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.

26. Acceleration

The Name of the Game

a RWBY/The Gamer crossover, SI.

Arc 7: Fall of Fall

Chapter 26: Acceleration

---

I closed my eyes and took a long breath, idly fingering the mental ON switch for Gamer's Mind and wondering whether or not I should go ahead and toggle it now. I was pissed. No, that was inaccurate. I was righteously furious over what I'd seen. The problem with that was that I had no viable target for that fury and no means of acting on it. I was not so deluded as to think I could take on what amounted to Atlas SpecOps by myself at the moment—not when I couldn't see half the levels of the older hunters around me, and those I could see were quite obviously bullshit. For all my skills, spells, and levels I was powerless to do anything about it at the moment—paradoxical and infuriating as that was. That would change with time, but for the moment there was nothing I could do.

It was not a feeling I enjoyed, but it was also not something I was entirely unaccustomed to, either. Life on Earth had been full of little moments of powerlessness. 'Difference is, this is Remnant, not Earth. I haven't been truly 'powerless' since I got here. So, I can't do anything about it now, then I'll treat it like any other quest—because that's what this is going to wind up being. Prepare for it, train, level, and only act on it when the time is right.' Because I wasn't the sort to go off half-cocked. That had been my approach to pretty much everything here, so far: expect the worst and prepare for worse than that. Like most gamers, if I knew there was some threat looming on the horizon, I would grind my ass off until I could deal with it. The same thing applied here.

And if there was going to be retaliation then I needed to know how much damage had been done, so I would have a good idea of exactly how hard I should bring the hammer down and where. I fully realized that not everyone in Atlas was 'evil,' in the same way not everyone in Germany had been a Nazi, not everyone in Vietnam had been VC, nor everyone wearing a rag on their head in the middle east was an enemy. I'd prefer to err on the side of caution and assume they might be—because I highly doubted that horrible things like suicide bombers dressed as civilians were unique to Earth—but I would rather keep any retaliation limited to those actually responsible and involved. 'As satisfying as it would be to turn certain parts of Atlas into a self-lighting, glass parking lot, I don't think Remnant is ready for nukes.'

"What's a nuke?"

I started, my head whipping around to lock eyes with Jen as I realized I'd broadcast that. "Never you mind." I resisted the urge to facepalm. 'Fuck me sideways with a goddamn rake. At this rate, I might as well just put up a sign. Big, fuck-off neon letters saying 'NOT FROM REMNANT' right across my forehead.'

The blonde raised an eyebrow. "I'm aware of nuclear forces, but the context here implies it's a form of weapon. That you don't feel Remnant is ready for." She paused for a long moment before asking, "Is there anything you'd like to tell me?"

"No," I denied. "I would very much like not to tell you. In fact, I'd prefer it if you'd forget I said anything."

Jen raised an eyebrow. "And yet, you're not making me forget," she pointed out.

"No, I'm not. It would be a pretty shitty thing for me to do, considering. That doesn't mean I have to answer. There are secrets I'd like to keep…"

"And I'm compromised," she finished for me, and I shrugged.

"It is a possibility," I admitted. Trigger words and phrases are a common component of programming. I hadn't run across any yet, but that didn't mean they weren't there. On the other hand, I wanted her to trust me, and not just because if she didn't then she'd be right back to keeping me out of her head, so I had to offer her something. "If I can un-fuck what's been done to you, I'll consider it."

The girl's head tilted to the side for a moment before she nodded. "Fair enough."

Thinking on it a moment, I pulled out my scroll and began digging through my contacts. "In the meantime, I don't think I should deal with this by myself."

"Jaune, please don't," she murmured, and I looked up from the scroll and met her eyes. "I don't…" she clammed up, looking away with a quiet breath of irritation. After a couple of false starts, she said, "You're a clean slate. You don't remember me, so you won't judge me. What I did—"

I sat down beside her, pulling the shorter woman into a hug. "Hey. They're not going to judge you."

"You don't know that," she pointed out. "Joan and the twins were against any of us going to any school but Beacon. I argued the hardest for it, because between the seven of us, we had enough to go to every Hunter Academy. I thought we could go, learn everything they had to offer, then we'd come back and compare notes. Swap techniques. That way, we'd all be better for it. Jana and Jillian agreed to go through with it. Jana went to Mistral, Jillian went to Vacuo. I went to Atlas—and you saw how that turned out."

Frowning, I asked, "So let me see if I've got this straight. You're turning down help and support from your siblings because of your pride?"

"Pride? I have no pride left, Jaune. I just don't want to ruin their image of me," she denied. "It would hurt them. They'd blame themselves for letting me talk them into it."

"Probably," I agreed. "That's an older sibling's right, though. Do you have any objections other than that?" I asked, and she shook her head. "Okay, then." That was all the confirmation I needed to send the twins a text. I knew Joan was still out on deployment, but the twins should be relatively free, since one of them was on leave for the week and the other made her own schedule.

Getting up off the bed, I stretched and popped my back, then frowned as my detection skills pinged. 'What is that?' I wondered for a moment, before realizing what I was sensing—an Aura, distant but powerful, suddenly flaring to life. A moment later, a second joined it. 'How far away is that?' A glance at my map showed no one in the immediate vicinity, so it must be from inside Vale somewhere. Being well outside my range, I decided it wasn't my problem and ignored it.

I had just decided to go raid the Arcs' fridge for food when two new icons appeared on my minimap less than a dozen feet away and a couple of Auras so similar I almost couldn't tell them apart slapped into my like a physical blow as the cracks around the door briefly lit with back-to-back flashes of blue then indigo light. I instinctively reached for my own weapon, the thought spinning through my mind that this was what Jean had meant when she said the first time she'd felt a completely unsuppressed Aura that it had scared the living shit out of her. The two Auras I had sensed what felt like miles away were here.

Jen's bedroom door burst open and the Arc twins burst in, hands on weapons and eyes tracking over the room—and I noticed that the levels over their heads had changed from in the 60s to the infamous 'triple question mark' of my Semblance's equivalent to 'fuck if I know.' I blinked, glancing at my HUD, taking a breath and trying to slow my racing heart while removing my hand from the hilt of my saber. 'Fuck me, that Aura is ridiculous. Response time under two minutes—from inside Vale city, at least. Didn't hear the door open. Didn't hear footsteps coming up the stairs. They just appeared. Raw speed or something else? Teleportation maybe?'

"That was quick," I deadpanned.

Jane and Jean relaxed, their gazes shifting between me and Jen. "You said there was an emergency," Jane pointed out, her tone both accusatory and annoyed.

The pitter-patter of little feet sounded from the hallway and I heard Jun ask, "What's going on? You came in hot. Is everything okay?"

Jane turned to deal with the littlest redhead. "It's fine. Go back to bed, dear."

I could hear the pout in her voice as the smaller girl grumbled, "Fine," and padded off back to her bedroom.

"Be more specific, next time you do that," Jean sighed, closing the bedroom door before pulling out Jen's desk chair and dropping down onto it, earning an annoyed look from her twin at being left with nowhere to sit. Both appeared to take a deep breath before the almost crushing force of two unsuppressed Auras swiftly tapered back off into the realm of tolerable again. My Semblance did not re-label them to reflect the new, lower Aura output, however. "Dust, we're going to catch hell for that."

"For what?" I asked, shooting the pair a couple of confused looks.

It was Jen who answered, however. "Not one but two high ranked Huntresses going to full combat readiness at the same time. Everyone in Vale with even a little ability to sense Aura felt that. Grimm felt that. Patrols are going to be busy for the next week. They'll be getting messages, if not calls, within the next few minutes to ascertain the situation."

"Sorry," I muttered. "Yeah, I'll be more careful in my wording next time." Taking out my scroll, I sent a group text to Jim, Angel, Melanie, Miltia, and Neo. 'Grimm threat level around Vale elevated for the next week or so. Organize patrols and prepare to mobilize what we can muster. And get a fire lit under the motor pool to get that armor fit for service ASAP, once it gets here. I want at least one group ready by Monday.'

"So, what's up?" Jane asked, once she'd brought herself down from full combat readiness. She paused, then held up a hand for us to stop. Reaching over to Jen's book shelf, she selected a particularly hefty paperback and flung it into the door hard enough to rattle it in its frame.

"Eep!" Jun squeaked from the other side of the door.

"Go to bed!" Jane and Jean both yelled, and I heard Jun beat a hasty retreat and slam her door shut.

Shooting a questioning look at Jen, the blonde shrugged, looking away and making a 'go ahead' gesture. "Jen wanted to talk," I answered. Deciding to forgo heading downstairs, I opened my Inventory and dug out a sandwich. "It's bad. Figured she could use a friendly face." I smirked, before adding, "I suppose getting the same face twice works."

"Ha—" Jane began.

"Fucking—" Jean continued.

"Ha," the pair finished together.

Jen raised an eyebrow before turning her gaze on me. "You enjoy pushing people's buttons, don't you?"

I nodded, swallowing my current bite before answering, "Oh yes." Gesturing with the sandwich, I asked, "Hungry?" The twins shared a look and a shrug, while Jen shook her head. "Suit yourselves."

"What have you found out?" Jean asked. A moment later, the twins' scrolls buzzed and they winced. Digging them out, they read the messages there before sending a reply. I waited until they were done before answering.

"A lot. Apparently, Atlas is using their Specialist training program to turn out Hunters loyal to them, and they're backing it up with a healthy dose of indoctrination and brainwashing." Seeing as it had to be asked, I turned and looked at Jen. "Rape is pretty much a go-to tool in some cases, but it doesn't make sense here—they were trying to instill loyalty, not break you. But I'll ask anyway, did they?"

"No," Jen denied. "Say what you will about Atlas, but they never resorted to rape. As you said, it would be counterproductive."

I nodded. "I thought not, but better safe than sorry."

"You're handling this remarkably well," Jane pointed out, and I shrugged.

"Can't do anything about it right now. Until I can, I'm making a list. What I do with that list remains to be seen." Finishing off my sandwich and washing it down, I pulled Jen back into my arms and shifted us on the bed to make room for Jane, earning an annoyed look from Jean as she was left out. "Ready for the highlights reel?" I asked, and the twins nodded. "Jen, if you want to sit this one out…" I trailed off, leaving the offer open. She shook her head. "Okay, then."

Genjutsu leveled as I cast over the room, replaying what I'd seen, starting with Jen's transfer. The twins sat and watched, occasionally asking me to pause the playback or repeat something as they took it all in. It took a little over an hour to finish showing them what I'd dug out so far. When I had finished, I killed the illusion and waited. Jean stood, pacing slowly with her arms crossed. Jane closed her eyes and dropped back on the bed, letting her legs dangle. The room fell silent for several long minutes, save for the sounds of Jean's footsteps on the hardwood floor and our breathing. Finally, the standing twin asked, "Who was in charge of the Specialist program?"

Jen shrugged. "I have no idea. Command structure was odd. Ostensibly, the Overseers were in charge, and even higher-ranked Specialists deferred to them, but there were no official military ranks. Scuttlebutt I overheard amongst the Overseers points to two people at the top of whatever passes for the Overseer command chain: Alpha and Omega. Most of my interactions were with what passed for teaching or medical staff: King, Ida, Lima, Echo, Tango, Charlie, Delta, Whiskey, and Yoko."

"Nine instructors?" I asked, and Jen shook her head.

"Eight and one medical."

"So you can talk about it now?" Jane asked, and Jen tilted one hand side to side in a so-so gesture.

"You know enough that I can, with some things," she shrugged.

"Can you tell me their positions, what they did? Or am I going to have to dig it out?" I asked the girl in my arms.

