The Name of the Game

by literalsin

A man from Earth wakes up to find himself stuck in the body of a fictional teenage boy with an ability that turns his life into a video game and foreknowledge of events to come. What could possibly go wrong? A take on the RWBY/Gamer crossover niche with an SI twist, a focus on world and character building, and fleshing out some of the details RT missed. Rated 'M' for a reason.

23. A Good End to a Very Long Day

The Name of the Game

a RWBY/The Gamer crossover, SI.

Arc 6: Every Shade of Grey

Chapter 23: A Good End to a Very Long Day

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Synchronization at 85%. The Semblance has been updated. Would you like to view the Change Log?

Stretching out, I let out a contented sigh as I felt something pop. Yawning, I selected 'yes.' Curled against my chest, I felt Neo shift closer for a moment before growing still again.

Change Log: The Gamer Semblance v. 1.6.1

1. Added Elemental Affinity tab to the Stats page. Check your Stats page or the Journal for details.

2. Party members may now access the Elemental Affinity tab in their respective character Stats pages.

3. Added Guild functionality. Open the Guild Menu to manage your Guild. Check the Help section for details.

4. Party members may now access Gamer Semblance granted User Interface options via scrolls, in addition to standard HUD-style UI access.

5. Guild members may access Guild features, restricted by access level, via scroll.

'Well, that's helpfully vague,' I mused, closing the change log and digging through my menus until I found the relevant section. The first item up on my list was the Elemental Affinity tab. Navigating through my menus, I found the correct one and hummed in curiosity upon reading it. Several menus and a round chart of some sort dropped down beside my character model—but it was the character model that drew my attention. The image of myself, or rather myself as Jaune Arc, stood nude on a black field with an annoyed look on his face, eyes glaring directly into my own. Stretching a hand out, he pointed at the menu while the other hand covered his crotch and I watched as my menus responded, moving to the Equipment section. Reaching out to the side, the model stuck its hand into the box bearing underwear, followed by pants and a shirt, before it turned away and proceeded to dress itself. When it was done, it turned back and crossed its arms, shooting me another unamused look before making a swishing gesture with his finger and sending the menu flipping back to the Elemental Affinity tab.

'That's… new.' I shrugged it off as a quirk of character model animations, seeing as the 'Jaune' on the screen was currently sitting idly and looking at the options available, while a quick check showed I hadn't actually been dressed, only the character model.

To the right of the character model, I saw a circular chart with an odd shape in the middle, before I recognized it as a typical point breakdown chart. Currently, I had only a few elements listed there, most of which were pretty basic stuff, and all things I'd used before: psionic, gravity, wind, force, electricity, fire, ice, spirit, water, earth, and wood in descending order of experience. 'So, I use an element and like any skill, gain experience with it, and that's how it measures 'affinity' for me. Wonder how it works in party. I assume mental skills qualify as psionic, which is why that one is listed as my highest skill level. And how the hell did I get wood? I've never… oh, right. Bind uses whatever's nearby at times, and I've seen it make grass and plants grow up and hold something in place. I suppose that counts enough to qualify for having used that element, by that logic.'

Spotting a button labeled as 'Available Elements,' I selected it and a new window popped up. I blinked, seeing a fairly long list there, but much of it was blurred out. Frowning, I selected the option to sort by availability and the list reorganized from Alphabetical, putting the elements I knew on the upper left of the list, with grayed out but visible elements below them, then column after column of grayed out and blurred text. Starting at the first of the ones I didn't have yet, I began reading. 'Aether, animation, aura—as an element? But then why don't I have it already?—beams, breath, crystal, destruction, energy, entropy, explosion, flesh, light, mass, metal, nuclear, quintessence, shadow, space, speed, swords—god damnit, what the fuck is this shit? Those two are not elements! I refuse to accept it—time, void. Some of these make sense as they seem pretty name-on-tin-ish, aside from the obvious bullshit ones, but what the hell are the others? More importantly, how do I get them? Just create a spell using one of those elements? I assume that's how I got 'force' as an element, by creating Telekinesis.'

I couldn't do much else with it at the moment, but I'd be playing with it later for sure. Until then, I'd have to settle for checking out the Guild-related stuff.

Guild Menu

Command Structure

Divisions

Personnel

Equipment

Operations

Contracts

Upgrades

Customization

Statistics

Before I could select anything, a dialog box popped up, asking if I'd like to run the tutorial. 'I probably should.' That decided, I hit the confirmation and allowed it to step me through a few things. The menu immediately moved to 'Command Structure,' which was laid out in tree format, with a portrait of the Fox at the top in the spot marked 'Guild Leader' with the slots under my alter-ego being empty. Below 'Guild Leader,' the slot marked 'Vice-Leader' highlighted then opened, and a drop-down list of personnel profiles popped up out to the side, sorted by qualification for the position, and a dialog message popped up asking me to choose a person for that position. Unsurprisingly, Neo was at the top of the list, with the twins right under her. Just to test, I attempted to select all three girls for that position, to no result.

'So, one leader, one Vice-Leader.' Shrugging, I selected Neo for the job and moved on to the next—I would wind up asking the girls later if they wanted to make changes. I didn't want it to look like I was playing favorites, but on the other side of the coin Neo did have previous experience managing Roman's gang in practice if not in name.

Below 'Vice-Leader' was listed several other positions—more than I really had qualified people for, at the moment. I did take the time to go ahead and add the twins and Penny as the next rank under Vice-Leader, Senior Officer, before confirming my selections. Below Senior Officers were Officers, Veterans, Members, and Recruits. I noticed that, unlike the rest, 'Recruits' seemed to include everyone not specifically assigned to a higher rank within the guild.

The guide moved on to 'Divisions' next, and I blinked upon seeing the suggested layout. 'That is pretty much cut and pasted straight out of MGSV,' I mused, then grinned. 'Well, at least it's something I'm familiar with. And it even gives rankings, letting me know who would go best where. Very nice.'

Having made the connection there, I allowed the tutorial to step me through what was becoming increasingly familiar territory, for the most part. There were some advanced options I found that filled in several holes between a video game and a real world military group—things like squad rotations, which allowed me to rotate my combat squads out between combat deployment, base security, a grayed out option for city patrols, and on break; in addition to being able to schedule how long or how many consecutive missions a soldier or group should be deployed for before being rotated into lighter duty to prevent burnout. I didn't have enough people to assign to squads for missions yet, but I did have enough to assign a few to basic security on the base, so I went ahead and did so. I tabbed to the 'Intelligence' tab and checked to see who was in charge of that section. Finding no one, I made to select the twins, only to find that their profiles within the PMC were different from the one on the Guild side of things—namely, they had been merged into one profile, with a blank name field.

'Something they're working on, I guess,' I mused, remembering we had discussed having the twins wear a disguise and trade places around the base, so no one associated the Malachite twins with the Fox. I went ahead and assigned their joint profile to the position of head of Intelligence—they could finish filling it out later.

Under 'Personnel,' I found that there were several people listed under the 'Recruitment' tab, waiting to be approved and assigned to a division. 'Jim and Angel have been busy.' I approved and assigned the recruits, then blinked in surprise as I got a quest alert.

A quest has been created! Beans, Bullets, and Band-aids.

An army marches on its stomach, as the saying goes. Speak to your contacts within your new guild in order to find and recruit the following: a Logistics officer, a Quartermaster, and a Medic. These individuals will fill the positions of heads of the Supply, Support, and Medical divisions respectively.

Success: increased closeness with the Malachite twins and Neopolitan, quest continuation, +3 Guild members, Guild reputation increases,Operations become available for Supply, Support, and Medical divisions.

Failure: decreased closeness with the Malachite twins and Neopolitan, Guild disbands, loss of all Guild reputation.

Time limit: 72 hours.

Closing the quest window, I continued on with the tutorial, but I couldn't help but think that three days didn't seem long enough to find three people to fill those slots, unless my contacts already knew people as the quest implied. Additionally under the Personnel tab were the tabs 'PMC Rank Chart' and 'Pay Grades.' Selecting the rank chart, I found the option to set what style of ranking system I wanted to use for my PMC, apparently based on what I assumed to be United States armed services ranks, seeing as they matched what I roughly remembered, having taken a passing interest when a friend had joined up after high school.

Seeing as it was set for 'Navy' style by default, I left it alone—though I did note that I was technically listed as an admiral, O-10, with two promotions available above my current position but grayed out. Likewise, Neo and the twins' combined profile were ranked as a Rear Admiral, O-7. Angel and Jim were both listed as O-3, Lieutenant. I wasn't entirely certain if that was a promotion or a demotion for those two. 'So, I guess that means we have official ranks as officers to use when interacting with various military forces, such as Atlas, but that while I lead this band of misfits it's not large enough for me to qualify for the higher ranks yet. That, or special conditions have to be met.'

Additionally, it seemed that ranks within the Rank Chart were separate from ranks within the guild Command Structure. I made a note to read the Help section later, but unless I missed my guess, that meant that people recruited into the PMC would be automatically recruited into the Guild at the lowest level—Recruits to the Guild itself, but probably having no Guild-specific privileges typically associated with guild management in MMOs, such as recruiting or dismissing people, promotions and demotions within the Guild's Command Structure, and whatever else was available. 'That would also imply that I could invite Ruby, for instance, and have her within the Guild's Command Structure but not actually a member of the PMC part of the guild—granting whatever bonuses being in a guild allows. I need to look that up. Still, it's basically divided into something like 'leadership' and a 'raid group' from what I've seen so far. Which brings up the question of raids. Something else to investigate soon.'

Moving on to 'Equipment,' I found it subdivided into a few tabs: 'Vehicles,' 'Weapons,' 'Dust,' 'Armor,' and 'Tools.' The tutorial picked the first tab and I was given a list of vehicles available to my Guild, sorted by type. I saw the Razorback listed but not the armed Bullheads. 'Right, I used that one picking Blake up. I guess I'll have to put it back in order for it to become available,' I reasoned, deciding to test the theory later, since I would obviously be swinging by the new base at some point. As it was, I could assign crew to the Razorback, but the only person with experience I had that could fill a slot was Angel herself, as the pilot. Confirming that, I found the other tabs to be pretty self-explanatory. 'Weapons' listed weaponry available to my Guild, which I could tell came from the stash I'd liberated from Roman—and likewise for Dust. There was nothing listed under 'Armor' or 'Tools' for the moment, and the options were grayed out—so I assumed they would open up once I got a Quartermaster.

'Operations' turned out to have one operation marked as In Progress, and I rolled my eyes upon seeing it was 'Bullets, Beans, and Band-aids,' with myself assigned to it. Apparently, my own quests could be counted as operations, so long as it was related to the PMC. Below that, however, was an operation marked as Available, 'Hunter Transport and Support. Repeatable.' Selecting the option, I read over the details. 'So, I can deploy Angel with the Razorback to ferry around Hunters and get paid to do it? Nifty.' However, upon reading further, I found the most important details: Operation Payout and Deployment Cost. The payout for this mission—to transport a Hunter team from Beacon to a village on the north edge of Forever Fall—was listed as 2,000L. If I deployed just Angel with the Razorback, the base deployment cost was calculated as 200L in fuel, 300L payment for Angel, and 500L set aside for maintenance costs on the Razorback—meaning a net profit of just 1000L.

On the up side, the fuel costs were the only thing I was paying up front—the money for Angel's payment would be marked in our books to be paid out with whatever else she earned at the end of the pay period based on her pay grade, while the money for maintenance was set aside in a separate account for that purpose and would be saved until the Razorback needed it. Additionally, there was a section listed as 'Support,' under which was listed 'Ammunition,' and 'Combat Bonus.' I assumed that if Angel was engaged in combat, we would have to pay to replace the ammunition expended, but we would be reimbursed with a combat bonus. I left it alone for now, until I got a chance to talk to Angel again. Besides, it was the sort of shitty, low-ranked, low paying job that should be beneath us given what we were trying to establish ourselves as. Starting out as a glorified taxi service would not send the right impression. However, if a mission came up with a team requesting air support or emergency evacuation, I wouldn't be passing it up—having a reputation for being the first people to respond to an emergency would build up a lot of good will amongst certain circles and endear us to the population. 'Never underestimate the value of being well liked by the civilians when it comes time to deal with those who depend on those very civilians to keep them in office.'

'Contracts' was grayed out, as was 'Upgrades,' but 'Customization' was not. The tutorial opened that next, and I chuckled quietly at what I found there, causing Neo to stir momentarily before settling down again. The tabs I found there were 'Current Settings,' 'Guild Emblem,' 'Personal Emblem,' 'Unit Emblems,' 'Fatigues,' and 'Dress Uniform.' The default open tab was 'Current Settings,' which gave a summary of what I could find on the other tabs. Right at the top, I found the section for Guild Name listed as 'Fox Hunt.'

'I didn't even get a say in the name.' I wondered for a moment who had decided on it, before shrugging—it didn't really matter and it was a decent name, so I wasn't going to complain; but at a guess, the twins were likely responsible. What had drawn my laughter though were the Guild and Personal emblems. The current Guild Emblem was a black, circular field with a white border, an image of an oversized fox in white with a limp Beowolf held in its mouth by the neck—in full Grimm colors and with its neck quite obviously broken, though there was only room in the emblem field for the head and upper chest of the Beowolf and head and shoulders of the fox. To the left and right of the fox and its Grimm prey were the words 'FOX' and 'HUNT' in all caps, also in white. My personal emblem was set as another black circular field bordered in white, with the fox head image I'd carved into Roman's hangar—and while the damage had since been repaired, the image had been painted onto the side of the building. Under the fox head were the words 'WHITE FOX,' also all caps, also white along with the fox head itself. 'I'm beginning to see a pattern. I wonder if emblems are like sigils. If I had to guess, probably similar but a different thing. This is more like a unit patch than a personal sigil, like my double crescent or Ruby's rose. Or maybe I'm wrong and it's a more detailed sigil. It doesn't really matter, from a practical standpoint.'

There was only one current Unit emblem—an image of a Razorback from the front on in steel gray, with a pair of Gatling guns highly prominent under the nose, the words 'Mama CAS' set above the cockpit. 'I suspect I know who this belongs to,' I mused, flipping back through the menus until I came to Angel's profile, where I found her unit emblem alongside her own personal patch—that of a winged woman in a Roman style toga cut off at mid-thigh, wearing armor and carrying a rifle with bayonet affixed in her lap, seated on top of a Razorback which obviously wasn't drawn to scale, the words 'Angel On Your Shoulder' circling the emblem along the bottom.

An idea struck and I went back to the guild emblem, digging into the settings and finding the proper font and color for what I wanted then bumped the image of the fox and Grimm up enough to add text under them. Curving along the top and bottom of the logo, above and below the fox and Grimm, I added the phrase, 'SI VIS PACEM PARA BELLUM,' the latter half of the phrase on the bottom. I had been tempted to use 'In hoc signo vinces,' but I felt that 'If you seek peace, prepare for war,' fit better than 'In this sign, you shall conquer.'

Once I was done, I okayed the current settings and moved on. I found the 'Fatigues' and 'Dress Uniform' options to be grayed out, so the tutorial moved on to 'Statistics,' where I found exactly what it said on the tin. The stats page listed the number of personnel (64), the number of completed operations (0), current contracts (0), vehicles (1 Razorback), available weapons, Dust, funds (350,000 Lien), and reputation (0). Thankfully, I had always enjoyed exactly this sort of empire building, so the low numbers didn't exactly bother me. Then again, I pretty much owned the map of Vale as Shiro after I'd taken a few hours to take down and properly mind-control the leaders of the other three gang factions in town. 'I should probably go and gut those some time in the next couple of days to use them as warm bodies for Fox Hunt.'

Glancing at my HUD clock and seeing it tick over to 8 a.m., I stretched again before going about waking Neo. Despite my original intentions to skip sleep and train all night with Penny, and getting away with it for all of two nights, the twins and Neo had outright vetoed that plan—instead, demanding I spend at least a few hours a night in bed with them for purposes other than sex. I didn't mind, and I saw their point—leaving in the middle of the night and not coming back to get them up could leave them feeling like a one-night stand or something similar, and I had to admit that I did enjoy simply spending the time to be close to them. So, we had come to a compromise—the girls didn't care if I went out late to train through most of the night, so long as I was there when they went to sleep and woke up. And since I did enjoy my sleep, I wound up only staying out around an additional four hours a night—splitting what would normally be eight hours of sleep into four of training and four of sleeping.

"It's Sunday. Can't we sleep in?" Neo whined.

"Not if we want to all go out and level as a group," I reminded, and the girl took a moment to process that before shambling out of her bed and moving towards her bathroom. I followed, turning on the shower as she went about relieving herself, either ignoring or uncaring of the fact that I was in the bathroom with her. 'Or it could be she's just gotten that comfortable around me.'

We took a few minutes for a shared shower, though Neo was still so out of it that I wound up doing most of her scrubbing for her—not that I minded. I would have accused her of wanting to get some action first thing, if not for the fact that I knew she wasn't a morning person. She was still half asleep by the time we finished and dried off, and I watched her shamble zombie-like over to her dresser and beginning the process of getting dressed. Seeing the smaller girl stumble trying to get her panties on, I rolled my eyes and moved to help. "Come here."

Once she was dressed, we went downstairs and into her apartment complex's underground parking area. Checking for cameras and finding none on my map, I summoned up Bumblebee 2.0 and we left the building, heading for my apartment to get the twins. 'I need to see about getting this thing repainted. Maybe Akira red. Or black. Can't go wrong with a black bike.'

"I can see why Ruby needed fresh panties," Neo commented on the elevator ride up to my apartment, tossing me a grin—the ride over having apparently woken her up. "Want to hit the emergency stop for a quickie?"

"You're insatiable," I deadpanned, and she nodded shamelessly.

"Absolutely," the girl agreed.

Thinking it over, I shook my head. "No, we'd better not. I've already sent a text to Angel and Jim, so they're waiting for us. We've got to swing by the base for a while before we head to Patch and pick up Ruby, Penny, and Yang."

Neo pouted, but nodded as the doors opened and we made our way into my apartment. "I'll go wake the twins, if you'll make breakfast," she offered, and I shrugged. I had a better idea, but I'd wait to spring it on the girls once they were awake.

Remembering my guest, I made my way to the guest bedroom and knocked. Upon hearing no answer, I tried the door and found it locked. Frowning, I called up Telekinesis and focused on the knob, probing around inside until I found the locking mechanism. A moment later, the lock popped open and I slipped inside, looking around. The shades had been drawn and the room was barely lighted from outside. Blake's clothes and weapon were nowhere in sight, but I did notice a bath robe folded on the chair off beside a small desk in the corner of the room. A soft, almost purring snore came from a lump on the bed and I quietly moved over and took a look. The faunus girl lay on her side clutching a pillow, hair in a dark halo around her head on the other pillow, mouth slightly open and a small trail of drool visible. Her upper set of ears twitched as I approached.

