"Yes!" Ruby cheered out loud, and next to her plenty of people's gazes swiveled to stare at her. She grinned as she looked down at her scroll, seeing the first good news of the day, ignoring the questioning glares around her. Ruby just grabbed Neptune's arm and started running through the street.

The message had been from Sun, and apparently he was following Blake to find the White Fang hideout. She didn't bother figuring out why they had separated and why it was just Blake that knew how to get there. She decided it must have something to do with Blake's connections or faunus-ness or something or other.

Beside her, Neptune kept pace, but she heard his breath become labored after a moment. Ruby could have used her semblance to get to the coordinates Sun had sent them in a few minutes, but it would tire her out and leave Neptune in the dust. Running had not been the best idea. She scanned the road ahead of them, seeing cars, trucks and busses whirling around. In the middle of the crowded street, there was a large double decker bus, and Ruby grinned.

She wrapped her arms around Neptune, and before he could let out the surprised words forming on his tongue, Ruby's semblance sent them careening towards the bus. Just before they hit it, Ruby reached an arm out and grabbed the railing on the back of the bus, grunting as the bus's momentum carried over to them and they were tugged forward. Neptune, looking baffled, reached forward and grabbed the railing as well, and the two shimmied up it to the roof where they sat.

"Please, never do that again." Neptune wheezed, and Ruby giggled.

"You'll be fine." She said reassuringly.

"So, why are we on a bus?"

"Check your scroll." Ruby replied, upbeat as ever.

Neptune did as she suggested, and Ruby knew he would find the message Sun had sent out. Ruby hoped that Sun was keeping an eye on Blake right now. When it came to the White Fang or Torchwick, Blake tended to get all... Blake-y. Ruby just hoped that Blake could keep her head level today.

Rather than dwelling on the precarious nature of their mission, Ruby studied Neptune for a moment. She supposed she understood why Weiss found him attractive. He had a kind of suave demeanor, cool and confident, and he had an easy way with words that probably made Weiss feel more comfortable. That was a big thing for Ruby's partner, seeming as her entire childhood had involved postured and faked political politeness.

Earlier, when Yang had been inside Junior's club, Ruby had been stuck outside with Blake, Sun, Neptune and Weiss. Being around couples always made her feel uncomfortable, probably because Ruby was more attached to her scythe than any human, but Weiss had looked a lot happier than Ruby had seen her in a long time. She and Neptune had had a tumultuous relationship before Weiss had decided to make it official, but that had paid off.

"Hey, Neptune?" She spoke up, somewhat more serious than she usually was.

"Sup?" He asked cavalierly.

"Don't let Weiss down." Ruby spoke softly. Neptune looked at her with an eye raised.

"Huh?" He said confusedly.

"I just want you to know that Weiss hasn't really ever had someone like you in her life before. If things go south, you might hurt her more than you think. Just be careful." Neptune paused for a second before replying.

"I know." For the first time that Ruby had heard, Neptune's voice was totally serious. "I really do care about her, Ruby. I've been so hesitant because, well, I didn't want to mess it up with her. I know she's your partner and your teammate, but I'll take good care of her."

"Promise?"

"Promise." Neptune confirmed with a nod of his head.

/

"And no headaches?" The doctor asked, one of what must have been thousands of questions that the doctors had been asking Pyrrha before they would let her be discharged.

"They're fine, thank you." She answered, and Jaune saw her smile politely. She was always polite, and her voice never lost the melodious, musical peals that Jaune enjoyed to hear so much.

"Any other symptoms you've noticed, miss Nikos?" The doctor asked, and Jaune perked up in his seat. He had been in the infirmary more times than he cared to admit, and that was always the last question that the medical staff of Beacon asked him.

"No, thank you for asking." She replied patiently.

"Very well then, it seems you're healthy enough to be discharged miss Nikos. Just remember to continue resting as much as you can and if anything comes up, come and see us."

"I'll do that. Thank you very much doctor." She said, and the doctor dipped his head in acknowledgement. Jaune wondered if he should start keeping track of how often Pyrrha said sorry or thank you.

