Chapter 11 – The Unthinkable

The blade came crashing down and pierced Cinder's stomach. Cinder screamed in pain as the knight leaned over to her and had begun to speak next to her ear.

"If Pyrrha were to see me now, there is no doubt that she would not want me to do this… but I can never forgive you for what you have done to me… and to the school." Cinder stared at the boy's eye in fear as she undoubtedly knew that her death was imminent.

"I'm taking back what is rightfully mine and I will make sure that every single person responsible for the attack at my school will suffer the consequences." Jaune said. He slammed his hand on Cinder's face and begun to absorb the power she had taken from him prior from the battle. Cinder screamed in pain as her powers were absorbed by the black knight, leaving nothing left in her body. Jaune got back to his feet and stared emptily at the woman whose lay emotionless on the floor.

"So absorbing every ounce of her aura caused her to die huh? It doesn't matter. She got what was coming for her and now all that's left is the other three." Jaune thought. Immediately after, a massive pain surged through his body and mind. He collapsed to one knee and begun to yell in pain. Both eyes returned to its black state and his black aura surrounded his body as it was about to form his black knight armor.

"No… I am not letting this takeover. Not yet… I… I still have to…" Jaune struggled to regain consciousness and wouldn't let the Dark overpower him. He got back to his feet and managed to get back his senses. His eyes remained like Cinder's and he conjured up the black flames he had consumed from her.

"This trick will be very useful." Jaune said. He walked over to the dead body and used his semblance to swallow the body into the black void.

"This is easier than carrying that sorry excuse for a human being." Jaune took one last look at the destroyed area and left towards to the village to meet up with the others.

Reunion

"JAUNE!" Ruby yelled as she ran towards the knight's arms and embraced him tightly. The others were surprised that he was alive and wanted to know what happened to Cinder.

"What happened to Cinder?" Qrow asked as he stared at the boy.

"I… I killed her."

"You what? I thought the plan was not to kill her Jaune!" Blake said angrily.

"We could have gotten information out of her about where the others may be!"

"You think I didn't know that? It was kill or be killed!" Jaune yelled as he glared at the Faunus.

"Alright calm down. The last thing we need is to turn on ourselves for a stupid thing like this. Jaune is right, he could have died if he only tried to subdue her." Weiss said.

"Damn it! What are we supposed to do now?" Blake said.

"We'll locate Jay and we'll force him to tell us why he helped Torchwick and that girl Neo." Jaune said.

"You remember what happened when you went berserk?" Ren asked.

"Yes I did… I'm sorry for what I was about to do Ruby. I couldn't control myself." Jaune said to the girl who still held Jaune.

"No need to apologize. I believe whatever you say. You did save me when I was bleeding out."

"Saved you?"

"Yeah! The ring you gave me managed to heal me when my aura was completely used up." Ruby said, hugging the boy tighter.

"I see… well can you let go? I'm kind of losing air here."

"Nope."

"In any case, my first priority is to retrieve the body and bring it to the authorities. All of you can return back to the Atlas port where our ride to Beacon will be. I am going back to the woods." Qrow said as he begun to walk towards the battlefield's direction.

"There's no need. I have the body with me." Jaune said.

"What do you mean with you?" Ren asked.

"I discovered my semblance back in the fight. It allows me to create a black hole that can consume anything that comes near it, as long as it's smaller or similar in size."

"AWESOME!" Nora yelled.

"CAN I SEE IT HUH!?"

"No Nora you can't. Maybe if we spar or go into a different fight you will." Jaune said.

"Aw."

"Hey by the way… what's wrong with Yang?" Jaune looked at the direction where Yang was. She was staring at the Moon with an arm sling holding her broken arm which was caused by Neo.

"She is upset about the whole Jay problem thing." Ren said.

"She doesn't want to believe the possibility of Jay actually working for Torchwick. That could be hard to believe, I mean he did save Yang." Nora said, looking at the same direction. Jaune tried to think of a reason why Jay would do something like that. Could he possibly be working for Torchwick? He lost his team because of the attack on the school and if he did want revenge just like Jaune, he would have allowed them to die. At the moment, Jaune couldn't think of any possibilities and had to move on without him.

"It doesn't matter. Right now we need to focus on going back home and try to get some rest. If he is working for them, he should have something back in his dorm room that could possibly lead us to him." Jaune said.

"Alright I guess that should be a start. If we can find him, we can find the others." Blake said. Qrow walked over to the yellow haired girl who was depressed about the whole situation.

"Let's go Yang… We're going home." Qrow said. Both teams walked back to Atlas to return home and as they were walking, a mysterious person watched them leave. The person wore a white mask that resembled that of a creature of Grimm and had black hair. She unsheathed her weapon which looked similar to that of Adam and slashed through the air, creating a black portal which she walked in and disappeared.

A New Relationship

Jaune and everyone arrived back at school and returned to their daily routines. Jaune gave the dead body to Ironwood in Ozpin's office, which was then exported by Ironwood and his men back to his ship to Atlas. Once Ironwood left, Ozpin and Jaune had begun to discuss what should their next move be, considering that Jaune just took down one of the people they have been looking for many months.