I put a hand on her shoulder and gave her a gentle shake. The reaction was instant as golden eyes flew open and I heard the click of a safety flipping off from under the pillow. "Easy, Blake. It's okay," I murmured, not making any sudden movements as her eyes flitted around the room before locking onto mine. After a moment of staring, a look of recognition crossed her face and she relaxed, the tension leaving her body as she collapsed back against the pillow. A second click told me she'd safetied Gambol Shroud again.

"Sorry," she apologized quietly. "It took me a minute to remember where I was. I… don't usually sleep so deeply," the girl admitted.

"No harm, no foul," I waved her concern off. "What are your plans for today?"

"I don't know," she admitted. "I was thinking about just taking some time to sit and process things. Maybe get some reading in."

I nodded, knowing the feeling. I also knew that, if she was anything like me, once I decided to do that I wouldn't be moved from my spot for hours—if not days, depending on how stubborn I was being in my brooding. I hadn't really done it since getting to Remnant, but it was a bad habit I had been actively avoiding falling into here—especially as, at times, it seemed I had more to do in a day here than in a week on Earth. "You could do that," I agreed. "Or you could get dressed and come with us."

Raising one fine black eyebrow, the catgirl asked, "Where?"

"Well, we've got a couple of stops to make. We need to go take care of some business first, then we were planning to meet up with a few friends and going into Forever Fall to kill Grimm for fun and profit. Also, at some point, you need to go take the Beacon entrance exam if you're planning on going?" I was pretty sure she was planning to go, but it wouldn't hurt to ask.

"I should do that," Blake agreed. "It's Sunday though, so they will probably put it off until tomorrow even if I get in contact with them today." After a moment of thought, she added, "'Fun and profit?'"

I smirked. "Well, there are some benefits to having me as a friend."

It only took her a moment of thought before she put the pieces together. "You 'partied' me yesterday—that's what you mean, isn't it?"

Nodding, I sat on the edge of the bed. "Tell you what. Come along with us today while we're training and I'll show you one of the ways I can help you. After that, you can decide what you want to do. Deal?"

"For now," she agreed.

"Great," I nodded, pushing myself up off the bed. "We'll be waiting outside when you're ready."

As I got to the door, I heard her call out for me to wait. Turning to see what she wanted, I raised an eyebrow at her self-conscious expression. "Uh… could you get my clothes out of the drier for me?"

Chuckling, I nodded and went to retrieve them. By the time I'd finished handing them over and closing the door to give her some privacy, I found Neo had roused the twins and gotten them dressed and ready for the day. "What were we thinking when we agreed to change our sleep schedule?" Melanie griped, heading for my refrigerator and taking out a carton of juice. I rolled my eyes as the white-clad twin drank straight from the carton, then passed it to her sister, who did likewise.

"You were thinking it'd be nice to hang out with everyone all together while we worked on leveling," I reminded and she frowned.

"I was promised there would be breakfast," Miltia pointed out, turning her green-eyed gaze on me.

I rolled my eyes. "And there will. But I'm not cooking this morning. I found a bakery in the commercial district the other day that I want to try." They had cinnamon rolls on the menu, and I would gladly kill for an actual Cinnabon, since I had yet to find a Remnant parallel. I was hoping this place might have what I was looking for.

The guest bedroom opened and Blake exited, stretching her arms above her head in a way that did absolutely amazing things for her taut stomach and breasts. Idly, I noted she was wearing the bow now, but that was a background detail to the interesting things that stretch was doing for her body. I found I wasn't the only one caught staring when she turned her golden gaze on us, flicking from the twins, to Neo, before settling on me—the girls were just as guilty as I was on that one. Not that I could blame them. "The third girlfriend, I take it?"

"I'm as many girlfriends as he wants," Neo grinned, a lascivious smirk stretching her lips as she cycled through several different appearances, each new one progressively more provocative and less clothed than the last before settling back on her default look, and I rolled my eyes.

"Ignore miss libido over there. She's still worked up from the bike ride over," I deadpanned, throwing Neo an amused look. "Neo, Blake. Blake, Neo. So, are we ready?" I asked, and upon receiving a round of confirmations lead us down to the parking garage after locking up. Summoning up the sedan, I slid into the front seat. One of Roman's better investments had been the adjustable tint windows, which could effectively cut the car off from the outside world.

The twins and Neo took the back, while offering the position of shotgun to Blake, who merely shrugged before dropping into her own seat. "Mm, leather," she hummed, shifting in her seat and getting comfortable.

A little over an hour later, we pulled into the underground parking garage for Fox Hunt's base and I equipped my Fox outfit before we left the car. I turned to look at Neo and the twins and grinned under my masks. "We should really get you some uniforms or something," I mused aloud. "New outfits for when you're hanging out here, anyway—since I know you two are going to be playing at being one person," I grinned at the twins. "And I'm sure you already have your own disguise in mind, Neo. Actually, now that I think about it, something a bit more damage resistant than the dresses might be useful."

"I like my dress," Neo deadpanned, and the twins nodded in agreement.

"Oh, I do too, but as far as practicality goes how well is it going to stand up to a Grimm?" I asked, and they looked away, knowing I had a point. "At least agree to let me help you add some damage resistance seals."

The girls traded a look and nodded. "That would be nice," Melanie agreed.

Blake raised an eyebrow. "Another Semblance thing?"

I shook my head. "Anyone can make or use bounded fields. Imbuing clothes with Dust is a bit harder, but doable, and worth it on every level." I paused to think on it before offering, "You could consider it part of your signing bonus."

"Uh huh," the girl hummed, walking in step with us as we headed for the elevator. "So, what is this place."

I traded a look with the other girls, and by mutual agreement Neo answered. "Our base."

"We're founding a Private Military Company operating within the borders of Vale," Melanie added.

Miltia continued with, "If things go according to plan, by the end of the year, Fox Hunt will be the largest PMC in Vale, if not the largest in any kingdom—hopefully with contracts spanning every kingdom of Remnant. Though, no plan survives contact with the enemy, so maybe by the end of the fiscal year."

"As far as my Semblance is concerned though, it's my guild," I supplied, before turning a look to Neo and the twins. "You three should have some guild-specific features available via scroll if you want to play with those later. I've also gone ahead and assigned you ranks within the PMC itself, but beyond specifying a pay-grade and making sure we all have military ranks I'm not sure it does much."

The elevators opened and we made our way into a conference room, where we found Angel and Jim seated, sipping at coffee. "So," I began, dropping into the seat at the head of the table, Neo and Blake to my right, the twins to my left. "Let's get right to it."

---

"That went well," Neo chirped from behind me as we lifted off from the roof of the base in the unarmed Bullhead, having left the armed version in Angel's care for the moment. "With any luck, we'll have some new people by the end of the day and we can start getting this thing rolling."

"Do you want us to start designing a uniform, Jaune?" Melanie asked, and I nodded, taking a moment to switch outfits now that we were out of range of anyone seeing us.

"Between the four of us we should be able to come up with something nice. Though, I'm thinking we can just use a generic design for fatigues. Really, only the base uniform and dress uniform need to be really special." Turning my head to catch her eye momentarily, I saw her grin. "I don't know about you, but I kind of want to see if we can show up Atlas."

"Atlas prefers white with blue trim for their uniforms," Neo noted, and I blinked as a scroll was shoved in between myself and Blake as the shorter girl leaned against the back of my seat. "I'm thinking black with white trim. Except it doesn't really fit with the rest of the theme, unfortunately."

"White with black trim," both twins countered.

I nodded in agreement as Neo shifted back into her seat. "That's your best bet."

"What about long coats?" Blake supplied, and I shifted my gaze to her. "Black uniform with white trim under a white dress coat."

"It contrasts nicely," Miltia admitted.

I turned in my seat enough to throw a grin at Neo. "And it looks like my new 'Jaune' gear."

Melanie hummed, flipping through her own scroll. "Yes, but typically, that style of uniform is reserved for officers."

Shifting across the back of the Bullhead, Neo and Miltia both looked over the other twin's shoulder before Neo shrugged. "Why not do both? White with black trim for the grunts, black with white trim and a white long coat for officers."

"Can female officers have an option for skirts?" Miltia asked, to which the other two hummed and nodded.

Blake had turned around in her seat by then, bringing a finger to her lips as she thought on it. "I prefer tights."

"What about very high boots?" Neo supplied, holding out a hand and conjuring up a set of images for each option.

I turned back to the flight controls as the four girls discussed the merits of skirts versus tights—personally, I'd always been a skirts and stockings kind of guy, but then I blamed that on too much anime and knowing what 'absolute territory' was. I doubted they wanted to hear my suggestion of thigh-high stockings and a micro-skirt. 'Twins in twin-tails, micro-skirts, and stockings. Mm,' I grinned, catching sight of Patch coming up below us. There was a giggle from somewhere behind me and I cast a brief glance back, finding the twins looking suspiciously innocent. 'I sent that, didn't I?' Oh well—the worst that would happen was ambush sex, probably.

As had become habit, I brought the Bullhead in for a landing in the field nearest to the Xiao Long home and glanced at my map. I counted four icons before blinking and looking them over again. 'Penny, Ruby, Yang, and an unknown fourth. Not Taiyang. Though, given the fact that it's a stylized crow, my money's on it being Ruby's uncle.'

I killed the engines and hit the door controls as the others stood and began filing out. I was the last out, and the moment my feet hit the ground I was slapped in the stomach by a red blur, followed by a flurry of rose petals. "Jaune!"

"Ruby!" I yelled back, grinning and mussing her hair. "Yang, too," I deadpanned. Seeing the sudden poleaxed look on her face at the change in greeting, I grinned and sent the blonde with a wave to let her know I was pulling her leg as her sister pulled away from my waist and went about collecting hugs from the twins and Neo. As a matter of habit, I began tossing out party invites to everyone who wasn't already in party and then set up links and cross-links between everyone. The moment I had all eight of us partied, my Semblance asked how I'd like to structure the teams and who I wanted to designate as Second Party Leader. Grinning, I assigned Ruby as the second leader, with Penny, Yang, and Blake under her.

Congratulations! You have created a party containing 8 or more players! Would you like to activate Raid Party Mode and designate a Raid Leader?

Humming in thought, I selected 'Yes' and made myself Raid Leader.

You have formed a Raid Party! Enemies encountered within Instant Dungeons will be stronger, though in lower Spirit Density areas may be fewer in number. Boss spawn rate within Instant Dungeons has increased.

That was interesting. I made a note to test it soon before turning to Penny. "So Penny, did you have fun last night?"

"Oh, very much so, Jaune," Penny nodded, beaming a smile. "We did our hair, and our nails, and played video games, and talked about boys—"

Beside the ancula, Yang rolled her eyes. "I think he gets it," she chuckled before turning lilac eyes on the resident catgirl. "So, who's the hottie?"

"I know, right?" Neo chimed in, tossing a leer Blake's way.

"Oh god, there's two of them," Ruby sighed, palming her face and pretty much mirroring my own thoughts on that front.

"Right. Blake, meet Ruby Rose, Yang Xiao Long, and Penny. Ruby, Yang, Penny, meet Blake Belladonna," I introduced.

"It is very nice to make your acquaintance, Blake Belladonna," Penny chirped.

Blake's bow flicked slightly and she tossed out a hesitant wave. "Hello." Turning gold eyes to my blue, she gestured between the three newcomers and myself and quietly asked, "Are they…?"

I shook my head and made to explain, but was cut off as a tall man clad in a white, gray, and black shirt, black pants, and a red cape stepped out of the woods nearby. Below the cape was what looked to be a sword in the same position I preferred to keep my Sabers. My eyes were immediately drawn to the area over his head.

Dusty Old Crow

Qrow Branwen

Level: ?

He had a confident swagger to his gait as he approached, and I turned to send Yang a questioning look before I caught movement from the corner of my eye, as his right hand trailed back and gripped the hilt of the sword sheathed there. He disappeared and I reacted on instinct, dumping mana into Haste and bringing him back into range of my perception. My shield came up as I drew my own Saber, spinning it around into sword-mode and I Stepped past Ruby, who was between myself and Qrow and turned to face the twins, thus looking away from her uncle, to get the shield up. At the same time, I passed her an order and she disappeared as she went from zero to her top speed in a sudden gust of wind and rose petals.

My shield rang as Qrow dropped to a standstill for a moment, a mildly impressed look crossing his face as I held the blow off. He calmly held out his other hand, palm open, and caught the shaft of Crescent Rose as Ruby dropped out of Flash Step, hanging from her weapon in mid-swing. Despite the mass of the weapon and the speed-imparted force behind the weapon, he hadn't so much as twitched as it smacked into his palm. "Not bad, kid. Not bad at all," he commented, pulling the sword away and stowing it as he stepped back and gave the red scythe in his hand a shake to dislodge Ruby.

I stepped back out of my guard position, my shield collapsing as I spun the Saber back down into its storage form and sheathed it. "I see where she gets it from."

"Uncle Qrow!" Ruby whined as the man held the weapon just out of the girl's reach, lowering it enough to entice her to jump for it, then raising it just out of reach again.

Shooting a look at Yang, I asked, "So is that a normal thing in your family? Randomly attacking your friends, that is."

"Pretty much," Yang confirmed. "Dad and Uncle Qrow are both teachers at Signal, so they always use the excuse that you should always be prepared for battle—"

"It's not an excuse," Qrow deadpanned. "Besides, it taught you to dodge, didn't it?"

"You should have seen it," Ruby chipped in. "Dad or Uncle Qrow would drop in from nowhere, yell 'dodge,' and smack Yang her first year in Signal."

Yang shot an unamused look at her sister. "I seem to recall I wasn't the only one getting dodgy training."

"Yeah, but it was funnier when it was happening to you," Ruby countered, sending a teasing grin at her sister and stashing her weapon away as Qrow finally parted with it. Seeming to remember herself, she turned back to her uncle. "Uncle Qrow, this is Jaune, the boy I told you about. Jaune, this is my Uncle Qrow."

We shook and, unlike with Taiyang, Qrow actually made an effort to crush my hand. I poured some Aura into it and ignored the attempt—it was pretty much expected, and showing any sign of discomfort would mean I'd lost the silent challenge of wills and strength. "So. You're the guy."

"You can't prove anything. There's no evidence. I have an alibi," I countered with a grin, drawing a chuckle from the man as he stopped trying to crush my hand into paste.

"Well, we'd love to stick around and chat, but we should really get going," Yang called, and I noticed the other girls had already begun moving into the Bullhead, carrying on their own conversation. "See you later, Uncle Qrow."

"Uh huh," he rolled his eyes. "I see how it is. You get some new friends and suddenly I'm not cool enough to hang out with any more. No, no, it's okay. It doesn't bother me. I'll just go home and spend the rest of the day drinking."

"But Uncle Qrow, you do that anyway," Ruby pointed out guilelessly.

"You drive me to drink," he nodded before giving Ruby a push towards the Bullhead. "Okay, fine. Go have fun." He turned red eyes on me and I resisted the urge to flinch under the sudden intensity—it took a moment, but I realized I was seeing Killing Intent from the other side. Detect Bloodlust immediately leveling kind of clued me in. Except, thanks to Gamer's Mind, I was immune to the negative effects. In other words, it was a bit like sticking a gloved hand in water—you could feel the water, feel the pressure and temperature of it around your hand, but wouldn't get wet. It seemed I had found a class of mental abilities that Gamer's Mind didn't entirely no-sell and simply ping an alert or something like it had with Emerald. Being able to sense an intensity, range, and direction for that sort of thing, without the negative effects, was more useful than simply getting an alert by my reasoning. "Anything happens to them, I'm holding you responsible."

I nodded. "Understood."

The man turned and made his way towards the trail leading back to the Xiao Long house, tossing a wave over his shoulder as he went. Ruby moved past me, heading for the Bullhead while Yang moved into step with me as I followed the little reaper. "Well, that was awkward," she murmured, and I shrugged.

"He's just looking out for you," I pointed out and the blonde shrugged. Grinning, I asked, "You sure he's not Ruby's dad? I mean, they look a lot alike and he's got the overprotective streak going."

I let out a strangled 'urk!' as Yang grabbed my arm and yanked me off to the side, out of sight of the interior of the Bullhead. "Shh!" she hissed, shooting me a glare before looking to make sure we weren't being observed. "Look, it's… complicated."

I shot her an incredulous look. "What?! I was joking! You're serious?"

Yang sighed, quietly. "I've wondered for a while. I mean, yeah, she looks a lot like her mom but almost nothing like dad…" After a moment of thought, she added, "I don't know. I don't want to think that about mom—about Summer, I mean. But…"

"Hey, look," I murmured, tilting her chin up to force her to look at me. "It's probably nothing. I doubt Ruby's mom would do that and your dad doesn't seem like the kind of guy who would let someone who'd screwed his wife hang around."

"But what if he doesn't know?" Yang asked, and I realized she'd had a while to stew over this particular issue. "Dad's been kind of… not himself since Ruby's mom died and my mom left. Maybe he didn't want to know."

"There's not much you can do about it now, right?" I asked, earning a nod in answer. I took her hand and pulled her towards the doors to the Bullhead. "Come on, let's get going. We can talk about it later if you want."

Yang shrugged. "Sure."

I made my way through the gaggle of girls in the back of the aircraft as Yang took a seat beside Blake, then dropped into the pilot's seat, finding Ruby waiting in the co-pilot's seat. "Looks like you got shotgun."

Ruby snorted softly, glancing back towards her sister. "With Yang, that game is a full-contact sport. I figured I would take advantage while she was distracted. So, what's 'Fox Hunt?'"

I blinked, shooting the girl a questioning look as I went through the startup sequence and the engines spooled up. Her eyes trailed upwards, and I realized she was looking over my head. "Huh. So I've got an addition to my nameplate?" I asked, and she nodded.

"Fox Hunt Leader, Jaune Arc, The Gamer, Field Instructor, Level 30," she read off. "Is that like a guild?"

Nodding, I grinned. "Yep. I didn't see it displayed for the twins and Neo, so I guess it's something they have to turn on, whereas since I'm the leader it's on by default for me." I would have to turn that off at some point. Yang hadn't mentioned it, but she was a smart girl and probably would eventually—and until I knew I had her loyalty I wouldn't be making any offers to join the guild. That, and there was the off chance she could use it to figure out at least one of my alter-egos. I wasn't ready to tell her about those yet—again, not until I had her loyalty and knew she wouldn't do something regrettable. Then again, Ruby knowing might help on that front. If her sister trusted me, Yang was more likely to as well.

Humming, Ruby shot me a curious look before asking, "So, what's it do?"

I shrugged. "I haven't gotten to really play with it much, and I don't have enough people recruited to open up most of the features… but in the future, it'll let me send members out on missions and stuff."

"That sounds kinda cool," the girl admitted, kicking back in her seat and propping her boots on the dash. "What are you thinking about doing with it?"

"Well," I hummed, casting her a sidelong glance before tossing a look over my shoulder to check on the girls in the back. Yang and Blake appeared to be involved in their own conversation—Yang having taken the initiative in approaching the faunus girl—currently 'disguised' in her iconic bow—while the twins and Neo had congregated around Penny with their scrolls out and an illusion of Penny wearing various outfits hovering between them. "We've formed a PMC—private military company. I aim to use it to clean up Vale and the surrounding areas. Kill some Grimm, make some money, stand ready to defend the city should the worst come to pass—that sort of thing. Vale, the kingdom that is, doesn't really have its own armed services—mostly relying on Hunters and Atlas. Over relying."