Jen hummed, leaning back further against me and tilting her head back. "King: Overseer of Orientation. Ida: Overseer of Infiltration. Lima: Overseer of Learning. Echo: Overseer of Endurance. Tango: Overseer of—" her teeth clicked together and she shook her head. "Charlie: unconventional assault tactics. Delta: Dust and Dust techniques. Yoko: Aura and Aura techniques. Whiskey: Medical and—" again, her mouth closed and she growled softly. "Dig it out of me."

"Okay. I'm going to try something new. Close your eyes and focus on what you want to show me," I told her, and Jen nodded. Focusing on Read Thoughts, I cast Genjutsu at the same time, broadcasting what she wanted to show us into the room. It wasn't pretty.

---

"Specter, lessons are postponed for today. You are to report to Medical for enhancement," Queen – Winter – announced to the four-man team seated in the orientation room. "Follow me."

The group was lead through the halls of the facility into what was labeled as the medical wing. There, Queen left them with a group of four assistants—nurses, orderlies, or something along those lines—and they were shown into four separate rooms. Jen was lead into a clean room and ordered to remove her clothes. The nurse folded her clothes and placed them onto a shelf, before ordering her to seat herself in the only chair in the room – which looked like the bastard love child of a dentist's and a gynecologist's chair. The blonde was strapped down at multiple points on both arms and legs, in addition to straps that went over the torso, waist, neck, and head.

Once she was secured, the chair was tilted back and the arms and legs spread apart some distance from each other—not full extension, but enough to have access to each individually. Due to the nature of the memory, third-person perspective was impossible as we were seeing the world from Jen's eyes, so we didn't get a good look at Whiskey until he stepped over close to the table and looked down at her. The Overseer was of middling height, Caucasian, and looked to be in his mid-60s with salt-and-pepper stubble and hair gone to gray and beginning to thin at the temples. He looked fit, but haggard—like he spent his free time consuming large quantities of his namesake. All together, he reminded me of Dr. McCoy from old episodes of Star Trek, and that image was reinforced when he spoke. Even the accent was similar. "Well, Specialist, I have to warn you, this next part is going to hurt. A lot. And I can't give you anything for it. Normal drugs interact funny with Dust, and Dust-based anesthetic would screw things all to hell and gone, and I need you conscious for this so I can't put you under. In other words, you're shit out of luck on that front. The straps are for your own protection, to keep you from hurting yourself when you begin seizing—and you will. Now, looking at your chart here," he held out a scroll tablet and regarded it for a moment, "you're an energetic Semblance type. Force-based, right?"

"Yes, sir," Jen answered.

"Good, good," he nodded. Turning to his assistant, he ordered, "Class A physical enhancement group. Class E Aura enhancement group." There were footsteps as the nurse presumably left the room. "This is going to put you on your ass for about a week. No exercise, no Aura or Semblance use, and eat everything on your plate. If there is any lingering pain or discomfort after a week, if you have trouble using your Aura, or if your Semblance starts acting funny notify your Overseer or S3C immediately and report to me here in Medical."

The sound of a wheeled trolley or cart being pushed into the room caused Jen to shift her head as much as she could given the straps, one eye catching sight of a cart bearing a sealed box and several canisters of powdered Dust. One of the canisters was taken off the cart and loaded into what looked like some sort of delivery system with a particularly long needle on the end and a second tube filled with a clear fluid – water or saline, most likely, based on what I knew of using Dust as a liquid medium. "Are you ready?" Whiskey asked, and Jen blinked.

"Yes, sir," she agreed. Whiskey moved out of sight, and the memory went hazy as the thrashing and screaming started.

---

"That's enough," I growled, shutting down the illusion and pulling out of Jen's memory while absently dismissing popups about Genjutsu, Read Thoughts, and Telepathy leveling. The last two had been gaining experience the entire time I kept them connected to Jen, but that rate went through the roof any time I actively accessed her memories. Read Thoughts had just hit 30—giving me an advanced evolution that allowed me to passively listen for surface thoughts of those around me, limited at 10 meters in range and at the moment without the ability to filter individuals out. It could be useful, but I'd have to play with it to see how.

Telepathy was sitting at 33, having not leveled quite as fast as Read Thoughts, but it had given me a nice skill evolution which allowed me to cast it on anyone in my party regardless of range. Level disparity really was bullshit, here. Genjutsu, on the other hand, was leveling at about three times the pace of both Read Thoughts and Telepathy and had just hit 24. It took me a minute to figure out why, though. Despite the fact that it wasn't being used as an attack or against anyone, apparently just having three high-level Huntresses witness it and not counter it counted towards its experience gain. I made a mental note to see if we could get Neo to practice using her Semblance against the Arc twins or someone who out leveled her later.

'Things like Illusory Disguise, would probably level just as fast. In fact,' I resisted the urge to smirk, casting the spell and changing something absolutely innocuous, that they weren't likely to notice any time soon, if at all—namely, the color of my boot laces. 'Let's test that theory.'

Shifting my attention back to Jen, I asked, "So he was in charge of Dust-based enhancements. What sort of enhancements are we talking?"

"Strength, durability, speed, flexibility, reaction times, perception speed, intelligence, Aura—both capacity and control, and so on. There were a lot of changes I noticed, when they were done," Jen admitted, holding one hand out and studying it. "In addition, each of us was given specific types of Dust that would enhance our Semblances to some degree, depending on what those were. Obviously, not every Semblance is affected to the same extent. I'm an energy manipulation type, so the results were pretty dramatic."

"Absorbing Dust isn't exactly a new thing, though," Jean pointed out. "So, what was different?"

"I think I get it," Jane murmured, drawing our attention. "Normally, you're limited in what Grade of Dust and how much you can absorb, along with how compatible it is both with any other Dust you're using and with your Aura. Too much and you get Dust Toxicity. Conflicting types or conflicting Aura and you either get no reaction or you get horrible reactions—anything from falling over dead, to exploding into flames, to melting from the inside out."

Jean nodded, making a 'go on' motion with one hand—all old news to them, apparently, but new to me. And another reminder that I needed to study. 'Which means it's for my benefit,' I reasoned.

"That guy said they had groups—at least two we know of, with Class A and Class E. How much you want to bet that Atlas figured out a master list for not only what works, but also how it interacts with certain types of Aura and Semblances. The first part's pretty easy—there are lists on the internet of Dust that works well together, under optimal conditions—"

"Please," Jean interrupted. "Atlas probably stole it from Mistral. We know Mistral's been doing shit with Dust for years."

"That's debatable. Atlas has advanced by leaps and bounds in recent years, especially in regards to Dust tech," Jane pointed out.

Cutting in, I pointed out, "So, they're both exploring different branches? From what you're saying, Mistral has been studying the uses of Dust for years—"

"Centuries," Jean corrected, and I nodded.

"Okay, centuries. While Atlas has figured out how to integrate it into tech. Stands to reason that if one got their hands on the other's research, they'd take their own approach to making it work for them," I mused.

"Precisely," Jane agreed, before adding, "As that seems to be exactly what happened when Mistral started developing their own tech a few years back and making the same kind of leaps Atlas did, in different directions. The second part would require years of deep research into Aura—"

"Which they've done," I interrupted quietly, my mind turning to Penny—an Atlesian artificial life form with a synthetic Aura. On their questioning looks, I shrugged. "Trust me, they've done their homework on Aura. So, we assume they know how to tell what Dust will be compatible with each person's Aura and they know what Dust works well together. After that, getting the Grade and amount right…"

Jean picked up where I'd left off. "Would be determined by the subject's Aura capacity, body mass, and a few other factors most likely."

"Precisely," Jane nodded. "The problem with Dust enhancements like that is that you have to recharge it by ingesting more Dust of the same types—"

Jen shook her head, but her mouth remained closed. Shooting a look to the twins, I asked, "Is there a type of Dust that acts as a universal battery or something?"

The Arc twins shared a look before both shrugged. "Maybe," Jean answered. "I think it's one of the less common types—maybe synthetic. Some green variant. I don't have a list in front of me. But yeah, something like that would do it. The theory is sound, though. You'd take in one of those and it'd recharge whatever you've already got in you. You'd have to do it before whatever you were using was completely spent, though. Fully spent Dust becomes Dead Dust." I raised an eyebrow at that and she grinned. "It's in the name. Dead. Useless. Incapable of being recharged or used in anything. It eventually goes brittle and crumbles into dust—powder, that is. But you usually only get Dead Dust from crystals. Ground Dust is spent when you use it—"

"Unless it's in a liquid medium," I corrected. "It's how you make ink for writing Bounded Fields. Mix ground Dust in water until it gels, then paint it how you want. It dries, leaving behind a layer of shaped crystalline Dust. Even wet, it still registers as one unit instead of separated out."

"Jaune, I think we know how it works," Jane smirked. "We did graduate, you know? I don't use them much day to day, but I still remember more about Bounded Fields from watching and listening to Sanguine work than most people working in the field."

"Bite me," I grumbled. "Anyway, stands to reason that Dust in the bloodstream—or bones, and other places depending on how invasive they went—"

"Very," Jen ground out in my arms.

I nodded. "Yeah. Then it stands to reason that you could recharge it all in one go by absorbing something like that." Looking away from the girls, I frowned. "As horrible as what they were doing is, it's proven to work." Looking up, I met their eyes. "I want that information. I want to know what Dust they used, in what amounts, and how they determined what would work. How long do the improvements last?"

Jen hummed, thinking a moment before answering, "Depending on use, between three to six months. You can only recharge it so many times before it goes dead. After that, you have to let it pass from your body naturally."

"Okay," I nodded. "Three months worth of super-soldier level buffs. What's the downtime between flushing it out and being able to replace it? Does it prevent you from using other Dust? Does it lessen the overall improvement from other Dust sources if they're the same type and stack?"

"Weeks, sometimes a month or more, depending on the Grade, types, amount used, and the person's Aura. I was usually able to get my refills within three weeks," Jen admitted. "It does prevent you from using certain types of Dust internally, but most of the medical-grade stuff is safe. There's a specific list of things that isn't safe, depending on which set of enhancements you were given. It will work with external Dust use—things like Dustcasters—and the improvements stack. If I were to use a Dustcaster with my Semblance, with the Semblance-enhancing Dust inside me, the effect would be increased by a good deal. I'm unsure how much."

"And what's the process for refilling that? Do they install subcutaneous ducts or something? Reservoirs?" I asked, and the blonde shook her head.

It was Jean who supplied the missing tidbit I needed to put it together. "You can put stuff like that in someone's body, but Aura trying to heal it will likely cook off the Dust inside it. In other words, you'd go boom."

Frowning, I asked, "So, you have to go through the whole process again every time?"

Jen nodded. "You never really get used to it, either."

Sighing, I ran a hand through my hair. "In your opinion, is it worth it?"

"Short term, knowing you had a major op coming up? Absolutely," the blonde in my arms agreed. "Long term? No."

With a quiet groan, I nodded. "Okay, then. I'll keep it in reserve. Still need-to-know information as it's too useful not to have, but not a priority. I'll do better by leveling and raising my skills. If this works like you say it does, essentially like a buff, then the process will work better if applied to larger base numbers anyway."

"You'd have to infiltrate Atlas for that, anyway," Jean pointed out, and I shrugged.

"Been there, done that, got the tee-shirt," I smirked.

Jane raised an eyebrow. "Then you'd have to track down the facility."

I nodded. "We know Jen's route out of Atlas, don't we?"

The girl in my arms nodded, before adding, "Then you'd just have to slip into an Atlas black facility full of the best Atlas has to offer as far as Hunters goes, hack into their secure servers, steal the files, and get out again—all without getting caught. Or affected by whatever mental type Dust they're using."