"Jaune, you didn't have to kill Cinder. She could've had information about a person we are interested in looking for." Ozpin said.

"It was kill or be killed Professor Ozpin. I have a feeling that you of all people would have a good idea how strong Cinder is." Jaune said.

"I understand. I also have to inform you about something that we were… still keeping secret from you."

"Why are you still holding secrets from me? I thought you trusted me when you told me everything I need to know about the Dark and the stories behind it. What else are you keeping from me Professor?" Jaune asked, his serious tone signaled that the boy was agitated.

"We have been keeping a woman named Amber here secretly from everyone else other than James, Glynda, and Qrow. The reason for this is because she is the Fall Maiden."

"Why would you keep something like this from me? I could have used her help against Cinder and the other criminals who were at the meeting! If I would have had her in my side, Ruby and the rest of the teams wouldn't have had to go through all that torture from battling! Not only that, but we could have used her help during the attack on Beacon!"

"I understand your frustration, but she had some of her Maiden powers taken by Cinder before you were accepted to Beacon which caused her to be in a coma for a quite a while. When you killed Cinder, the Maiden powers returned to its original owner, meaning that Amber was able to be revived again and be at her full strength." Right after Ozpin said this, Amber came out of the elevator and saw the two talking to each other.

"I have to thank you for killing that woman for me. If it weren't for you, I would still be stuck in that Cryo Pod." Amber said, as she walked closer to the blonde knight.

"There is no need to thank m…" Jaune was interrupted by a kiss from Amber who seemed to have enjoyed the short kiss which made it seem for hours.

"You could have waited until you left my office you know." Qrow said, covering his eyes from the two.

"You didn't really have to do that. Simple thanks would have been nice." Jaune said as he looked at the girl's eyes.

"Well I thought that a kiss was a better way to thank you, considering that you risked your life to stop the woman who nearly killed me."

"Well I didn't know she had your powers. I merely fought her for the purpose of getting back to her for what she did to the school and to my teammate."

"I'm sure if you knew what had happened to me, you would have still done the same thing."

"Yeah… I guess you're right." Jaune said. He turned back around and told Ozpin about his next course of action. He intends to investigate the whereabouts of Jay. If he can find Jay, he could lead him to Torchwick, which could then lead him to Adam and Rhett.

"I am going to need you to take it easy for a while Jaune. You did an excellent job with Qrow, but I am going to need you to investigate some things around Vale." Qrow said, sipping his coffee mug.

"I don't have time for small jobs Professor Ozpin, I need to quickly find Torchwick and the others and bring them to Justice." Jaune said, insisting that he continues his search for the dangerous criminals.

"But these aren't just any ordinary cases. These cases involve kidnappings in and outside of the school. While you were gone there were a few kidnappings that took place. However, the bodies haven't been found, unlike the kidnappings prior to the attack on school."

"I've heard about these kidnappings in the news as of late. Apparently these kidnapping have been happening ever since my first month at Beacon."

"That's right. The bodies that were found prior to the attack had scars and bruises, as if they were subject to torture prior to their deaths." Ozpin said

"Rhett… I recall Qrow telling me about the possibility of Rhett being the person who could be responsible for these kidnappings."

"Correct. However, I do not believe Rhett himself is kidnapping these people. He most likely has people working under him to perform these atrocious acts. I want you to figure out whether or not he is behind these acts and find anything that could trace him to his whereabouts."

"Okay… I'll do it. If I find anything important, I will be sure to tell you first."

"One more thing, since you really wanted Amber to come along with you at the meeting, I will be assigning her as your teammate on this case. You two will have more time to get to know each other personally and hopefully the both of you can form a friendly relationship." Ozpin said as he turned to the window to stare at the scenery.

"Sounds like a fun idea." Amber said smiling at the professor and Jaune.

"Yeah… sounds great." Jaune said, sarcastically. The two were dismissed and exchanged information to advice each other when they should begin their assignment. They said their goodbyes and left to their rooms.

Voice

A week has passed since the battle and Ruby's 16th birthday had arrived. Everyone gathered around her as she was ready to blow her candles. Jaune, Ren, Nora, Blake, Weiss, and even Zwei gathered around her as they wished her a happy birthday. However, one was missing in the gathering. It was Yang who had left before the teams had begun to sing to the birthday girl. She went to JADE's dorm room to find anything that could somehow lead to Jay's whereabouts. She looked high and low, but couldn't find anything other than pictures of him and Ash together.

"Is that her sister?" Yang asked as she flipped through a picture book that Ash had underneath her mattress. She came across a picture that had Jay's arms holding Ash in a pose that made them seem like a couple. Yang's eyes turned red and continued to flip through the pictures causing some of them to rip. She threw the book across the room and had begun to tear up at the thought of Jay already being in a relationship.

