"It's amazing to me that you were put in charge of this little escapade," Tyrian said suddenly as he gave Hazel a sidelong look. The larger man looked across the cab to the passenger seat, before putting his eyes back onto the darkened road. "After all- you did just fail spectacularly at Haven, not even a month ago."

Hazel grunted in acknowledgement before rolling his neck with a satisfying crack.

"…you know what happens if I fail again."

"Oh, I do," Tyrian replied with a wide grin. The man's voice was full of unrestrained glee as he spoke, his eyes practically sparkling. "And I want to be there to see it, if it comes to that."

"Could you dial down the creepy just a notch?"

Both men cast their eyes to the rearview mirror in unison to look toward the source of the voice. Mercury Black was reclining in the bed of the truck, his back against the side panel.

"Seriously. We're all sick bastards, but you make it into a sport."

"As is my right," Tyrian protested as his mechanical tail flicked dangerously through the space between his back and the seat. "Especially when I'm not privy to the specifics of our assignment."

"That's the other reason Salem put me in charge," Hazel explained as he guided the truck into a gentle turn. "We've got two objectives- retrieve the lamp, and keep Ruby Rose out of Atlas. I already had the lamp explained to me before Haven, and Salem wanted us en route as soon as possible."

"…you were told what the lamp does?" Tyrian seethed, his good humor disappearing immediately as his face twisted into a grotesque scowl. "And why, exactly, have I not b-"

"You would've been, if you hadn't been kicked into the dirt by Qrow," Hazel explained simply.

"…damn," Mercury commented with a feigned hiss of pain. "Harsh. Totally true, but harsh. Not so high and mighty now, are you?"

The tip of Tyrian's tail scratched at the window dividing the cab of the truck from the bed, leaving a scour mark within the glass. The threatening motion was enough to get Mercury to sit up as he watched the faunus' eyes flicker a dangerous violet.

"…if you think for a second that we need you to get this done…"

"Children," Hazel scolded, his voice adopting a firmer tone. "Stop causing needless problems. I was told to fill you both in on the lamp and what we're doing once we acquire it… to an extent."

Tyrian narrowed his eyes at Mercury, who returned his stare unblinking from his new position seated against the back panel. Neither man blinked, though Tyrian was the first to look away as he turned around in his seat and gazed back out over the moonlit road. Red dust rose from the surrounding dunes and the dirt beneath the tires, leaving a hazy trail behind the truck.

"Then don't keep me waiting. I deserve to know."

"That lamp- the Relic of Knowledge- is a tricky little device with a limited number of uses," Hazel drawled as he continued to steer the vehicle. "As I understand it, each relic's got a 'guardian spirit' inside of it, each with nifty little abilities. We're supposed to call on that spirit before Ozpin does."

"So, this is a race," Mercury said as he stared at Hazel through the rearview mirror. "A race we can't even be sure we didn't already lose."

"…that's about the size of it," Hazel agreed. "It's entirely possible that the lamp's already been burned out, so to speak. The guardian spirit, Jinn, answers three questions every hundred years. Salem doesn't know how many times it's been used this century… so this could all be for nothing."

"There must be more to it than that," Tyrian spat. "Our goddess wouldn't send us after a potentially useless item."

"Did you forget the 'keep Ruby Rose out of Atlas' part?" Mercury snarked. "Sounds to me like using the lamp is just a little side thing. A potential bonus that's worth trying for."

"…not quite," Hazel said hesitantly. "I've been told to ask Salem's question the second I get my hands on the lamp. Supposedly, you just call Jinn's name, make your request, and she'll not just say, but show you the answer you're looking for. Salem's very interested in that kind of advantage. Interested enough to make the lamp the priority over Ruby."

"…in that case, Jinn sounds like a potential weapon whose usefulness is determined by the creativity of her wielder," Tyrian considered. "And our goddess can be very creative…"

"…what'd she ask you to ask Jinn?"

Hazel kept his eyes on the road as he continued to drive, not bothering to look back toward Mercury.

"…that's above your pay grade, Black. If you get your hands on the lamp… you give it to me as soon as you can."

"Are you serious?" Tyrian hissed, the tip of his tail twitching.

"I've got my orders," Hazel replied immediately. "And they include keeping it from you, too. You'll go hog wild if you know why Salem wants that lamp. I'm not about to talk, especially given that I'm already on thin ice."

Mercury narrowed his eyes for a moment, before blowing a lock of dangling silver hair from his face. Just as suddenly as his mood had soured, he shrugged his shoulders and adopted an uncaring slump in posture.

"…whatever. I didn't really care, anyway…"

"Good. Keep it that way," Hazel insisted.

The truck was quiet for the next several miles.

"Laser nipples."

"No!"