Humming for a moment, I finally chuckled. "So, nothing I haven't done before, then." Glancing at my HUD clock, I thought it over and brought up my map, doing some mental math. "With travel time, I could be in and out in a week at most." I was exaggerating a bit, however—after all, as far as I knew, there hadn't been any Hunters at Penny's black site. No, any risk of direct combat at my current level with people who were, on average, Jen's or the Arc twins' level was to be avoided.

The twins and Jen exchanged looks, before Jean pointed out, "Jaune, Beacon starts Monday. You don't have a week. And even if you did, it's way too dangerous."

"Maybe not," Jane frowned. "If it's like that facility where they had Penny, he could do it. However," she looked to her twin and smirked, "We'd want to go with. And I'm sure Joan would, too. In fact, we could make it a family trip. That place needs to be razed to the ground—"

"Absolutely not," I deadpanned. Seeing them turn frowns and questioning looks on me, I shook my head. "That is not how we're going to do this. If, and I do mean if, we decide retaliation is called for, then it's going to be a surgical strike—not a goddamn carpet bombing. I'd do better alone, for this. I can get in, work my way up the chain of command, and cut the head off the snake. Minimal loss of life involved—just those who deserve to go. And it's obviously not going to be now. I'm not going off half-cocked on this. If I go in, I want to go armed with as much information as I can so I know where to start looking, who gets the sword first, and who gets spared until they can un-fuck the people they've mind-fucked. There's no point doing it if it's going to cripple Atlas, either. They're valuable, and even I can't exactly wage a war on a nation yet. No, this is probably some black op that only a few key higher-ups are even aware of. Probably run almost completely in the black, in fact—meaning the rank and file Atlas personnel are unaware of it. So, no, until the time is right we do nothing except gather information. Do I make myself clear?"

The twins sat staring at me, and I blinked as I took in certain details—flushed faces, dilated pupils, increased breathing. In my arms, Jen had gone still and rigid, and I could feel her heart-rate had increased. I wondered, for a moment, what was wrong until I realized what it was I'd done and I nearly facepalmed hard enough to deal myself damage. 'Right. Not only did I use my 'command' voice, I backed it up with Charisma and Intent as an attention getter. Fuck sake, I need to stop doing that. It's becoming reflexive.'

Jane was the first to shake it off, shaking her head and taking a deep breath. "Would you stop doing that? Goddamnit Jaune, I just got over it."

"That shit is not fair," Jean grumbled, shaking off the effect next. "If you're not going to push me down after, could you stop blue balling me?"

Jen relaxed in my arms, stretching languidly and shifting in my lap as she got comfortable again. "Ignore them. I enjoy it. Don't stop," she murmured, and I picked up what almost sounded like a purr in her voice as she did. Tilting her head enough to look me in the eye, she asked, "And when did you get so self-confident? And…"

"Commanding," Jean supplied.

Jane nodded. "Intense."

I shrugged. "Does it matter?" I asked, and they shared a long look before apparently deciding that it either didn't, or they would wait on an answer. "That aside, I'm still expecting an answer," I pointed out, once more using the 'Admiral' voice, but without the Charisma-plus-Intent slap.

"Fine," the twins sighed in sync, and Jen nodded in my arms. "It's not like this is a family thing or anything," Jean continued, in a tone that implied the exact opposite of what she'd said.

"Or that we're all angry at what's been done and deserve a chance to go after the people responsible," Jane added, in the same tone.

"I said no," I growled. Sighing, I ran a hand through my hair and turned an annoyed look on the twins, who looked mildly shocked—apparently, they were unused to Jaune standing up to them. "I will consider it. After we get the information we need. Until then, we continue as normal."

Looking at Jen, Jean shook her head. "Not quite as normal. She shouldn't be out doing patrols, even with a team. Also, being here alone with no one but Jun is a bad idea."

Jane hummed, green eyes meeting mine for a moment before she suggested, "Medical discharge. Section 8."

"I am not incompetent," Jen growled, and I tightened my hold on her momentarily to settle her down.

"Actually, at the moment, you technically qualify," I countered quietly. "And even if you didn't, having you officially Section 8 on paper would be useful."

Jen shook her head violently. "No. I'm not a goddamn leach on society. I'll work to earn my keep."

Jane rolled her eyes. "I'm Section 8 and I have a job." After a pause, she added, "Admittedly, a moderately illegal job, but still…"

"Actually, I have a better idea," I smirked. "It would put you somewhere safe, where I can keep an eye on you and where we could have these little sessions fairly frequently. It'd be a job in a Hunter-related field and you'd be making money—legally," I added, just to rub Jane's nose in it, and earned a tongue stuck out for my effort.

"What sort of job?" Jean asked, raising an eyebrow. "Since when do you have those sorts of connections?"

Looking from one twin to the other, I asked, "What have you heard about the new group in town?"

"Fox Hunt. PMC. Recruiting anyone with talent," Jane answered shortly. "Why?"

"I might know some people who know some people," I answered evasively, a hint of an amused smile on my lips that I tried to smother as I fed them just enough information to make them curious.

"Cut the bullshit and tell us, Jaune," Jean demanded.

"Spoil all my fun," I rolled my eyes. Holding out a hand, I conjured up a Fox mask and tossed it to Jean.

The twins looked over the mask for a long moment before Jean shook her head. "Bullshit."

Jane, on the other hand, crossed her arms and studied me. "Really? You're the Fox? So, you've got one instance of yourself running around doing work for her, while the other is building up a military force? Why? Also, how? I saw the fight between you and… yourself, I suppose. How the hell did that work? And what about going to Beacon?"

"To protect Vale. Mostly from Cinder, actually. The fight was staged, with the help of some friends. And I'm still going to Beacon. The potential gain is too great not to," I admitted.

The twins turned and shot each other a look. "Our brother is…" Jean began.

Jane finished with, "Kind of scary, actually. What the fuck, Jaune? You go from nothing, to being some punk thief, to controlling what's quickly shaping up to an independent military. How?"

"My Semblance, mostly," I shrugged. A soft snore from the vicinity of my chest drew my attention and I looked down. "How long has she been out?"

"A few minutes," Jane admitted. Standing from the bed, she began pulling back the covers. "Come on, let's get her to bed." Yawning, she shook her head. "I could use some sleep myself. You texted at the end of a job. I've been out all night."

Shifting Jen, I arranged her on the bed and moved to pull away. The girl's arms locked around my neck and squeezed, and I found myself drawn down against her chest. "Don't go."

"Thought you were asleep," I got out, muffled from between her breasts.

"I was, until someone moved me," she yawned. "I haven't fallen asleep that fast in years. Can you stay?"

I shot a look at the twins, who grinned. Jean moved over and hit the light, closing the bedroom door while Jane began stripping. "You two are no help."

"Come on, it'll be fun," Jane laughed. "It's just sleep."

"Pfft. Says you," Jean countered. "I want a little more than 'just sleep.'"

"Too bad," the other twin shook her head.

"I don't think you get a say in it," Jean bickered back, kicking off her boots and shimmying out of her pants.

I rolled my eyes. Deciding the battle was already lost, I began un-equipping clothes, leaving my boxers behind. At the same time, I dropped the illusion over my boot laces—as I'd hoped, Illusory Disguise had leveled several times in the background over the time I'd had it leveled, going from 14 to 20 over the course of half an hour. I made a mental note to try repeating the trick in the future. "Fine. I'll stick around. But no hanky-panky."

"Wha—? Why?" Jean asked, and I turned an amused look on her.

"Well, because one of you begged me to turn her down no matter what she said, and I have no way of telling which of you is which," I lied. I was pretty sure I'd told them I could see names, but I was also pretty confident they wouldn't be thinking about the finer details of my Semblance at the moment.

Jean turned a burning gaze on her twin, who winced. "You cockblock," the girl growled. Shifting her gaze to me, she asked, "Come on, Jaune. Help a girl out here."

"Sorry, Jane, no can do," I denied, a smirk twitching at the corner of my lips.

"Arg!" the redhead loosed a quiet half-yell of frustration. "You ass."

"You get used to that," I shrugged, slipping into bed beside the only other blonde there. "Are you coming or not?"

"Obviously not," Jane sniped, drawing another glare from her twin.

"I will end you. You may have come into this world first, but I will surely see you leave it first," the redhead threatened, slipping in behind me.

Jane made to open her mouth to retort and I shook my head. "Girls, that's enough."

"Yes, daddy," they synced.

I shuddered as my brain went straight to the connotations there—namely, them equating me to our father. Of course, there was also the whole 'daddy complex' thing. And my own inevitable fate of producing offspring myself—not that I didn't want to, just not now. "Don't ever say that again."

"Or you'll spank us?" Jean teased.

I sighed, hitting them both with Silence before they could say any more. "No, I'll do that. Good night."

---

My eyes opened and rolled around in my head for a moment before the room swam into focus, the last vestiges of a bad dream fading with my return to the waking world. An unfamiliar scent caught my attention and I looked down, at the same time the small, curvy form in my arms shifted. Finding myself looking at the top of a blonde head of hair, I blinked as several details registered. Firstly, I wasn't holding anyone I slept with regularly—neither Neo, Melanie, Miltia, or even Joan, though the shade was nearly identical on that last one. Secondly, there was a warm form pressed up against my back and a hand down my boxers, holding my manhood but otherwise not moving. Thirdly, I was wearing clothes. I never wore clothes to bed—too constricting. A look away from the blonde against my chest showed a redhead molded to the blonde's back and a glance backwards over my shoulder showed a second redhead behind me, who proved to be the source of the wandering hand.

It took a minute, but the events of the previous night came back and I resisted the urge to groan as I took in my situation. Jen was wrapped in my arms, her face buried in my chest, while the Arc twins were spooning the two of us—Jean behind me and Jane behind Jen. All of us were clothed, though I was down to a pair of boxers. Yawning, I shifted my focus to the familiar text of an update notification on my HUD.

The system has been updated! Would you like to view the Change Log?

Change Log: The Gamer Semblance v. 1.7.2

1. Implemented Guild Leveling system. 1% of all EXP gained by Guild members now goes towards leveling the Guild. For more details, check the Journal.

2. Implemented Guild Perks. Check the Guild section for a list of available perks, or the Journal for details on Guild advancement through the various perks trees.

3. Implemented Vehicle Customization. Vehicles being customized will be unavailable for the duration it takes to make the selected customizations. Guild vehicles may be customized through the Guild Equipment menu. Personal vehicles may be customized from the Mounts tab of the Character menu.

4. Fixed issue with skill evolution. Skills now evolve properly every 25 levels, instead of at level 30 for the first evolution. All skills between 25 and 29 have been advanced accordingly.

'Well, that thing about skills is good to know. I'll have to see what changed later.' Humming in thought, I closed the message, only for another to pop up after it.

Your guild Fox Hunt has reached level 2! You have gained 1 perk point.

'Nifty,' I mused, digging through my menus to the relevant section. There were three trees of perks and I could only see the first two tiers of each for the moment. The first tree was named Semblance Growth, with the first tier perk of Invisible Drops, and the second tier perks of Auto-Deposit and Auto-Loot. The second tree was named Guild Growth, with the first tier perk of Experience Boost 1, and the second tier perks listed as Reputation Boost 1 and Loyalty Boost 1. Tree three turned out to be listed as Economic Growth, the first perk being Increased Lien 1, and the second tier being Increased Item Drop Rate 1 and Increased Materials Drop Rate 1.

Everything I could see in the second and third tree seemed fairly self-explanatory, while a check of the first cleared up some questions. 'So, Invisible Drops means that all drops—money, mats, items, and so forth—generated by my Semblance are invisible to anyone either not in the guild, not in party, or who hasn't been in party before. Auto-Loot and Auto-Deposit seem like they should have been rolled into one skill, though. Useful, don't get me wrong, but splitting them up seems like a choice designed to needlessly waste perk points. Question is, would having items and money automagically moved into the guild's vaults, or a party member's inventory, be worth more than getting more rep, loyalty, items, or mats? Or do I even have to choose?'