"If I would have known that he was with someone, I wouldn't have kissed him in the first place." Yang said as she looked at the ceiling with sadness in her eyes. She walked over to Jay's bed and broke a photo frame of him holding his pistols. Yang noticed a small piece of paper fall out of the frame which contained coordinates. The coordinates wasn't far from here and is only a 20 minute walk from school. She grabbed her bag and left to the destination, not telling anyone where she was heading.

"Hey Jaune." Blake asked.

"What's up?"

"Have you seen Yang? I haven't seen her for a while now. She is going to miss Ruby opening her presents."

"I haven't seen her. I can use my aura to locate her though. Give me a few minutes." Jaune said. During the week, he had practiced on sensing other people's aura and he could easily tell what kind of aura each of his friend's had. He managed to pick up Yang's aura after a few minutes and told Blake.

"She isn't too far from here. If you want, I can go get her."

"Please do. The last thing Ruby wants his for her sister to not be here." Jaune walked out of the room and headed towards Yang's prior location. Once he ended up in JADE's dorm room, Jaune called out for Yang, but there was no response. He looked around to find a broken picture frame and a picture book across the floor. Jaune could only guess that Yang found out about Ash. He sat on the bed and again tried to locate her. While he was doing this, Yang found an old abandoned shack in the woods which scared her a bit. She walked inside and found nothing that could trace back to Jay. She stomped her foot to the ground in anger and busted a hole underneath her and found stairs leading down. She pulled out her phone and activated it's flashlight to light up the way leading down. Once she reached the bottom, she found a light switch on the side and flicked it on. Sets of lights turned on and revealed a very wide room that looked like a garage. On the corner of her eye she found bookcases filled with tons of books that looked very old. She looked across the room and found a working bench. On the working bench was an electronic scroll which she turned on. The scroll revealed a map of Vale and surrounding areas which gave her more questions than answers. She looked underneath the bench and found a silver box with sigils surrounding it. She attempted to open the box with one arm and caused an electric shock which caused Yang to drop it to the ground.

"What the hell was that?!" Yang yelled as she shook her arm. She picked the box back up and placed it into her backpack. She looked back at the scroll and went through its contents, hoping to find something else interesting. She found several voice recordings inside the scroll and decided to play the oldest one to see what they were about.

"Okay I hope this recording sounds better than my old voice recorder. Anyways, today is July 28? I think… I don't know somewhere around there. The point is that Ash and I have finally been accepted to Beacon and they couldn't say no to a person like me who is very skilled in hand to hand combat. Considering that I was ranked highest in my school shouldn't really be a surprise now does it. Ash on the other hand specializes in weaponry and I have something in mind to give her for her birthday. It's still a work in progress, but I'm sure it's going to be very useful to her, considering that I am going to make it unique to any other weapon out in the world. I uhh still haven't managed to ask her out on a date yet. I know… I should have already asked her, but I am going to wait till I give her the weapon as a present in a few months and then ask her out. I really do hope she says yes. JAMES! WE'RE GOING TO BE LATE FOR THE AIRSHIP TO BEACON! Oh damn… I'M COMING! *Recording end*

"This was from months ago." Yang said. She was about to press the next recording, but then heard footsteps coming down.

"Yang?! Are you in here!?" Jaune yelled as he saw the yellow haired girl standing in front of the workbench.

"Hey what are you doing here? And what is this place?" Jaune asked as he looked around the place.

"First off, how did you find me!?" asked Yang.

"Well I learned how to sense people from a mile away using my Dark aura. I already have a good idea on how your aura is so it wasn't that hard to find you."

"Oh…I… I found coordinates from Jay's room and it led me here."

"Do you have any idea what this place could be Yang?" Jaune continued to look around and went through a couple of the books that were in the shelf.

"I can only guess that it's some sort of workshop that apparently belongs to Jay."

"What makes you think that it belongs to Jay?" Jaune asked.

"I have a hunch." They both continued to look around and tried to find anything that could determine Jay's location, but nothing came up.

"All I found was books, stories, and words that I don't even think are considered a language. Let's get out of here and get back to the party. Your sister is waiting for you Yang." Jaune said as he held out his arm to her.

"Yeah… I guess you're right." She was looking through a box that had a tape recorder with a single tape in it. She grabbed Jaune's hand to lift herself back to her feet and both left the old shack, making sure that the floor was concealed.

The night ended with everyone having a great time and went their separate ways. Yang and the rest of her team immediately went straight for their beds. Yang placed her bag next to her to make sure it doesn't leave her sight. She doesn't know what she is going to do with the silver box, but she intends to listen to the recordings Jay had left when she's by herself.

You're all probably wondering why I made the decision for the chapter to be a mix of both choice A and B. Well, originally choice B had won by one vote. However, multiple users voted for choice A at the same hour. I found this quite suspicious so I did a little investigating and as it turns out, the accounts were created around the same hour. Coincidence? No, too convenient. I decided to go with both choice A and B. You might not like my decision, but if the accounts were indeed created by the same person, the total votes for each choice would have been a tie. So this would be the only decision I can make to please both sides. I hope you enjoyed the chapter nonetheless and I hope you stick around. If this displeased you in any way and you no longer care about any future chapters, I hope you had enjoyed your stay!