Yang grinned. Over the past few years, she had visited Junior three times, and this was the first time that he had actually been at least a bit useful.

"So," She said over the top of her Strawberry Sunrise's umbrella. "What can you tell me about the criminal activity in Vale right now?"

Junior looked at her, almost grudgingly, but he had been a bit more inviting to her this time around than the previous two. He had even made her the drink without asking. Yang liked to think that she made a lasting impression on everyone she met, she was that good, but she still hadn't been expecting him to remember her drink of choice.

"I'm telling you, other than the White Fang acting up again, not a whole lot. Most of the mercenary's have been recruited by someone outside the city. The only business left in town is the White Fang, and they're hardly new news."

"About that," Yang said, giving Junior a bright smile. "Where are the White Fang? My friends and I wanted to drop by to say hello!" Junior grumbled something about how long it would take Yang to leave him alone. Her eyes flashed red for a moment, and he gulped, straightening his tie.

"Oh, um, yeah. From what I've heard, there's been a lot of recruitment of faunus in and around the north-west corner of the city."

"Junior, that's still a whole quarter of a city. I'm sure you wouldn't make a girl search through all that space! It would be so frustrating! C'mon, there's gotta be something you can tell me, you know how I am when I'm frustrated." Yang grinned at Junior and his faced paled. She almost wanted to laugh. She supposed that, as a huntress, she should have reported Junior to the authorities for all of his dealings in the underground, but she liked keeping him around.

"Warehouses!" He said in a panic. "I don't know which one, but warehouses are the perfect space for any criminals trying to organize. Most of the recruitment has been in the north-west, which means that they're probably further into that quadrant rather than somewhere more central."

"Thanks Junior! And if you remember anything else," Yang pulled a napkin up in front of her, then reached over the bar to grab the pen sitting by the cashier. She scribbled her scroll number on the paper, then handed it back to him. "Let me know." Yang let her hair flare behind her, leaving him with the suggestion that if he didn't, bad things would happen. Yang was good at making bad things happen, especially in a club with so much breakable stuff.

She grinned as she turned off the bar stool and strutted back out of the club. Outside, her team, Neptune, and Sun were waiting for her, looking excessively bored. Ruby was sitting on a short wall that spanned the outside of the club, her elbows on her knees and her hands under her chin. She was absently blowing her crimson tinted bangs out of her eyes, and Yang smiled a little. Blake and Sun were talking, and Yang's stomach dropped a little, averting her eyes so as not to meet Blake's. Neptune was casually holding Weiss' hand, which seemed to stun the heiress, and Yang was doing her best not to laugh. Neptune was pretty natural about it, but Weiss looked exceedingly uncomfortable. Those two would take some time to get used to one another.

Ruby saw her first, perking up and speeding forward to hug Yang. Yang grunted as her little sister crushed her in a hug, but wrapped her arms around her sister anyways.

"Yang! Please don't leave me with the couples ever again! They're so mushy and gross!" Ruby exclaimed.

"Hey!" Weiss said indignantly, but no one paid attention.

"So, find what you're looking for?" Sun asked casually.

"Yeah, we're probably looking for a warehouse near the north-west corner of the city."

"Great," Blake said. Her voice had regained some of its warmth since they had returned. After Pyrrha and Nora had started to recover, plans began to form on how they would deal with Torchwick's group of rogues. That, along with Sun's companionship, had started to soften Blake's composure. Though Yang was happy that her partner was finally easing up, she couldn't help but feel a little pang every time she was reminded of how much time Blake was spending with Sun. It was natural, she supposed, seeming as they were dating.

"To the north-west it is." Ruby grinned, happy to have a lead. "Blake and Sun will go together, being faunus and all they might have a chance of running into someone and finding something. Start at the corner of the city and work your way inside. Yang, take your bike and hit as many warehouses as you can. Keep an eye out for anything odd. Weiss can go with you." Yang grinned, imagining the heiress riding on Bumblebee with her. She and Ruby had made a pact that the next time the opportunity came up, they would get her to ride the motorbike.

"What!" Weiss exclaimed, and Yang wished she had readied her scroll to take a picture. Her face was priceless!

