Sun watched carefully as he continued to pour a thin trail of orange liquid from the paper carton, and held his breath as the viscous beverage reached the top of the glass. He tilted the container back upward slightly as he leaned forward and sucked on the rim of the glass to reduce the level of the liquid, before pouring what little remained in the carton into the glass. With the container empty and his glass filled to the brim, he used his tail to toss the drained carton in the trash while picking up his drink with a steady hand. Finally, he brought the cup to his lips and drank deeply, before letting out a small noise of contentment.

"Perfect."

Finally satisfied with his precariously filled drink, Sun made his way out of the kitchen and back into the living room, only to pause as he looked out through the sliding glass doors. Jaune stood alone in the back yard, swinging his sword viciously as he held his shield up in a rigid stance. He threw the shield outward in a heavy bash, before going for a straight thrust with a yell audible even within the living room. Sun sipped his orange juice slowly as he watched Jaune walk backward and restart his entire routine, while taking note of the fact the other boy seemed to be mouthing some sort of mantra as he attacked and blocked invisible opponents.

Slowly, Sun approached the door and slid it back, while continuing to drain his glass. He took care to knock his spare hand against the doorframe to make a bit of noise, and the effort was just loud enough to draw Jaune's attention in mid swing. Crocea Mors whipped to the side at the end of Jaune's blow as he turned to face Sun, breathless and sweaty.

"Oh… hi…"

"Hey, man. You been out here a while? Wanna order a pizza, or something?" Sun offered.

Jaune merely stared at Sun, his chest heaving from the effort of his training exercise. The silent exchange lasted long enough for Sun to shift uncomfortably and lean against the doorframe. Jaune finally shook his head, and planted the tip of his sword into the ground before clasping both hands atop the hilt and leaning over the blade.

"Oh, no, no I'm good. Thanks, though. Uh, maybe later."

Sun raised a brow as he finished his glass, and briefly dipped back inside to set it on the coffee table. As he returned to the door and passed through it, he tilted his head and folded his arms across his chest.

"Have you eaten anything today? You look kinda pale."

Jaune's lip twitched, and he shook his head. "No. I'm not hungry. I'm good, though."

Sun let out an annoyed breath as he moved closer, and looked down to the shield strapped to Jaune's arm. The gilded metal band running across the top caught his eye, and he looked from the new addition up to Jaune's face with an uneasy frown.

"That's… her circlet, isn't it? The banding on your shield."

Jaune merely closed his eyes in response, and pushed his sword deeper into the ground. Suddenly, he stood up, and slipped the shield off his arm to rest it upon the picnic table, while facing away from Sun.

"…it felt like the right thing to do. It's my reason to keep going. For her."

"Yeah," Sun replied. He stared at Jaune's back for a moment, before he turned toward the doors and began to walk. "Sorry. I'll… leave you be."

"…I had no idea how much she meant to me, until she was gone."

Sun paused, and looked over his shoulder before turning to fully face Jaune once again. The other boy still had his back to Sun as he continued to speak, his voice growing shaky.

"I-I mean, I knew she was a great friend, and I cared about her, long before then. We talked a lot, and she helped me, so much, but I never… the pieces never came together, until it was too late. Now, looking back, it seems so obvious how badly I needed her, and how happy she was when I was around. And how when I wasn't, she just… it was different. Nora tried telling me, a-"

"Hey," Sun interrupted after closing the distance. He put his hand atop Jaune's as it rested upon the wooden table, and Sun leaned sideways to get a good look at his friend's face. Tears streaked down his cheeks in light trails, and Jaune's eyes were still closed. "I get it. I really do, probably more than you think."

"How?" Jaune demanded as he turned to look at Sun with a furious glare. "How could you possibly understand what it's like, to feel like you failed someone who changed your life in ways you still don't even fully understand?"

Silently, Sun circled the table to stand opposite of Jaune. He detached Ghira's pauldron from his shoulder and laid it down next to Jaune's shield, before looking back up to the human huntsman's eyes.

"This… belonged to Blake's dad, Ghira. I was an orphan, Jaune, and when I met Blake's family, out in Menagerie… I just kinda knew that I needed to become a part of it. Ghira was the leader of the village, and he had everything mostly under control, before we showed up. Things eventually escalated to the point where Blake's home was under direct threat, and… Ghira kept saying that the four of us should stick together, for safety. He suggested that we all start wearing armor. We… did neither."