Opening up my Journal, I looked over the section on Guild perks and resisted the urge to curse out loud. My first instinct had been right—the entire system was set up specifically for the purpose of forcing me to choose one option over the other—without giving me the ability to either get them all or go back and change my decision. Once I picked the default number of skills in a tier of the skill tree, the others would be locked. Choosing one Tier 1 perk would lock the rest. Choosing two Tier 2 perks from any two trees would leave the rest of the Tier 2 perks unavailable, and I could guess the exact same would happen in later tiers. Also, some later skills had prerequisites—meaning I'd have to pick the skills leading up to them to get the higher-tiered versions. For instance, if I didn't pick Experience Boost 1, I couldn't get Experience Boost 2—the option would only be for the lowest available. Likewise, some later skills would require picking a combination of earlier skills in order to unlock them, or a certain number of skills picked in certain trees to unlock—and without the ability to see what those skills were, or their prerequisites, there was little chance of me picking the right skills on the first try.

'No, stop,' I stilled, drawing an annoyed breath. 'This is exactly what this update is meant to do—butt-frustrate me and try to attack my morale either through indecision or regret over the choices. Fuck that. There's a reason I hated games like that—they're made specifically to fuck with completionists. Don't play that game. Instead focus on what I need. So, what do I need?'

Looking over the short list of available choices, I frowned. 'In most normal games, you would pick the choice for more experience. More XP means faster leveling. However, this isn't a game. I'm going to Beacon soon, and Ozpin has cameras all over the fucking place. Not to mention, if I ever work with a team not in the know, they'd start asking questions the moment money and items started dropping from Grimm. No, the most useful is going to be Invisible Drops. I can always kill more Grimm for more lien or experience.'

My decision made, I selected the perk and confirmed my choice. As soon as I did, the other two options for the first tier of perks grayed out. Looking at the second tier, I tried to prioritize there as well. 'I've got two choices here. None of those are as practical as Invisible Drops, so I can pretty much pick whatever when the time comes. Increased Reputation is too useful a skill not to have—that sort of thing tends to lead to more choices later. People are nicer, you get discounts on purchases, you get access to better quests and jobs as the citizenry comes to rely on you. Yeah, that's in the 'need to have' category. Other than that, I'd say Auto-Loot is probably the most valuable. Having high-value items automagically moved to either the guild vault if they're dropped for guild members or into others' inventories if they're dropped by party members would mean there'd be no chance of either missing something or of one of the less trustworthy guild members trying to make off with something. Loyalty would stop that in the long run, but the immediate gain is too great to ignore. More items and mats would be great, but I'd be right back to worrying about them being stolen or left behind. Annoyingly enough, those perks would be perfect, if paired with the Auto- perks.'

Shaking my head in frustration, I pushed the thought from my mind and stretched. The form of the woman snuggled against my back shifted, drawing my attention back to the present as a slender, smooth, feminine hand examined its surroundings. After a moment, the redhead behind me went stiff and I closed my eyes, carefully blanking my face and resisting the urge to laugh. The hand slowly, carefully extricated itself from my boxers and I felt her shift away, sitting up. I felt the presence of her arm reach over me and the redhead on the other side of Jen shifted, snored quietly, then whined as she came awake.

"What?" Jane groaned. "I'm comfortable."

"Come on, we need to talk," Jean whispered, slipping carefully out of the bed, followed a moment later by her sister.

Focusing on my enhanced hearing, I activated Listen as they moved into the hallway for a whispered conversation. "What do you think?" asked one. 'Probably Jean. She sounds less grumpy about being awake.'

"About what?" Jane sighed, and I heard the sound of her leaning against the wall beside the door.

"Is letting him put her in that group of his a good idea?"

There was a short pause before Jane answered. "Fuck if I know. What I do know is that Jaune cares for us." She trailed off for a moment before quietly adding, "More than he has since he was little, anyway. He won't let anything happen to her. She'll be safe with him."

"How do you know?" Jean asked, and I heard the frustration and doubt in her voice. "He's only recently even unlocked his Aura—"

"And now he can do shit that frankly scares me, if it were anyone else doing it," Jane countered. "He's determined. Driven. He's stronger every time I see him. You haven't seen him fight."

"I have, actually." I could hear the amusement in Jean's voice, as she added, "Against Jun."

Jane snorted softly. "Then he was playing with her. I've seen what he gets up to lately, with those other kids. And you'd be surprised exactly how hard it is to sneak up on him, any more. He's almost caught me watching, more than once."

"How close are we talking?"

Jane's amusement was audible as she answered, "I've started setting up a camera connected to my scroll, recently. I've got a few recordings, if you want to see. I usually set it a mile out, with a telephoto lens. Otherwise, well, his Semblance can track people in the vicinity."

I frowned at that. 'So how are you getting in and out without me noticing? A mile sounds about right for the threshold between minimap detection at its furthest zoom level and full map, so it's entirely possible she's been skirting the edge and I've missed it. Could be she's at least part of what's been setting off my detection skills, but without knowing what her Semblance is I can't say for sure.'

What I'd seen last night came to mind and I hummed softly. The twins had both been across town when I'd sent them a message. They had crossed that distance in under two minutes. Their Auras had just appeared in the Arc home—specifically, on the second floor, within a few steps of Jen's room. I had felt them immediately, with none of the buildup that would have come with crossing the distance physically. 'They can teleport or something,' I surmised. 'It's the only thing that makes sense with the range, time, and other factors involved. And it explains how Jane could have been keeping an eye on me without me noticing. How's that work though, with Jen saying the sisters all had some form of energy manipulation? Well, I suppose 'teleportation' could be classified as a type of energy manipulation, depending on the mechanics involved. Could explain the flashes of light I saw last night.'

"So, what are you saying?" Jean asked.

"I'm saying he's good, and getting better by the day. She'll be safer with him than she will be here. We can't be here all the time. At least with Jaune, she'll be surrounded by armed men looking to kill anyone or anything trying to get to her." Sighing, Jane softly added, "I don't think Atlas will try anything, otherwise they would have by now, but I won't put it past them. On our end, it'll be better to make it that much more difficult for them."

"And what about Jun? She can't stay here by herself and we can't all get medically discharged and land cushy jobs that let us stay home." There was a bit of annoyance in the other twin's voice—understandable, considering Jane had kept her change in situation to herself.

"Let her stay with Jen. Wait, before you say anything, hear me out. We'll talk to Jaune about it, go see this place and see if it's suitable for her, and if it's not then it's not happening. If it is, though, then there's no reason not to."

Jean—at least, I assume it was Jean—loosed a loud sigh. "Fine. We'll go see this place and decide. Come on, let's go wake up those two, then get Jun up and get her to school. I know Jaune was faking it when we left—probably hates getting out of bed any sooner than absolutely necessary."

Jane laughed, softly. "So was Jen. It's kind of sad, but this is the best I've seen her since she got back. She looked happy."

Raising an eyebrow, I opened my eyes and glanced down, finding a pair of blue eyes that mirrored my own looking back up at me. "Morning."

"Are they saying anything interesting?" Jen asked, and I rolled my eyes.

"Not really," I denied. "Come on, let's get up and start getting ready."

The door opened and the twins made their way inside, looking mildly disappointed that we were already in the process of getting out of bed. "The girls should be here soon with transport," I told them, already making my way towards the shower. "Also, dibs on first shower."

"So, want someone to wash your back?" Jean asked, sending me a hopeful look.

I smirked, idly grabbing the book that had never been picked up the previous night and placing it back on the shelf it'd come from with Telekinesis. "I think I'll manage."

"Damnit," Jean sighed.

"'The girls?'" Jen asked, shooting a glance at the twins as I quickly made my way down the hall.

"Jaune's girlfriends," one of the twins answered.

"Oh?" Jen hummed, and I could hear the interest in her tone. "Do tell."

I was only partly into my shower when I heard the stomping of little feet approaching the bathroom door. The handle rattled and I smirked as a quiet curse drifted in from the other side of the door. 'That's right. Unlike some people, I lock the goddamn door.'

An instant later, I winced as a tiny fist pounded on the door from the outside, sounding like a sledgehammer to my enhanced hearing. "Onii-chan!"

"What?" I yelled back, wondering what I'd done to upset her enough to yell at me.

"How could you sleep with our sisters when you don't even have the decency to sleep with sempai?!"

I blinked twice before leaning my head against the wall of the shower and groaning. "Because Ruby doesn't sleep over!" I called back. It wouldn't help my case any if she knew I shared bed space with Miltia, Melanie, and Neo on a regular basis. I had to assume that, even as precocious as she was, she meant sleep in the classical sense as opposed to as a euphemism for sex. At least I hoped it wasn't a euphemism, otherwise we were having two entirely different conversations. 'God, I hope she just means sleep.' I frowned as something niggled at my memory, then had to resist the urge to thump my head against the wall. 'No, there's a good chance she doesn't. This is the girl who reads Visual Novels and plays her sister's eroge. Fuck.'

"Oh," she muttered. Not to be dissuaded, she quickly yelled back, "Well, you should invite her to!"

"Stop worrying about my personal life and mind your own. And don't you have school?"

"I don't want to go. Someone woke me up last night!" she retorted.

'Right. That's it,' I silently growled. "Young lady, you will go to school or so help me…" I left the threat hanging.

"But… but," the girl spluttered. "Fine!" she yelled, storming off back towards her room. "Onee-chan! Onii-chan is being a meanie!"

I palmed my face, unsure whether to feel amused or incredulous. "She told on me. The little brat actually narced on me." Well, at least she was acting her age for once. Shrugging it off, I went back to my shower—or would have, had someone not tried the bathroom knob.

"What now?" I groaned.

"Hurry up, Jaune. You don't have time to fap," one of the twins called.

"I swear," I growled, "I am going to kill someone before the morning is over."

---

I sat in what passed as a waiting room in Fox Hunt's on-site clinic. Apparently, one of the first things the Head of Medical we'd hired had done was bring in a psychiatrist who specialized in dealing with soldiers and Hunters who, like many of my new staff, was also ex-military—because apparently PTSD and burnout are pretty common issues in our chosen field. Go figure. On that front, I was pleased—seeing that this thing I was building was becoming self-sufficient and could take care of its own left me with a good feeling. 'But the waiting,' I nearly groaned, leaning back in my chair.

I was currently the only one of our group here, and that was mostly because someone needed to be here when Jen got out. The Arc twins were currently touring the barracks with Neo and the Malachite twins, along with Penny, while Blake had gone out as soon as we'd told her training was canceled for the morning—saying there was a new shipment coming into Tukson's that she wanted first crack at. 'Mm, double twins plus Neo. Now there's a mental image I won't be forgetting any time soon.'

That's not to say that Medical was empty. No, the entire base was a hive of activity at the moment. Apparently, when I instructed Neo, Melanie, and Miltia about the elevated Grimm threat, they had put the whole base on alert and people were scrambling to get ready—either to be sent out to kill them, or in the case of the Medical department, receive wounded. When we'd come in, they had currently been refueling and rearming our aircraft and making emergency maintenance to the few LAVs we'd received so far.

My HUD pinged a text message alert, pulling me from my thoughts, and I dug out my scroll to read and reply to it.

'Are you sure you can't make it?' Ruby must have either just gotten my message or had taken her time in replying. Maybe she was still feeling a bit put out about the night before last. I couldn't say I blamed her if she was.

I quickly typed out a reply and hit send. 'Yeah, some stuff came up with one of my sisters last night. Details later, maybe.'

'Okay.'

I sighed. I hated text for shit like this, where I couldn't judge tone. Selecting her contact info, I hit the 'dial' button and waited, bringing the scroll up to my mask. The line picked up and we were both silent for a moment, before I rolled my eyes. "Hey."