"And over relying on only one or two things is bad," Ruby repeated the lesson I'd been attempting to drill into her head, and I nodded, gesturing for her to finish it. "Because if it breaks, or you don't have it, then you're…" she blushed as I raised an eyebrow, before muttering, "Shit out of luck."

"Because when you need it and don't have it, you sing a different tune," I smirked.

"I've always preferred, 'enough resolve will conquer all, if we believe,'" she admitted, pausing before a small, mischievous smile crept up on her lips. "Buuuut I think resolve and a whole lot of really big guns probably works better."

Snorting a quiet laugh, I shot her an amused look. "Yeah, guns tend to work better against Grimm." I glanced at my map for a moment before asking, "So, that was the uncle who trained you, huh?"

"Yup!" she nodded. "He's kind of awesome. But don't tell him that. Dad says Uncle Qrow gets kind of full of himself sometimes."

"Oh, so it's a family trait."

Ruby nodded. "Yep, it totally—hey! It is not! You jerk!"

"Well, I was talking about Yang," I sent her a grin.

"I—err.. that is…" The girl beside me crossed her arms and pouted. "I walked right into that one, didn't I?"

I laughed, reaching over and grabbing her hood before flipping it over her head. "So, have you given any thought to modifying your weapon?" I asked, knowing the surest way to distract her, or otherwise cheer her up, was to get her talking about her 'baby.'

I listened as she began telling me her plans for Crescent Rose—how she was thinking of either replacing the current blade or modifying it to add a Dust-blade, in addition to a few other minor modifications to the bits that allowed it to shift modes and compact down. By the time the Bullhead touched down again, she had already gone over three weapons worth of ideas—and it was at this point I realized I should probably have asked Ruby for ideas on my own new weapon for Shiro. Shaking my head, I hit the door controls and we filed out onto the same grassy field off the side of the road we'd been using for a while now.

"So," Yang began, looking around at our gathered group. "What now?"

"Sparring?" Neo asked, twirling her parasol, while the twins winced.

Miltia tugged on her bladed gloves, whereas Melanie had already been wearing her own bladed heels. "We would prefer not to."

"How about killing Grimm, instead?" Melanie supplied.

I shot the pair a questioning look before realizing what the problem was. Yang was a Signal graduate, Ruby had been apprenticed to her uncle, Blake had years of experience under her belt as a member of the White Fang, and all three of them carried themselves with the sort of surety that only came from knowing exactly what your skills were and how to apply them to greatest effect. While outside of combat Ruby may have had self-confidence issues, once things truly kicked off she handled herself as well as, if not better than, her sister. Yang's confidence came from being the top graduating student in her class, and from years of tutelage under her father. And while I had yet to see Blake fight beyond grappling her myself, my otherworldly knowledge gave me a pretty good idea what she was capable of.

On the other hand, Neo and the twins were all self-taught. Neo was good, amazingly good at what she did to the point where she would probably have been labeled as a prodigy had she had formal schooling—and like Blake, she had real-world experience. Otherworldly knowledge meant that I knew for a fact that she could go toe to toe with Yang and win hands down—in a pure skill versus power matchup, as had been presented in canon, Neo was the better of the two. Or at least she could have, before I had started teaching Yang and Neo both new tricks. Despite being a level lower than Yang, I was pretty sure Neo would still win—but then, that's what sparring was for. The twins did not have that sort of experience, however. From what I understood, they'd had Hei helping to train them and a bit of natural talent, but no formal schooling and not much in the way of real-world experience. Despite that, I had been training with them myself. I knew they were good, and I knew they could be a whole lot better. They just needed a little encouragement.

"I've got a better idea. Neo, Yang, Penny, and Ruby—go play," I directed, waving them towards the center of the field. "You three," I gestured to the twins and Blake, "Come with me."

Turning, I walked away from the parked Bullhead towards the other side of the field to give the other four girls room to fight. Finding a nice spot, I dug into my Inventory and came up with a thick blanket—one I'd begun bringing with me for training, when we wanted to sit on something other than grass. Spreading it out, I dropped down on one corner with a line of sight on the fight and waited as Blake, Miltia, and Melanie each took a seat themselves—Blake opposite me, Miltia to my right, Melanie to my left.

"Okay, before we begin, I need to go over some ground rules. These are the same rules I've given everyone else. Blake, most of the things I'm going to teach you you can't use at Beacon, or out in Vale. Not casually, anyway. Some things, passive skills, active buffs, and spells that don't have any visual effect are okay for the most part. Tossing around fireballs," I shot a glance towards where Yang was doing just that, the explosion causing Blake to flinch, "and other flashy techniques is strictly off limits. I'm not stupid, though. If your life or someone else's is in danger and it's the only way you're going to get out of that situation, then do so. There's no point to having a trump card if you don't use it when you need it—but only when you need it. Otherwise, only use them either when we're in an ID or like now, when there's no one around and no cameras to observe us. Understand?"

"Only use non-visible skills in public, no flashy spells," Blake repeated, and I nodded. "Define 'flashy.'"

"Anything that can't be explained away as part of your Semblance or Dustcasting, or natural skill. Flash Step borders damn close to that line, which is why I've banned Ruby from using it in school. Fire elemental Aura and tossing around fireballs are likewise off limits, and Yang is aware of that," I explained. 'Though, that may change later, if we can pass it off as a natural evolution of her Semblance. If Aura is the light of the soul, and Semblances are an outwards manifestation of the soul, then as a person changes over time it stands to reason that their soul, and thus their Semblance, would grow and change as well. I'll reconsider some time after the first semester or so and maybe let Ruby and Yang start using some of those skills.'

Blake shot me an amused look. "You seem so certain I'm going to Beacon. What if I've changed my mind?"

I smirked. "Quest completed on the Bullhead. I'm guessing you emailed the school a request to take the entrance exam and were given the go ahead."

Frowning, the faunus girl asked, "Does that ever get annoying for anyone else, or is it just me?"

"It's very annoying at times," Melanie admitted.

"But its usefulness outweighs the annoyance of Jaune acting like a know-it-all at times," Miltia sent a smile my direction.

"Yes, well, bite me," I grumbled.

"Gladly," Melanie nodded, and beside her Miltia's smile went wider to show teeth as she asked, "Any preference on location?"

I rolled my eyes. "Moving on. Since I don't have access to your skill menus, remind me what skills I've taught you two."

"Reinforcement, Meditation, Reflex, Focus, the stat buff set including Eagle's Splendor, Bull's Strength, and so forth, and Spinning Mana Arrow and its lower variants," Miltia supplied.

When Melanie nodded in confirmation to her twin's list, I hummed in thought. "Just call it the D&D set. Okay, I'll get to skills in a moment. Do me a favor and open up your character sheet. There should be an Elemental Affinity tab. Read me off what it says."

The twins and Blake all dug through their menus before Miltia began. "I have a few elements, but they're all grayed out—with a lot more grayed out and scrambled text."

"Same here," Melanie confirmed.

"I have shadow available, with a good deal of experience in it," Blake answered slowly. "But the other elements I can read are grayed out."

So, Blake had an element usable already but the twins did not. They had elements available, but not unlocked. "Select one and see what it says."

"Fire: insufficient elemental affinity," Melanie read off. "But..." She trailed off and I watched as her eyes began flicking rapidly in the middle distance. "If we increase INT and WIS, we can absorb Dust to unlock an alignment, according to this."

"Very nifty," I hummed. "So, focus on what you have for now and we'll work towards it for later."

"What does 'incompatible Aura alignment' mean?" Blake asked, and I shot her a raised eyebrow. "It said that when I selected light."

"Well, if you're shadow naturally like Yang is fire, then it probably means light as an element is diametrically opposed. You can't use it," I guessed.

"So, no elemental skills today?" Miltia asked, and I shook my head.

"We're going for something a bit more defensive today. Let's try for shields. Mana Shield first, then A.T. Field. For Mana Shield, imagine a bubble of mana surrounding you, protecting you from attacks. For A.T. Field, do the same, except imagine concentrating everything from Mana Shield into a flat plane in front of you—it's easier to do that way, since one builds off the other. Really, that should be all the imagery you need," I instructed before turning to Blake. "Know anything about meditation?"

"Yes," she nodded.

"Great," I grinned. "Do whatever works for you. Just keep your eyes open when you do it. Let me know when you—"

Blake's eyes unfocused, shifting into the middle distance as she asked, "This… this is permanent?"

I blinked and the twins laughed quietly at the poleaxed look that crossed my face. I fully realized being able to shift into a meditative state on a whim couldn't have been something unique to me, but I'd never seen another person do it—and I hadn't expected her to get the skill for it that quickly. "Say 'stats,' then read me off your numbers."

"Stats," Blake repeated, then began to read.

'So, more STR than Ruby but less than Yang. More DEX than Yang but less than Ruby. Crappy VIT but then she's not a tank. At 55 points, she has more base INT than with the bonuses from The Outsider, but not my buffs. Less WIS than I was expecting but then… well, that explains some things about what I know of her from 'canon.' Mediocre CHA, really. No real LUK to speak of. So, she's… what the hell kind of build is that? I mean, it's obviously a high-damage build, but her choice in weapons means she lacks penetration or brute force,' I assessed, then shook my head. "Right. Fuck it. We'll try to get you Reinforcement. Pull up your Aura and meditate on reinforcing your body with it—try to compress it down into your body and imagine it making you tougher. That's about the mental imagery that worked for Neo. Let me know when you've got it. And remember, eyes open so you can see menus."

"We've got the techniques," Melanie announced a while later, and I glanced at my HUD clock. Barely ten minutes had passed in between telling them how and them getting the technique.

'Damn I love high-INT types,' I grinned. "Okay, you don't have Haste yet, so use the same imagery as for Reinforcement but focus on getting faster this time," I directed. Ruby was going to be annoyed, but I wasn't worried about the twins relying on it too much and I was still worried that when I taught it to her, Ruby would outclass us all by sheer speed. 'Maybe I should just trust her to use her own judgment on that. She understands that she needs to practice things other than speed, so if I tell her not to use it, odds are good she'll listen.'

"I have Reinforcement and Haste," Blake announced a couple of minutes later.

"What?" I deadpanned, feeling my mouth drop open slightly.

Blake shrugged. "I did both back to back," she admitted. "Haste was faster to get, since I'd just done Reinforcement."

'Okay. Okay, I can work with this. Assume I'm dealing with someone with my own learning speed and ability to split my focus,' I mused. "Okay. Same as before, but go for becoming more agile. Likewise, more intelligent."

"In other words, focus on improving my strength, dexterity, vitality, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma," she said, and I held out a hand and waved it back and forth.

"Kind of. There are a few variations. I've got like three different ways to increase strength, for instance. On the other hand, try it and see if it works for you, and we'll get you the other two after. But the most basic ones work with the imagery for Reinforcement," I shrugged. "Take a break if you run out of Aura. It should stop being a problem soon, though, because there are some cheats there. For instance, raising your WIS will increase your Mana—or Aura—Regen rate, so the one for wisdom pays for itself if you keep it up full time. If you can meditate and focus on a task at the same time, you can expend way more Aura than normal as it'll regen faster, and once you level Meditation high enough you'll actually be able to do all of that at the same time and actually have a net positive return on Aura regen. Or you could slip into Meditation for short bursts to recover HP and MP. Let me know when you've got those." I turned towards the twins. "Let me know when you get Haste and we'll move on to something else. We'll have to get some actual training and studying in at some point, since that is pretty much free skill points. And if you do that while you've got buffs running, you'll level them all faster."

Turning to face away from the girls and the still ongoing fight, I focused on a spot several meters away and conjured a standing target in the rough shape of a Beowolf. 'Let's see what I can do about making a skill-set for Beacon. Glynda already assessed my ability at powered movement fairly high. Having a gravity-based Semblance would explain a lot of that simply by saying I made myself lighter, or can attract myself to surfaces, things like that. I need some offensive uses of it, though.'

That thought in mind, I cupped my hands in my lap and began the familiar process of modifying my most basic mana attack, Mana Bolt. The glowing sphere of mana formed in my hands and I focused on making it Gravity elementally aligned. With a little focus, the bright blue ball took on a blue-purple corona to it giving it the vague appearance that it had caught fire. A grin crossed my lips as I realized I recognized the spell effect from a different source—Mass Effect. Still, amusing or not, I hadn't gotten a new technique out of it. Shrugging, I fired the gravity-aligned Mana Bolt off at the target, where it struck and sent the mock Grimm spiraling off into the air for a good hundred feet before it hit the ground again. 'So, all the knock-back effect of a normal Mana Bolt, plus a zero gravity effect. Could be useful for disorienting or distracting enemies, but not what I'm looking for. Let's try just the element this time.'

I had already made a few element-only techniques that didn't start off as a modification to Mana Bolt—Fireball was one of them, as was Flash Freeze—so it wasn't like I was delving into uncharted territory. I conjured up another Grimm and cupped my hands in my lap. Pulling on gravity and focusing it in my palms, I watched as the area in between my hands swiftly darkened into a black sphere, surrounded by the same corona as before. My Semblance announced the creation of a new technique and asked if I'd like to name it. 'Let's see what it does, first,' I hummed, before shifting it to one hand and firing it at the Grimm target. The sphere of dark energy exploded on contact, sending the target to the ground while coating it and the area around it with a corona of the same color as the attack for a few seconds before fading away, leaving it visibly damaged, but not destroyed, and the ground around it ruined. What had once been a flat patch of grass was now pockmarked with depressions—some patches of grass had been ripped up and grass was bent at angles from the conflicting gravity fields that had been summoned into the area and clashed against each other briefly.

'So, it's Warp,' I decided, naming the technique. A glance at my skill menu confirmed about what I'd been expecting for the technique: 100% INT damage, gravity elemental explosive with a 5m AoE range, minor knock-back effect with the same range, minor damage over time effect, but overall inferior to Mana Bolt given that the knock-back effect was much lower and the DoT effect didn't make up for the loss in power. Most of the damage there appeared to come from my INT, with only a 50% INT bonus and the attack wasn't particularly fast either. Its only redeeming feature was that it supposedly shredded shields—leaving me to wonder if that meant natural Aura fields around people, or force fields, or both. Given the potential danger, I wasn't going to test it on a friendly target to find out. Still, though, it leveled with the same sort of progression as Mana Bolt or comparable skills, so getting up to doing decent damage by raising the INT bonus shouldn't take too terribly long.

'Well, I've got one so I may as well go for the others.' So deciding, I repeated the skill generation process, this time focusing on the image of a singularity lifting targets and pulling them in. The resultant spell, Singularity, did much the same damage as Warp, save that it pulled enemies in and did not have a temporary DoT effect after it went off. Combining it with Warp resulted in a nice explosion that actually destroyed the conjured Grimm target.

I knew what the problem here was—and, annoyingly, it was one I'd harped on Ruby about recently. Over reliance. Specifically, I'd relied too heavily on a few techniques and now that I was making things outside of those, because I didn't want to tie myself to one of my alter egos by accident, I was stuck with low tier skills unless I started leveling or modifying them—and modifying them would lead to problems and questions later. Namely, about the extent of my power. I was used to punching way, way above my level in terms of damage due in part to my inflated stats and because the skills I created tended to be geared towards doing maximum damage.

AP Round, for instance, was around what I'd consider a Tier 4 spell—meaning, it was three steps past the technique that originated it. There were other classification systems for spells, I knew, but at this point I was going to have to just make my own to cover everything. Elemental AP Round would therefore be a Tier 5 spell, while I'd say Fireball was a Tier 3 or 4—despite not having a preceding technique, its area effect, damage output, DoT, and the fact that it was elemental in nature raised it up a few pegs on the ranking chart. To compare, Warp and Singularity were clearly Tier 2 by that measuring stick: elemental, with a few effects and a bit of damage behind them, but otherwise fairly basic damage spells.

'Okay, Tier 0: basic mana attack. Tier 1: basic mana attack plus an effect or two. Tier 2: basic mana manipulation plus elemental and/or an effect or two. Tier 3: greater than 100% INT damage, an effect or two, and/or some minor elemental stuff. Tier 4: greater than 300% damage, elemental and effects optional, probably AoE. Tier 5: all that and a bag of chips.'

With that in mind, I began looking at what I knew of the others, and rolled my eyes. 'I'm just whining because I'm not doing stupid-high damage. I'm doing damage on par with people around my level with these. And that was the point: not standing out in front of people like Ozpin, Glynda, Cinder, groups like Atlas, and so on. With my team, I can always go back to my preferred style if I want to. Well, good news is, if I ever decide to stop hiding and actually go all out, I should surprise whoever I spring it on. Besides, it's not like leveling them won't increase their damage.'

I couldn't just leave myself potentially vulnerable with no immediate high-damage techniques, though, so I decided one or two wouldn't hurt. Once again, I created a black sphere in my hands with that blue-purple corona around it. Focusing on modifying the technique like with many of my others, I caused the mana inside to spin and condense, causing the softball sized sphere to shrink down to the size of a golf ball. Pouring in more mana, I concentrated my will on what I wanted it to do. Sighting down my arm at the Grimm target twenty or so yards away, I fired.

There was a crack of sound as the sphere went supersonic as it ran downrange, nearly the speed of my AP Round, leaving behind a clear path where the tall grass and some of the earth under it had been ripped up. Hitting the Grimm target dead center, it ate a hole out of the middle almost instantly and kept going, dragging the target with it at bullet velocity, enveloped in an obvious anti-gravity effect. Around two hundred yards away, the Grimm target collapsed inwards as the spell collapsed, then detonated in a burning blue-purple explosion, sending pieces of the target, grass, and ground flying everywhere.

"Holy shit!" a voice yelped behind me, followed swiftly on its heels by a series of similar sounds of surprise. I noticed the sounds of fighting had also stopped and sighed, before turning around to see the others staring.

"What?" I asked, raising an eyebrow in question.

Standing, Blake squinted at the site of the explosion before turning her attention on me. "That was about a grade 5 or 6 Dust effect. Without the Dust."

I shrugged. I'd honestly pegged that one as Tier 4 on my new ranking system—300% INT damage, 40% penetration, 400 meters/second speed, with an anti-gravity effect for anything that it passed within 5m of, and an explosion with a 5m radius doing an additional 200% INT damage to anything caught by it, followed by a DoT effect over the next 5 seconds doing another 100% INT damage. Realistically, it was like a gravity-only version of AP Round, with a DoT and AoE thrown in for fun. Unlike AP Round, the spell growth looked to be more along the lines of Fireball—slow, but worth leveling. Like Rasengan, however, it did have a charge time—two seconds, decreasing as the skill leveled. The technique was named Gravity Round by default and, given that I couldn't chant it at speed with its charge time, I left the name alone for the moment.