Jaune lowered his gaze down to the pauldron, and sighed as his shoulders drooped. "He was looking out for you…"

"…and we split up, against his wishes. By the time we got back to the mansion, the place was in flames, and by the time I found him, Adam had already run him through. We had a bond that I can't even explain. It started out shaky and maybe even hostile, but over my time in Menagerie, we got close. Really close. Close enough that he started calling me his son. Even if things would have ended the same way had we stuck together, I feel like it's my fault," Sun confessed. "This belt is his, too."

Jaune sniffed, and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his hoodie. "A-and he was the first person who gave you that feeling? The feeling like you belong?"

Sun rubbed at the side of his face, and lowered his voice. "Yeah. And when I feel like it's all too much… he and Blake keep me going. So… I get it."

Jaune's chest heaved again, before he made a sudden move to walk around the head of the table. Without warning, he threw his arms around Sun and buried his face into the faunus' shoulder, before unleashing a torrent of ugly tears. Sun kept his arms slightly splayed as he tried to catch up to the shock of the sobbing boy, before gently wrapping them around Jaune's breastplate and looking down at the grass over his shoulder.

"Hey, let it out. I'm not judging you."

Jaune continued to sob as his grip grew tighter, and Sun hissed as he felt Jaune's arm press against his scarred side. His heart skipped a beat as he looked up and saw Ilia, Weiss, and Yang enter the living room through the glass door, and he frantically waved an arm behind Jaune's back to get their attention. Sun silently mouthed 'NO' repeatedly, and the trio rapidly exited the room to disappear farther into the house as Jaune finally began to speak once again.

"I can't talk to Ren and Nora. I just can't," Jaune admitted with another sniff. "They have every right to blame me. We should've gone up that tower as a team, and I never should have separated or let her into that chamber, an-"

"Jaune, it happened," Sun interrupted as he tightened his own grip. "No leader can make all of the right calls, and they don't blame you. They're probably worried about you."

"And how do you know?" Jaune demanded as he finally pulled back, his face red and hair matted with sweat. "What makes you think you can tell that they're not silently thinking that I screwed it all up, and that I should've been able to prevent Pyrrha's death?"

"Because that's how Blake feels about me," Sun countered. "It's her dad, and yet, she's more worried about me than herself, and spends a lot of time and energy making sure that I'm okay. That's what love is, Jaune. Between friends, or in a relationship, or among family… it doesn't matter. It's obvious that Ren and Nora love you like family, and they're probably scared to approach you because you'll insist that they don't understand and shut them out. Maybe they don't get it, but I do. If that means you need my shoulder, then… whatever. I'm here for you, but you need to let them be here for you, too, when they get back."

Jaune's features softened ever so slightly as his flesh began to return to its normal color. "What about the others? What about how bad it's going to look when I just ignore them, and need you? I'm… I'm not okay, Sun. When I saw Cinder at Haven, I completely lost control. I tried to take her one-on-one, and I would've died, if things hadn't gone exactly the way they did. And I think I…" Jaune trailed off, only to back away from Sun and sit down on the edge of the table.

"…you were so angry, that you just didn't even care about the odds?" Sun tried.

"…yeah. Yeah, let's go with that," Jaune agreed, without looking at Sun.

"You're not the only one. I've been having… 'episodes', too. Irrational, dangerous bouts of anger. Yang's been helping me, and so far, it's been better, but I don't know how I'll react the next time I see Adam, or when things get stressful. I could try to be your 'Yang', if you want? Is this helping at all, right now?" Sun asked.

"…this is the most I've spoken to anyone in one conversation since we set out from Patch," Jaune admitted as he put his head in his hands. "The way I feel about all of this isn't just going to go away, but… yes, it's helping. At least I know someone else has an idea of what I'm going through."

"Then we can keep doing this, in private, until Ren and Nora get back to us," Sun offered. "I'll keep checking in with Yang, and you keep checking in with me. Okay?"

Jaune took a long time to reply, and eventually nodded his head as he clenched his fingers through his hair.

"…okay."

"Why don't you head inside and take a shower? I'm ordering that pizza, and you're eating some of it. Period," Sun instructed as he swiped Ghira's pauldron from atop the table and reattached it to the fabric upon his shoulder.

"…yeah. Thanks, Sun," Jaune replied as he stood. "You're a life saver… and I'm glad that you're the one leading us. I'm not ready."