The doctor exited the room, leaving Pyrrha alone with Jaune. For the first time in days, she was wearing her usual clothes; circlet, armored corset, battle skirt, grieves and gloves. Jaune liked that look much more than the flower pattern gown that the hospital had given her, though Pyrrha was striking to him no matter what.

"So, feeling better?" Jaune asked her, and she smiled back.

"I think I just got asked that. Over and over again." She replied, and Jaune smiled back. Between her politeness and caring nature, Pyrrha didn't joke often, but Jaune loved it when she did. It was a good sign that her humor was recovering.

"Good point," He admitted, standing from his chair. He walked over to beside Pyrrha's bed and offered her his arm. "So, want to go for a walk m'lady?" He asked in mock chivalry.

"I'd be delighted." She replied, and Jaune saw the glint in her eye that he was so accustomed to. Sitting in a hospital didn't do any good for Pyrrha. She was the kind of person who needed to be active, and a walk around the campus might do her good before they made their way back to the dorms.

She took his hand and he pulled her out of the hospital bed. He knew from experience that those were stiff and uncomfortable, but Pyrrha hadn't made a single complaint about it while Jaune had been there, and he had been in her room a lot. Since she had been admitted, Jaune had come every day after classes to go over what they had learned that day with her. As her partner, it was his duty to keep her caught up on her work. It also gave him an excuse to spend more time with her.

They made their way down the staircase, and Jaune walked beside Pyrrha, ready to help if she stumbled at all, but she walked with more ease and grace than he did. When they reached the door that exited the medical bay, Jaune absently opened the door for Pyrrha. He was thinking about what had happened to her; about the fact that she had been poisoned. Jaune had no idea what that needle was that Cinder had used, or how the Grimm had been captured, or why the Deathstalker had been so strong and fast, but he had a sneaking suspicion it all had something to do with that black dust.

Cold autumn air cut through his thoughts though, and Jaune was pulled back to the present. He looked out at the cobblestone paths that twisted through Beacon, lined with trees. Red and yellow leaves spun through the air, tumbling towards the ground in the chilly breeze. He worried for a moment that Pyrrha might feel cold, but he had seen her wear her armor in the dead of winter before. He was pretty sure that Pyrrha used her aura to ward off the wind somehow, which Jaune considered cheating. He had gained more control over his aura in the past few years, and even his semblance had begun to show up, but he would never have the finesse and control over his aura that Pyrrha and Ren had.

Beside Jaune, Pyrrha shivered, and he looked at her curiously. He hadn't worn his armor over his hoodie today, seeming as combat class today was theory rather than practice, so he pulled it over his head and offered it to Pyrrha. She smiled at him and took it, sliding it gracefully over her smooth arms before pulling her long ponytail out the back and letting it fall down over her shoulder. She should have looked silly, Jaune thought, wearing a white hoodie, short red skirt and knee high grieves, but somehow she made it look endearing. Jaune just shook his head and laughed to himself a bit; his partner pulled off his hoodie better than he did.

"Thanks," Pyrrha said from beside him. "You truly are my knight in shining armor." He could hear the good humored laugh in her voice, and let her comment slide. Pyrrha joked more when it was just the two of them, and he no longer minded when he was the subject of her jokes, which often sarcastically portrayed him as her hero. He wished it were true, but more than that, he just liked hearing her talk.

"Eh, we all know you could just use your aura to shield yourself anyways." He said, curious as to why she hadn't. Rather than answering though, Pyrrha just looked away, almost guiltily. Jaune's brow creased, but decided he would investigate further later.

The two walked in silence for a bit, enjoying one another's company. Jaune didn't know why, but there weren't many things he liked more than spending time with Pyrrha. It didn't have to be in their regular training sessions, or in class, or even talking, but if she was beside him, Jaune always felt a little happier. After a while though, Jaune noticed Pyrrha's skin rising in goosebumps. He could feel the air sapping away his warmth, and he imagined it was doing the same to her. He hadn't expected Pyrrha to get cold so quickly though, as between her aura and his hoodie, she should have been fine.