"And I'll go with Neptune. Neptune and I will look through the east half of the north-west, and Blake and Sun will take care of the north-west-west..." Ruby's eyes narrowed for a second, before she laughed a bit at the repetition. "Alright everyone! Let's get going!"

/

Yang had been expecting the heiress being on the back of her bike to be funny. She had been wrong. Very wrong. It was hilarious.

Yang sped through the paved roads and high bridges of Vale, doing her best to break as many speed limits as she could in the process. She roared around corners, gunned it down straights, and even jumped off of the side of a bridge at one point.

"Oh dust!" Weiss yelled behind her, clutching tightly to Yang's jacket and ducking her face into the blonde's back. "Slow down!"

"What's wrong Weiss? Can't handle it?" Yang asked, hoping to pick on the girl's pride.

"I'm a Schnee! Of course I can handle it, its just impractic- OH DUST!" Weiss screeched as Yang veered under a tall eighteen wheeler. "We're supposed to be subtle about this!" She yelled into Yang's ear.

Weiss had a point, but they were still only in midtown. So, Yang kept at it for a few minutes. Every once in a while, Weiss would mutter something behind her, or yelp, or clutch Yang tightly before cursing her, but Yang was enjoying the feeling of the wind whipping against her face and the road rushing by underneath her. Weiss freaking out was just a bonus. Yang had made it her personal mission to loosen the uptight heiress up a bit, and over the years she had noticed a slight softening of her friend's composure, though she still merited the title of Ice Queen.

Yang slowed down as they crossed the threshold of the north-west quadrant. She pulled out her scroll and did a quick search, trying to locate nearby warehouses. She pulled up a three dimensional map of the quadrant, and highlighted their destinations. She passed the scroll behind her to Weiss.

"You're on direction duty, Ice Queen."

"Hmph," Was the only answer she got. Yang smiled a bit.

They spent the next few hours driving through the streets, much slower than Yang would have liked, searching for any warehouse that looked suspicious. They found zilch. So they moved on to the next warehouse, then the next, then the next...

Yang got more agitated as the day wore on. Weiss was doing a good job with directions, getting them where they needed to go as fast as possible, but they still couldn't find anything. Yang pulled to a stop as the sun started to kiss the horizon, taking her helmet off and shaking out her hair.

"Why are you stopping?" Weiss asked with a sharp tone.

"We won't find anything like this." Yang answered, sighing heavily. "We just have to hope someone else figures something out."

/

Blake couldn't help but laugh as Sun handed her the cone of ice cream. It was ridiculous for a few reasons. First, it was a chilly enough day out as it was, and second, they were on a mission. They were scouting around for a White Fang outpost, wherein they might find the most dangerous active criminal organization in Vale.

And Sun had bought ice cream.

Even a year ago, Blake would probably have chastised him and gotten mad. When she was on a mission, Blake was always focused. She hadn't had time for messing around or having fun. She had grown up operating in life or death situations, and there was little room for error.

But now, Blake smiled and took the cone of vanilla ice cream. Even though the sun was setting, she enjoyed the cool chill of the sweet treat as the slight breeze played with her hair. It was chilly, but not unpleasant.

They had been searching for hours now, and nothing had come up. Blake was beginning to feel the frustrated itch at the edge of her mind, growing more and more uneasy as they wasted daylight. Having Sun beside her, however, helped a lot. He tempered Blake's mood a little with his laid back attitude, and she was glad for it.

Around them, small shops and crowded streets were still bustling with activity. The north-west was not the nicest part of Vale. It was the newest part of the city, but rather than being nice and polished because of that, the buildings were old beyond their time and run down. After the war, most of the faunus immigrants to Vale had been stuck in the new section, and it had quickly turned into a slum.

"Doesn't it bother you?" Blake asked, casting her gaze around the dilapidated buildings and poorly garbed citizens. Most of them had visible faunus features like tails, extra ears or claws.

"What? That there's no sign of Torchwick?"