"Capability of digesting anything."

"No! Just…"

"Two dicks."

"Amaya!"

Neptune turned and came to a stop among the trees, his cheeks flush and expression flustered.

"You're not going to guess it, so just… stop, alright? It's not even a good one. It's extremely situational, and kinda embarrassing. I barely ever get to use it."

"…it's definitely having two dicks, then," Amaya said proudly as she walked ahead of her companion.

"That's… not even how semblances work," Neptune said with a groan as he began to walk again, shuffling through the tall grass behind the Belladonna mansion. "At least, not that I've heard of."

"So you don't know, is what you're telling me," Amaya teased as she drew her hookswords. "You smell that?"

Neptune paused and looked around the area, finding nothing but the shadows of large trees and the occasional worn-down stump barely peeking up through the overgrown grass. The gentle swaying of the foliage cast odd shadows around the area, and Neptune shivered slightly as he found himself becoming creeped out by the atmosphere.

"All I smell is you," Neptune tried, putting a teasing edge in his voice. "When's the last time you showered, exactly?"

"Why don't you guess, based on what I apparently smell like?" Amaya asked as she hunched slightly and began to stalk through the grass. "I can't wait to see how deep you dig this hole."

"…damn it," Neptune muttered under his breath as he drew his gun and held it with both hands, mirroring Amaya's stance. "Uh… today? You kinda smell like peaches."

Neptune backed up a step as Amaya whirled on him. Her cold expression was unreadable, and made even more difficult to decipher by the scant moonlight filtering through the trees. Eventually, the corner of her mouth upturned into a confident smirk, and she turned around before beginning to hunt for prey once again.

"…you noticed. Interesting."

Neptune breathed a sigh of relief and swallowed hard.

"Well… yeah? It's pretty strong, and you kinda… whip your hair a lot. I'm guessing it's your shampoo?"

"It is indeed my shampoo," Amaya acknowledged. "Now the question is… does that put points in your favor for catching such a small detail, or are you just a perv for sniffing my hair when I walk past?"

Neptune took another breath before deciding upon his answer with a firm, yet unseen nod from behind Amaya.

"…points. I only notice details like that about people I find interesting."

"Hm," Amaya considered with a small noise of satisfaction. "I'll allow it, on account of your confidence alone."

"…yeah, about that," Neptune began as the trees became more densely packed and the surrounding area grew darker. "I'm usually… not as much of a total wuss as I have been since we met."

"Then what's your problem?" Amaya asked, clearly unimpressed.

"…lack of a bro to play off of."

Amaya remained quiet, the only noises she offered those of movement as she continued through the trees and sheathed a sword. Instead, she took out her scroll and enabled the light before beginning to sweep it through the trees.

"…can't you see in the dark?" Neptune asked.

"It's not for me," Amaya said simply.

"…oh," Neptune considered. "Well… thanks. But… yeah. Sun and I have a really good chemistry going on. His confidence kinda fuels mine. When I'm the guy running the show, it usually doesn't go smoothly, and with girls? It's…"

"Women," Amaya corrected. "You're what, almost 20? We're not 'girls' anymore. Doesn't matter if you're just in it to get laid, or looking for something else. The less you act like a kid, the less people will treat you like one. Adults get shaky, too, but you're not doing yourself any favors with that shit."

"…got it," Neptune acknowledged. "So, uh… yeah. That's one of my biggest problems right now. I thrive off of other, familiar people. They bring out my better features. Blake's great and all, but we don't really know each other that well yet, and… she's not really a 'bro', you know? I'm displaced, flying blind, solo, and suddenly responsible for a lot more than I'm used to. So, I guess instead of the tiger you'd normally see, you're looking at a house cat right now."

Neptune grimaced as he realized the obvious incoming joke. He could so clearly hear 'then stop being such a pussy' in Amaya's voice, and yet, the statement never came.

"Maybe I've been a little hard on you," Amaya considered as she pushed aside an obtrusive branch. "Your situation sucks, and I get that. Hopefully you'll stick around long enough for me to see that tiger side of you."

"…yeah," Neptune agreed. "Yeah, I hope so, too. I feel like I've kinda lost my mojo lately, especially with… women."

"…Tip #2- never call it 'your mojo'. Holy shit, dude," Amaya said with exasperation before suddenly stopping and turning off her scroll. "Found a mark. Show me what you've got."

Neptune sprang into action, immediately converting Tri-Hard from rifle to glaive. The pulsating blue energy blade at the tip of the weapon illuminated the area around them with a dull glow, and Neptune turned to put his back against Amaya's.

"What are we working with? Can you sense their numbers?"

"Grimm don't have blood dumbass," Amaya growled. "I can't detect them, but I can see pretty well out here. Keep the lights on for yourself, though."