"I'll do my best," Sun said as Jaune took off toward the glass doors, while collapsing his shield and sheathing his sword within it. A subtle vibration pulsed through Sun's pocket, and he reached down to pull out his scroll. Weiss' face appeared in a box on the screen, along with a simple message.

What can I do?

Sun shook his head, and moved to reply.

Nothing. He's not okay, but I'll try to get him there. It's going to take time, and it has to be me. I've got experience with this.

The reply came almost immediately, and Sun allowed himself a wry smirk.

Okay. You're a saint. We'll talk later.

Sun snapped his scroll closed and pocketed it, before heading back inside.

"And with sainthood comes suffering…"

Sun jolted awake and blinked rapidly as he tried to take in his surroundings. The darkened train car continued to rattle along the tracks, and Sun let out a groan as he stretched his arms up and over his head. Ilia shifted slightly and mashed her head against the side of his arm, before blinking awake herself and speaking in a groggy tone.

"What's going on? Is everything okay?"

"I think so, yeah. I just… I dunno. My body's weird, sometimes. Go back to sleep," Sun instructed as he reached down between his legs to feel for the backpack of emergency supplies. He flipped back the top cover to check on the relic within, before closing it once again to hide his charge.

"I'll try, but I can't make any promises," Ilia replied.

Sun grunted, and scratched at the back of his head. "In that case… watch our bag, for a sec? I gotta pee."

Ilia slumped over to lay upon her side as Sun pulled back the door and exited their compartment. She lazily put a hand down upon the backpack and closed her eyes, before mumbling something incoherent to herself. Sun offered Ilia a small nod, and then began to make his way down the aisle of the train car. He blinked rapidly as he passed by an uncovered window, and then backpedaled to look outside once again. Several black figures hung in the sky, and were growing larger in Sun's field of view. His eyes widened, and he raised his voice to address everyone in the car.

"Grimm! We've got grimm incoming!"

Several compartment doors opened at once as the people inside poked their heads out and began to mumble amongst themselves. A recognizable, shrill voice pierced through the rest, and Sun soon found Weiss at his side, Myrtenaster in hand and her unbound hair flowing messily behind her.

"Sun! We have to defend these people!"

"Obviously!" Sun retorted as he whirled to face Ilia, who had slung the backpack up over her good shoulder and emerged from their cabin. "I'm gonna need you to rally everyone to head toward the front of the train! Go to the dining car, and get under the tables! We'll handle corralling the grimm and keep them near the back!"

"But I can f-"

"You're not fighting atop a speeding train with a broken arm!" Weiss commanded. "Go, and if you see Yang, send her our way!"

"Fine!" Ilia whined, as she turned and began to issue commands to the civilians on board.

"Okay! Where's Jaune?" Sun asked, as he turned back to look down the aisle. The blonde boy slipped past several panicking businessmen, while keeping his sword and shield held toward the ceiling as he made his way closer to Sun and Weiss.

"Here! I'm up, I'm up! Let's get to the roof!"

"Alright, team! Let's do this!" Sun encouraged as he ran toward the end of the car. He pushed on through to the outer coupling and turned immediately, before grasping the ladder and beginning to climb for the roof.

"Sun!" Weiss yelled while unstrapping her heels and kicking them into a nearby compartment. Sun reached the metal roof of the car, and leaned back over to look down at Weiss as the train began to lean into a gentle curve around the nearby mountainside. "It's… it's really hard to see!"

Sun grit his teeth and stood as he whirled his staff and dropped into a ready stance. "It's not as bad once you're up here! The moon's out, and we'll have to make do! I can see, and direct you two!"

Weiss emerged atop the roof and stood shakily as she drew her rapier once again. Suddenly, she made a frustrated noise and clenched her jaw as she stepped several times in place. Her feet were bare against the freezing metal, and she summoned a glyph beneath herself to put space between her chilled flesh and the surface of the roof.

"Oh, this isn't good! We need to make this fight quick!"

"Watch each other's backs!" Sun commanded as Jaune appeared on the roof beside him, and drew his sword. "Make sure you know your footing, and turtle up!"

An animalistic scream echoed in the night sky as a sphinx emerged from below Sun's line of sight and began to fly alongside the train. Weiss immediately called forth another glyph and unleashed a torrent of fireballs in its direction. The beast flittered out of the way with a quick midair turn and let out another scream as it made an attempt to fly up and over the train car. Sun followed up Weiss' efforts with a precise shotgun blast and connected with one of the beast's wings, only to send it careening down the mountainside.