"No," Blake said, her voice soft and sad. "This. Most of these faunus have never done anything wrong, and they're being subjugated for being born. I don't necessarily agree with what the White Fang's doing, I've seen it first hand, but I still get why they're doing it."

"Hey," Sun was suddenly beside her, pressing his arm around her body, the warmth of his body washing over her and his scent, honey and almonds, calmed her. "It's wrong, I know, but if we're going to change it, it has to be legit."

"I know," Blake's voice wavered audibly. The scene around her hit a deep part of her heart, one that had been there since she was a child. "It's just, things like this remind me why I fought for the White Fang for so long. I mean, being a huntress is all well and good, but no matter how many monsters I kill, it won't do anything to help these people. I want to do something, anything, but how do you fight against the ideas that have grown so rooted in peoples brains you can't rip them out anymore? Against discrimination and hate?"

"I don't know," Sun replied, and his voice had the airiness of someone who was lost. Blake looked up at him, and she could see the troubled look in his eyes. "It almost makes you agree with the White Fang, eh?"

"Been there," Blake said deadpan. Next to her, Sun stilled, and when she looked at him again he was grinning.

"What if you went there again?" He said, and Blake almost flattened her ears in anger.

"I can't-"

"Nonono," He said cutting her off, leaning in to whisper in her ears. "What if you pretended to be looking to get recruited? I'll yell at you, you yell back, we fight, someone brakes it up, and you get recruited." Blake just eyed him. Sun never came up with plans, he was normally just along for the ride.

"I guess..." She said hesitantly.

Suddenly Blake felt herself thrown backwards. She dug her heels into the ground, sliding to a stop, her hand on Gambol Shroud. She looked up at Sun, who winked quickly at her, then his face became crestfallen.

"How can you say that?" He yelled at her, throwing his hand out wide for emphasis. "They're outlaws! Vagabonds! Don't throw your life away like that!" Blake understood what he was doing, and had to suppress a smile. Just imagine you're talking to Weiss. She thought.

"And just stay here?" She shouted back at him. "Look around, Sun! No one's happy here. When's the last time you met a human who didn't immediately hate you because you have a tail, huh?"

"What if the police catch you? Or you get hurt? The White Fang doesn't care, they're just a bunch of criminals!" Sun said, and Blake thought she caught some actual fear in his voice.

Blake looked around her. They had started to draw a small crowd of people dressed in ratty clothes. She saw ears flick through the crowd and tails twitch. She hadn't been around so many faunus since before she had gone to Beacon, and it felt eerily familiar. Sympathy welled up in her chest, as it so often had before when she saw the rest of the faunus.

Her amber eyes locked with a pair of dark green ones with a narrow slit instead of a pupil. It was a mother, clutching her child to her chest, and both of them were deathly skinny. It was the kind of thing that Blake used to see all the time, and it had always infuriated her. Anytime that she had started to doubt what the White Fang was doing was good, Adam would bring her to a slum or a ghetto or even the new recruits to show her the atrocities committed by humans to faunus. To show her how bad her kind had it, and why, no matter what the cost, they had to fight for the faunus' freedom. Pity, and sadness hit her like a wall, but more than that, a hopelessness so strong Blake wanted to curl up into a ball and cry.

How could they possibly ever change this?

Then she felt shame. She reached her hand up to her ears, her cat ears, and pulled on the bow that bound them. She had put that bow on every day since she had left the White Fang, hiding who she was because she was afraid of being judged. And didn't she have the right? Ever since she was a child, she had been abused because she was born different. When she fought back, stood up for the rest of her kind, she was called a criminal. And then she had fled, like a coward, and not thought about helping the faunus. Righting wrongs, perhaps, but not helping. She had been looking for redemption rather than progress, and she hated herself for that.

The bow drifted through the air and alighted on the ground. The world seemed to still around her, the entire crowd holding their breath and even Sun pausing.

"What kind of a world is it when someone has to wear a bow just to survive? To live a day without insult, or violence, or discrimination? Is this a world you're willing to accept?" her voice was an urgent whisper now, almost pleading with Sun, everyone around her, wanting so badly for them to know how wrong it all was. "I can't do that anymore, Sun. I have to help."