"Uhh… hey," the little reaper answered weakly.

"God I suck at this shit," I sighed. "Look, are you still upset over the thing with Yang and Neo?"

Ruby's sigh echoed my own, as she seemed to open up now that I'd broached the subject. "I am… a little annoyed. I mean, I get it—I do. It's kind of Neo's thing, and she loves doing it so it wouldn't feel right telling her off for it, but seeing it…"

"I know," I agreed. "You thought you saw one thing and it turned out to be another, so it kind of jerked you around a bit."

"But what really upsets me is I was so hurt, and angry, and… and jealous," the scroll creaked, and I realized she was nearly crushing hers in her grip. "I know I don't really have a right to be. We're just friends. And it's confusing."

I chuckled quietly, drawing a frustrated sound from her in response. "Welcome to the wonderful world of adulthood. It doesn't get any easier from here."

"Pfft right," she drawled, dragging the word out. "You make it look easy."

"It's really not," I denied. "Case in point. I have no idea how to deal with upset or crying women, other than what I'm already doing. Well, no," I added, "I take that back. I do, but that's not exactly applicable to the situation."

Ruby snorted softly. "You're doing pretty well, so far," she murmured. "Thank you, Jaune. For… for being you."

I raised an eyebrow at that. Before I could say anything, a voice called in the background on Ruby's end, drawing my attention, though I didn't quite make out what it said. "What was that?"

"Uncle Qrow. He yelled something about going out and took off in a hurry." I could hear the shrug in her tone. "So, uh," she cleared her throat, clearly trying to move away from the embarrassing emotional stuff, "we're still training tomorrow?"

"Yeah, barring shit coming up last minute. I don't have any other plans for tomorrow, anyway. Did you figure out water walking?" I asked, a grin twitching at my lips.

"No," she grumbled. "Not yet. I guess I can go work on that today."

"You should teach Yang. I know she knows a couple of things that you don't, too. Sharing will work better for you, in this instance," I pointed out.

"It will, huh?" Ruby asked. Hearing the laughter in her tone, I wondered if I'd missed something. "I'll talk to her." She sighed and I heard the phone shift as she moved around. "I should probably go do that. No rest for the weary or however that goes."

"You're too young for that sort of sentiment," I rolled my eyes. I remembered getting up with creaking joints and all the little pains of age catching up to me.

There was the distinctive sound of a raspberry being blown from the other end of the scroll before Ruby said, "By the way, dad wanted us around for the next few days to spend time with us before Beacon starts. I think he's jealous we spend more time with you recently than with him," she chuckled. "So, yeah, we're not really going to be able to do anything this weekend. He said he wants a three day weekend with us."

'When is that?' I wondered, having actually lost track of the days. Checking my HUD, I saw it was a Thursday—the last Thursday before Beacon was scheduled to start, this coming Monday, in fact. 'Damn. Time flies when you're busy as fuck,' I mused. "Ruby, it's fine. You should spend all the time with your dad that you can. There'll be plenty of time for training later."

There was a short pause, before she quietly said, "Thanks for understanding."

"No problem," I smiled. "I'll let you go. Have fun with Yang and your dad."

"I will," she agreed. "I hope your sister's okay."

"She's not. But she will be, hopefully. And if not, I'll be there for her. Talk to you later."

We finished exchanging goodbyes and I tucked the scroll into my side pouch. "That was sweet."

I blinked, looking up to see Jen standing in front of me, blue eyes regarding me coolly. "You snuck up on me."

Those blue eyes rolled and she crossed her arms. "You weren't exactly paying attention to your surroundings. So, who is she?"

"A friend," I deadpanned. "Ruby Rose. She's nice. Sweet, a bit of a dork. You'd like her."

One of Jen's eyebrows ticked up towards her hair line. "The same Ruby Rose whom Jun wants you to 'sleep' with, but who doesn't stay over?"

I facepalmed. "Heard that, huh?"

Jen snorted softly. "You could have heard it from outside." After a moment, she added, "I've never met her, but I know of her. Jun talked about her 'sempai' a lot, when she started school." A smile twitched at the corners of her lips and she asked, "So, why doesn't she stay over?"

"Too young," I denied.

"How old is 'old enough?'" Jen asked, and I shrugged.

I honestly wanted to answer 'twenty,' but that wouldn't fly and I'd be a hypocrite besides, considering the Malachite twins. 'Half your age plus seven' also wouldn't work, because that number was up for debate. My best answer was, "Whatever is socially accepted as 'legal,' I suppose."

The blonde hummed in thought for a moment. "You do realize that age of consent differs between Hunters and Huntresses and the civilians, right? Once someone starts Beacon and is accepted onto a Hunter team, they are considered an adult for all legal purposes. It doesn't matter if they're twenty or twelve, by law they're 'adults.'"

"That doesn't make diddling a twelve year old right," I deadpanned.

Jen shrugged. "I didn't say it did. I was pointing out that your argument is flawed and you're likely going to need to take this one on a case by case basis."

Sighing, I silently admitted that she was probably right. Still, that didn't mean I had to acknowledge it. So, in the spirit of all men losing an argument, I decided to change the topic. Pushing up out of my seat, I asked, "How did it go?"

"She's going to put in a few calls and get me put on medical leave for now. Then there will be a few weeks of sessions, after which, I'll probably be declared Section 8," Jen shrugged.

Nodding, I hit the button for the elevator and waited. "So, what do you say to working for me?"

Jen turned to observe me, taking in my current outfit—white cloak with Fox Hunt and White Fox patches, black pants and boots, red under shirt and light chest armor over that, along with the red neck gaiter and Fox mask. "Doing what?" she finally asked.

"Actually, I think I have something in mind," I murmured as the elevator opened and we stepped inside. "I need a public face from Vale. The twins and Joan are out, because they don't have the time with their jobs—though, I suppose Jane could…" I shrugged. "And the younger girls are still in school. You, on the other hand. You are a Vale native, a 'graduate' of Atlas, and an Arc. Having you as my local liaison or something similar to the Kingdom of Vale would go a long way towards smoothing things over and pretty much be a public relations coup for us."

"I reiterate: what would I be doing?" Jen asked.

"You'd be my, I guess you could say, honor guard or escort. One part security, one part personal assistant. Anywhere I go officially, you go as well. Likewise with Neo or the Malachite twins."

Jen blinked, before she raised one fine blonde eyebrow. "So, stand there and look pretty?"

My lips twitched into a grin and I turned enough to visibly trail my eyes over her from head to toe. "You do pull it off rather well."

"Flirt," she accused, and I nodded.

"Shameless," I agreed. "Other than that, pretty much whatever comes up. Not sure what that'll be yet. What do you think?"

Humming, she asked, "You said I could bring Jun here when the others aren't looking after her?"

"Yeah. Though, that's only if you're actually working here. I could arrange it as part of your signing bonus. Bring you in as an officer and stick you in our own part of the barracks." If she agreed, I'd talk to Jim and see if we could get some sort of surveillance going for Jun's school. Something low key that wouldn't stand out, but which would allow us to spot trouble. Hidden cameras watching the place, for instance.

The elevator dinged and we stepped out, walking the short distance to the sally port, where I showed my ID while Jen showed her guest pass. We were cleared and I tapped my code into the door lock and we passed through the doors and into my part of the building. "I'll consider it."

"You get a sexy uniform," I tempted. "Speaking of which," I muttered, looking at my minimap and leading us towards the others. "Going to need a color change. Black and white isn't going to work, after last night."

"I don't think that'd go over well, no," Jen agreed.

"What's that?" Melanie asked, as we found the others.

Pulling off my mask, I slipped it into my side pouch. "I was just trying to tempt Jen to join, once she gets medically discharged. I was telling her we'd need to change the uniform colors, after what I saw last night. Any resemblance to Atlas would make the wrong impression."

The Malachite twins shared a look with Neo. "Well," Miltia smiled, "Good thing we had more than one color scheme made for the first batch, just in case the black and white uniforms didn't go over well. We've got charcoal gray," I shook my head, "dark red," I made a so-so gesture with one hand, "and a sort of brownish gold."

"Dark brown or tan," Neo corrected. "I didn't really like it, but I didn't hate it. It's got black and silver as the main highlights."

I frowned, something about that color scheme stirring my memory. After a moment, I had to resist the urge to laugh. 'Oh, wow. They made what sounds like Wehrmacht uniforms. At least the same general color scheme. I am not sure whether that is horrible or great. On the one hand, Atlas dresses like Stormtroopers, who are Lucas' Nazi stand-ins. On the other, the most infamous color scheme in Earth history—actual Nazis. Actually, come to think of it, wasn't gray also one of those colors, and the Germans had like a dozen different variations in green, black, and so on and the brown one somehow became the image most associated with the Third Reich? Well, it's not like anyone here is going to care—no actual Nazis in Remnant…to my knowledge, which is admittedly tainted by 'canon.' And hey, I can always go with a 'browncoats' thing. It's not like the Germans were the only ones to ever wear brown uniforms in Earth's history—only the most infamous—so there's really nothing stopping me from using them. Well, no point jumping to conclusions about it when I've got Neo right here.'

"I'll have a look at them, but we'll probably go with the brown or gray. Maybe both, depending on assignment, rank, or what have you," I decided. "Neo, can you show me what they look like?"

"Sure," the girl smiled, and a moment later her form shimmered as her clothes were overlaid with an illusion of the uniform in question. Melanie and Miltia's forms shimmered a moment later, displaying different versions of the same uniform in different colors. "These are the female versions. The male versions look like this," she gestured to her side, and a life-sized copy of me appeared, wearing the brown version of the men's uniform. Another copy appeared beside it, wearing a version with the full long coat. A third copy appeared, this time wearing a shorter, waist-length jacket as opposed to a long coat. "The shorter jackets are for normal enlisted, the long coats are for officers. I thought we'd keep that from the previous style."

'Well, consider me pleasantly surprised. They're not Nazi-style Wehrmacht uniforms—in fact, about the only similarities they share are coloration. They look more like… someone took some inspiration from Attack on Titan cosplay and tried to make an actual uniform out of it. For instance, they lost the MMG straps and replaced them with actual holsters for weapons. And those shitty half-jackets were replaced with functional waist-length jackets. I think I like it. Well, except the tights. We need to change those to actual pants, because they look ridiculous as a military uniform, no matter how much Blake likes them,' I mused. "They don't look like the uniforms you've got," I pointed out, and the girls rolled their eyes.

"Did you think we'd just make one version?" Melanie asked. "No, we made like four test models, to see what looked good. You liked the first batch, so we were going to go with those."

"But with the thing with Atlas, that's not possible now, so this is the second model," Miltia continued.

"So, run with them or no?" Neo asked, and I nodded.

"Yeah, we'll go with them," I agreed. "With some modifications. Specifically, change the tights to pants. If Blake wants tights, she can wear her own. I'm not subjecting everyone else to them."

"Is this the sort of day-to-day thing you do now?" Jane asked, and I chuckled, before nodding.

Neo beat me to the punch, however. "Pretty much."

Turning my gaze to the Arc twins, I asked, "So, does the place pass muster?"

The siblings exchanged a glance before nodding. "It's fine," Jean agreed. "I won't have a problem with Jun being here."

"We'd wondered where the 'movers' were taking your stuff," Jane shot me a look that said I should probably have called to let her know I'd have people coming by my place ahead of time. "Luckily for them, your girls thought to pick up a scroll and call me before I made a mess."

"Sorry about that. I'm kind of bad about the whole 'calling people' thing." I turned to Jen. "Anyway. See, even your sisters aren't complaining—the place is fine. All that's left now if for you to agree. Well, and get your paperwork taken care of. I don't think I can get you in officially until then, but getting you a semi-permanent guest pass shouldn't raise too many eyebrows. And if it does, well, executive fiat. Ruby and Yang have them so it should be fine. That is, if you wanted to stay here now."