"Nice one!" Jaune commented as he pumped his sword arm in the air.

"Don't get too comfortable, we've got incoming!" Sun ordered as two more sphinxes landed atop their car. "I can see just fine up here, so I'll take one! Jaune, amp Weiss and you two take the other!"

Weiss responded by expanding the glowing glyph beneath herself as Jaune moved closer to her and put his shield arm upon her shoulder. Massive fireballs began to rip through the night sky, and the sphinx closest to them let out another scream as it tried to shield itself with its wings.

Sun clasped his hands and leveled his staff between them as three glittering doppelgangers burst forth from his chest, lighting up the metallic roof of the train. Each of the clones sprinted forward and dived straight for the sphinx facing Sun before they began to batter it with blows, as a fourth figure approached from behind the beast. Yang let out a spirited yell as she came into view and slid beneath the creature's legs while firing off shotgun blasts for its belly. Upon arriving at the creature's head, Yang slid into a standing position and rocked its jaw with a vicious haymaker. Sun's clones pushed the beast sideways, and it tumbled off the train car and ricocheted down the side of the mountain in a limp heap before disappearing in a spray of black dust.

One final, massive ball of flames engulfed the other sphinx before it began to disintegrate, and Weiss kneeled. She began a summoning glyph as Jaune used his free hand to point to the skyline, and cried out in a worried tone.

"Look! There's… there's at least a dozen, and a manticore!"

"A what!?" Sun yelled as the massive silhouette of an entirely different, larger grimm flew upward alongside the train. Several more grimm flew up immediately after it, and began to circle the team of huntsmen and huntresses as the train leveled out onto a straight bridge high above the valley below.

"Not good. Definitely not good," Yang warned as she cocked her gauntlets. "We're gonna need to give it everything we've got!"

As if on cue, a panel between the four friends slid open upon the roof, and an automatic turret rose from within the train. The massive gun swiveled to aim at a nearby sphinx, and unleashed a hail of bullets to shred its wings and take it out of the sky.

"I'll take it! Divide and conquer! Don't let them swarm us!" Sun ordered as he ran for the back of the train. He leapt the gap between cars and tucked into a roll as two sphinxes followed him. Suddenly, he turned and threw out another clone who leapt upward and grabbed the sphinx's neck, before dragging it down and hurling it into the gap between train cars. The beast's neck broke upon impact, and it disintegrated into black particles.

A massive white knight appeared upon the rooftop alongside Weiss as she flourished her rapier upward and assumed a combat stance. The bulky spirit began to swing wildly, and cleaved a sphinx clean in two as the turret whirled and downed another grimm, only to send it falling down below the bridge. Yang turned and looked at the turret as it swiveled again and began to fire upon the manticore, before cupping her hands around her mouth and calling to the team.

"The turret has a camera on it! Hey, can you hear us!? Is someone controlling that thing!?"

The sound of static crackled throughout the rooftop as an unfamiliar, elderly voice came across a built-in speaker.

"Of course I can hear you! Now, stop distracting me, and get me a good shot at the manticore!"

Jaune nodded and steeled himself as a sphinx careened downward and collided into his shield. The flailing beast scrabbled its claws against the surface of the metal, and Jaune bent his knees and shoved his shoulder against the back of the shield for support. He remained standing strong, and bashed the beast upon the skull with the hilt of Crocea Mors.

"Clear out the small ones, so we can focus on keeping the manticore still!"

Sun leaped back over the gap to rejoin his comrades, only to nod as he whirled his staff and pressed his back to Jaune's.

"Jaune knows what he's talking about! Everyone, focus fire!"

Weiss and Yang moved in and pressed their backs to the boys as they began to fire off shotgun shells and shards of ice. Another sphinx dropped from Weiss' frigid assault, and then another went down on account of the turret. Suddenly, the manticore swooped downward and collided with the side of the train car just behind the one that the team stood upon, and the whole train creaked and wobbled.

"It's trying to knock us off the bridge!" Jaune yelled.

"Amp me! Weiss, have your knight go for the wings!" Sun instructed as he slammed his hands together. Jaune put a hand on his shoulder immediately, and an entire squad of clones rushed forward, toward the manticore.