"I have a few of those," I admitted. "Did you finish making those skills?" I asked, and she shook her head. At my continued expectant stare, she sighed and moved back to her seat. Catching my drift, Melanie and Miltia went back to doing likewise as they hadn't gotten Haste yet. Shifting my gaze to the quartet who had stopped fighting, I asked, "You ready for a break?"

The girls traded looks before shrugging. "Sure, I could use a break," Yang agreed, sauntering over with Neo, her sister, and Penny trailing.

Digging into Inventory, I dug out a second blanket and tossed it to her. "Work on finishing out stat buffs, since I know you've got a few more to go," I told her, shifting my gaze to Ruby and adding, "You too."

"Aww, okay," Ruby pouted, plopping down on the new blanket cross legged at the corner nearest me.

"Ask if you need help," I reminded, and they nodded. Turning my attention to Neo, I asked, "How're your buffs coming along?"

The ice cream themed girl shrugged. "Fairly well. I've been kind of busy lately, though, and we haven't had much time to just sit and focus on that. Not that I don't appreciate getting a chance to improve my combat skills…"

"No, it's fine. We should've taken a day or two and done this a while ago. Try to round out the rest and we'll move on to Haste. Ruby, you too. That should give you some incentive to hurry things along," I grinned at the girl. Turning to Penny, I hummed in thought. "Penny, what do you want to do?"

"I am enjoying myself simply 'hanging out' with my new friends, Jaune. Would you like me to attempt to create more buffs as well?" she asked, and I nodded.

"Yeah, give it another try," I acknowledged. Penny had managed a handful of buffs while we'd spent the last few nights training, but honestly, they were kind of overkill. She was the same character level as me, but being 'epic gear' her stats were ridiculous. When Penny leveled, she didn't gain stat points—though she did have them. Instead, she got options to improve her combat chassis—little things so far, but I could see that changing in the future. Buffs worked on her, but I thought that was kind of bullshit as it essentially boiled down to focusing her Aura a certain way to get a certain effect. We had mostly been focusing on other aspects of her training recently—two skills in particular, but she hadn't really had call to use either of them yet.

The biggest problem we'd had was visualization—Penny had an amazing mind, but she tended to take things literally or, in some instances, took things the entirely opposite direction I would have expected. Speculative fiction always pictured AI as being limited in scope as far as imagination went—the opposite was true with Penny. The girl had entirely too much imagination at times and tended to go down the rabbit hole, so to speak. We had yet to find a nice, happy medium where I could describe a process as I did it and have her pick it up in anything under an hour. "We'll focus on getting you some other spells once you've got those down."

Pushing off the blanket, I stretched and popped my back before moving a few yards away and conjuring another Beowolf target. 'So, Singularity is okay for getting multiple targets off their feet, but what if I don't want to do damage with it?' I wondered. I could think of a few instances where a non-lethal anti-gravity technique would come in handy—especially if I could use it in combination with other things. Sure, I could hold someone up with Telekinesis, but that required attention—something I could fire and forget would be more useful. Then again, I wasn't even through the full list of biotic abilities that I could plausibly pass off as being part of a gravity-based Semblance. 'Okay, let's see. Warp, Singularity, Lift, Pull, Throw, Slam, Shockwave, Stasis, Barrier, and I think there was some kind of biotic slash in ME3's multiplayer but fuck if I can remember what it was called. That game was a steaming pile of shit.'

I had played Mass Effect 2 into the ground, but 3 I'd written off as a loss upon discovering the ending boiled down to a choice of what color explosion the player wanted to see and how they wanted to make Shepherd die. 'It's kind of irritating that I can remember hating that thing so much when there are things I'd rather remember that I can't.'

Holding my hand out towards the target, I focused on Skill Creation and gravity manipulation. It took a few seconds, but I eventually felt Skill Creation kick in. A mostly transparent sphere of blue-purple energy surrounded the target and it immediately floated a few feet off the ground. Ten seconds later, the spell wore off and the target fell back to the ground, though I mostly ignored it as I read the spell description, beyond the name Lift. The technique itself was single target, with a duration of 10 seconds, a weight limit of 1 ton, and a cost of 10MP—and the only thing it did was create a bubble of zero gravity around the target. With that one created, I took a moment to play with making the others on my short list, turning out Pull, Throw, Slam, Shockwave, and Barrier in quick succession—I had the visualization for it, after all, having played the games so all I was really doing was recreating what I had already seen.

With a hum of thought, I pointed at the target and incanted, "Lift."

As soon as it rose into the air, I reared back and punted it, sending the Grimm target flying. Drawing my right Blazefire Saber, I spun it around into rifle mode and took aim, carefully leading my slowly falling target before opening up on it. The target, made mostly of concrete, chipped and broke in places, breaking off in others as I squeezed off short bursts. The spell wore off and the target fell the last twenty feet to the ground, where it landed with a muffled thump.

Holstering my sword, I conjured another target before drawing again, this time spinning the weapon around into Saber mode. As my blade connected, I subvocalized the incantation and watched as the target was sent spinning off to the side. Grabbing it with Pull, I yanked it back over and smacked it again, this time sending it straight up. I followed with a gravity assisted Leap, holding it with Telekinesis as I tore into it with a combination of blows, interspersing the occasional Aura Strike in until the target shattered and the spell failed, leaving it to fall as a rain of concrete debris to the ground below. 'Okay, that's useful,' I grinned.

Creating another target, I called up a gravity field around myself similar to the one I'd used to lift myself and Ruby a little over a week ago, hit the target with Lift, then launched myself at it. Latching onto the target with gravity, I pulled it in close as I struck it, launching into another combo as we rolled across the field for several yards, the two gravity bubbles having combined to form one larger bubble of zero-g and allowing me to maneuver about the target by alternately anchoring myself to or pushing off of it or the ground using a combination of gravity and force from Telekinesis. When the bubble remained after ten seconds, I hummed in thought and stopped attacking. Maneuvering myself away from the target, I stopped feeding mana into the bubble around us and it immediately failed, dropping me to my feet and the mangled target to the ground.

'I see. It just combined and ran off my mana until I dropped it,' I assessed, moving back to my starting point. 'So, gravity is amazing in CQB but kind of mediocre at range so far, until I get into the higher-tier spells.'

Conjuring three targets this time, I hit them all with Lift, pausing a moment before jumping into the middle of them. 'No, that will just scatter them, then I'll have to chase them down. I need a way to force them to stick together.' Thinking on it a moment, I grinned. 'Well, why the hell not? No one said I had to stick to one source material for gravity effects. I remember Kingdom Hearts had a nice Magnet spell that had a comparable range to Lift and Singularity, except it was a non-lethal AoE.'

By itself, the resultant spell yanked the three targets off the ground and dragged them up several feet off the ground, into a circling group before dropping them after ten seconds. Like Lift, Magnet was non-lethal by itself, but excellent for crowd control. It could only affect a five meter radius at the moment—except for targets under the effects of Lift or Singularity, where the range was doubled—but the number of targets it could affect was really only limited by the space they took up. Because of the way Magnet interacted with the gravity fields around Lifted targets, their effective ranges were combined: a Magnet cast on a Lifted target could draw in another Lifted target from ten meters away, but still only worked against non-Lifted targets from five meters. The nearest thing I could compare it to was an actual magnet—place one near a piece of iron and it has one range for attraction, but place it near a second magnet and both would be drawn to the other. Neither of those spells were going to work on anything Huge or Gargantuan size-category or above though, so they were only really useful for dealing with people and people-sized Grimm—though that was mostly due to my estimates as to weight for those creatures. And that was fine—I had other options for dealing with larger enemies.

I spent a bit longer playing with Lift and Magnet, getting my timing down so I could apply them as touch attacks if I wanted in order to hit an enemy with both effects and then kick it into a group of other enemies, thus locking them all up temporarily. 'Okay, what if the enemy has a weapon? A gun, or a Dustcaster?'

Hitting another target with Lift, I followed it up with Bind, focusing on using gravity and force to hold it in place. Unfortunately, seeing as the target was immobile and inanimate to begin with, I had no way of knowing it it would work beyond knowing the spell had engaged—the only visual effect was a slight glow around the target in the usual Mass Effect color. Humming, I called, "Hey Penny, could you help me with something for a second?"

"Certainly, Jaune!" the ancula chirped happily, bouncing up from her seat and coming to stand in front of me. "How may I be of help?"

"I'm going to test a spell. Don't resist, okay?" I asked, and she nodded. "Bind," I incanted, and immediately her arms and legs snapped into place against her body and she teetered over. I grabbed her with Telekinesis to make sure she wouldn't fall then suggested, "Now try to break out."

Penny frowned slightly and flexed, and I felt the spell snap a moment later. "That was much harder than I thought it would be," she admitted.

"Huh. I see," I murmured, gently putting her back down. That could have meant a couple of things, really. Either it wasn't very useful, because of how quickly she'd broken out of it… or, more likely, Penny's inflated stats made it possible, and her admitting it had been difficult could mean normal people or Grimm would have a much more difficult time escaping the technique. Results were inconclusive and I'd have to test more later. "Thank you, Penny."

"You are very welcome, Jaune," she beamed, moving back over to sit beside Ruby.

'So, it's essentially Stasis without making a separate spell for it—which is nice, because Bind is already decently leveled.' I turned back and found most of the girls were taking a break, and a glance at their icons off to the side of my HUD gave me a good idea why—they were running into the same problem I had initially, that is running out of mana before regen could cover what the spells they were using cost. "Okay, how about a break?" I asked, grinning as Neo raised a hand to flip me off.

"About time, you slave driver," she accused, and I shrugged.

"You'll thank me later." Dropping down onto a blanket I laid back and crossed my hands behind my head, and simply watched the clouds pass overhead while the girls rested. It wasn't long before I found the twins scooting over and dropping their heads on my stomach. Neo joined them a moment later, followed by Ruby. "What is this, use Jaune as a pillow day?"

"Sounds like a plan to me," Yang laughed, moving over and dropping in beside her sister. I saw a black-clad form move around on the edge of my field of vision and Blake dropped down and made herself comfortable, apparently at least partly on top of Yang. "Oh, what's this?" the blonde hummed, tilting her head down to regard the catgirl.

"What?" Blake asked. "You make a good pillow."

"She really does," Ruby nodded. "It's the boobs. They're useful for something."

"Ha ha ha," Yang huffed.

A diminutive form moved into my field of view and I watched Penny carefully step over, between, and through the tangle of limbs before carefully plopping down on my chest. I wheezed a breath as I felt Reinforcement kick in to keep my ribs from being crushed. "Penny. Can't. Breathe," I managed to gasp out. 'God damn, she has to weigh at least four hundred pounds.'

"What? What do you mean? She's tiny," Yang asked, and I refrained from answering.

"Aww," the girl pouted, and I rolled my eyes.

Grabbing her with Telekinesis, I removed most of her weight from my chest before remembering the spells I'd been working on. Humming in thought, I focused on creating another. The girl was surrounded by a faint nimbus of the Mass Effect color and I released her from my telekinetic hold. She dropped down onto my chest, weighing only a fraction of her actual weight. 'Naming that one 'Lighten,'' I decided.

"Nap time," Blake declared, to the sound of agreement from the others.

A smirk crept up on my lips and I asked, "What if I have to pee?"

More than one female voice answered, in deadpan stereo, "Hold it."

"Well, that's just plain mean," I grumbled, though I was smiling regardless.

---

I yawned and cracked my eyes open, checking my HUD to find it was after 1p.m.. Shifting, I began waking the girls around me. "Come on, that's enough lazing around," I called, sitting up and stretching. The growl of a stomach echoed from somewhere in the pile of bodies and was met with more than one answering growl. "Okay, maybe lunch first."

I'd started making a habit of packing picnic lunches in my Inventory, specifically for when we were out training and didn't want to run into town to get food. Digging out a couple, I opened one of the boxes and began passing out sandwiches. "Turkey, chicken, chicken, turkey," Neo, the twins, and Ruby, "ham for the ham," Yang.

"Hey!" Yang whined, but accepted the sandwich anyway.

"Tuna," Blake, "and… Penny?"

"Whatever you are having is fine by me," she smiled.

"Chicken," I nodded, handing her one of the pre-labeled sandwiches. Putting the box of sandwiches back, I took out an ice chest and opened it. "Your choice of drinks," I offered, digging out a cola for myself and cracking the can open. 'Ah, the joys of Inventory space. Food stays hot, drinks stay cold, nothing goes stale.'

"So, what next?" Miltia asked, and I took in the group around me.

Thinking on it a moment, I went over our options. We could keep working on buffs, or do more sparring, but what they really needed was experience—namely, time fighting real enemies to level those skills and work them into their repertoire. Honestly, I could use some myself, so I could start getting used to limiting myself to the 'public' Semblance I would be using as Jaune while at Beacon. "How about we go find some Grimm and work off our lunch?"

"Yes!" Yang cheered, tossing one fist into the air.

"Can we cut loose?" Ruby asked, and I nodded. "Yes!"

"Try to practice formation fighting," I suggested, drawing their gazes. "We don't want to be tripping all over each other."

The twins exchanged a look and nodded. "Partner formations?" Melanie asked, and I nodded.

"You two have the most experience working with each other, so that one's obvious, but at some point in the future we need to work on different partners so everyone's familiar with everyone else," I pointed out and the twins nodded agreement. "Neo, with me. Ruby and Penny, you're together." Ruby and Penny both cheered. "And that leaves Yang with Blake."

"What can you do?" Blake asked, turning a curious look on Yang.

The blonde leered. "You want to find out?"

"Ignore her. She flirts with everyone and can't turn it off. It's reflexive," I deadpanned.

"So I noticed," Blake returned, equally deadpan. "I've been hit on more in the last twelve hours than in my entire life."

Yang opened her mouth to deny the accusation, only to take on a thoughtful look and shrug. "I got nothing."

"Well," I began, a teasing lilt to my voice, "you didn't really help your case when you stuck your head in her boobs and declared 'nap time.'"

It was Blake's turn to look flustered, opening and closing her mouth once before turning away. "It was comfortable," she muttered under her breath, and I was pretty sure it wasn't meant for anyone's ears but her own given that it took Listen to pick it up.

We finished up eating and I stowed our blankets and trash before we began moving for the forest. Pulling up my map, I hummed as I looked over the local spirit density. Picking an area about a mile to the northwest with a decent concentration, I set a waypoint and closed my map. Turning to the others, I pondered for a moment before asking, "So, want to try something?"

"Try what?" Neo asked, and I grinned.

Pointing at her, I cast, "Lighten."

Neo's lips twitched, fighting a smile as she asked, "Are you saying I'm fat, Jaune?"

Laughter erupted from the group and I rolled my eyes. "Yeah, yeah. I walked right into that one. Laugh it up." I gave them a moment to settle before saying, "Jump."

Neo shrugged, bent at the knee, and leapt upwards. "Waa!" she yelped, a good twenty feet up as she began to descend, looking like what I recalled of astronauts on the moon. Popping her parasol open, she drifted down to a landing and shot me a grin. "Okay, I wasn't expecting that. What is that, half gravity?"

"One quarter," I corrected. "Think you can move like that?"

Neo rolled her eyes. Folding her parasol, she took off running for the tree line and took a small hop before landing in the top of the nearest tree. "What are you waiting for?" she called.

"Everyone have their buffs on?" I asked, receiving a round of nods all around. "Let me know if you start getting low on Aura and we'll stop."

I quickly hit the others with the same spell and we took off, all of them taking a few moments to get used to the change before gradually picking up the pace. As we hit the tree-line and caught up to Neo, I began giving orders. 'Ruby, Blake, 11 and 1 o'clock. I'll take point. Melanie, Miltia, 9 and 3. Penny, Neo in the middle. Yang, on our 6.'

The group fanned out as I'd directed and I quickly moved up into the 12 o'clock position, following my waypoint and casting the occasional glance at my minimap. We began coming across Grimm as we progressed—Nevermores in the trees and the occasional Boarbatusk on the ground. I took out the Nevermores in the trees ahead of us using Warp, since it was fairly quiet and I needed the practice. It technically qualified as a sneak attack, any time I caught them off guard—which was most of the time. Those that I couldn't get off guard, I snagged with Pull and finished off with my sword. Occasionally, Blake or Ruby would wind up getting one off to our sides, but for the most part there weren't all that many.

That changed the deeper we got, as we started seeing Beowolves prowling around below. Holding up a fist, I came to a stop and waited for the others to do so as well. 'This looks like a good place to start,' I sent, receiving confirmations all around. 'How do we want to play this? Half on the ground, half up here for fire support?'

'That sounds good. We could switch out with the next group,' Ruby agreed, falling into the leadership roll easier than I'd expected she would. 'My team will take this group. Yang, clear us out a place to land. Penny and I will take the survivors and we'll work our way out from there. Ready?'

Yang shot me an amused look just for a moment, before nodding. Cupping her hands, fire blossomed between them and she took aim. "HA!"

Ember Celica went off, a red Dust round carrying the fireball down into the middle of the pack of Beowolves. The ones in the immediate center were incinerated and I watched as Penny and Ruby dropped, Crescent Rose and Penny's swords cutting a wide swath around the point of impact and taking out several wounded, flaming, shrieking Beowolves. Blake and Yang followed, launching into their own attacks as Neo, the twins, and I began taking pot-shots at the otherwise occupied Beowolves. I grinned, watching EXP and Spirit tick away as they died. "So," I called to the girls in the trees with me, drawing their attention. "Make a Spinning Mana Arrow, then condense it and will it to be faster. That should net you AP Round. Give it a try," I instructed, demonstrating by spinning up the technique and firing off one at a Beowolf leaping towards Penny's blind spot and punching through its head.

It took a couple of minutes, but eventually AP Rounds began raining down from all four of us as we sniped Grimm, and I started throwing out my new skills since I needed the practice. Spam Lift on a group of targets, rotate through using Slam on each, then Pull followed immediately by Throw, then Magnet to draw them all together again, throw a Singularity out into the middle of them to catch as many of the clustered up enemies as possible, and finish by dropping a Warp to detonate the Singularity followed by a Shockwave to take out any survivors. It was a long chain, but with Lift and Magnet holding them in place the Grimm couldn't do anything to get out of it.

As the Beowolves fell, the Boarbatusks we had passed along the way charged into the small clearing, drawn by the noise and Aura. I sent a view through my eyes to Ruby and the others, alerting them to the coming threat and summoned Sanguine, the spirit immediately diving off the tree and snapping up one of the hog-like Grimm by the back of the neck before shaking it like a rag doll and snapping its neck. Pulling out both my Blazefire Sabers, I spun them around into rifle mode and flipped the selector switches to full-auto. A grin crossed my lips as I opened up on the targets below—my first pass with the weapon in my right hand coating a large number of them with ice, while the second pass with the left weapon sprayed down fire, shattering most of those I'd iced. Those that I missed were easy prey for the girls below as they began tearing into them—without the advantage of being able to rely on their armor and maneuverability, the normally tough Grimm were rendered slow and vulnerable.