Jen and her sisters traded a look before the Arc twins took her by each hand and dragged her away to confer. "Jaune," Penny began, drawing my attention, "was… was my father involved in what happened to your sister?"

I shook my head. "Probably not. At least, not that I've seen so far. If Atlas is smart about their black ops, then they're compartmentalized. In other words, no cell knows what the other cells are doing, or even that there are other cells in the first place. The Specialist training program seemed like an almost open secret, compared to your dad's research." A frightening thought occurred, and I turned to regard Jen with the Arc twins, across the room. "On the other hand, if it were me? I'd combine the projects. They've got Specialists, which are your elite commando soldiers, with advanced Dust and Aura techniques, brainwashed for absolute loyalty. They've got AI, which, if Penny's memories are any indication the only thing stopping them from just programming in loyalty is her dad—and that may just be a special case with her, for all I know, sorry Penny."

"It is okay, Jaune," Penny murmured, looking down for a moment before tilting her her up to meet my eyes and smiling. "But you got me out—or at least a version of me. I am truly glad for that. I will just have to find a way to free my… sister."

"I'll help you do it," I promised.

"Thank you," the gynoid whispered, moving awkwardly closer and wrapping her arms around my waist in a hug. "Is this okay?"

"Yes, Penny. Hugs are fine any time," I assured her, reaching up to run my hand through her hair. "As I was saying, though. We know they've also got not only a piloted mech in development, but also power armor. It stands to reason they're working on some weapon project as well. There's a lot of things they could do with all of that." Sighing, I hugged Penny tighter for a moment before letting her go. "It's one more thing I need to add to the list of things I want from Atlas, next time I decide to go up that way."

"We're making another run on Atlas?" Melanie asked.

"Maybe. I'm considering it, at any rate," I sighed.

The Arc siblings wandered back over and I sent them a questioning look. "I will move in today, if you don't mind," Jen answered the unspoken question.

"If I minded, I wouldn't have offered," I chuckled. Jerking my thumb towards the exit, I started walking that way. "Come on. I'll get you three a car back and you can gather up some things. The rooms are already furnished, so you don't have to worry about that. Also, pick up some things for Jun, if she's going to be staying with you. The rest of us have business to take care of."

"Running us off already, Jaune?" Jean asked, a smirk creeping up her lips.

"No, but we generally don't fuck around when we've got things to do," I shrugged, pulling my mask out and putting it back in place before we got to the sally port. "Now you see what my days have been like lately. It's been a while since we all just took a day off where we did nothing." Turning to the Malachite twins, Neo, and Penny, I asked, "How does that sound? Saturday or Sunday, or maybe both—take some time to relax and just spend time together. Ruby told me Tai wants her and Yang to stick around the house for the weekend, since Beacon starts this Monday and he wants to spend time with them, so we don't even have to leave the base if you don't want to."

"That sounds," Melanie began, humming in thought.

Miltia finished, beaming a smile, "Wonderful. Movies?"

"Dinner?" Melanie added.

"Dancing?" Neo's eyes lit up, and I nodded.

Penny practically bounced on her heels. "Jaune, will you teach me how to dance?"

"Sure," I agreed, drawing raised eyebrows from Jean and Jen.

"You mean you actually enjoy dancing?" Jen asked, an incredulous look crossing her face. "I thought you hated it."

I shook my head. "Nope. What little I remember, I loved it. I enjoyed spending the time with you all. But I was a kid and 'girls have cooties,' or whatever." I shrugged. "Different time, different me." Smirking, I added, "Now, dancing is almost a surefire way to get me laid."

The Malachite twins and Neo all nodded. "It really is," the younger twins synced.

Neo shot a smirk at the redheaded twins. "Thanks for breaking him in for us."

"So, we were meaning to ask," Jean changed the subject, blatantly ignoring Neo's comment and catching my eye as the elevator descended into the basement parking garage. "On the way in we spotted people in guard posts with what looked like anti-air missiles. What's up with that?"

"Specifically, how is the Kingdom or City of Vale even allowing that to fly?" Jane finished for her twin.

It was the Malachite twins who answered, however. "Simple. We filed the paperwork," Melanie smirked. "Fox Hunt owns the airspace for a kilometer out from our base, up to 5,000 feet. It's treated like any other military installation. It is officially a No-Fly Zone for any unapproved aircraft."

"In other words," Miltia continued, "Vale ATC routes low flying traffic in the city around it. The area's not huge, so it's not like they have to go very far out of their way to avoid us. Flyover flights from things like intercontinental airships pass by well outside of our 5,000 foot ceiling. Flight plans into and out of Fox Hunt are logged with Vale ATC, even for the low level stuff—which is kind of annoying, but a necessary evil. They warn off anyone approaching our airspace, then once they cross into our border, we take over—theoretically. It hasn't happened yet. But once they cross beyond that invisible line and onto our property, they would ideally either be turned away or forced to land. If it were someone like the White Fang looking to cause trouble, and we could be reasonably sure of that, then we would open fire."

"So, it's a bluff," Jen surmised, and the younger set of twins shrugged.

"No," Melanie denied. At the same time, her sister answered, "Yes." They shared a look, before syncing, "Up to a point."

"Yeah, no," Neo shook her head. "I kind of went behind you two on that and cleared some things up. Standing orders are to shoot down anyone who doesn't either leave or land peacefully. If they're armed and they don't identify, they get swatted. Once they do land, we'll have two squads on standby with someone up front to figure out what they want. If we can, they'll be sent on their way. If they get violent, the men have orders to open fire. If we weren't based inside the city, it wouldn't be such a potential problem, but leaving the city has its own set of problems with it, and until we start seeing some serious cash flow we can't do much about relocating." Seeing the Malachite twins' looks, Neo shrugged. "Sorry, with Blake coming in and out, I decided to err on the side of caution in case any of her old friends happened to track her back to us."

Melanie and Miltia traded a look before turning to me. "I agree with her decision. I'd rather not deal with some idiot loading up a Bullhead or something full of Dust or ANFO and deciding to crash it into one of our buildings."

"ANFO?" more than one voice asked, and I realized I might have accidentally mentioned something from Earth. Then again, it was ridiculously common there, so there was probably a good chance Remnant used or had used it at one point, because it was easy and cheap to produce, and ridiculously useful.

"Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil. Fertilizer bomb, essentially," I explained. "You use it in small doses for taking out stumps. In larger doses for taking out structures or armor."

"Where did you learn that?" Jean asked, narrowing her eyes.

I shrugged, gesturing around us. "Compound full of ex-military." The elevator chimed and we stepped out into the parking garage. There were two cars waiting for us, as I'd already texted Jim ahead of time. "Anyway, I'll see you three later. If there's any trouble," I locked eyes with Jen, "or if you just need to talk, call me. Okay?"

"Okay," the Arc twins agreed, stepping in to hug me before heading for one of the cars.

Jen stepped in for a hug of her own, squeezing me a good deal tighter than the twins had. "Thank you, Jaune."

"Don't thank me yet," I chuckled. "Thank me when you're better."

Bright blue eyes met my own and the girl gave me a ghost of a smile before turning and following her sisters. As their car pulled out, I joined Penny, Neo, and the Malachite twins in our own vehicle—a small limousine I hadn't actually seen before today. I could tell from how it sat that it was most likely armored. "New car?" I asked, once the window dividing the front and back came down.

"We thought you might need something with a bit more room. So, where to, boss?" Jim asked from the front.

"I need to make a stop by the library. I've been putting something off for a while," I met Jim's eyes in the rearview and he nodded. "After that, I need to pick up my Beacon uniforms and I'm sure the girls would love to window shop," I mused aloud, drawing amused looks from the girls in question.

"Sounds fun," Neo agreed.

"But Jaune," Penny began, "We have perfectly functional windows. Why would we need more?"

The twins shared a glance before Melanie said, "Penny? Don't ever change."

"But Jaune said I would have to grow up eventually—" the girl began as the divider went up and the car started moving.

"She didn't mean literally," I denied, before Penny could get started good.

---

I walked into the library alone, the others waiting in the limo and taking the time to take care of the day's assignments for Fox Hunt on their scrolls—of which, there were quite a few more than usual. Within the next few hours, we would have all our aircraft out and running at once for the first time due to the increased Grimm activity Jane and Jean's actions last night had attracted. 'Maybe this will get us some good PR with the city.' I blinked as I went over that thought again and nearly groaned. 'Dear God, I'm becoming a politician, or something similar. Not sure whether that's amusing or horrifying.'

Strolling up to the desk, I found Candice seated behind it, idly reading a novel. She looked up and met my eyes, raising an eyebrow as she did. Putting a placeholder in her book, she put it aside and asked, "How may I help you, sir?"

Seeing as there were no other employees around for her to put on the act for, I rolled my eyes. "Can we talk?"

Sighing, she nodded and pushed back out of her seat. Opening a door behind her, she gestured me to follow. "In here."

I slipped inside and looked around, realizing it was some sort of combination break and meeting room. She followed me in and closed the door behind us, before moving to the table and dropping into one of the chairs there. Crossing her arms, along with her legs, she observed me over her glasses. "To what do I owe this visit?"

Shaking my head, I leaned against the wall beside the door and crossed my own arms. "Is that how you're going to be?"

"How's that?" she asked, and I snorted softly.

"Defensive and antagonistic," I pointed out.

Her eyes narrowed. "I'm not."

"Case in point," I countered. "Fine, fuck it. Are you retarded?"

Glaring, the older woman answered, "No. And I don't appreciate—"

"I don't give a shit if you appreciate it or not. Someone needs to call you out on your bullshit and I've found the best way to do that is by not beating around the bush, mincing words, or otherwise trying to spare feelings. This shit?" I gestured, indicating the library, "It's retarded. I tell you there's a good chance someone may come looking to get to me through you and offer to let you come work for me, where you'll be surrounded by lots of people armed to the teeth and willing to kill anything that steps onto our property uninvited. But no, instead, the first thing you do is go straight back to your old job where you can be easily tracked down and where there aren't armed guards around 24/7. I mean, I'm glad you've at least had the sense to stick around at Jim's place instead of going back to your old apartment, but come on—this is brain-dead level stupid. I thought you were smarter than this."

"Are you done?" she asked, when I stopped talking. I shut my mouth and made a 'go ahead' motion with one hand. "Firstly, I like my job. I know, weird right? But I'm happy here." I opened my mouth and she held up a hand to stop me. "I don't want to come work for your gang, or militia, or whatever the hell it is this week. I don't even know how to use a gun. And while I get that you can probably find something for me to do that doesn't involve shooting at things, it's not my thing. And besides, I'm not going to change my life just because you fucked up. You didn't turn off your scroll, you picked up the call, you were somewhere you shouldn't have been doing something you absolutely should not have been, and I am not going to let your mistakes dictate my life. The only people I've even seen who seem out of place are the ones Jim has watching the building, so I'd say the threat you were worried about is pretty overblown. And I'm not living in my old place because someone canceled my lease," she raised an eyebrow at that, while I looked absolutely unrepentant. "I'm still staying with Jim because I'm fucking him. We're dating. I moved in. If you would, you know, actually talk to your people outside of work, you'd know that. I bet you don't even know half of the names of the people you've got helping you run your little experiment. Outside of the girls you're diddling, of course."

"Leave them out of this," I warned. "Yeah, maybe I'm not the best leader in the world, but I know the difference between being a leader and being a friend. A good leader does not make friends with his people, does not allow his people to see him as anything but an unassailable pillar that they can turn to for support. That's not to say that he doesn't value his men—each and every one of them is valuable—but there has to be a division between the leadership and the men, otherwise the men start thinking they can subvert the leader's will. Fuck that. I'm not letting that happen. So, you're right that I should probably go over my personnel files and go around and speak to my division heads, but I'm not their friend and I'm not their drinking buddy. I'm their boss.