The beast pivoted in midair as its mouth began to glow, only for one of Sun's doubles to leap upward and grab the tail of the giant grimm. Another joined its brother's side and yanked downward, as more and more doppelgangers joined in to wrench the manticore out of the sky. Weiss' knight charged forward through the gathering of illusory faunus and swung its sword down through the beast's wing at the base. The grimm screamed in agony and lunged forward, knocking several clones off the roof of the train and sinking its teeth into the knight's torso as its wing evaporated beside it. Weiss' summoned protector fizzled into a white mist at the contact, and Yang ran forward while pumping rounds into the beast's face in response.

"Sun! Help me drag it!" Yang shouted as she reached the beast. All at once, the glittering faunus troupe began to pull the screaming grimm along the train car and toward the gap, where Yang met the manticore and punched it viciously in the face as it tried to bite her. "Fat chance! You're coming with me!"

Yang hooked an arm beneath the manticore's jaw and began to pull, while Sun ordered his clones to back her up. All together, they wrenched the giant grimm along the metallic roof as the voice within the turret crackled to life once again.

"That's close enough! Out of the way!"

Yang dived to the side as the barrels of the turret began to whine, and then a rain of bullets sprayed forth. The manticore took countless rounds to the face and rapidly began to dissolve from head to tail, until nothing of it remained. The few sphinxes following the train split off and retreated as the turret turned once again and fired off a few rounds, none of which found their marks.

"And don't come back! This is our train!"

"Thanks… whoever you are…" Sun said breathlessly as he doubled over and leaned on his staff as he planted the weapon into the roof.

"We'll meet soon enough. Get back inside, bef-"

"Sun! There's another grimm!" Weiss yelled in disbelief as she pointed to a black object cutting through the night sky, several hundred feet in the distance. "It's following us!"

Sun stood straight and squinted his eyes as he caught sight of the object, only to blink in confusion. "Weiss, that's no grimm… that looks like… it almost looks like a helicopter…?"

"A helicopter?" Jaune repeated. "Why would a helicopter be tailing our train?"

Yang shook her head, and put her hands on her hips. "I don't know, but I don't like it. Let's get back inside."

"Yeah, Sun agreed. Let's."

Weiss let out a heavy sigh as she entered the vacated train car, and immediately slipped into the nearest compartment to gather up her shoes. "My feet are freezing!"

Jaune follow her inside and gave Weiss a concerned look as he rested a hand upon her shoulder. "I'll find Ilia, and grab a towel form the backpack. We'll get you warmed up."

Weiss nodded and gave Jaune a grateful smile as Sun and Yang entered the car, both still in the process of catching their breath.

"That… I'd rather not do that again," Sun confessed as he slumped into the seat across from Weiss. "But, good job, team. We saved a few lives tonight."

"More than a few," Yang said as she sat down next to Sun.

"And yet somehow, I don't think we're done for the night," Jaune commented as an odd, wooden sound echoed out from the other side of the train car.

"Ilia, dear, guard the door… and give me that backpack," a familiar voice demanded. Sun turned and looked through the door of the compartment to see an elderly woman approaching, their backpack in one hand and a cane topped with a decorated black skull in the other. "You kids are a skilled bunch, but you need to be more careful, and more prepared, especially when you're protecting something as valuable as this!"

The four teens exchanged wary looks as Sun slipped out of the cabin and stood to face the newcomer.

"What do you mean?"

The woman looked up at Sun, and he raised a brow as he caught sight of her shifting mechanical eyewear. The slats around the glowing blue lights narrowed as she tossed him the backpack, and Sun caught it.

"Don't play dumb with me, boy! I can see through material like that, and I've been watching you all since you entered the train station! What you're transporting isn't something that can be taken lightly… and if I'm guessing right, you're taking it to Atlas. A good plan, given the assault on Haven Academy."

Sun tensed as Yang approached to stand beside him.

"And who exactly are you? Why do you know what the thing in our bag is?"

"…call me Maria," the woman replied. "As for the other question… it's a very, very long story, and one that isn't safe to discuss right now, with people filtering back into the train cars. Just be thankful that I was on board, and still remember how to work these turrets. We'll talk when we're in Argus, and then… we'll find a way to get you, and me, into Atlas."

Author's Note:

Two more chapters to go, and then we're on hiatus. I'll be going into detail on the next story in the author's note of Chapter 64.

-RD