Sun just stood there dumbly, staring at her. Blake hadn't realized how much she had really meant what she said, but it must have been convincing. She locked eyes with Sun, and then someone walked out of the crowd.

"Enough,"

He was a young man, Blake's age probably, and he held himself with the kind of confidence that exuded authority. He was well built, a bit taller than she or Sun, and had a bow strapped to his back, but rather than the normal smooth surface, it looked like it was made of two curved, serrated blades. He had pointed ears, and he looked at Blake and smiled. She saw sharp fangs in place of regular teeth, but Blake was used to that. She recognized it for the smile it was, calm and reassuring. His face turned stoney as he turned back to face Sun.

"I think you should walk away." He said, his voice dangerously low. It could have been an actual growl for all Blake knew. Sun looked over his shoulder at Blake, and she gave him a curt nod. She hoped he understood. Walk away now, follow later.

Sun turned and walked briskly away, breaking through the crowd.

"Alright, everyone, clear off. Nothing to see here." He said, and the gathered faunus began to disperse. He turned back to her, and Blake met his gaze evenly. "I'm sorry that happened to you. I hate people like him. Not wanting to stand up for what's right because others will tell them its wrong, or criminal, or dangerous." He looked into her eyes, and she met his dark green ones. "But you're not like that are you?"

"I just can't stand around and watch this happen to us." Blake said, and it was true. She didn't need to lie to him.

"And you want to make a difference right? Fight for a better world?" Blake nodded at him curtly, and he grinned again. "Alright then, miss...?"

Blake considered lying for a second. She knew that, for the sake of the mission, she should give a fake name, just in case someone recognized her. She should, but it felt wrong. Blake had been wearing her bow every day of her new life, but the shame she felt for hiding when she saw the starving faunus held her tongue. She had lied to the world every single day, and Blake didn't want to lie. The White Fang wanted equality for the faunus, but they did it through violence. Blake wanted the same thing, but she had hid.

She had lied.

She didn't want to lie anymore, to anyone, about anything. She had justified the bow, and she could justify giving a fake name, but she could just as easily justify blowing up a train cart of dust full of crewmen.

"Belladonna." She answered simply.

"Belladonna, like the flower." The young man with the fangs mulled the name over, rolling it on his tongue. "You have a beautiful name. Very well, miss Belladonna, if you really want to make a difference, follow me."

And she did.

She followed the young man, who introduced himself as Samuel Rouge. Blake didn't say much as she followed behind him, making their way through the crowded slum. Every once in a while they would pass a young man or woman, and Sam would nod to them knowingly. It was like everyone there knew each other, Blake thought, and most of them were probably recruits. The slum was poor, its population ill fed and unkempt, but there did not seem to be a shortage of weapons, and Blake knew from whom those had come. The White Fang had been busy.

Finally, they made their way to a fenced in warehouse. The paved court in front of the warehouse was about a hundred feet wide and two hundred long, and utterly deserted.

The hangar was massive, just as wide as the yard and probably much longer. The roof was propped up on large steel pillars that looked like oversized train tracks standing at least seventy-five feet tall. The doors went almost all the way to the roof, and were made of old rusted metal. The roof reminded Blake of a barn, something that Blake hadn't seen for years. There were a lot of things Blake hadn't seen for many years; after leaving the White Fang, Blake's world had become much smaller as she worked to become a huntress.

The thing she missed most was probably the stars, though she had seen them since coming to Beacon. Of course, she could see the stars any night provided it wasn't cloudy, but she hadn't seen the stars. The massive expanse of twinkling little lights that seemed to light up the night sky, twisting across the sky. Almost like the universe's largest river of light.

She walked behind Sam as he walked through a little chain link door in the middle of the fence, closing it behind herself. She followed him through the large concrete field, suddenly feeling very exposed. In the streets, she knew that Sun would be close behind her on a rooftop or a lamppost, but here he wouldn't be able to follow. She hoped that Sun had called the others, because if anyone recognized her, she would be in a lot of trouble.