"As for responsibility, what the fuck do you think I'm trying to do? This is me trying to take responsibility for my fuckup. I know damn well it was my fault, I'm trying to make sure you don't pay the price for that, and you're making that impossible because you won't listen. It's like the doctor telling you that if you keep smoking, you're going to develop lung cancer, and you tell him, 'Well, I just like it so much and I've done it so long I can't stop now.' I can't help you if you don't let me."

The brunette rolled her eyes. "You assume I want your help, or even need it. I'm nobody important and even if someone did try something, they'd quickly figure that out. I'm not dating you, I don't know anything important, and I'm not part of your organization. That in and of itself is a good defense against anyone looking to do me harm. I'm useless to them. There'd be no point. You're just being overly paranoid."

Running a hand through my hair, I resisted the urge to growl, curse, or yell at her to get my point across. There was plenty of shit she knew that could see us utterly fucked, and she either didn't realize it or acknowledge it. Little facts like: she's dating a guy who works for the Fox, and whose boss is a seventeen year old boy named Jaune Arc. It wouldn't take much to connect those dots. 'This would be so much easier if I just neuralized her,' I mused. I could do it. I wouldn't enjoy it, and it'd probably piss Jim off, but it was on the table as a possible solution. 'On the other hand, no relationship with or knowledge of me, no reason to hang around Jim, sudden gaps in her memory… I'd have to essentially either build new memories or slap one mother of a Confuse on her and hope her brain made the connections for her. And then there's the fact that I'd still be running into the same problems as I would with trying to erase large chunks of Jen's memories. I'd hit the limits of Forget and maybe even cause brain damage. No, too risky. Save it as a last resort.'

Finally, I threw up my hands in defeat. "Fine! Fuck it. You win. Have it your way." I turned to open the door and paused. "Jim's a good man. Useful, too. I expect him to stay that way."

"Jaune," she murmured, halting me as I opened the door. "I get that you're worried about me, and I appreciate it. But you worry too much. It'll be fine."

"Famous last words," I deadpanned, shooting her an unamused look over my shoulder. "See you."

"Yeah," she nodded.

The door closed a little more firmly behind me than I'd intended.

---

As I equipped another Beacon uniform, I rolled my eyes and adjusted the tie for better comfort before looking myself over in the full length mirror. The uniform was a bit form hugging in places, but seemed somehow stretchy—not quite like I'd expect from lycra or something, but with more give than cotton/polyester blends I was used to. Then again, I supposed I shouldn't be surprised—it was the same material a lot of things seemed to be made of. Most of my wardrobe was, in fact. The cut here was just different from what I was used to. In addition, I was glad my Semblance knew how to tie a tie—and even had options for various knots—because I absolutely could not.

I took my time making sure it hung properly and was comfortable before finally stepping out. With cameras in the store and the employees keeping an eye on us unobtrusively, possibly to make sure no one decided to go for a quickie in the changing rooms, I couldn't exactly just dump things into Inventory and equip them in full view of everyone—which meant having to sit in the changing room and wait a reasonable amount of time between each change to make sure no one noticed anything fishy.

"Well?" I asked, drawing a hum from Neo and critical looks from both her and the twins.

"Range of motion?" Neo asked, and I began stepping through a series of basic stretches and movements that would test the uniform's fit against being pulled certain ways. Beacon uniforms were pretty good about being combat ready in the event students couldn't change clothes, but the girls were perfectionists when it came to that sort of thing.

"That's enough," Melanie finally sighed. "It looks pretty close to what you're going to need, but…"

"We're going to have to play with it," Miltia finished for her sister.

"You don't have to, you know," I tried to reason with them, and the trio rolled their eyes.

"Please, Jaune. You are an admittedly poor judge of when something like this is 'good enough' as opposed to 'great.' Trust us, that extra little bit helps. Besides, it won't take long to alter a few of them and we don't mind doing it," Neo grinned. "And you were going to put enchantments on anyway, so this will give you a better chance to do that."

"After I level sewing," I reminded, and the girl shrugged. "I've got some ideas on that, but we'll see once we get home."

The girls all shared a look at that, and I realized what it was that had set that particular round off. Calling the new place home—as in 'our home.' Well, I couldn't deny that I felt the same way about it. It was distinctly ours, as opposed to just mine. "Anyway," Miltia broke in, "Our turn."

"Your turn?" I asked, raising an eyebrow. I knew damn well the girls made their own clothes. Then again, I also knew they enjoyed reverse engineering clothes for new ideas. More importantly, however, they absolutely loved attention. The girls merely grinned, slipping into the dressing rooms with arm-loads of clothes. Sighing, I dropped into one of the chairs provided and set to waiting.

"Jaune? Where did the others go?" Penny asked, and I glanced over to see a walking mountain of clothes with legs sticking out of the bottom.

I blinked twice before what I was seeing registered—Penny, carrying a stack of clothes so high she couldn't possibly see over it. "Penny, what are you doing?" I asked, having a sneaking suspicion about the answer.

"Well, Neo, Melanie, and Miltia said I should take the chance to get new clothes. And I don't have many to begin with, so I thought I would get them in bulk while we were here," she answered.

Something about that sounded off. "Don't you have several dozen outfits?"

"I do! But I wore those already and I was running out of clothes, so…" Penny trailed off, shifting the bundle of clothing in her arms to indicate the next logical step in her train of thought there.

"What do you mean, running out?" I asked, as realization slowly dawned. "Have you been doing your laundry?"

"Laundry?" the gynoid asked.

The sound of flesh smacking flesh rang out across the store and the nearest store employee shot me a worried look. "Sir?" she called from nearby. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," I nearly growled. The poor woman gave a startled 'eep!' and scuttled off. "Penny. Penny why?" I stopped, shaking my head and standing. Collecting the clothes from her arms, I set them on a nearby chair. "Let's make two piles. The left pile is for things you already have. The right pile is for new things. Okay?"

"Okay, Jaune!" Penny chirped, and immediately began sorting through the pile.

"I thought I showed you how to work the washer and dryer?" I asked, and Penny shook her head.

"If you mean the boxy things you put your clothes in, then no. Is that why you keep wearing the same clothes over and over?" Penny made a face, the look of exaggerated disgust looking absolutely adorable on her face. "How can you stand to wear clothes over and over? They have germs in them! And dead skin cells, and hair! They are breeding grounds for bacteria!"

I rolled my eyes. "That's why we wash them."

Penny turned wide eyes on me. "But that doesn't kill all the germs!"

"It gets enough," I chuckled. "Besides, between that and keeping them in Inventory, they won't really have time to grow between washings."

"But it's disgusting," Penny whined—actually whined.

'That's a first for her,' I mused, shaking my head. "Look, it's something you get used to. Germs, dead skin, hair, residue from fluids like sweat and," I paused, self-censoring there, "other things are all a normal part of biological life. You'll get used to it. Or you'll get over it." A few rather infamous germophobes came to mind, and I added, "Or you won't. In which case, you'll develop crippling germophobia, shut yourself in a clean room, and never come out again."

"That does not sound like fun," Penny hedged.

"It's not," I agreed. "And you're partly biological yourself, so it's not like you can ever get away from it entirely. So, take these," I gestured at the pile of things she'd separated out into the left pile, "and give them to one of those nice ladies over there," I gestured at one of the store workers nearby, "then come back. And when we get back to the base, you're going to empty your Inventory and we're going to wash everything. Okay?"

"Okay Jaune," Penny murmured, looking contrite as she gathered up the pile of clothes and made her way off.

"That would be hilarious, if it weren't so sad," Neo chuckled from behind me, and I turned to see she and the twins had exited the dressing rooms.

Looking them over appreciatively, I noticed they all seemed to perk up and preen a bit under my gaze, and resisted the urge to laugh at it. "Very nice."

"That's all we get?" Melanie asked, crossing her hands under her breasts, doing her best to push them up just a little more in the small green dress she wore.

"Well, no. But I'm pretty sure we'd get kicked out if you got what I really want to give you right now," I leered, wagging my eyebrows at them and drawing a small round of giggles.

"As fun as that sounds," Melanie began.

"And it does sound very fun," Miltia continued.

"It's not exactly the best time right now," Melanie finished, and I nodded as I realized what they meant.

"Right," Neo murmured. "Well, at least you're not late."

"You're late?" I asked raising an eyebrow. 'Well, hopefully it's nothing. And at least they're not syncing up. On the other hand, if hers comes right after theirs, then it'll be one long, unending chain of crabby women. Not sure which is worse.'

"Eh, it happens," Neo shrugged. "I'm not too worried about it."

Penny reappeared at my side, looking the girls over, and beamed. "You all look very nice."

"See, exactly what I said," I reached over and scratched the top of her head, causing the gynoid to lean into the touch. A thought occurred and I cringed, having been recently reminded that Penny was partly biological, and that the same rules would probably apply to her. 'Maybe I'll get lucky and she won't have a period or something?' I wondered, before shaking my head. I wasn't that lucky. I'd be lucky if she didn't sync up with the others due to exposure. 'Of course I think that in jest, but Murphy's Law says it'll probably become a thing.'

"Now I see why Ruby likes this," she sighed in bliss. "Can I try on new clothes now, too?"

"Go ahead," Neo smiled, gesturing towards the changing rooms. "So, what are we doing after this?" she asked as Penny slipped by and went into a changing room.

Miltia pulled out her scroll, looking it over for a moment before answering, "The city zoning office has been wanting you to come by and finalize some paperwork."

"Okay," I agreed. "After that, I need to stop and pick up some cheap fabric we can waste to practice sewing on so I can grind my skill level up." I had some ideas of how to repay the girls for the nice things they'd done for me recently, but in order to do so I'd need to put in the time to grind those skills up. What I had in mind would be modeled off of an item from various Final Fantasy games—the ribbon. It wouldn't be an actual ribbon, however, as I doubted I could cram down the enchantment pattern I wanted into that. While in most Final Fantasy games, a ribbon protected against status ailments to some degree, I didn't actually know how to do that with bounded fields or enchantments. Protection against blindness, for example, was too specific a thing and could come from too many sources, to truly protect against. There were some variants, however, that did something much more useful in the world of Remnant, and far more easily achievable—something I already had a pattern for, in fact.

Dust, when enchanted into the right pattern, could provide protection from that type of element. So, fire type red Dust could be enchanted onto a piece of armor or clothing and provide a general 'fireproof' type of ward, which would protect from all forms of fire elemental damage. Likewise, the same could be done with nearly any other type of Dust. In fact, they all used the same pattern, really. Now, there were some caveats to that protection, from what I gathered. Enchanting armor or clothing against fire, for example, would only protect against fire-type Dust—and nothing else. It did not even protect against actual, real, non-Dust fire. If you were to start a fire with fire type Dust and walk into it while wearing that enchantment, you would swiftly find yourself needing to stop, drop, and roll.

Nor did it protect against physical force—impact, momentum, inertia, and so forth. A fire-type Dust round moving at muzzle velocity is still going to hurt like a bitch when it hits, even if its elemental charge can be ignored. In addition, Dust types that were more physical matter than energetic reaction—such as earth or water—would still do damage with any matter backing them up, similarly to my own elemental manipulation. Throwing a tsunami at someone wearing something with the ribbon enchantment on it would still screw them over with simple physics.