"Do you want to go back inside?" He asked her, and Pyrrha nodded. Jaune didn't miss the troubled look on her face, but if she had wanted to say something she would have, so he didn't press.

They took the most direct route back to the dorms, and Jaune swiped his scroll in front of the doors to get inside. He had expected Pyrrha to return his hoodie when they got back inside, but she didn't remove it and he didn't ask. He didn't mind if she kept it for a bit.

Jaune studied his partner carefully for a moment. Neither of them felt compelled to fill silences with empty talk, but it also wasn't unlike them to talk at all for more than a few minutes. Thinking about it, Pyrrha had been quite silent for the past few days. Something was probably troubling her.

"So, I was thinking of working on my aura for a bit if you wanted to do it together." Jaune proposed, hoping he could get Pyrrha to do something, anything.

"Why don't you go ahead without me." She said shyly, and alarm bells went off in Jaune's mind. Pyrrha cradled her elbow with her hand, lowered her gaze and looked away. She looked defeated, and Pyrrha never looked defeated.

"C'mon," He urged, "You know you help just by being there. Even if I can just study you working with your aura, maybe figure out how to do that little wind blocking tri-"

"I can't Jaune." Pyrrha's voice was thick with a sadness that Jaune had only heard a handful of times. Mostly back in first year when he talked to her about Weiss.

Yeah, you were an idiot, Arc. He thought to himself before refocusing on Pyrrha.

"Huh?" He replied dumbly after a second.

"I can't help you with aura tonight, I can't make my aura block the wind, and I can't move Mil-"

"Slow down Pyrrha." Jaune urged grabbing her shoulders gently and looking into her beautiful emerald eyes. "What's wrong?"

"It's my aura Jaune." She explained, her voice low and soft. "It's not that I don't want to help, it's that I can't."

"You mean..." Jaune trailed off, the troubled furrow between his eyes coming back. Pyrrha grabbed a couple coins that had been left out on the table just inside the entrance of the dorm and threw them into the air. Jaune had seen her do that before on the rooftop, but she normally threw the coins further away and then drew Milos and shot them out of the sky. Now though, even though Pyrrha's hand was outstretched and her face stern with concentration, the coins fell to the ground, tinkling against one another as they bounced off the wooden floor.

"My semblance, my aura," She said, her voice heavy and burdened. "They haven't worked since I woke up."

Jaune looked at her, shocked and surprised.

"Oh," Was all he could think to say.

/

Blake's mind immediately began to spring into action, thinking about a thousand different possibilities. She wanted to lunge at him with her sword drawn, or run back the way she had come, or scream for help, or dial on her scroll, but she forced herself to be still. She had just walked into a minefield, and if she wanted to make it out alive, she was going to have to check, double check, then recheck each step before she took it.

That was the last rational thought to go through Blake's mind before her entire body seemed to rebel. Her heart began beating quickly, sending her pulse crashing through her veins and roaring in her ears. Her stomach twisted as if she had been stabbed with a knife, and her legs trembled even though it wasn't the least bit cold. Before her was Adam Taurus. Her partner, her friend, her savior, and her monster. He was everything about that life that she longed for and feared.

"It's been a while Blake," His voice was calm and cool, as though he had complete control of the situation. Which of course he did. "Where did you find her?" His voice took on a more authoritative tone as he spoke to Sam behind her.

"In the streets arguing with some coward who thought she shouldn't join up with us." He replied with obvious contempt. Adam seemed to think for a second before his gaze, masked by the horrifying depiction of a Grimm, came to rest on Blake once more.

"Hm," Adam mused, and Blake knew he was thinking. He tilted his head downward for a moment before letting out a brief sigh. "Unfortunately, my thoughts on the matter of what to do with you, Blake, are irrelevant. Now, before we do anything else, Gambol Shroud please."

He held out his hand to her, and Blake stiffened. She glared at that hand, knowing exactly what would happen if she handed it over. She'd be giving up her only chance to fight her way out, and she'd be alone with nothing but her mind.