After the long walk through the courtyard, they came to a stop in front of the massive iron doors. Blake had expected there to be a smaller door on the side of the building or some such convenient entrance, but Sam walked straight up to the hangar doors. He pulled a scroll from his pocket, tapped a quick message, and then tucked it back into his pocket.

There was a grating, scratching, screeching sound and Blake's ears twitched involuntarily. The sound made her grimace, and she saw the right door start to move slowly to the side. Samuel Rouge looked back at her pitifully.

"Sorry, I know this bothers a lot of us."

When the door was open a few feet, the screeching stopped, and Blake relaxed a little. Sam stepped out of the sun's light into the shadow of the hangar, and Blake followed him.

It was dark inside, but her eyes quickly adjusted, and Blake caught her breath involuntarily. The entire front half of the hangar, which must have been a quarter mile long, was filled with cots and tables with close to a hundred faunus milling to and fro in the white tunics and dark leg armour of the White Fang. Some of them wore the white and red masks of the Grimm, but many others didn't, joking around with one another and laughing. Blake had forgotten that the White Fang didn't always wear masks, but it was what was behind the living quarters that astounded her.

Lines of war machines: Paladins, dust planes, artillery and Atlesian Knights, were filed row after row, filling the hangar until Blake's eyes lost them to the shadows of the warehouse. Even when General Ironwood had brought an entire fleet to Beacon during the Vytal Festival, Blake had never seen so many of the machines gathered in one place. There was an entire army there, and Blake had to force herself to look away. It worried her that the White Fang had so much military tech, and she knew that Torchwick had to be involved.

"Impressive, isn't it?" Sam said, still walking. Blake had to skip forward a step to catch up and walk beside him. "And that's only from this year. People think we're just an unorganized, ragtag group, but we're ready to fight. You'll see, the White Fang is so much more than you probably ever hoped. This time, we really have a shot at changing the world." He said with a smile, but Blake didn't answer.

They made their way to the only visible office space in the building, a small block of corrugated steel with a filmy window next to the rusted door so that Blake couldn't see into it properly.

"Hey Adam!" Sam called from beside her. Blake stopped moving.

What did he say?

Shock and fear gripped Blake's heart, and she couldn't move. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. It felt like someone had frozen her heart and dropped a stone into her stomach. Her eyes darted around wildly, looking for any escape, but found none.

"We've got another recruit. Her name's Miss Belladonna." He proclaimed.

A moment later the door to the little office opened and out stepped a tall man clad in dark leather shoes, black pants, and a red shirt under a long tailed coat with blood red decals on it and a white pattern over the heart that resembled three leaves. On his hip was strapped a long katana in a sheath, and Blake knew that it was wickedly sharp and could be drawn, strike, and re-sheathed in the blink of an eye.

Wilt and Blush.

The man had a strong jawline and angular features, or at least those that could be seen. The upper half of his face was covered by a white mask with red swirls decorating it, so similar to the skeletal faces that the Grimm bore. His hair was slicked back in spikes, and poking out from under his hair were two small horns. His expression was stony, impassive and unreadable, but it was still familiar to her. Blake knew that face better than her own. It was the same face that had comforted her after her parents had died. It was the same face that had made the decision to slaughter an entire train crew. It was the same face that had been painted forever in her memory as the saddest day of her life; the face she had seen as she cut the bolt connecting two train carts and left everything she knew. It was a face she had once loved, and then learned to fear. It was a face from a life that Blake had thought she had left behind, but now her ghosts had returned to haunt her.

"Well," Adam Taurus said, his voice as cold, smooth and hard as a whetstone. "It seems like the prodigal daughter has returned."

/

Well, that was quite the break! I do apologize, it was not intentional, it's just that my schedule picked up unexpectedly for a brief period of time and I couldn't find a spare minute to write at all. I'm getting this chapter up as soon as I can, and I should be back on schedule afterwards. For those of you missing team JNPR, don't worry, they'll be back soon! This just ended up being longer than I thought it would be, so I shuffled the JNPR scene around and it'll end up in the next chapter or two. Otherwise, any comments, thoughts, ideas or suggestions are appreciated and encouraged! Until next time.

-Unjax