The level of protection offered against an element was also determined by the Grade of Dust used. For instance, Grade 1 fire dust in a ribbon accessory would no-sell Grade 1 fire-type effects, but against Grade 2 Dust would only reduce the difference between a Grade 1 and a Grade 2. The answer to that one was pretty obvious, though: equip Grade 9 in all the slots. That was my eventual goal, here: to produce a true ribbon accessory, loaded down with Grade 9 Dust, that could no-sell most common elements. The biggest issue I had here was lack of experience and field testing. That was why I intended to test it on myself first. I would give the girls something nice for the time being, that would work for some basic protection on top of what they had at the moment, and then later replace them with the completed models once I'd worked the kinks out.

'The only real question is, what form do I want this ribbon to take?' I wondered some time later, after our meeting at the zoning office, as I perused bolts of cloth for a few different types of materials to play with. I had already collected some basic stuff to get a feel for how each handled, working under the assumption that using different materials would level the skill faster. The girls had immediately broken off to pick up materials to add to their personal stockpile, as opposed to what we had set aside for the guild, so I had been left mostly to my own devices for the moment.

A splash of color caught my eye and I wandered over to a rack of brightly colored bolts of what looked to be ridiculously fine silk. There were bolts in a wide variety of colors, and some even had patterns—dragons, cranes, leaves, and other motifs that wouldn't be out of place on Earth. 'It's perfect,' I realized, looking over the designs. Catching the eye of one of the clerks, I waved him over. "Let me get…" I hummed, looking over the selections available.

"Four yards of that pink," I pointed to one of the bolts, thinking the twins would like it. Their new dresses were going to be in emerald green and the hot pink would go pretty well with it. Neo's theme was pretty obvious, but there were a good many colors that would work with it without clashing. The easiest would be something she already used as part of her outfit anyway. "Two yards of that strawberry pink." And I wanted three for myself—one for each of my alter egos. "And two yards each of black, crimson, and that sapphire blue. That should do it for now, but I'll probably be back again for more in the future."

Hiding the material away in my side pouch along with my other purchases, I waited patiently for the girls to finish. As I did, I turned my mind towards the design I wanted to use. 'So, how do I get multiple elements on this? I mean, theoretically, it's possible, if I branch off lines from the central part of the enchantment to the edges…'

"Finished already?" Miltia asked, sidling up to me as the others made their way up with their selections.

"Yeah. I was just thinking of all the modifications I need to get started making," I shrugged. It was not entirely untrue, but she didn't need to know I was planning to make them something special. "Find anything interesting?"

"A few things," Miltia agreed as Neo and Melanie checked out, Penny hovering nearby as they carried on a quiet conversation. "Mostly little things that would add some little details, nothing major."

"We ready?" Melanie asked as she, Neo, and Penny joined us near the door.

Nodding, I held the door for them and followed them outside, where we piled into the car. Dropping into the seat in the middle, I fastened my seatbelt and stretched out, yawning, as the twins settled to either side of me and Neo and Penny settled into the seats across from me. The divider came down and Jim asked, "Back home, boss?"

"Yeah, Jim. Thanks," I nodded, closing my eyes and resting my head back against the seat. The divider went up and the car began moving as the twins cuddled into my sides. I was nearly lulled into a nap by the ride and the feel of the girls around me, when my Semblance chimed.

"You're interrupting my nap. This had better be good," I grumbled.

"What's that?" the twins synced, and I shook my head.

"Semblance alert," I yawned, cracking open my eyes halfway and giving it a read.

A quest has been created! Damsel In Distress: Fall vs. Fall.

Cinder is planning to ambush the Fall Maiden! Reach the Maiden and stop Cinder before it's too late!

Success: Maiden lives. 10,000,000 EXP. ? becomes aware of your presence. Become hated by ?. Become targeted by ?. Quest continuation, quest unlock, ?.

Failure: Maiden dies. Death, destruction, mayhem. ? remains unaware of your presence. Quest continuation, quest unlock, ?.

Time limit: 30 minutes.

This quest cannot be refused.

My eyes flew open wide and I sat up abruptly, drawing startled squeaks from the twins. "Mother fucker!" I yelped, and an instant later, the limo screeched to a halt and the divider came down, while around us horns blared, tires from other vehicles squealed, and I heard the muffled crunch of an impact a few cars behind us. All of that was inconsequential at the moment, however.

"Boss?" Jim asked, and I waved him off.

"RTB. Drive now!" I ordered, already tuning out my surroundings as I opened my map and began desperately searching as tires squealed and acceleration forced me back in my seat.

I had no idea what this meant. What was a 'Maiden'? Why was it important? Why did I get this quest, when every other quest and event was at least based partially on knowledge I already had in the past and my Semblance extrapolating on it and seeming to be waiting to find the right event. Did this mean that my Semblance was able to find quests that I had no idea about? Why hadn't it happened before and why was it happening now? Was this proof that my Semblance really could scry out information I had no possible way of knowing? So many questions running through my mind, until the most important one.

'How the fuck am I supposed to find it if it's not on my map?'

I desperately scoured the map for anything that stood out. Here on the edge of the Commercial and Industrial Districts, it showed everywhere from the south edge of the Agricultural District, not too far north of the area we were clearing out with Fox Hunt, to the southern edge of Forever Fall when zoomed out to maximum. There were no new icons on the map, nor could I see Cinder, Mercury or Emerald's icons anywhere. Okay, no help there, and that was really bad, because the failure conditions didn't have death and destruction as dependent on the level of failure like it typically had been in the past. It was a certainty if the quest was failed, and I had no idea how to even begin on any of this. What I did have were some obvious conclusions from the quest details: whoever this 'Maiden' was, she was important—ten million experience important. Cinder wanted her dead—and anything Cinder wanted that bad was something I wanted to make goddamn sure she didn't get. Someone—Cinder's backer, or boss, or whatever military or organization she was working with or for—would be irate if I interfered, and while I was a non-entity to them at the moment I would jump up pretty far on their list of people to kill violently if I stuck my nose in it. And if I fucked it up, there was a good chance a lot of people were going to die.

"Jaune, what's wrong?" My eyes snapped from my map and met Melanie's as she observed me from the seat to my right. Neo, Miltia, and Penny were also staring at me in worry, and Jim was glancing in the rear view mirror on occasion, having left the divider down, possibly in anticipation of new orders. Obviously, I'd been staring at my quest and map for too long, or my face had displayed some of the distress I was feeling, probably both if even Jim was showing concern. Then again, it was entirely possible they'd heard exactly how bad I thought it was in my tone when I'd told Jim to get us back to Fox Hunt.

'I got a new quest, an important one and I have no idea what it's about or even how I'm supposed to do it. To top that off, it's on a ridiculously short time limit,' I sent to them. It's not that I didn't trust Jim, but I hadn't given him full disclosure about my Semblance yet and as I was on a definite time limit, I didn't have time to even begin to explain things.

'Okay, what's it about? Maybe we can start researching to find what we need,' Miltia replied, already pulling out her scroll to get started on a search, while Melanie was opening the phone app on her scroll to start calling contacts.

'Don't have the time for that kind of search. Apparently Cinder is targeting someone called the 'Fall Maiden' and if I don't stop her, everyone's fucked. It's important enough to be worth ten million EXP if that tells you anything.But I've got no idea where Cinder went off to the other day or who she may be after. I've got half an hour to get it done, which implies that I can reach the person it wants me to save within the time limit, but it won't give me the person's name, there are no new icons on the map, and I've never even heard of the thing they refer to the target as.' It was extremely frustrating that my Semblance was being so vague on something that was apparently so important, and I wasn't about to tell them about the failure conditions, that would just make them worried.

'Wait. The what?' Melanie, eyebrows creeping towards her hairline while her sister took on a similar look and Neo bit her lip in contemplation.

'Something called the Fall Maiden. You've heard of… it?' I asked, trailing off as a piece of paper appeared in front of my face from out of nowhere and fell into my lap. It was only then that I realized that in my preoccupation about the quest, I'd completely missed the return of the 'being watched' feeling—which, at the moment, appeared to be coming from the car's roof. I grabbed the piece of paper off my lap and read it quickly.

Two miles southeast of the farmland reconstruction project's most eastern point, along the old over road to Mountain Glenn.

Well, that was both helpful and horribly terrifying. None of that had been said out loud, and that implied the watcher could hear our thoughts. Maybe it was some sort of long range telepathy? Something like Professor X's Cerebro watching me, and that was how they were listening in as well as watching me? That didn't explain how they got the piece of paper to me. That one was pretty easy to guess, though. I only knew of three people with any sort of ability, Semblance or otherwise, that could possibly, maybe, allow for ranged matter transportation—either teleportation or portals—and two of them were my siblings. That left only the third as the most likely candidate.

'Raven fucking Branwen.' I palmed my face, taking a calming breath. 'Yeah. Okay. So, Raven's just cemented her position as the top slot on my list of 'who's watching Jaune.' Still doesn't explain the mind-reading though. Maybe a partner?' I glanced at my HUD and winced. Dammit, I'd have to worry about all this later, along with moving the 'develop mind shielding Bounded Field' project up the to-do list. Followed immediately by a 'fuck your portals bullshit' field, if at all possible.

Switching to my Fox outfit and tucking the paper into my jacket pocket, I told Jim to pull over. Thinking quickly, I ran some mental math, calculating my top speed and the distance involved. 'Impossible for me to make in half an hour. Maybe with a Bullhead, the Duster, or Daedalus. Yeah, that might work. Run to the airfield, summon up the corvette, haul ass. But I can't be seen with it yet, so I'd have to unsummon it outside of sight. A Bullhead, though…'

I went over my options before making a decision. "Penny, I need you to get back to base and secure Foxtrot-1. Make sure no one's using it, that it's armed and fueled, then let me know and stand by for summon." The gynoid nodded in confirmation and I continued. "Girls, I'll see you tonight, I've got to go and deal with this right now."

The girls looked at me like I was stupid. "You're nuts if you think we're not coming with you and letting you do this on your own." Neo said hotly.

I sighed as we pulled over and the girls started to get out. Penny was the first out and immediately took off at speed towards Fox Hunt, making a leap that cleared the nearest building and disappearing from my sight. I slid out right after her, moving onto the sidewalk and heading for the nearest alley, where I could take off relatively unseen. Car doors slammed behind me and the girls followed close on my heels. "Look, this is Cinder I'm going up against, I'm not sure I can even take her in a straight up fight. I'm not endangering you as well. I'll be focusing mainly on getting in, getting the target, and getting out. There's a much better chance of that succeeding on my own."

"There's also a much better chance of you dying. And how are you supposed to do that as the Fox when your stealth and escape techniques are usually Shiro's realm of expertise? At least with myself or Melanie we can have the cloak and mask and sneak out of there, and we've already got Invisibility down. Or what about calling one of your sisters to come help?" Miltia crossed her arms under her bust, glaring at me for trying to be stupid as I judged we were far enough down the alley to be out of sight and turned around to face them.

"I could use Jen," I murmured, before shaking my head. "No, too unstable right now. Can't use the twins either, because it wouldn't make sense for one of the them to show up with me as the Fox." Jane's 'Kuro' alter-ego was also confirmed as working with Shiro, having been seen both by Cinder herself and by police, so that was right out as well.

Neo frowned. "We are not helpless, Jaune. We can help."

"I did not say you were, but I don't have time to argue it. That's why I'm having Penny on standby with Foxtrot-1. There ain't much a gunship doesn't scare right the fuck off. Look, it's not that I—" I was cut off again by another piece of paper. Two, actually, as one fell in front of Melanie as well. We both grabbed our respective papers out of the air. I watched her to see if she was going to read it aloud, but at the widening of her eyes, I turned my eyes from the girls to my own message.

Stand by.

'What the hell is that supposed to mean?' I wondered, looking up to meet the girls' eyes. A sudden feeling of falling backwards washed over me as it felt like the world was yanked out from under my feet.

I fell, and the world went black.