As soon as the area was cleared, and my map confirmed we weren't in for any surprises, the four of us still taking up sniping positions dropped down and surveyed the damage. A sudden spray of rose petals announced Ruby's arrival, and I found myself thrown to the ground as the girl wrapped herself around me. "Wha—?"

My ribs creaked and I felt Reinforcement kick in as she squeezed with every limb available and proceeded to gush, at volume. "YOU'RE THE BESTEST EVER!"

"Uhh. What?" I asked, shooting an incredulous look at Yang, who shrugged. Reaching down, I poked her in the head. "Not that I'm going to argue, but what'd I do?"

"I had to dial back on the caliber and grade of propellant for Crescent Rose when I made her, because my body couldn't take the recoil with what I could do with my own Aura. And now I have Reinforcement and buffs and that leveled like ten times in this fight alone, and I can barely feel Crescent's kick any more with everything running, and that means I can make her a larger caliber and use higher grade propellant and pretty much completely redesign everything about how she fires. I'll still have to use the blade to anchor her for sniping, since, you know, physics—but that's okay. This is the best and you're the best for making it so I can do this! Thank you thank you thank you!" And then she proceeded to squee—an honest to deity-of-choice, "Squee!"

I blinked, knowing I must have looked pretty pole-axed at the moment, but I couldn't be bothered to care. No, I was doing some mental math and coming up 'WTF.' 'Wait. Wait a goddamn minute here. That wasn't the largest force output that rifle could have had? But that thing fucking throws her when she fires it, to the point she's incorporated it in her fighting style!' And I knew damn well she was already using .50BMG rounds. 'What's next? A t-rex round? .700 Nitro Express?20MM? Shit.'

"You're welcome?" I tried, before something she'd said registered and I asked, "So, wait, you can still use it to launch yourself, right?"

Ruby nodded. "Yeah, that hasn't changed. I just handle it better and recoil doesn't throw off my aim."

Thinking it over, I frowned as I came to what seemed like an obvious conclusion. "You realize stronger propellant means more recoil, which means you're going to be throwing yourself around further, faster, and harder right? Won't that throw off pretty much your entire combat style?"

"Pfft duh," Ruby rolled her eyes. "I'll adjust my style to take advantage of it."

I hummed, thinking over my list of skills. I had one that might work, actually. "Do you want to be able to fire her without launching yourself or having to anchor her?"

"You can do that?! Yes!" she nodded, head bobbing hard enough to send her short hair flying.

Ruby's nodding tapered off as her eyes trailed down, seemingly only now fully taking in our position. She went stiff momentarily before slowly tilting her head up enough to look me in the eye, silver eyes having gone wide as she blushed. "Uh. Er…"

"So," Yang called, and Ruby winced at the teasing tone that was plainly obvious there. "Can I join in on this or are you going to make me watch?"

And just like that, Ruby vanished in another spray of rose petals. "Yaaaaang!" she whined, reappearing in front of her sister and beating her fists against the taller girl's chest.

"Ow! My boobs!" Yang yelped, but it was obvious Ruby wasn't putting any real force in the blows.

The twins stood over me, a hand from each offered to help me up. Shrugging, I took the offered hands and hauled myself to my feet. "Remember our bet," Miltia murmured, and I rolled my eyes.

The sound of a weapon firing reached my ears, at the same time Sanguine started sending 'danger' signals. My head whipped towards the source of the noise while, at the same time, I pulled on the view through the spirit's eyes. Both were of the same sight from two different angles—Blake, Gambol drawn and eyes wide as she fired at the spirit, from where Sanguine had slipped up behind the faunus. "What is that!?"

"Cease fire!" I yelled, giving it the force of an order through the party system. Blake froze, eyes tracking as Sanguine bounded over to my side. Turning my gaze down to the summon, I asked, "Did you just ninja the ninja-girl?"

The great cat plopped down on her ass at my feet and sent me a look, along with the emotions behind it: smug amusement. Sighing, I reached down to scratch between her ears as I explained. "Blake, this is the ninth member of our party. Sanguine. She… has a screwy sense of humor, some days."

"It's a Grimm," the girl deadpanned, but holstered her weapon.

"Nope," Miltia shook her head, Melanie doing likewise as she added, "Not a Grimm."

"But I don't think we should have that conversation today," Neo added, shooting me a look that said it wouldn't be the brightest idea in the world. 'You've known her for like two days.'

I shrugged. "The short answer is, she's a summon."

Blake looked around, taking in the fact that no one else seemed to be bothered by the summon's presence, and took on a sheepish look. "Sorry."

"No, it's fine. Just check your HUD next time. Her portrait should be right below mine," I pointed out, and I watched as gold eyes tracked to her left before she winced and nodded. "Like I said, no harm, no foul. On that note, why don't we take a short break and you all can meditate a while to regen Aura while I see what we got," I murmured, calling up Telekinesis and lifting everything the Grimm had dropped within my range. Moving back to the first batch we'd killed, I collected all of those as well and brought them in close, separating them by item. "Penny, what do we have?" I asked, knowing the AI could track and count everything there with pretty much no conscious thought on her part, given her sensor suite.

"I count exactly one hundred thousand two hundred and thirty lien, thirty-five red potions, twenty one blue potions, two books, fifty six Boarbatusk tusks, one hundred and thirteen Beowolf claws, and a piece of fur," she announced, and I hummed in thought. "Divided by eight, that should be twelve thousand five hundred and twenty-eight point seven five lien each."

I saw Blake go very, very still as her golden eyes tracked between Penny and myself, before taking in the rest of the group and the utterly blasé way they had taken in the numbers. Finally, she relaxed. "You get drops."

"Yup. Like I said, fun and profit," I agreed, dumping the money into Inventory before digging into my side pouch and requesting a couple of stacks of bills, totaling the amount Blake was due and rounding up to the nearest lien. One large wrapped stack of 10k and a folded stack of the rest came out and I passed them to her. "That's yours."

Once she had the cash in hand, I repeated the process with Yang and Ruby, who quickly stuffed theirs in their belt pouches. Ruby accepted her stack almost reverently, eyes going somewhat wide as she looked it over and then pocketed it. "This is going to buy so many parts for my baby."

"Eh, it'll cover my insurance for Bumblebee for the next year or so," Yang sighed, and I recognized the expression as one I'd worn more than once—knowing the money was spent as soon as it was in hand, and on something I couldn't avoid paying. "At least dad won't have to pay for that while I'm in school."

"It's real," Neo's voice drew my attention and I turned to see Blake had been examining the bills from her share closely—apparently going so far as to check to see if the serial numbers repeated.

"This is more money than I've ever had to my name," Blake murmured.

I raised an eyebrow at that. I knew the Fang stole supplies, Dust, weapons, and money… but then I suppose Blake was the kind of person who would take only what she needed and give the rest to those she was trying to help. "It's yours. You've earned it. Do whatever you like with it."

She sent me a look I couldn't read, but Observe told me she was 'conflicted' and 'calculating.' I gave her a minute to think it over. "Okay," she finally agreed, stuffing the wad of cash into her bag.

Drawing the potions to me, I separated out seven HP and seven MP potions and distributed them to the girls, before dumping the remainder into Inventory. I had more potions than I knew what to do with now. Well, more than I had known what to do with. Now that I had a guild and would be sending people out in the field, it wouldn't hurt to issue my people potions to make sure they came back alive. Maybe make up some sort of standard field kid—a space-expanded bag with ammunition, a couple of potions, and some ration bars. It would take some work—I had no idea how to sew, but I was willing to learn, since I didn't want to foist all the crafting off on Melanie, Miltia, and Neo. Speaking of which, I had a few questions about that that I would need to get them to answer later. If making Dust-infused cloth was anything like making Dust rounds, there was probably machinery we could purchase to help do the job.

The two books floated over and I had a look at them, grinning as I did. The first was titled Boar's Hide, and would grant the user a passive skill by the same name that increased durability and damage reduction each by 10%. The second was a book called Wolf's Awareness, which granted the user a passive skill that increased one's sense of smell and hearing to be on par with that of the average wolf—or Beowolf, in this case—and the instinctive knowledge that came with it for distinguishing scents and dampening them or tuning them out when they weren't needed at that level. I didn't particularly fancy catching a whiff of raw sewage. Unfortunately, hearing wasn't so easily ignored or dampened—I didn't have the requisite biology to fold my ears down.

"Not sure I can teach these," I told the others, but after some discussion it was decided that I should eat the books anyway, because if anyone could teach the skills without a book, it would be me. Eating the first, I didn't notice all that much of a change—though I did get a notification that I had collected one of a set of an unknown number of related skills. That reminded me, I needed to check my Quest Log and Journal later—I'd gotten a quest I hadn't read when I'd finished off the Nameless, along with a few items I should examine and play with.

After eating the second, however, the world seemed to open up to me—suddenly, I was aware of every scent on the wind around us and every little sound as though I'd had Listen running. Humming, I activated Listen and grinned when the skills stacked and I started picking out sounds that must have come from miles away—if the sound of a vehicle rumbling down the road through the forest to our east was any indication. Shutting off Listen, I dumped the crafting mats into Inventory before I brought up the last piece for inspection. "Well?" one of the twins asked nearby, and I shrugged.

"It's a crafting mat. A bolt of cloth, sort of. It's a bolt of Beowolf fur—twenty yards long by sixty inches wide. It looks like it's for melee DPS gear, since it gives bonuses to STR, DEX, movement and attack speed, and a little durability and Damage Reduction," I answered, stowing the bolt in Inventory with the rest.

Neo frowned, gaze trailing over us as she did some mental math. "That's enough for all of us, with some left over depending on how we use it. Is there any sort of difference based on how much you use?"

I nodded. "Yeah. The more you use, the higher the bonuses. You couldn't exactly wrap yourself in it and get 100% DR, because apparently it only goes up to 15% max."

Neo exchanged a look with the twins, who were grinning widely. "I know what we're doing when we get home," Melanie suggested, and the other two nodded agreement.

"What's that?" Yang asked, curiosity obviously roused.

"Clothes," Miltia answered simply, drawing more than one female gaze at the word.

"You can sew?" Ruby asked, perking up. "I can sew too! I made my dress."

Neo looked her up and down and her grin widened. "And a very nice dress it is," she complimented. "Want to trade notes, later?"

"Yes!" the little reaper nodded.

I rolled my eyes and opened my map. "So, we've got a project for later. I had a few questions anyway, but it can wait. Let's see what else we can find to kill. Looks like there's another group about half a mile to our northeast."

Recasting the Lighten spell on the group, we assumed the same formation as before and took off. As we came across the next group of Grimm, I frowned as I realized they appeared to be in pursuit of something, or otherwise in a damn big hurry to get somewhere. Opening my map, I saw a group of green icons nearby, not too far from the road—and remembered the vehicle I'd heard driving by earlier. 'Change of plans. These things are going after people. Stop them hard and fast,' I ordered, already dropping down into the path of the nearest Beowolf.

I spun into a kick, casting Lift as it connected, and sending the Beowolf tumbling back into those behind it. Drawing my Sabers, I spun both around into rifle mode and flipped the selector switches over to burst fire, then released both and grabbed them with Telekinesis. Two green laser sights illuminated points on Grimm and the rifles began firing as I deployed my shield and flung it into another Grimm getting too close, backing the throw up with Telekinesis, and the bladed edge punched through its skull before I yanked it out and set it to orbiting around me, then began chaining casts of my new spells. The twins dropped down to either side of me, Neo taking position behind me and we began carving a path through the pack in formation. AP Rounds went flying away from the twins and Neo danced between and skewered anything that got past them with the retractable blade of her parasol.

Out of the corner of my eye on my right, I saw Ruby leap out of the tree she'd occupied, Crescent Rose fully deployed behind her as she fired and spun into a group of four, sheering them clean in half. Penny landed beside her, following a hail of laser fire that cleared the area immediately surrounding Ruby. The pair took off ahead on our right flank, cutting a swath through the pack. On my left, Yang came down in a fiery explosion, sending Grimm pieces scattering. Blocking a lunging swipe from one that had jumped in on the heels of her attack, she grabbed it by the paw and yanked it off balance, before shifting around it and grabbing it by the hind paw. Grinning like a loon, she hefted it up and proceeded to smash it full force into the next Beowolf to get close—a wet crack signaling the demise of both.

A black blur announced Blake's arrival, landing to Yang's left and sliding Gambol's blade up under the jaw of a Beowolf that had been attempting to flank the blonde brawler. Dragging the sword out through the side of its neck, her Semblance went off and she launched herself off a clone and into the air to intercept another Beowolf attempting to jump on her. I turned my attention back to the front, where the largest concentration of the pack was, with an Alpha sitting dead center. The Alpha roared, spurring the Beowolves around it to action as they charged with renewed hostility. Three strides into its run, the Alpha hit the ground hard as Sanguine's lithe form dropped onto it from above, clamped her jaws around its neck, and proceeded to behave like the great cat she appeared to be by hauling its struggling form—easily half-again her size—up the nearest tree while doing her best to chew through its neck.

Seeing their pack leader snatched up and dealt with so easily broke the pack's ranks, many of them turning to run, showing a surprising amount of awareness for young grimm—I'd honestly expected them to keep attacking, regardless of their leader's demise. Not particularly in the mood to allow them to retreat, I focused and cast Magnet in their rear ranks, followed by Singularity. "Fire in the hole!" I called, sending the order to clear the area via the party system. A blue-purple ball of energy spun up in my hand and I sighted down the Singularity. There was a crack of sound as the Gravity Bullet fired, blasting away from me and ripping up several Beowolves in between me and my target. Upon impact, the whole mess went up in a blue-tinted explosion, destroying those Grimm unfortunate enough to have been yanked up by gravity effects and spreading to those nearby that had been within the blast radius. Their ranks broke and they turned to run, only to be cut down by Ruby and her temporary team, as they'd circled around to put the pack into a pincer attack between our two groups.

"Well, that was fun," Yang grinned, and I glanced at my minimap.

"Not over yet," I warned, and a roar preceded a black and white form rushing into the clearing, hauling one paw back and swinging for the blonde brawler, who fired her gauntlets and launched herself out of its path. It stood on its hind legs and roared a challenge, and my eyes tracked up to the nameplate over its head.

Boo Boo

The Ranger Didn't Like This

Level: 55

The bear-like Grimm stood just over ten feet tall, roughly half that wide, and was bristling in armor plating and spines jutting out of its back. The icon beside its level was an Ursa, in gold—another color I had yet to see, but if I had to guess I'd put it between silver and black on the threat scale, meaning it was probably a boss-level creature. Hitting it with Observe told me it only had one special attack: Roar, which would call for help.

"That's a big Ursa," Blake muttered.

"I've seen bigger," Yang countered.

Ruby shot her sister an annoyed look. "Not the time, Yang. Jaune?"

"Lift," I incanted.

"Oorgh?" the beast grunted, taking on what must have been the most confused expression an Ursa had ever made as it lifted off the ground and hung mid-air, flailing about in panic.

"Flash Freeze," I followed up the first cast, as we were all well outside the AoE range. With civilians nearby, I didn't want to chance this thing getting away and going for them—and with them out of line of sight, we wouldn't have to hide skills and fight it at a handicap. "Ranged attacks only. Fire elemental damage will hurt it the most for now. Open fire."

That was all the urging the others needed as Dust rounds, lasers, fireballs, and other spell-fire began streaking away from our group to slam into the boss, its HP rapidly depleting as frozen chunks broke off or shattered outright. Renewing Lift on it to keep it disabled, I swapped magazines as my Sabers ran dry and opened up with spell-fire of my own, repeated castings of Warp streaking downrange and exploding on contact, interspersed with Slam and Shockwave to generally bash it into submission. The freeze effect wore off and the Ursa immediately began screeching in agony, before one last round from Crescent Rose punched through its skull and put it out of its misery.

Taking a moment to reload Ember Celica, emulating everyone else who had burned through their Dust rounds, Yang tossed me a grin. "Well, that was easy."

"God damnit Yang, stop tempting Murphy," I groaned, my enhanced hearing already picking up the crash and thump of something large pounding through the woods. "Get ready for round three!"

As the pounding got closer, I began casting Mana Shield and A.T. Field on myself and the others. A moment later, a gigantic form crashed through the trees, knocking two aside as it barreled into the clearing and slid to a stop. As I took in its details, I groaned quietly.

Yogi

Smarter Than The Average Ursa

Level: 57

The Ursa icon beside its level was gold and, below its nameplate, perched upon its head and seemingly stuck to its fur with matted blood was a green cap of some sort—possibly belonging to the ranger in question from Booboo's title. Hitting it with Observe, I resisted the urge to curse. It had three specials: Swipe, Stomp, and Roar. Swipe appeared to be some sort of attack that allowed it to extend its claws by several feet. Stomp had an AoE knock-down and stun effect. Roar, unlike Boo Boo's version, was an actual sonic weapon on top of calling for help.

Spotting the very dead form of the previous Ursa, the new one stood and roared, causing me to wince at the volume—an obvious downside to enhanced hearing, but one I could deal with since Gamer's Body meant I couldn't be deafened. A glance towards our resident faunus—the only other one besides myself and Penny with enhanced hearing—showed her wincing and shaking her head, but otherwise unharmed, having been outside the immediate AoE range. The woods were filled with the sounds of crashing as my minimap detected more Grimm coming into range—lots more. Yogi seemed content to simply stand there and wait for the moment, red eyes glaring at us from under its mask. 'Twenty feet tall. Probably weighs a ton and a half.' I cast Lift to give it a try, watching as the gravity bubble materialized around the Grimm's midsection, but did nothing otherwise.

'Nope. I'm not going to be able to Lift this thing,' I assessed, going over my options as I dispelled the failed Lift. Ursai poured into the edge of the clearing, circling us as we shifted back to back.

"We should leave," Blake suggested quietly.

The twins nodded. "Leaving sounds good," Melanie agreed.

I shook my head. "Fuck leaving. That thing's a boss, there's a dead boss on the ground, and there's another boss beside it," I pointed out, where a third over-large Ursa had shown up—this one also a named mob, level 56, Cindy, with the title 'Mama Ursa.' "There's more EXP and Spirit gathered here than I've seen since killing the Nameless—not to mention whatever else they're going to drop."

"So, do we have a plan?" Ruby asked, and I nodded.

"Yeah. Cheat," I smirked. "Penny, with me. Everyone else, try to kill off the trash as fast as you can," I explained, then focused on the spell I wanted. "Bind!" I yelled, pointing at a section of the gathered Ursa. Tree roots and earth shot up, wrapping around Grimm and stabbing into legs and feet. Tossing out a Magnet and letting it draw more in, I threw another Bind on them before switching targets, forcing more to cluster and then binding them.

Penny shot out from beside me, intercepting Yogi as he made to charge, her raw strength—boosted up by buffs—enough to send it stumbling off to the side into Cindy and distract them for the moment. The other girls spread out and began attacking downed targets, going for cheap, easy-kill shots to heads, necks, and other vulnerable areas as I finished Binding the last of them. I didn't have time to watch the others, though, as there were still two bosses to deal with. Turning my attention back to Yogi, I saw Sanguine had leaped onto Cindy's back and was harassing the smaller of the two Ursai, while Penny was alternately dodging or parrying Yogi's swipes while battering it with slashes and laser blasts from her swords.