"Look around you Blake." Adam insisted, his voice almost disappointed. "If you think you can take on a hundred trained soldiers, be my guest. You won't win though. If you give me Gambol Shroud though, you have a chance at escaping or being set free. Which one makes more sense?"

Dammit, Blake cursed mentally. She reached over her shoulder and detached Gambol Shroud from the small clasp on her back, flipped it around and caught the bladed sheath so that the handle was pointing to Adam. He knew her too well, and knew how she thought. Of course he would know what to say to get her to drop her weapon. Even if she could think her way out of the situation, Adam would probably figure out what she was planning.

Before she could do anything, though, Adam grabbed her roughly by the arm and pushed her into his office. As she stumbled through the door, Blake realized that what she had thought was an office was really not. At the back of it there was another door, this one polished and new. Adam punched a code into the keypad on the side, his strong hands still holding Gambol Shroud. Inside the confines of the room, they were alone, and if Blake could move fast enough, she might be able to get her weapon back. If she did that, then somehow managed to beat Adam, she might be able to escape.

Yeah, through a hundred more White Fang. She chided herself mentally. Of course that wasn't going to work.

The door swung open, and without being urged, Blake began to walk down the path. There was no real point to resisting. All it would do was buy time, but right now, Blake needed to keep moving. There was nothing where she was that could help her, so she needed to keep going until she could somehow get a message or sign to her teammates.

The shadowy corridor stretched onwards, twisting and turning and branching off a few times as they passed through it. As far as Blake could tell, though, they kept along the main pathway as they twisted and turned through what must have been the space behind the warehouse. They didn't move up or down, so Blake knew they were still on the ground.

"Why are you here Blake?" He asked after a long silence, breaking Blake's concentration on mapping the turns they had been taking.

Now she had to decide. She could lie, try to convince him that she wanted to rejoin the White Fang, and take the chance that if she was found out, it would make her punishment all the worse. They wouldn't believe her, of course. Over the past few years, Blake had taken part in shutting down a few extremist operations in and around Vale, including those of the White Fang. She was too well known.

Or she could tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth; that she had come here to figure out the White Fang's intentions and there were probably five other huntsmen and huntresses in training on their way. That would probably end in a hostage situation, or just her being killed and dumped while the White Fang tried to pack up before the others arrived.

She decided it was best to meet in the middle. Convince them she had come to find out what was happening, but not with her team, Sun and Neptune. Or simply allow them to believe that until her friends could step in and help.

"I think you know why I'm here." Blake said, fighting to keep her voice calm even as her eyes flew around the narrow passage wildly, looking for anything at all she could use to signal her teammates. She needed help.

"You're wrong Blake." Adam replied softly as they stepped into a new, large, dimly lit room with ten foot tall steel doors lining the sides of the walls, which extended into darkness so far that even Blake's sensitive eyes could not see the end. Her eyes darted to his face, and she saw an odd expression there. Hopefulness twisted by anger and fear. "I don't know. I want you to be coming back. I want you to rejoin the White Fang; help us liberate the faunus. I know that you could never live with yourself if you just allowed the faunus to suffer everyday. At least, the Blake I knew wouldn't be able to."

She could hear the yearning in his voice and see the delicate hope in his soft features, and her own desire, buried deep under years of working to redeem herself, began to surface inside her. Though she loved Beacon and the life she had begun to live, one where she had Yang, and Sun, and her team, and her friends, there was still a part of her that yearned for the wild freedom of being an outlaw. A life where there was only one other person that mattered and the rest of her heart was filled by purpose, a fight to find equality in a world where it had never existed. Where she knew everyday that she was fighting for a better life for thousands. Being a huntress let her work to save others, but there was always a part of Blake that felt guilty that she was allowing her kind to continue on in hardship, that everyday she didn't help them was a day that she betrayed her own.

Blake hated herself for that. Blake hated herself for running away from that life. That's all she had ever done, and while Beacon had helped to ground her, Blake was still terrified she would run again. That's why she wore the bow; because if anyone ever found out who she was, she would have another reason to run.

