Chapter 12 – Questions

A few days passed and the days were not quite nice to the teams. They had large amounts of homework that had to be done due to their absences. All they can do now is return back to the schedule and maintain their grades in the school. When the classes ended for the day, Yang returned to her room to finally listen to the other recording of the scroll Jay had left in his workshop. That was all she could ever think about in class, the scroll. This made it hard for her to concentrate in class which caused her scores to drop steadily. Her friends had become worried about her and spent more time with her than they should have. This made it more difficult for Yang to listen to the recordings alone in her room, let alone anywhere in the school when her team is following her around.

*RECORDING START…*

"Alright, today is August 9th and my team is currently asleep, or at least I hope they are. Do you have any idea how weird it would be if they see or even hear me talking to a scroll? Well, yea I have my own team now. I was very surprised that I was named the leader and not Dustin since he seems a lot more intelligent than I am. I even went to Ozpin's office to ask him to change his mind and choose Dustin, but he insisted that I remained as the leader. I never led anything in my life, let alone a team. I always preferred to work alone, but when Ash came into the picture, alone wasn't really an option anymore and also… Ash is in my team. How exciting is that? To have a girl who I really like in the same team! Anyways, Ash and I arrived to Beacon about a week ago and saw something really funny on the way here. A guy was puking during the flight to the school. At the worst time possible I might add. Ash and I were having a moment when vomit boy came from out of nowhere and blew passed through us. I can't believe that happened. COULDN'T HE WAIT FOR A COUPLE OF MORE SECONDS!? …Other than that, I found this old shack not too far from here. I plan on making that my own secret personal workshop to work on Ash's birthday gift and also add the finishing touches on my tactical knife that I have been working on for several months. Why make my workshop a secret you ask? Well, there are some things that need to remain secret this is one of those things... I still have a little more aura in me so I guess I can continue working on the Contender."

*RECORDING END…*

"What are you listening to sis?" Ruby asked as she walked towards her older sister.

"Ummm… ELO." Yang said, as she put away the scroll in her bag.

"ELO? Never heard of them. Can I listen?" Ruby walked towards the girl not waiting for her response.

"NO! If you never heard of them then you should go listen to them on your own spare time. I'm currently enjoying myself in the wonderful world of music."

"Aw… don't be like that."

"Sorry." Yang said. Ruby proceeded to leave the room and walk towards JNR's dorm room. On her way over there, she stumbled upon Ren and Nora who were on their way towards their room. They talked about how their day was going since class ended a few hours ago and had homework to work on. They conversed for a bit and headed toward the room and as they opened the door they heard an unfamiliar voice coming out of the other end. They opened the door and saw Jaune and Amber conversing together in a manner that seemed like they were very close.

"Hey guys I'd like you to meet Amber." Jaune said as he stepped aside to allow Amber to shake each of their hands.

"It's a pleasure to meet you all. I was very eager to meet Jaune's team for a while now." Amber said with a smile on her face.

"Nice to meet you, I'm Ren and this is my teammate Nora." Ren said.

"Any friend to Jaune is a friend to mine!" Nora said loudly, hugging the woman tightly.

"It's… nice to meet you too." Ruby said as she held her hand out hesitantly. Amber shook her hand and returned to Jaune's side.

"So uhh… why is she here?" Ruby asked in an aggressive tone as she got closer to the white knight.

"I am uh… helping her with some classwork and some combat training today so she came by to get me." Jaune said, trying to avoid telling his team the real truth.

"That's right. I wanted him to help me train a bit today since I have been slacking off in a small area of my combat skills that Jaune seems to excel in." Amber said as she placed her hand on Jaune's shoulder. This made Ruby more jealous than she already was and decided to grab Jaune's arm and pull him towards her.

"Sorry but I already told Jaune that we are going to go out and eat with our teams." Ruby said, puffing her left cheek.

"Ruby, I know I promised that we were going out today, but this is really important for her and it's the least I can do for her since she helped me with a subject that was stuck on."

"So you're telling me that you two have been hanging out for a while now?" Ruby asked. Ren noticed what was going on and decided to slowly back away from the three along with Nora.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to get your girlfriend upset Jaune. The training can wait after your date." Amber said as she walked towards the door.

"Girlfriend!? She isn't my girlfriend and we aren't even going on a date." Jaune exclaimed, surprised by the statement. Although Jaune remembers the kiss he and Ruby shared, he tried to block the memory out of his mind and tried to avoid Ruby for a while now. Jaune didn't notice that Ruby had tears building up and she quickly ran out the door before Amber could even reach it.

"Oh Jaune… why did you have to go and say that?" Nora said, crossing her arms.

"What do you mean? What did I do?" Jaune asked as he tried to determine why Ruby ran off like that.

"Amber… I think it would be best if you let us alone for a while. There is something I want to talk to Jaune about." Ren said.

"Yeah, sure… no problem." She proceeded to exit the room and the three teammates were left to converse about what just happened.

"Jaune… do you know what you just did?" Ren asked.

"No I don't. What did I do?"

"You caused Ruby to tear up and leave with a broken heart." Nora said.

