dialing it.
"Hey, can we meet up?" She said softly, and of course, was met with an affirmative answer. She walked out of the elevator and stepped out into the large hall that served as a lobby to Ozpin's office. She walked through it rapidly, crossing her arms in front of her body. She was trying not to think about how betrayed she felt. She exited the building, walking down the large circular steps. There were a few trees scattered around the twisting roads sprawling out from the central tower of Beacon, and Blake walked through them until she reached the statue. She had never been able to like that statue, given how there was a deliberate lack of faunus representation in the huntsmen.
"What's got ya down?" Came the upbeat voice that had grown so familiar to Blake over the years. She looked over to see Sun leaning back with one heel kicked up against the statue, arms crossed in front of his chest. He was wearing his traditional worn jeans, but he was wearing a deep purple v-neck today rather than his usual white collared T-shirt that he seemed to have issues buttoning up. Not that she had ever minded him not doing them up.
Rather than answering him, as she didn't trust her voice right now, she just pulled up the article that Ruby had showed them earlier on her scroll and tossed it to him. He caught it deftly flipping it around so it was the right way up. He read a few lines and then stopped, looking up.
"Well we have to go after him, right?" He said, a ghost of a grin flashing across his face.
"Just us two?" She said deadpan.
"I'm sure your team's itching to get going too, I'll get Neptune and it'll be just like old times right?"
"My team isn't going." Blake responded flatly. Sun looked at her, cocking an eyebrow, eyes alight playfully.
"So... You're coming to me because you know that you can pull me into tagging along with you just about anywhere?" Blake couldn't help but smile a little at that.
"I'm coming to you because we need to stop Torchwick before he does anything. I think you understand that as well as I do."
"And your team? Look Blake, you know I'll go with you if you insist, but it's a suicide mission. We don't know who he's with, or how many baddies he's got with him. He's spent years locked up in a cage, and he's probably itching for you guys to come after you. He'll want revenge, and if you and I go alone, it'll make his day. Look, you've got an away mission this weekend right? Keep an eye out while you're out there, and I'll see what I can find out from the Vale police department. I think Neptune's and my training officer when we were junior detectives might be willing to help out."
As he talked, Blake felt her mind whirring. He was right, of course they couldn't go after Roman together, just the two of them. Not even if they dragged Neptune along, they just didn't know enough. Ozpin wasn't right to let him go completely, but she would need her team when it came time to stop him. She doubted she'd find anything while out that weekend, but Sun might. They could deal with that when they got back.
She looked up at Sun, studying his dusty blond hair and his muscular form. Before she knew what was happening, he leaned forward and hugged her. She tensed briefly, before feeling herself relax into his embrace. She breathed in deeply, catching his slightly tropical smell.
"Look, I know it's hard not going after him right away, but we'll get our chance. No one's going to let him stay up for long, he's done too much. We'll catch him again, and we'll find whoever put him up to everything he did." Blake didn't answer, but rested her cheek on his chest, listening to his heartbeat. After a moment she pulled away, still a little uncomfortable with such close proximity to anyone. A habit she was still working on breaking from all the distrust she had built up before Beacon.
"Come on, let's go to the library. Maybe we can find some information there."
"What? No cult meetings this time around?" He mocked, winking at her and flashing a devilish grin. Blake glared at him, actively having to stop her ears from twitching in irritation. She walked away without a word, letting him jog to catch up. "Yeesh, and I thought Weiss was the Ice Queen of the bunch."
"You just made a cult joke, and your first attempt to save face is calling me 'Ice Queen'?" She said, the slightest hint of a laugh in her voice.
"Not the smartest move?"
"No, not quite." She said, smiling. She realized she had stopped moving while they bantered, and started off again. "Now are we going to do some research or not?"
"Oh, yeah, right behind you."
/
"Blake!" Yang called out, moving to take a step after her partner, worry clenching her stomach in a knot. Before she could move though, Weiss grabbed her arm.
"Let her go, you know how she is. She needs to blow off some steam before she can be sensible."
Yang watched the elevator door slide shut, Blake's back still towards her. She tore her eyes away, looking back at the headmaster, guilt and worry clawing at her insides.
"So we don't go after Roman?" Ruby said, getting the conversation back on track.
"No, Miss Rose," Ozpin replied, sounding ever so slightly distracted. "We'll try to figure out as much as we can about what he's done, what he's doing and what he will do, and then before he makes a move we'll stop him. Until then though, we need to use him to get to whoever is orchestrating this whole operation. I fear that this is larger than Vale or Beacon, and that Torchwick is merely the start."
"So what about this weekend?" Jaune said, looking at the two teams. "I don't think we should go after him quite yet, but it doesn't feel right to do nothing about Roman."
"You will go to Forever Fall. Remember, you are still training to be huntsmen and huntresses. Your job is to protect the people, and as great a danger as Torchwick is, the Grimm are still mankind's greatest threat. The scouting reports show a large number of Grimm have congregated in the forest." Yang listened, a question forming in the back of her mind.
"Why two teams though? And two of the top teams nonetheless." She asked, trying to figure it out. "We're all seniors here, and normally we'd send one team at most. Maybe even just two partners."
"Something's happened, hasn't it?" Jaune asked, his eyes glinting slightly. Yang looked at him, still in silent awe of how far he had come. Seriously, he was vomit boy, how heroic could he ever be? But Jaune had surprised her, all of them, with how much he had developed. He was now physically fit, a strong fighter, and more importantly, when it came to strategy, he was an unparalleled genius. Pyrrha had been right when she called him a natural leader. Yang wouldn't let him know though, consistently reminding him of his first day at Beacon.
"Yes," Ozpin said gravely. He took a sip of coffee before continuing. "Three huntsmen went into the forest to try to clean up the Grimm, but none of them have returned. That was a week ago. Your numbers are a safety precaution."
"We won't let you down, sir." Ruby said confidently. Though she was still two years younger, Yang felt her chest swell a little in pride. At nineteen, Ruby was one of the most talented huntresses and leaders in the school, and she was going to be graduating at the end of the year. Something no one had done before at her age.
"Very well, be on your way then. Thank you, Ruby and Jaune."
Ah, the first new chapter of a new story! Well, second technically, but the first was really a prologue. So this should be about the average length of a chapter, I'm liking the ~4000 word chapters. I'll have the next few chapters up pretty quickly, but after that I can't make any promises as to release times. I aim to release one every 1-2 weeks, but my schedule for the new year has really picked up, so it might tend towards one and a half weeks. I'm pretty excited for this story though, and I already have all the main plot points picked out. This story will have kind of a dark undertone as it progresses, but I'm hoping to make sure that it stays well written. In that spirit, if you ever have any suggestions or ideas on the writing style or choices I've made, please let me know! I hope to learn as I continue to write this story, so I'll never be upset about constructive criticism! Thanks for taking the time to read the chapter, and I hope you'll read the rest to come!
-Unjax