Yogi reared back and roared in the ancula's face—who appeared entirely unphased by the point-blank sonic attack. I'd have to ask later, but I suspected the people who'd built her had made sure to put in some precautions to keep things like that from breaking her sensitive equipment. Realizing what it had done, I checked my minimap, only to find no more Ursai on the way. 'So you can't just summon adds out of thin air. Good to know,' I assessed. Stepping up beside the gynoid, I fixed the Ursa with a glare and pulled up Killing Intent, before rearing back with it and slamming it in the face with a metaphorical hammer blow from the technique, while at the same time returning its roar with one of my own—and surprising myself as my Semblance popped up a skill creation window for the skill Taunt.

The effect was immediate as Yogi fell to the ground, slamming both front paws into the ground and sending a shockwave radiating outwards that sent dirt spraying up. "Jump!" I yelled, suiting word to deed and hopping over the shockwave as the Ursa stood again.

Sending Penny the order to help Sanguine keep Cindy busy, I caught the shield whipping around me and reattached it at my left forearm. One of the Blazefire Sabers orbiting me spun down into Saber mode and I caught it, while the other shifted to put the green bead of a laser sight on Yogi's eyes, causing the Ursa to flinch. Recognizing a potential weakness when I saw one, I used Telekinesis to squeeze off a burst at its eyes. The right one popped and it stumbled backwards with a pained roar, bringing a paw up to shield its other eye while swiping its right paw at me. Its claws extended and I created a gravity bubble around myself, leaning to the side while bringing my shield up to deflect the lower part of the arm and allowing the arm to pass mostly over me. As it did, I snagged it with gravity and Telekinesis, allowing it to haul me along with the arm.

Sticking to the back of the arm, I got to my feet and hurried the few feet up it as Yogi reared back and tried to dislodge me. It tried to swat me with its other paw, but a burst from my second Saber reminded it that I was going for its eyes, and it thought better of leaving its remaining eye unguarded. Instead, its great maw opened and it sucked in a breath. Seeing an opportunity, I charged up a Gravity Bullet and fired down its gullet. Yogi aborted the attack as the spell detonated, sending it tumbling over on its ass and puking up Grimm blood as the air it'd inhaled came harmlessly back up. A gravity and wind assisted Powered Leap sent me flying up above it and I collapsed the shield as the second Saber spun down into sword form. Catching it in my left hand, I swung with the right one and launched a blue-tinted ranged Aura strike, cutting a deep gouge in the Ursa's vulnerable belly. I followed it up with the same from the other Saber, that one tinted the red of fire elemental as I launched into a slashing combo as I descended on it.

I landed on its upper chest, releasing the ice elemental Saber to float nearby and taking the fire elemental one in both hands, before driving them down into Yogi's unarmored throat. The Ursa's remaining eye went wide and it brought both paws up in an attempt to smash me flat. My own eyes narrowed as I rearranged my A.T. Fields, two to either side of me to intercept the paws, and dumped mana into both them and my Mana Shield. My shields flared brightly but held as I pulled the Saber out and hit it again, getting penetration this time as it drove a foot down into Yogi's neck. Below me, the Ursa thrashed, and I responded by drawing on the gravity around us—the ground indenting slightly beneath us as our relative weight doubled, then tripled.

Opening its yap again to suck down a breath and roar, I shoved my compressed shield into its mouth before expanding it, forcing the Ursa's jaws open wide, beyond the point where they hinged, and effectively rendering its mouth useless for biting for the foreseeable future. Not that it was going to live more than the next minute, as I focused on the sword in my hand and dumped mana into it—more specifically, into the Grade 9 Uncut Burn crystal powering it, initiating an over powered Aura Strike. The tracery I could see on the sword flared bright red and an ominous red glow refracted off my shield in Yogi's mouth as I poured fire down its throat. Yogi's thrashing increased as its HP bar rapidly depleted, before ceasing altogether as it hit 0.

Cutting the mana flow to my Saber, I yanked it out of Yogi's new throat hole and wrinkled my nose at the stench of cooked and burned Ursa. The blade itself was still orange with heat, and I let go of it, allowing Telekinesis to grab it and keep it away from me as I hit the switch to compress my shield, which was also uncomfortably warm, then turned to survey the others. I was forced to look away as a blinding green light flashed as Penny opened up at her current full power, burning a hole through Cindy and several hundred yards worth of forest behind the Ursa.

"This doesn't seem fair," Blake announced from nearby, casually driving her blade into the ear of another Ursa and sending it twitching to the ground in death throes.

"There is no such thing as a fair fight," Ruby quoted immediately, and I shot the girl a grin—she had been listening.

As the girls finished off the last of the Ursai, I began scooping up drops with Telekinesis. Shooting a look to Penny, she answered, "One million, seven hundred and seventy thousand, six hundred and five lien. Or two hundred twenty one thousand, three hundred and twenty five point six two five lien each."

"It may be easier to keep that in Inventory until we get back to town, then I can divide it up there. That okay with everyone?" I asked, and received nods from Ruby, Yang, Penny, and Blake—I already knew the twins and Neo didn't mind, since they were pretty much treating my Inventory like a shared bank account at times. Some quick mental math told me that was between 300 and 400k each for the three bosses—probably more like 300k each for Boo Boo and Cindy and 400k for Yogi—plus around 700k for the mob of Ursai and Beowolves. "What else?"

"Sixty red potions, forty blue. Two hundred and six claws, unknown whether they are from Ursai or Beowolves. Two bolts of cloth like the first one we found. One skill book, one potential weapon."

Funneling potions and materials into my Inventory, I paused on the cloth. "Another bolt of Beowolf fur. One bolt of Ursa fur. This one looks like tank gear: adds STR and VIT, along with durability and Damage Reduction—a lot more than the Beowolf fur. Looks like 30% base DR against physical attacks. That's not bad, at all. Going to have to see if it stacks." Dropping them into Inventory, I had a look at the skill book next. Bear's Hide looked to be the third in the set of Grimm-based buffs, and would increase durability and DR by 10%, along with increasing HP regen rate by 10%. Absently eating the skill, I pulled what Penny suspected was a weapon to me.

'Bear Claws. Fist weapon, grants extendable claws from fingers, passively increases STR by 10%, attacks have a 20% chance to inflict Bleed per claw. Limited shape-shift ability to disguise itself as gloves.'

I tossed the weapons to Miltia, who raised an eyebrow as she looked over them. "For me?"

"Yep," I agreed. "Try them on."

Shrugging, she pulled off and stored her own bladed weapons before slipping on the new ones. As she tugged the second one on, both shifted and compressed down, conforming to her slender arms, hands, and fingers and taking on the appearance of elbow-length black silk gloves with a black fur lining along the top and Miltia's personal sigil on the back of them in green. "Not bad looking, but it doesn't really go with the dress. We can fix that later," Melanie suggested. "Now, what do they do?"

Moving over to a tree, Miltia swiped her hand at it and five razor sharp claws extended from the backs of her fingers, somewhere between the first and second knuckle when counted from the tips to the palms. They tore a set of deep gouges in the tree and the red-clad twin hummed, pulling her hand away and flexing her fingers, testing her dexterity to make sure none of the claws would get in each other's way. When they didn't, she retracted them and beamed a smile at me. "Thank you, Jaune."

"You're welcome," I chuckled, then pointed down to her dress, which was looking a bit worse for wear—rips and tears were scattered across both dresses, though there were no visible injuries that I could see and all of the damage looked superficial. Considering much of that damage just managed to show off their thighs, stomachs, and bustline I wondered for a moment if my Semblance hadn't decided to try for the Negima effect—that is, damage that destroys clothes, and only clothes, in such a way as to leave a female more indecent than if she'd simply been nude. A glance at Melanie confirmed she was in much the same state. Yang and Ruby seemed okay, but then I kind of expected that much. Blake and Neo both looked a little cut up, but nothing a few stitches wouldn't fix. I'd still want to look into durability seals for them as well, regardless. "Let me guess," I shot an amused look at Miltia, "didn't hold up too well to Grimm?"

The twins shot each other a look before turning equally unamused expressions on me. "Shut up, Jaune," they synced.

"At least fitting the gloves to the dress won't be much of a problem any more. You can make a new dress," I pointed out, and they rolled their eyes.

I frowned as my perception skills pinged. Glancing at my minimap showed the green dots representing people had moved closer, one dot in particular in the lead. Turning, I spotted what had set off my detection skills and allowed a rueful grin to spread across my lips. A large man clad in a red coat, with a large walrus moustache, brown pants, and hiking boots strolled out of the woods and took in the slowly dissolving bodies of Yogi, Cindy, and Boo Boo. "My word!" he exclaimed, and I raised an eyebrow as he turned to take our group in. "Did you take these three beasts down?"

"Yes, sir," I answered automatically, my eyes tracking to his nameplate. "That we did."

Big Game Hunter

Professor Peter Port

Level: ?

"Well done! Magnificent work, I say! I recognize these three from the bounty board. They've been wandering out of Forever Fall and terrorizing nearby villages. I had no idea they were in the area though—their usual territory is several miles to the northwest. Hmm," he hummed, reaching up to stroke his mustache before muttering, "I'll have to move today's excursion further away, if the Grimm population is this great here."

"Who's this guy?" Yang asked, shooting me a confused look. I knew that, being in my party, they could all see nameplates and levels just as I could, but I could forgive her for not recognizing Port—he was a teacher at Beacon and probably not someone she had dealt with while at Signal. Still, I made a mental note to talk to the girls going to Beacon about researching their school beforehand—especially their professors. I should probably start by practicing what I preached and do my own research before coming to them about it, though—because while I knew of some of the teachers, I did not know them all.

Port perked up. "Who am I, my dear? Why, I am the greatest hunter of big game in all of Vale and an instructor at the illustrious Beacon Academy! My name is Professor Peter Port! And who might you be? You look to be around the age to be Beacon students, but I don't recognize any of you. Except for you, Mister Arc," he pointed in my direction. I raised an eyebrow and he asked, "How is your father doing, these days? And your sisters? Why, I remember when your eldest sister first came to Beacon, how she… well, that's a story for another time. Perhaps you would like to hear it later, once school starts?"

I shrugged. "Wouldn't know about my dad, Professor. My sisters are doing fine. Joan's off on rotation right now, actually." Thinking over his offer, I grinned. "And sure, I'll have to take you up on that some time. I'd love to get some blackmail—I mean stories—about Joan." Something he'd said earlier tickled my curiosity and I asked, "Professor, you said something about a bounty?"

"Why yes, Mister Arc. Bounties are quite the boon to the Hunter strapped for cash," he nodded.

Gesturing towards the corpses, I asked, "How's that work?"

"Well, normally you would pick up the bounty from either one of the local bounty boards, or using your scroll once you've become a Hunter. Once the grimm in question has been put down, simply take a picture of its body with your scroll and submit it to the bounty system. But as you are not a Hunter yet, you will have to photograph the grimm in question and travel to any bounty office in the country the bounty originated from. There is one such office in downtown Vale, in fact," Port explained.

Taking out my scroll, I moved up and quickly snapped pictures of the downed grimm while they were still recognizable. I would go tomorrow and turn it in. I had no idea how much bounties went for, but hopefully it would be a pretty good chunk of change. "Thank you, Professor."

"Professor, what are you doing out this far into Forever Fall?" Ruby asked, and Port winced, turning to cast a look towards where I knew the other people to be.

"Ahh, I was tracking down an elusive Grimm, Miss…?"

"Ruby Rose!" Ruby offered. "What kind of Grimm?"

"Well, Miss Rose, you see," Port began, and I hit him with Observe.

'Nervous, distracted, worried. Obviously hiding something. Probably has to do with those people back in the woods.' Reasoning it out, the conclusion seemed fairly simple: Port was a teacher. I didn't know what sort of salary being a teacher at Beacon paid, but like any school the teachers had a good deal of downtime during the summer breaks. On Earth, those I knew tended to either enjoy their time off and live off their savings, or those who needed the money would offer their services as tutors or for summer school.

"He's probably tutoring some kids for a few extra bucks," Neo got there about the same time I did, and I nodded.

"Seems reasonable. He's a teacher, they're off for the summer. Makes sense that some may want to make some cash on the side as tutors," I added. 'Doesn't explain why he's worried, though, or what he'd be hiding exactly.'

Port nodded, chuckling quietly. "Yes, you've found me out," he 'admitted,' and I blinked as my Semblance registered that as a lie while my own finely honed bullshit detector pegged the needle in the red. "Ahem," he coughed into his hand, breaking the silence. "Well. If you'll excuse me, I must get back to my students. I don't believe the Grimm activity in this area is safe for such a group. Do be careful yourselves, on your way out. Mister Arc, Miss Rose, it was very nice meeting you and your friends. I wish you all a good day."

Port turned and quick-marched back into the trees, headed for his group and I exchanged looks with the others. "He's hiding something," Melanie pointed out.

"Definitely," Blake agreed.

I shrugged. "Well, so are we, and Port did us the courtesy of not asking how exactly we took down those three," I gestured towards the mostly-dissolved pile of dead grim, "or about that," I pointed out the trail of destruction Penny had left in the wake of her attack. The gynoid looked suddenly sheepish, rubbing the back of her head and scuffing the toe of her shoe in the dirt.

"So, what now?" Ruby asked, and I glanced at my HUD clock.

"It's getting late. How about we head back?" I suggested, beginning the process of casting Lighten on the others. "So, did anyone level?"

Every hand went up, and I chuckled. "Nice. We'll sort it out later. For now, let's get the hell out of here before more trouble comes along. Or my Semblance decides killing off three bosses and a few trash mobs is a waste of Raid Party mode and tries to rectify that oversight."

---

We were loaded into the Bullhead and halfway to Fox Hunt's landing zone when my scroll rang. My HUD snapped out onto the windshield of the Bullhead and Jun's picture popped up as Rhythm Emotion poured over the Bullhead's speakers. I took out my scroll and answered the call, taking it off speaker. "What's up, squirt?"

"Well, it's Sunday and I was just calling to remind you that you promised me a date," the girl answered, and I winced. "You didn't forget, did you?"

"No," I lied. "Actually, I was just on my way to pick you up."

"Uh huh," the girl huffed in disbelief. "That doesn't sound like a car engine. That sounds like a Bullhead."

"Maybe?" I tried, glancing at the girls in the back, where they were talking about clothes. Sighing, I told her, "Put on some normal clothes and we'll go see a movie. Sound good?"

"Sure," she agreed. "When will you be here?"

Opening my map, I set a waypoint for the Arc home and adjusted my course. "Shortly, so make it quick."

"Okay!" Jun chirped, and I rolled my eyes as she hung up.

"We're making a detour," I announced, drawing the girls' attention. "And apparently I forgot a promise I made to one of my sisters, so I'll be out of pocket for a few hours, but I can catch up with you all later."

They exchanged looks and shrugs before Neo answered, "That's fine, Jaune. Could you leave the bolts of cloth for us to play with?"

Chuckling, I nodded. "Sure. Just remember, don't drop party or you won't get skill creation stuff if you're going to do any crafting." Thinking things over a moment, I added, "Also, Neo, Penny, I'm going to need the two of you for something later tonight. It shouldn't take long."

"Okay Jaune!" Penny chirped and Neo nodded as they went back to their conversation.

I turned my attention back to my instruments and the view out the window, turning on the radio, setting it to scan through stations until I found something I liked. It wasn't long before I came up on my waypoint and throttled back, kicking the Bullhead into hover before bringing it in for a landing on the Arc family's back yard/training area. Killing the engines, I hit the door controls and made my way out. A voice from nearby calling my name drew my attention to Jun, who became a red blur and slammed into my midsection. "Hey, kiddo."

Behind me, I heard Ruby call, "Jun?"

I blinked as Jun looked up, going wide-eyed and pulling away from me. Shifting to look around me, I turned and watched as she yelled, "Sempai!"

"Kohai!" Ruby called, disappearing in a spray of rose petals as Jun became a red blur. The pair met in the middle and I winced at the audible smack sound as they collided and tumbled to the ground laughing.

Shooting a confused look at Yang, who was grinning wide, I asked, "They know each other, I take it?"

"You didn't know?" she asked, then made an 'oh' of realization. "Right, amnesia. Yeah, they made friends last year at Signal. Your sister's kind of a dork, though—but that's fine, because mine is too."

"Speak for yourself, Yang Xiao Long," a voice called from the back door of the Arc home, and I turned to see a blonde girl bearing a strong resemblance to Joan leaning against the door frame.

The Fourth Deadly Sister

Divine Will

Jen Arc

Level: 60

I wasn't fooled this time—I damn well knew better. 'Level 60 my ass,' I grumbled internally. I took a moment to observe the girl, and Observe her as well. Long, straight blonde hair trailing down to mid-back, her bangs cut straight over blue eyes, shorts and tee-shirt showing off her well-toned form and impressive bust—not quite on Joan's level, but larger than her other two elder twin sisters. They weren't standing side by side, but I'd say they were proportionally slightly larger than Yang's own impressive set. I probably should feel bad that her breasts stood out more than some other feature, but honestly, I'm a man, we noticed and assessed these things by instinct. Besides, it wasn't like I was staring. That's what peripheral vision was for. She met my gaze calmly, and I couldn't read anything from her stance or expression—it was as flat as my own had ever been when I was trying. Neither cold nor warm, the epitome of neutral, indifferent curiosity.

"Stop staring," Jean deadpanned from behind the slightly shorter girl, giving her a light shove to get her out of the doorway. "Jaune, be polite and introduce us." She turned her gaze on Jun and Ruby, still latched onto each other and gabbing away as they caught up on things. "Looks like they may be a minute."

"Sorry Jean, we're on a schedule," I denied, hitting both smaller girls with Telekinesis and hauling them into the air. "Come on, you two." Turning a grin on Jean, I winked as I lead them back into the Bullhead. "Catch you later."

"Ass!" Jean called, and I tossed a wave over my shoulder.

Closing the sliding doors behind us, I deposited the two younger girls on seats. "That was mean," Neo pointed out. "Amusing, but mean."

"Yeah, but I'm trying to get under her skin," I admitted.

"Onii-chan! You didn't tell me you were dating Sempai!" Jun yelled, pointing an accusing finger my way as I dropped into the pilot's seat and spooled up the engines.

"Jun, what did I tell you about that?" I asked, then added, "And we're not dating."

"We're just friends," Ruby agreed from beside her.

We lifted off and I set a course for the base, before taking out my scroll and sending Jim a text, asking him to bring a couple of cars to meet us there.

Jun bounced up from the back and dropped into the co-pilot's seat. "Why aren't you dating sempai? Is she not good enough for you?!"

I shot the tiny girl an amused look. "Why do you ask?"

Jun shot me an annoyed glare as I deflected the question, crossing her arms over her chest. After a long moment, she answered quietly, "Because I love sempai, and I love you, and if you're together with sempai that's even better."