"Wait… why would she get sad? Is it something that I said?"

"There are still some things you need to learn about a women's heart." Ren said to the blonde.

"I have enough on my plate to worry about than a woman's heart Ren. There are things that are trying to kill us and being in a relationship isn't on my agenda. If Ruby really likes me and wishes to be with me, she will need to learn to wait after everything we are fighting for is done." Jaune walked towards the door to exit the team's room.

"After what happened to Pyrrha… I can't love a woman like I loved her. If I were to lose the person I love again… I'm afraid of what I will be."

"But we are here to help you avoid going down the path that would lead to sadness and hatred. That's what teammates and friends are for." Ren and Nora walked towards the student and placed their hand on his shoulders.

"I need you both to do me a favor. I need you to talk to Ruby and carefully explain to her about what I said. She needs to know exactly why we can't be together. After we finish dealing with the criminals that we are looking for, I will consider going on a date with her. Until then… we are just friends." Jaune walked out of the room and saw Amber waiting for him outside the room.

"You ready to go?" Amber asked.

"… Yeah I am." They headed towards the town where a body had just recently been discovered by law enforcement officials that could possibly be connected to the kidnappings.

*RECORDING START…*

"Alright it's been a while since I did one of these and not a lot has happened since my last recording. It is August 27th and I recently finished engraving the sigils onto Baltic Sea and it should do what it is intended to do. I think the name is fitting for the weapon if I do say so myself. I'm not sure if I should tell Ash the name I decided to give it. Hopefully she likes it too because if she doesn't it is going be embarrassing. Well anyways, I still need to test it if it will work, but I'm sure it will. I guess I should try it on a Grimm first and hopefully nothing goes horribly wrong. Oh, I also received my dark navy sneaking suit from Atlas. I added a few touches to it and overall, I'm really enjoying using it. Ash thinks it looks really good on me and if I didn't know any better, I think she might have a thing for me. Now that would be a wish come true! Ash's birthday is on the 2nd of November and I am really excited about it. Oh and there is this dance two weeks from now and I don't have a… date. Some dude named Cardin asked Ash to the dance. I don't like that douchebag one bit. The way he treats everyone and especially the Faunus and acts as if he is the one who calls the shots around in school. If he were in my sparring class I would show him that he isn't really tough. I also learned about the Vytal festival that is being held here. Ash really wanted to compete in it in hopes of beating her rival Pyrrha Nikos, the unbeatable student. Ash could never beat her whenever they competed or sparred and she is really fixated on winning against her. I however have a week long mission that will make me miss the festival and I had to tell her that I won't be participating in it. She wasn't that upset, but I think she took it well. It's was really depressing looking at her face when she knew she wouldn't be able to compete. It hurt me seeing her like that, but there isn't really anything I can do. I just hope she can get pass that. I'm not sure whether or not I'm going to the dance, but what I'm really interested in… is our first mission after the dance."

*RECORDING END…*

Yang decided to stop there and take a breather. Listening to Jay talk about Ash was really making her feel depressed, knowing the fact that he has someone else was still hurting her. She decided to head towards the training room to improve her fighting style. She trained long and hard in hopes to improve enough to beat Neo. Throughout her training she pictured Neo as her opponent and gave every ounce of strength to improve herself. She couldn't stop thinking about how she was easily beaten by her. That was the second time she had the edge over her and even after training so hard… she still did not stand a chance. She wanted to get better… she wanted to be able to fight alone like Jay was able to do. Yang collapsed after exhausting herself from the intense training. She laid on her back staring at the ceiling trying to figure out how to get better, how to beat Neo and Jay. Yang headed towards the showers and took a long hot shower that made her relax and think more clearly on how to improve. She stared at the water as it came falling down her face over and over again. She stayed like that for minutes, unable to figure out how she could improve. Unable to come up with a solution, Yang turned the shower off and returned back to her room after putting on her clean outfit. She sat on her bed and stared at the silver box that she had taken from the workshop and wondered what could Jay be hiding?

Body of Discomfort

"The woman seemed as though she was dead for weeks now. The person who reported the body was a woman who was with her dog in the alley." The officer said.

"What makes this woman connected to the other kidnappings?" Jaune asked.

"The woman appeared to have bruise marks around her neck, arms and legs. She had several broken bones and a fractured skull. In addition to this, she had deep cuts all around her body. Whoever did this tortured her severely but not to the point where she would die. If you ask me, I'd say a satanic follower is in our midst."

"What a sick monster. If I ever get my hands on the person who did this…" Amber said.

"Well you might be able to since we have a person of interest who was caught on surveillance kidnapping the woman. He doesn't want to talk and we've even tried to bargain him with a lesser sentence, but he won't take it."

"Do you mind if we see him? We want to see if maybe we could make him talk." Jaune said.