Blake let her amber eyes drift up to Adam's face, looking at his invisible eyes through the mask. His face was unreadable with that mask overtop it, and Blake knew that his mask would never come off again. The physical recreation of the appearance of a Grimm might be removed, but Adam had turned himself into a monster forever. Just as Blake hated that she had ran, she knew she wouldn't have been able to survive by Adam's side. She would have had to change to be like him, to become a monster, if she had stayed. Even though she had done her best to fight for the faunus, Adam's influence had bled into her life. The man she had loved, as if he were her family, had slowly warped and changed until he was no longer fighting to build a life for the faunus, but to ruin those who had wronged their kind. It had haunted her every day since, but Blake had had to leave. She hadn't had a choice.

Adam stared at her for a moment, and she knew his attention was fixed on her eyes. She knew that he was thinking about the past they had shared, and how much he wanted it back. She wanted it back too, but she didn't say why it couldn't happen. She just let him focus on her as her hand moved slightly, her hand tapping a small button on her scroll.

"I'm sorry," Blake whispered, closing her eyes and allowing the single silver tear growing in her eye to be shed and slide down her face. She was sorry for leaving him, for betraying the faunus, for hiding in her new life, and for deceiving him just now.

He looked at her, his face twisting in anger and his nostrils flaring. He opened his mouth, and Blake braced herself for his words, and likely violent actions.

"Taurus!" A sharp, feminine voice cut through the air, and Adam shrank back, silenced. "What is going on?" It asked in a tone that reminded Blake of the sweet stench of rotting flowers.

Blake looked down the gloomy hallway to see a woman in a dark, scarlet skintight dress with long sleeves walking towards her. The orange swirls that sparkled on the side of her dress flared momentarily, and her ashen, black hair fell in soft curls over her shoulder. It was the woman, Cinder, that they had met in Forever Fall. Blake saw a slight movement in the shadows behind her, and saw a slight figure with pink and hazelnut brown hair, which matched her outfit of pink brown and white. Blake saw her old fashioned parasol resting between her hand and shoulder, and Neo grinned sharply from the shadows.

From what she knew, Neo and Adam were both excellent fighters, and if the woman, Cinder, was as intimidating as she looked, she would probably be dangerous herself. But team RWBY was used to dangerous, and with the help of Sun and Neptune, they outnumbered the three adversary's two to one. With those odds, Blake felt comfortable they could apprehend these 'ne'er do wells,' as Weiss would say. She just hoped that they had followed the location signal she had turned on when she had stolen Adam's attention for a brief moment.

Suddenly, Blake heard a creaking sound from above, like an ice cube cracking in water. She looked up to see a blue and white frost spidering out in a circle from above her, and she smiled. She knew exactly what was happening.

Blake dove to the side just as she heard a massive crack split the air, and she heard concrete tumble across the ground from where she had been just a second ago. Blake breathed in a bit of the dust, and so coughed as she stood again to see a cool mist pouring forth from the newly made hole in the ceiling. In the middle of the rubble stood Yang Xiao Long, standing tall and bright as the rest of the team dropped in around her. Her eyes were burning red, and her hair was alight, and she stared down the Adam, Cinder and Neo.

"Alright," She said, popping her knuckles and cracking her neck. "Which one of you is first?"

/

So this story is starting to get pretty long. On my document, its getting close to a hundred pages, and I'm only about a third of the way through the plot points that I've laid out for the story. So I've decided that this story is going to be split into three different volumes, each of which will correspond to one of the 'acts' that I designed for the fic. I didn't expect to be writing as much as I am for each plot point, so its just starting to get long. This story probably has another three or four chapters in it before we hit the second act, but after that, there will be a short break before the release of part two. I'm also working to find the time to write consistently, as I've been finding I can't get out the usual 4000 word chapters in a timely manner anymore. I might change to slightly shorter chapters, or just readjust my timeline for releases. Other than that, hope you're enjoying so far, and if you have any comments, thoughts, ideas or suggestions, please let me know! Aiming for next update within a week and a half.