"You've got some weird ideas, you know? You should stop reading so much manga," I shook my head. "A man is allowed female friends he's not dating."

Jun shot me an incredulous look before snorting softly. "You're not that kind of character. You, my naive elder brother, are the male protagonist in a harem anime. Or maybe one of Jen's H-game dating sims, but don't tell her I said that. She'd hurt me if she knew I played through her stash."

"I'm really not," I denied, if only on general principle. "The male protag in a harem series is almost always clueless, can't seem to get a date, and the harem is—nine times out of ten—only implied. It's the illusion of choice on his part, but he's typically either friendzoned himself, or is blind to it, or either can't or won't due to some sort of previous commitment. For instance, an arranged marriage, or his duty to the realm that will require some sort of heroic sacrifice, or something along those lines that winds up keeping the women around him in a perpetual state of limbo. The men in most H-games, not that I've played any, to my knowledge are in much the same boat—except the women in those tend to wind up throwing themselves at the guy anyway. And what, pray tell, are you doing playing adult games? You're eleven."

"Twelve soon," the little redhead grumbled under her breath. "And it's because I got bored when I ran out of manga one day. After that, I just sort of kept playing them. But we're not talking about me, we're talking about you, and your inability to commit to sempai! You say you're not like the leads in those stories, then prove it! Date my sempai!"

"You're not the boss of me," I retorted, resorting to the ultimate counterargument to all childish arguments. "You can't force people to see each other just because it'd be convenient for you." Seeing her pout, I sighed and quietly added, "But if something happens naturally in the future, I'll let you know. Maybe. If I'm feeling generous," I smirked, seeing the swiftly growing hope in her green eyes. "Now, go keep you 'sempai' company for me."

"Hai, hai," she nodded, hopping up and making her way back.

"What have I told you about that?" I called after her, rolling my eyes. 'Little weeb,' I chuckled.

Seeing the base's landing pad light up green in the twilight, I brought the Bullhead in for a soft landing and cut the engines, hitting the door controls on the way to the back. We piled out of the aircraft and found Jim waiting. "Two cars with drivers waiting in the garage, sir," he reported.

"Thanks, Jim," I nodded, signaling him to wait a minute. "So, where are you guys heading?" I asked, digging into Inventory and taking the bolts of cloth, passing them to Neo and the twins. Once that was done, I began divvying out the cash owed to Blake, Yang, and Ruby.

"Actually," Melanie hummed, shooting a look at Jim. "Would it be any trouble to have some of the living quarters to ourselves?"

Jim shook his head. "No, ma'am. We've got a couple of hired work crews converting one of the buildings to barracks."

"Buildings? Plural?" I asked, shooting the twins a questioning look.

"We kind of expanded our initial purchase," Melanie admitted.

Beside her, Miltia nodded, before casting a glance at Yang who was listening in nearby. "Could you give us a minute?"

Yang rolled her eyes. "Fine," she grumbled, moving out of ear-shot but keeping her eyes on us.

Seeing the blonde was far enough away, Miltia continued in a low voice, "They were fairly cheap, considering, and we don't technically own most of them—they're owned by the other gangs and they're being 'donated' to us, since they can't exactly say no at this point. The ones we do own, we'll be paying for them over the next five years, assuming we don't pay them off sooner."

"Huh. Good work," I told them, earning a pair of smiles. I gestured for Jim to continue.

"They already have two floors worth of space converted. We were actually wondering if we should go ahead and set aside quarters for ranking staff staying on base. If you'd like, we can mark off the top two floors for your use."

The twins and Neo exchanged a look with me and I nodded. "Yeah, go ahead and do that. You want to try to furnish this tonight, or later?"

"If we could borrow some men, tonight," Miltia suggested, and Jim nodded.

"It's doable, sir," he agreed.

"Okay, get it done. Any luck on those recruits, by the way?" I asked, thinking of the quest I had gotten that morning, and he nodded.

"Yes, sir. As we discussed. They've all agreed to start tomorrow. We've also got a lead on some other men to start filling out various departments, flight crews, and the like."

I grinned. "Great. Let me know how things go." I turned back to the other girls. "So, Jim and his men are your pack mules for the night. Sorry, Jim."

"Apology not accepted, sir," he chuckled as the twins grabbed him by the arms and lead him towards the elevator, with the others, minus Yang and Ruby.

"Would you like some help?" Penny asked, trailing along with the twins, while Yang wandered back over now that it seemed the twins were done with our semi-private conversation.

"Absolutely," Neo agreed. "You can help us move stuff out of my sewing room, then pick out furniture for the new place. You want a room of your own, right?"

Penny turned a wide-eyed look on the ice cream themed girl and nodded slowly. "I believe I would like that."

"Jaune, I think we'll be needing that money from earlier for this," Neo suggested, and I nodded, handing her her share before passing Penny her own as well, then giving them the twins' shares as well just in case they needed it. "Great. Thanks, Jaune," she turned and headed for the twins and handing over their share of the cash.

Melanie turned enough to send me a questioning look before gesturing towards Blake, and I shrugged. "Hey Blake?" I called and the faunus girl turned gold eyes on me.

"You going back to the apartment or tagging along with the others?" I asked.

Blake shifted golden eyes between me and the others and gave a faint smile. "If it's all the same, I think I'll go back to the apartment and catch up on my reading. I know you've got things to do here and I'm not exactly 'in,'" she pointed out. I raised an eyebrow and she returned it with an amused but knowing look.

Digging into my pocket, I fished out my apartment keys and tossed them to her. "We'll probably be in later."

The girl nodded, turning her attention to Jim and asking, "Would it be too much trouble to ask for a ride?"

"It's fine," Melanie rolled her eyes, snagging Blake by the sleeve and dragging her along.

Yang's gaze moved back and forth between me and Jim and I raised an eyebrow in question. "'Sir?' So, you've got guys working for you now? And what is this place? And what's 'Fox Hunt?' And also, what'd Blake mean by 'in?'" Though, judging by her questions, she'd heard enough.

"That's a lot of questions," I pointed out with a chuckle. Shooting a glance towards the other girls waiting by the elevator, I hummed as I considered the questions. "You really want to know?" I asked, and she nodded. "Then wait. I'll tell you when I'm ready."

One golden eyebrow went up and she put a hand on her hip as she asked, "When will that be?"

"When we've both shown we can trust each other," I answered simply. "I like you, Yang. You seem like a decent enough girl and you're fun to hang around with. But I don't think we're quite to the point where you're ready to hear all my secrets. Is that going to be a problem?"

Yang turned lilac eyes on her sister, who looked away to study the floor. "No," she answered after a moment of thought. "I can wait. And I'll keep my mouth shut."

"Good," I grinned, before gesturing towards where Neo, the twins, Penny, and Blake were waiting at the elevator with Jim. "Go on, they're getting impatient."

"Yeah, yeah," the blonde grumbled, tossing a wave over her shoulder as she made her way towards the elevators. "Ruby, I'll meet you at home."

"I'll be back in a few hours," I called after them as the doors to the elevator close behind them. "Jun?" I asked, and the smaller redhead took Ruby's hand and pulled her along. "Eh?" I asked, shooting them a questioning look. I'd thought Ruby just wanted to tell me good-night or something separate from the others, but now I saw I had been mistaken on that assumption.

"We thought it'd be fun if sempai came along," Jun explained, and I rolled my eyes.

Sending Ruby a smile, I asked, "Do you want to come?"

"A movie sounds nice," she agreed.

"It's a double date!" Jun cheered, and Ruby blushed, before reaching out and mussing the smaller girl's hair in a move I recognized—having used it on Ruby more than once.

I shot Jun a mild glare and asked Ruby, "Do you want it to be a date?"

The little reaper blushed harder, pulling her hood over her head, but nodded and quietly said, "I'd like that, Jaune."

"Okay then," I agreed, leading them to the elevator. "A date it is." If they wanted to call it that, I was fine with it—as far as I was concerned, it was just a movie and maybe dinner with my little sister and a friend. Completely innocent.

When we made it to the garage, in time to watch two cars pull out, I hummed and looked over the vehicles. The motorcycle could hold all three of us, but it'd be cramped—and there were other issues I didn't want to deal with, so I shook my head and summoned up the sedan. "So you've got a secret base and minions now, oni—Jaune?"

Starting the car as the two girls got in, I chuckled. "I suppose you could say that. Don't tell your sisters."

---

"Hello again," I waved to the blonde sister with the flat expression as Jun slid out of my car, hugged me, and sleepily made her way inside.

Jen hummed softly, watching Jun walk inside. "Come by and speak with me soon," she finally said, turning and entering the house, then closing the door behind herself.

Rolling my eyes, I went back to the car and found Ruby had passed out in the back seat, snoring softly. Smiling, I turned the radio on low and took us back through the city to my guild base. She stirred briefly as I lifted her out of the back seat and dismissed the sedan, just enough to throw her arms around my neck and snuggle into my chest. I headed up to the landing area, finding Yang leaning against a Bullhead waiting for us. "That looks comfy," she grinned. "When are you going to sweep me off my feet?"

"When Ruby asks me to," I deadpanned, hoping to burst her bubble.

The blonde simply grinned wider. "That can be arranged." She opened the door and took a seat, strapping in and holding out her hands. "Gimme."

I passed the younger girl over and Yang pulled her mostly into her lap. "How can she sleep through that?"

Yang shrugged. "She does this from time to time."

"So, what're you doing here, anyway?" I asked, throwing her a curious look. "Thought you were going home."

Yang rolled her eyes. "I was, but the others decided there wasn't much of a point in it when you'd have to take Ruby home later anyway. That, and there wasn't much I shouldn't see in a mostly-unfinished building."

"I suppose they're right, there," I admitted.

Grinning, she asked, "Think it'd annoy my dad and uncle to buzz the house on the way over?"

"Absolutely," I nodded.

"Do it," she laughed. "I've always wanted to jump out of a moving aircraft."

I shot her a mildly horrified look. "I refuse to jump out of a perfectly good aircraft for fun. But hey, if you want to make a crater, by all means." Well, at least, I had refused prior to coming to Remnant. Now? I'd done it more than once already. It wasn't exactly on my top ten list of things to repeat in the future, but it wasn't nearly so bad when I had the power to keep myself from going 'splat,' as opposed to relying on a parachute that may or may not work.

"Shows what you know. Making a crater is the best way not to go 'splat.' I do it all the time, just not from moving aircraft," she blonde argued as I got us moving. The sound of the engines filled the cabin and I hit the radio as I turned us towards Patch.

As Yang requested, I opened the doors and buzzed her dad's house, as she hopped out the side, Ruby in hand and squealing as the smaller girl woke up mid-fall. "Oh, she is going to be annoyed with me," I laughed, closing up the Bullhead and heading back into the city. 'Neo, Penny, are you two ready?'

'We're moving into position now. The men are already in place and waiting on you. Are you sure about this?' Neo sent in return.

'Yeah. Penny?'

The ancula sent me an image of a Dust shop in the middle of the Commercial District, highly trafficked, but closed for the night—and the largest Dust shop in town. I'd actually been putting off hitting this one because it was such obvious bait. As if to emphasize that point, Penny's gaze trailed down to a car parked in an alley across from the Dust shop, sensors switching to infrared and pointing out two heat signatures. 'Ready, Jaune. As you predicted, they took the bait.'

The 'they' in question were a reporter and cameraman for one of the local news stations, following the trail of the Dust robberies. Penny had sent in an anonymous tip, using my wording, suggesting that this particular store would be hit tonight. The plan was a simple one: create an alibi for two of my alter egos, namely Shiro and the Fox, and give some legitimacy for the Fox being a valid threat to Cinder. The problem came in faking it well enough that she couldn't tell the difference and in timing—now, while she was out of town, was the best time I was going to get.

Setting the Bullhead down on the landing area, I threw on Invisibility and left the base, finding a blind alley with no cameras to switch into my Shiro outfit before continuing to the site of the soon-to-be robbery. Finding Neo, I asked, "Got the security system?"

"Yeah. Illusions over the motion sensors and cameras," she grinned. "Door alarm and physical phone lines are dealt with. Local CCT signal's jammed. They aren't going to be phoning home."

I blinked, shooting her a raised eyebrow. "Your illusions work on motion sensors? How?"

"Because they're just solid enough to register as there to various means of detection for physical presence. Kind-of, sort-of but not really like hard-light holograms," she explained. "It's how we used to do stuff like this, before you took over."

"This is a lot harder when I can't just ID my way in," I grumbled, and the petite girl rolled mismatched eyes.

"Thankfully for you, you've got someone with some actual criminal experience under her belt on your side," she deadpanned.

"And you're great," I told her. "Let's go." I dropped down into the alley behind the store with our men. Dropping into Invisibility, I ID'd the building and made my way inside, grabbing everything not nailed down with Telekinesis and shoving it into Inventory, including tube after tube of Dust propellant in addition to the cut and uncut crystals. Once the place was barren, I walked back out and dropped the ID, followed by Invisibility.

"Ready," I told her. Neo gestured towards the door and I rolled my eyes, before pulling out my sword and running electricity down the blade, then whipping it through the door around the locks. Driving my boot into the door sent the door flying inside to bang against the wall and we moved in after it. Since we were already planning to have this particular robbery foiled, I didn't particularly care if these guys collected anything or not. It would be nice if they did, and we had men outside to take filled bags back to a car parked nearby, but I was anticipating about half the usual haul from one of these.

"Go out front and get the stock there," I ordered a couple of men we'd commandeered from the Red Hand—men of the expendable sort, as opposed to the kind I'd want to bring into Fox Hunt—as I helped fill a duffel bag. I shot a look to Neo, who nodded and slipped outside, throwing a veil around herself as she took up her position. I glanced at my HUD clock and waited as the men cleared the front, moving bags to the back to be moved to the car as they were filled. When the clock reached five minutes past when we'd taken out the door, I decided that was long enough.

'Now, Penny.'

She sent us the view through her eyes as she dropped down from the building across the street, Neo having covered her with an illusion the moment she'd caught sight of her on the roof. The Fox stood up from a small impact crater in the asphalt where Penny had landed, then moved to the store's front door. The Fox grabbed the door, yanking it clear off its hinges and sending it flying across the road. A view from Neo's perspective showed that the pair of reporters had slipped out of their car and were carefully rushing up the alley with camera in hand.

"Oh shit! What the hell is he doing here?!" one of the men up front called, and the sound of glass breaking met my ears as he was thrown out the front window, followed shortly by another crash as the second man followed his fate. I almost felt sorry for them, realizing that was safety glass and not plate glass by the sound it made as it broke—it would have taken much more force to be flung through one of those display windows and that was bound to have broken something.

"What are you waiting for?" I asked the three inside with me, nodding towards the front. "Go help them."

They ran out with guns drawn, only for several muffled thumps and the sound of men getting beaten to a pulp to resound through the store before Penny tossed them out onto the street with the first group. 'Get ready,' I signaled her and Neo, then made my way into the front in a Flash Step and kicked the Fox out the front window as Neo reinforced the illusion around Penny to keep it from breaking.

The Fox rolled on the ground out front and I Stepped outside, already drawing for a slice at 'his' neck, while making sure to broadcast my view to Penny. The sound of chirping birds filled the air and the whole street lit up with white light as a Plasma Blade spun up in the Fox's hand, intercepting my sword on the down stroke. That was one of the two techniques Penny and I had drilled with almost non-stop over the last several days, and then followed it up with the second technique we had worked to get her to master, disappearing into a Flash Step and planting a booted foot in my back, sending me smashing into the asphalt several yards away.

Neo's illusions were good, but Penny, with her perfect memory, could mimic my basic fighting style as the Fox better than Neo could ever dream to—and with her power source, she could keep the Plasma Blade and Flash Step going all night if she had to as her current Dust crystals weren't even one tenth of the way depleted since I'd installed them. 'That hurt,' I grunted, rolling to my feet and throwing on Invisibility before dropping into Flash Step again, attempting to make good an escape against a superior foe—or at least, that's the image I was going for.

'Sorry, Jaune! You told me to hurt you and make it look convincing,' Penny apologized, also dropping into Flash Step as her natural enhanced perceptions allowed her to keep track of me without the need for Haste, while being in party and more than one set of sensors allowed her to see through my Invisibility. The Fox intercepted my invisible flight from the battle, slamming a foot into my chest and sending me slamming into and bouncing off of the side of a building. Turning the momentum into a roll out, I threw on Invisibility again and made to Step away, only for the Fox to swing his sword through the space my head had occupied before I'd ducked, the blade tearing a line through the side of the building and spraying us both with concrete dust—and outlining my invisible form enough that the skill was rendered temporarily useless. I dropped the skill and counter attacked.

We clashed several more times, bright flashes lighting up the street as lightning seemingly danced between the buildings at the speed we were moving, before Penny removed one of her physical swords out of view of the camera, Neo putting an illusion on it to make it look like a second Plasma Blade. Our next clash was to be our last as I made as though to break away and leave the area again, and the Fox reappeared in front of me in the middle of a swing from both blades. The real Plasma Blade hit my sword as I got it up to guard. The metal—damaged, overheated, and fragile now that Penny had spent the fight carefully hitting it in the same place, or near enough, over and over again—broke in my hand, the blade sheering off at the point of impact as the Plasma Blade cut through it like it wasn't even there. The second, physical sword under illusion caught me in the chest, seemingly destroying much of the armor over my chest in another of Neo's illusions as it sent me spinning away to slam into another building and land face first on the ground—down for the count, as far as anyone watching should be able to tell.

Penny stowed the physical sword and stalked towards my downed form, raising the real Plasma Blade above her head. 'Now,' Neo instructed, and I rolled backwards as she veiled us both while I hit us with Invisibility and we ran silently down the alley. Behind us, the Fox swung through the space my neck should have occupied, shattering Neo's illusion of my body and digging a melted furrow out of the asphalt—one of many carved into the ground and surrounding buildings during our fight. "Slippery fucker," 'he' growled, Penny doing a damn good job of emulating my imitation Batman-voice from under my masks, before Leaping onto the roof and away as the Plasma Blade dissipated.

The ancula dropped down on the other side of the building, falling into step with us as Neo veiled her and I hit her with Invisibility, and we ran for the base. As we ran, I took a moment to create two new spells to add to my stealth set: Muffle and Scentless, the first of which nullified all sound coming from the target while the second did the same for scents. Unlike Silence, Muffle wasn't actually an offensive spell—Silence being a debuff specifically to stop someone from talking, whereas Muffle silenced footsteps, breathing, the rustle of clothes, devices, and any other sound the person under its effects made through direct body contact with something—up to and including thrown or fired objects, according to the skill description. Thankfully, much like Invisibility, being in party meant we could still hear each other.

"How does it look?" I asked Penny as we ran, and the gynoid smiled.

"You will have to see for yourself, but I believe it should prove convincing."

I nodded frowning as something niggled at my senses, my detection skills pinging faintly. 'I feel like I'm being watched. Neo, veil's still up, right?'

Neo shot me a worried look and nodded. 'Are you sure? Where is it coming from?'