"Yeah go ahead. He's being interrogated right now back at the station. It is located half a mile northwest from here. You can't miss it." The two decided to head towards the station and find out whether or not Rhett was indeed behind these kidnappings. At this point, it could quite possibly be, but Ozpin wants it to be 100 percent sure that it is Rhett who is behind this. The police departments and huntsmen and huntresses never got along in Remnant. The officers disliked the fact that Huntsmen could easily join an investigation whenever they pleased and always felt inferior to them. Usually whenever there is a case that they are interested in, they can easily join it without needing any approval. This is one of the many reasons why any Huntsmen who are corrupt can easily manipulate any evidence. Later in the day, they both arrived at the station and were taken to where the suspect was being kept.

"So why are you two so interested in this case." The chief asked, as he led them to the room.

"We have reason to believe that this person could lead us to the whereabouts of Rhett Wine." Amber said. "You huntsmen shouldn't be allowed to investigate these types of crimes when you should be killing Grimm. These criminals are for law enforcement to deal with, not a bunch of kids trying to become huntsmen and huntresses." The chief said with an annoyed tone.

"Well it seems as though you guys are doing a wonderful job in catching these people. It has been more than 5 months and you haven't found a single clue about where Rhett could be hiding." Jaune said, getting annoyed by the chief. They finally arrived to the room where the suspect was being kept, but Jaune needed a few pointers on how to interrogate since this would be his first time doing it. They then proceeded to enter the room and began questioning the suspect.

"Alright, so the lovely officers here told me that you were caught kidnapping one of the women here in the city. Were you the monster who did that to her?" Amber asked. Jaune was leaning against the wall, waiting for answers.

"I already told everything to the officer. I wasn't the one who did it and I don't know who the person behind the phone was. All I know is that he wanted me to bring any female body alive and he was willing to pay a hefty amount for it." The man said.

"Well, where exactly did you deliver the body?" Jaune asked.

"There is no way I'm telling you that. I've already said enough as it is."

"How much did he give you to do this? 500 Lien? 600 Lien? Was her life worth the money?" Jaune asked as he slammed his hands on the table.

"How would you know how it feels to not have any money to live, eat, and survive? You're born into a family that is already swimming in money. I have to fight and kill to earn some cash on the streets because getting a job in this pathetic kingdom is harder than getting money by stealing. When you don't have any money maybe then you will realize how bad life can really be!" The man yelled. Jaune didn't know what else to say. His family had money and he never really had a reason to steal anything.

"You're right. It is difficult to live without any money, but if you are willing to give up a human's life for money, what does that make you?" Amber asked.

"I… I… I don't know."

"I was born in a poor family and I had to work myself from the ground up to get where I am today without needing to break the law. I had to work when I was only 6 in order to help my parents pay rent. Not only that, but I also had to go to school and practice fighting everyday so that one day I can help my family and people out in the world. If I could do it, so can you." Amber said.

"…" The man was left speechless and had tears running down his face.

"You can still turn your life around. You are still young and there are other ways of getting money without having to break the law. You can start over by telling me where you delivered the body. By telling me this you will be taking the first step to becoming a better person."

"The woman… I… dropped her off at an old apartment building that no longer housed people. It's located southwest from here on a street called Kennedy. I'm sure if you asked the officers where that is at, I'm sure they will take you." Amber wiped off the tears from the man's face and smiled at him. Jaune and Amber left the room and asked for the directions to the location. After receiving the directions, Jaune and Amber proceeded to leave the station and head towards the old Apartment, but not before Jaune began to ask her some questions.

"Hey Amber… did you really mean all that?" Jaune asked.

"I honestly believe that people are still good inside their hearts. No matter how much pain humans and Faunus goes through, there will always be a sliver of light and hope inside them, even if they don't see it themselves."

"What makes you so sure? What's to say that he won't revert back to his old ways and continue to wreak havoc in the kingdom?"

"I'm not sure. He could possibly revert back to his old self. If you look at him now, you could tell in his eyes that he regrets choosing this lifestyle because there wasn't anyone there to push him to the right direction. Many people have already given up on people who break laws and treat them just like every other criminal even though they do it to survive. Humans and Faunus are all the same. No matter how much you get rid of evil people, more are waiting to be born and the cycle will continue. I think it would be best to simply help as many people as you can bad or not without having the need to kill them. Sure there are instances where you have no choice but to kill them in order to save a life, but that is up for the person to decide whether or not he or she is worth saving. It's up to the person to decide whether or not that bad person can be saved by the Darkness that reside them."

"I see… What about Cinder? Could she have been saved?"

"Could she have been saved? Honestly I don't know. That is something that you need to ask yourself since you were the one who took her life." Jaune thought about this long and hard all the way to the old apartment. Was Cinder's life worth saving? Could she have stopped her cruel ways and used her powers for good to save many people from the evil that resides in the world? There is one thing he does know. No matter what comes his way, he will find a way to stop any evil entity that comes his way.

Here is another chapter for you to enjoy. I haven't had time to create other chapters due to college stuff and I barely had time to do this one. I will try to upload another chapter later today, if not then it should be uploaded by tomorrow. I thank you for waiting patiently and I do hope you continue to enjoy reading. I also want to ask you if you would prefer me to also create chapters that would explain what is going on in Jay's side or not. It doesn't really bother if you do want to know or not. If you do, feel free to PM me or leave it somewhere where I can read it. I will see you all later.