I frowned carefully looking around as we ran and seeing nothing—nor could I pinpoint where the feeling was coming from. 'Not sure. I thought it was just those two reporters, since it started about the time our fight did, but it hasn't stopped. Penny, anything on your sensors?'

'No, Jaune. There are many humans within range, but none with line of sight on us, and nothing else unusual that I can detect,' she denied.

Humming, I directed us deeper into the Commercial District. Finding a mall there, I pulled us into a small ID and grabbed its center, bringing it with us as we made our way towards the restrooms, pulling us into a small service closet near them. "Outfit change," I told them, and switched to my Jaune clothes. Penny switched to an outfit with blue eyes and blonde hair pulled back in a severe bun and held in place by a clip that looked like a set of crossed keyboards, her clothes consisting of a loose white hoodie, a pair of black pants, and boots. "Where did you get that?" I asked, and she smiled up at me.

"The Malachite twins helped me pick out clothing. I have lots in Inventory now, set to randomize every day," she admitted. "Do you like it?"

"It's good," I admitted. "Looks relatively normal. It looks like civilian wear, as opposed to Hunter clothes, I mean."

"Got anything for me in there?" Neo asked, and Penny nodded, drawing out a plain white sun dress and sandals. "Well, beggars can't be choosers," Neo grumbled, stripping out of her corset and dress and slipping the new clothes on over her head. "Why couldn't I use my Semblance for this?"

"Because I'm worried something can see through both your illusions and my Invisibility," I admitted, then winced. "And damn if that isn't a scary thought."

Neo sighed. "Okay, fair enough," she admitted. She blinked and I watched as her hair shifted to brown and her eyes to a matching shade. She ran her hand through her hair and pulled out a couple of hair accessories, before shaking the whole thing out so it fell in a different style. I must have stared, as she frowned and asked, "What?"

"I thought the heterochromia was natural," I admitted.

Neo rolled chocolate-colored eyes and latched onto my arm. "No, it's not, Jaune."

I shrugged. "You're still sexy," I told her, tilting her lips up and planting a kiss on them. "Ready, Penny?"

"Yes!" she announced, and I dropped the ID. I cracked the door open and peeked outside, spotting a few people walking down the hall, but the feeling of being watched had vanished.

"We're clear," I murmured, leading the pair out—Neo on my arm and Penny hovering nearby.

We slowly made our way through the mall, looking in stores and taking the time to act like a normal group on a night out. Spotting an ice cream vendor, I stopped and bought cones for all of us and we made our way outside, mixed in with the rest of the crowd. 'Clear so far,' I sent.

As we reached the street in front of the mall, a black sedan pulled up to the curb and stopped, and the passenger side window rolled down to reveal Jim's concerned face. "I sent a text for a pickup," Neo admitted, and I gave her a thankful smile.

Knowing what Penny could do to a car's suspension, I carefully cast Lighten on her and directed her to slip into the front seat while Neo and I took the rear. Jim pulled away slowly, heading for the Residential District. "What was that about being followed, sir?"

I frowned, not sensing the twinge of my detection skills going off any more. "Not sure. Maybe it was a fluke."

"You could just be getting paranoid in your old age," Neo deadpanned.

"Jaune is not old. He is only thi—"

"Penny." I cut her off, causing the gynoid to wince and Neo to raise an eyebrow. Jim appeared to have gone temporarily deaf, if his expression and focus on the road were any indication.

'Penny, I'm sorry I snapped at you,' I apologized. 'But you have to be more careful. Okay?'

'O-okay Jaune. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to—'

'It's okay,' I sent, casting a glance at Neo, who was clearly aware of our silent conversation but choosing not to comment. 'Just be more careful in the future.'

'I will! I promise!'

Sighing, I met Neo's eyes and wondered what to tell her. Like this, without her normal illusions and bluster, she looked surprisingly vulnerable. She winced and turned away. "We all have our secrets, right?"

I turned my gaze to the streets passing outside as Jim took us on a winding route back to the base, only the sound of the radio and traffic to break up the silence that had pervaded the car. I broke the links that hadn't already been broken by distance, making sure I was keeping my thoughts to myself, but left the party up in case the twins were crafting or something. 'What the fuck am I supposed to do about this? Should I ask her to let me make her forget? Miltia trusted me enough to do it weeks ago, so I'm pretty sure Neo will as well. Everything I told them about mental Semblances prying my secrets out of them is still true.'

The sad thing was, at this point I believed I almost trusted Neo, Miltia, and Melanie enough to tell them at least some of my secrets. But the risk of someone like me coming after them was… 'Overstated,' I admitted to myself. 'To my knowledge, of the people the girls are most likely to interact with, Emerald and I are the only ones with mental Semblances. I could be wrong—maybe they added some characters in Season 3 that I'm simply not aware of. Or maybe there's some kind of Dust that could emulate the effect.' I almost immediately dismissed that thought. 'No, Dustcasting, from what I've seen, is anything but a delicate art. It's all about nature's wrath and none of the subtlety required to dig into someone's brain.'

Then again, Bounded Fields were a thing. They filled in those gaps where 'delicate' was required, which Dust alone couldn't do. It wasn't entirely out of the question for them to be capable of things like mind reading, or bending a person's will to another's. However, unlike Dust, I wasn't aware of a way to mentally control Bounded Fields once they were deployed. It was the difference between doing something by hand, with Dust, or programming a machine to perform the same task, using Bounded Fields. Enchantments, or rather Dustweaving, seemed like the obvious exception to that rule, however, as I knew there were offensive enchantments that were mentally controlled—putting them somewhere in the middle between Dustcasting and Bounded Fields as far as control over the outcome went. 'By that logic, it's not out of the question that I could use bounded fields to secure someone's mind against mental effects. I mean, sealing one's thoughts into one's mind and warding outside influence away would sort of fall within the purview of seals and wards.'

Well, I did have Sanguine's notes. Better still, I had the woman herself—or, at least most of her. My Semblance did say she could be restored to human form, so that was one more reason to help her along with that—not that I hadn't been doing exactly that, by bringing her along every time we went to kill off Grimm. 'So, study the notes and restore Sanguine, and see about developing some sort of fuck-your-mental-spells pattern. No problem. Except that's months, maybe years down the line. That's not going to help us right this minute.'

My eyes were drawn to the sudden change in scenery as the car went down the ramp leading into our underground parking garage and the door closed behind us. Jim parked the sedan and I stepped out, sending Neo a glance as I did. "Hey Jim, take the rest of the night off. Go home and get some sleep."

"You're sure?" he asked, and I nodded.

"Yeah. No hairs standing up on the back of my neck any more. We'll get in touch with someone if we need something," I told him, and the shorter man shrugged, tossing out a quick salute and climbing back in the car as we made our way towards the stairs.

"So," I began, following Neo as she lead us outside and across the way to another building—what I assumed was to house our barracks and quarters, as opposed to the office building with the parking garage under it where we'd held our meeting that morning. "How far along did you guys get with the new place?"

"Officer's Quarters," Neo corrected, throwing me a smile. "There are some men moving my stuff from my apartment over to my new quarters—we're using the old crew from Roman's gang who already know about the twins so there are no accidents; and I suggest giving them all promotions, to show we're willing to trust them a bit more than any new recruits. That, and the increased pay, will go a long way towards ensuring their silence without resorting to your spells."

I grinned, nodding. "Because things work better when loyalty is rewarded."

"Bingo," the ice cream themed girl agreed. "The twins and I agreed to set up a joint workshop for sewing projects. The room we picked is huge compared to the spare bedroom my old workshop was set up in. We were going to take the liberty of painting out a Sanctification ward, but we knew you said something about adding other stuff besides that and how you'd like to do it all from the ground up. When's the last time you cleared the area?"

"Night before last?" I asked, shrugging. "It was before I picked up Blake. The map says it's still clear enough to Sanctify, so it should be safe to sleep in for the night if we're not going back to the apartment. We can hold off setting up a bounded field scheme as a project for tomorrow."

The elevator let us off on the top floor and she lead us in. "Well, there's only two beds right now, so we'll probably be better off sleeping at the apartment for another day or two—at least until we get everything moved over."

"I'd kind of wanted to keep the apartment," I whined, and she rolled her eyes.

"That's fine. But the three of us—Miltia, Melanie, and myself—will be moving most of our stuff here. It's more secure than the apartment, it's bigger, and you're the boss so we can do what the hell we want here and no one can say anything. That, and we agreed that we like the idea of putting a bunch of guys armed to the teeth and willing to take out anything threatening us in between us and those kinds of threats," she pointed out, and I nodded. She opened a nearby door and gestured inside. "My bedroom," she grinned, and I looked around before casting ID and dragging her and Penny inside, shutting the door behind us. "Jaune?"

Sitting down on the edge of the bed, I patted the spot beside me and waited until she took a seat. "You trust me?"

Neo sent me an amused look before layering on the sarcasm thick enough to deflect bullets. "No, I've just been hanging around because the sex is good."

I hadn't gotten any sort of loyalty quest for her yet, but then again my Semblance told me she was just as loyal as the twins—numerically, 100%. It was about as good as I was going to get, without a loyalty quest. "Where do I begin?" I wondered aloud, and when Neo and Penny both opened their mouths to answer, I held up a hand. "Yes, yes. Left myself wide open for that one."

"Aww," Penny pouted.

"Fuck it," I grumbled, after a minute of thinking on where to start. "I'm not from Remnant."

Neo raised an eyebrow, a skeptical look crossing her face as she turned to Penny, only for the ancula to nod, causing the ice cream themed girl to frown. "I'm listening."

"What I told you about waking up with amnesia? Not entirely truth. More like half truth," I winced. "I don't remember anything about Remnant, because I'm not from Remnant. Well, I say anything, but that's not exactly… pertinent at the moment. Later."

"So, how is that any different from what you've told us?" she asked, clearly confused.

Running a hand through my hair, I bit the bullet and told her the truth. "Because I remember things just fine. An entire life's worth of memories and experiences. Just not from Remnant. I lived on a planet called Earth, which bore some similarities to Remnant, but there was no Dust, no Aura, no Semblances, no Grimm. The moon was whole. We had cars, computers, movies, music, art, literature, all the things Remnant seems to have—just different. Different landmasses, some different cultures from what I can tell though it's kind of weird that we share a lot of similarities on that front, a larger population and a different racial makeup of that population from what census data I've been able to get my hands on. I had family. Friends, I think. I had a name—John, but I couldn't tell you what my last name was for the life of me," I shrugged. "Not all of my memories made the trip, or my Semblance is screwing with my mind to keep me docile. I've been toying with the thought and cataloging how it reacts—it's subtle as a brick to the head about some things, while with others it's fairly fucking devious."

Thinking it over, she hummed before asking, "You're not actually Jaune, then?"

I held out a hand and wagged it back and forth in a so-so gesture. "Kind of sort of, yes, but not really. Maybe. Jaune got himself hurt pretty bad." I tapped the side of my head. "I've got what I think are his memories, maybe more, up here—in my Semblance as a save file. My Semblance is trying to fix it, but I've got no idea when that'll finish. I've been in control since I woke up," I chuckled, adding, "Wearing a 'Jaune suit,' I suppose you could say." It was a morbid thought, but one I'd had more than once and was slowly coming to terms with. I had stopped being surprised when I looked in the mirror and saw a face I hadn't been expecting, at least.

"But it's you we've been dealing with this whole time?" Neo asked, and I nodded. After some thought, she shrugged. "So what?"

I blinked once, then again. Penny snorted nearby, before bursting into laughter. I shot her a look and she covered her mouth. "Your face," she explained.

I facepalmed, turning my gaze back to Neo. "This doesn't bother you?"

"Not really," Neo denied. "You came from a place with nothing…"

She trailed off, looking for a word, and I obliged. "Supernatural. Outside the natural order—at least on Earth."

"And there was really none of that, right?" she asked, and I nodded. "It's weird that something so normal here wouldn't even exist somewhere else. So how do you think you got here?"

"No fucking clue," I deadpanned.

Shaking her head, Neo murmured, "You're thinking of it in terms of… a door, in the wall separating here and there. Open it on one side, step through, and you're on the other side. There's no door on your side, so somebody must have opened the door on this side, right?" she asked, and I nodded. "That's one possibility. But you don't remember getting here—or am I wrong?"

"You're not wrong."

Taking a breath, Neo began her own take on what she believed had happened. "So, bear with me here. Jaune—the original Jaune—got himself hurt. Coma. Clinical brain death for a while. Vacancy sign comes on upstairs, but his Semblance wakes up and takes action. We've all seen that thing do some weird shit before, but you love abusing the most obvious means of breaking reality."

"Illusion Barriers," I muttered, turning the thought over as she nodded. It wasn't… implausible. An Illusion Barrier was a bubble in reality—a bridge between this world and the Spirit world of Remnant. The space between those places was a metaphorical purgatory where spirits congregated, potentially before passing over to the other side. I'd never tried to cross that bridge, only ever stood on it. Every attempt I'd made to create spells that would cross planes failed, as did every spell that called on any sort of divine being, or that would eject my soul from my body like Astral Projection.

Neo continued, pulling me from my thoughts. "You didn't get here in your old body. Jaune checks out on Remnant and his Semblance goes hunting for a new tenant. John checks out on Earth, Jaune's Semblance snags him, John checks in on Remnant and the vacancy light turns off."

"Being dead would make moving a soul easier," I agreed. "Assuming a few things, such as memory being somehow tied to the soul. Can't really argue against the existence of one any more, since I have proof they exist. I don't remember dying, though. Then again, Swiss cheese memory in places."

"What's a 'Swiss?' And I assume you mean cheese with holes."

"Switzerland. Where Swiss people came from, before the EU fucked them and most of Europe, last I knew. And yeah, it's cheese full of holes," I supplied.

Raising an eyebrow, the ice cream themed girl asked, "You're going to explain what those things are, right?"

"We can sit down one day and you can ask me whatever you want," I agreed. "Me being some thirty year old dead guy from another world doesn't bother you?"

Neo scrunched up her nose in mock disgust. "Thirty? Ew. You're past your expiration date, old man."

"Thirty three," I deadpanned, and she made a face. "I didn't hear you complaining when I was putting that experience to use."

"Even worse!" she whined, blatantly ignoring my comment on bedroom skills. "That's almost a decade older than me." I raised an eyebrow and she smirked. "You never asked, you ass. I'm twenty four. Bet you feel like a heel now for not asking when my birthday is."

"A bit," I admitted. "So when is it?"

"January first," Neo chuckled. "Think you can remember it?"

"I think so," I smiled, adding it to my calendar. I opened my mouth to ask another question and Neo held up a hand, interrupting me.

"Look. The way I see it, it's always been you. You're the only Jaune Arc I've known—and like it or not, you're filling the shoes now, so you're Jaune." Her eyes went wide. "Your—Jaune's—sisters don't know, right?"

I made another so-so gesture. "I tried to explain it to Joan once. She did not want to hear it and trying again might break her—more than she already is. I think she understands and just doesn't want to accept it. Jun understands, in her own way, that I'm not the brother she had, but then for her that's not necessarily a bad thing since apparently I'm a better big brother to her than original Jaune ever was. The rest I've met have been sort of withholding judgment or it hasn't really sunk in, or maybe they're hoping my memory will come back and I'll go back to being the brother they knew again. Not really sure there."

"You've slept with two of them," she pointed out, a small smile stretching across her lips. "I could see why that wouldn't bother you."

"It did more than you'd think, for a while. Still does, in some ways, but Joan's a big girl and can make her own decisions. Jane, on the other hand, is just too hot not to. And really fun to tease, afterwards," I admitted.

Casting a look at Penny, Neo asked, "She knows?"

"Penny registered to my Semblance as equipment and it loaded her with some basic background data about me—probably about what you'd get if you could read my Journal," I confirmed, and the ancula nodded.

"Ancula Myrmidons, Penny Polendina, at your service," Penny supplied with a small smile, pointing towards the text floating over her head along with her level, which mirrored my own at the moment but I knew was technically inaccurate by virtue of the Dust powering her.

"I see," Neo murmured, before swiftly moving to straddle my lap. "Penny, you mind giving us some time?"

"Aww," the gynoid pouted, looking disappointed. Penny stood from where she'd been sitting on the floor. "I will go see Miltia and Melanie," she announced, before stepping out of the ID with a small ripple.

Neo's sultry look dropped away as her face went completely serious. "You're still hiding something." It was not a question. I nodded confirmation anyway. "Something you feel is more important than being some random guy from another world."

"Yeah," I agreed.

"Something that you're very, very worried someone with a mental-type Semblance will dig out of our heads," she continued, and I gave her another nod. "On a scale of one to ten, how dangerous is it?"

Thinking on what I knew and what would happen if certain people got ahold of that knowledge, I hummed before answering, "Twelve, depending on whose ears it got around to."

"A certain sexy thing in a little red number?"

"Yeah, that one," I agreed. "Or a meddlesome old bastard who likes to think he's Dumbledore."

"Who?" Neo asked, raising an eyebrow.

I sighed, rubbing my eyes with the palm of one hand. "It's a book series where I came from. You've never heard of Harry Potter, I take it?" I asked, and she shook her head. "How do you have Star Wars and not Harry Potter? Remind me to tell you the whole story at some point. It's pretty interesting, all things considered—even if the author did make some questionable decisions. Imagine Headmaster Ozpin as an older war hero using his students as pawns in a chess game."

"That sounds kind of bad," she pointed out, and I nodded.

"Pretty much. It didn't end well for Harry. Here's hoping Ozpin isn't that bad." I didn't think he was, but I didn't believe I could take the chance on finding out. Enough of my future knowledge could still be relevant to cause serious problems if either he or Cinder ever found out—assuming it was accurate in the first place, given the differences between Remnant as part of a series on Earth and what I'd come to call Bizarro-Remnant.

Closing her eyes, Neo bit her lip and nodded. "Okay. Okay. I'm going to stop asking questions I don't need to know the answers to—can't know." She opened her eyes again, chocolate eyes meeting my blue. "You trust me now? Fully?"

"Yeah," I murmured.

Neo chuckled. "Good. Stop being an idiot and tell the twins soon. They deserve to know. I suggest tonight—that way there will be no potential questions of favoritism because you told me before them."

"I've been trying to avoid that, yes." And with something this big, it would only hurt them all the more if I didn't bring them in on it soon, now that Neo knew. "So, want to go tell them now?"

Biting her lip, Neo shook her head. "On second thought, it can wait until morning." She frowned before adding, "You're going to have to tell the others at some point. And by that, I mean your group going to Beacon, once you bring them in. Maybe not Joan or the rest of your sisters, but that one's your call. We won't tell anyone, and we'll try to make sure Penny doesn't make any more slips like tonight. How Yang hasn't figured out what she is, I have no idea. It's amusing to watch from the outside though. Far less amusing when it's your secrets and not hers."

"That's pretty much my thought on that." I would have said more, but the small girl's lips sought out mine—gentle, but firm as she shifted her weight and brought us down to lie on the bed.

"Stop talking, John," she broke our kiss long enough to murmur in my ear, before reaching for the zipper on my hoodie. I knew how to take a hint by now.