"…oh, you have no idea," Neptune said confidently. "Lead me to the nearest clearing? I need m-"

Amaya let out a yell as she spun forward, hooking the curved upper portion of one of her blades into the mouth of a lunging beowulf. Without hesitation, she ripped the weapon through the creature's cheek, tearing its face open and turning the creature to ash in midair.

"You were saying!?"

"I need moonlight!" Neptune called out as shadowy figures ran through the trees in front of him. "You wanna see my semblance? I need a light source! A powerful one!"

"This way!" Amaya replied as she beat her wings and began to slalom through the trees.

Neptune turned and ran in the general direction of his friend, keeping his glowing weapon in front of himself.

"Uh… Amaya? Little dark out here!"

In response, the light of a scroll turned on and began to whizz through the shadowy columns ahead.

"Thanks!" Neptune called as he converted his weapon back into a firearm and drew his scroll. He pointed the device backward while running sideways and found a pack of beowulfs closing in on him. Without a second thought, Neptune held out his gun with one hand and let out several bursts of gunfire, dropping two of the creatures.

"Almost there!" Amaya yelled over her shoulder. "Looks like someone cleared a little patch of forest out a long while back! That gonna be enough?"

"Should be!" Neptune confirmed. He refocused on the scroll light ahead as the forest itself began to become clearer due to the impending moonlight. Neptune paused for a moment to put both hands on his weapon and drop another beowulf in a hail of bullets before turning to make a mad dash for the clearing. As he ran, he began to undo the snaps on his red leather vest and worked at shuffling an arm out of the garment. By the time he found Amaya in the small circle of missing trees, he had both his jacket and shirt off, discarded somewhere behind him in the grass.

"…so, I appreciate the bravado," Amaya teased as she caught sight of her shirtless companion, "but you're nowhere near scoring with me, and we're in the middle of a fight."

"Could you just…!" Neptune began, only to pause as he switched weapon modes once again and spun into a downward strike with his glaive, cleaving a leaping beowulf in half. "It's gonna take a bit! I need to charge if you want this to be significant!"

"Stop panicking. You make it sound like these are anything more than fodder," Amaya said with a roll of her eyes as she sank both of her hooks into the stomach of a beowulf before tearing them out to the sides and letting it explode into a cloud of soot. "I hope we at least find an ursa tonight."

"I'm fine with just beowulfs," Neptune protested as he jabbed at the gut of another beast with his halberd, leaving a gaping, glowing blue wound. "Hey, are faunus more sensitive to light, because of the whole night vision thing?"

"What?" Amaya asked as she fired off a shotgun blast from the handle of a sword straight through the skull of another grimm. She spared her companion a quick, quizzical look before returning her attention to the encroaching beasts. "Not really, no. It doesn't work like that."

"Good," Neptune replied. "Almost there."

Amaya stole another glance at Neptune, only to hike a brow at the sight of the teen.

"…are you glowing?"

"Little bit," Neptune admitted with a guilty smile. His exposed skin had turned from a pale tan to a shining, almost pure white. "Can I get a head count?"

Amaya beat her wings hard and took off vertically, scanning the tree line from above as Neptune's face, chest, and arms became almost blindingly bright far below.

"Five left!" Amaya called, before taking careful aim and plugging another beowulf through the trees. "…I meant four! All on your left!"

"Cover your eyes!"

Quite suddenly, Neptune turned to face the targets as Amaya watched from high above. The teen disappeared entirely within a blindingly bright flash, giving off the illusion that a sort of crowd control device had gone off within the forest. Amaya got her arm up and over her face in time to block out the worst of the effects, though she quickly uncovered it to watch the scene below. All four beowulfs had stumbled backward, seemingly blinded as Neptune worked to strategically run them through, one after the other. It was seconds before only one beast remained, and it seemed to be slowly coming to its senses as Neptune approached it.

Neptune's skin had dimmed down to a simple odd, unnatural glow from its blinding state, until the glow within him seemed to coalesce and intensify within his unoccupied left hand. After a few seconds of shaking, Neptune thrust his hand out and a beam of light flew from his palm, rendering his body back to its normal skin tone and piercing a burning hole through the grimm's chest. The beowulf barely had time to look down at the giant gap in its chest before it disintegrated, and Neptune stood victorious within a quiet clearing.

"…and you said your semblance wasn't useful," Amaya reminded as she touched down next to Neptune.

"Well… it's extremely limited," the teen explained. "Luminous skin only really works under a powerful light, and it doesn't do all that much during the day. I can only blind for a few seconds at best, unless I charge a crazy amount of natural light…"

"But that beam," Amaya pointed out. "That's where you should be focusing your efforts."

"That's… costly, in terms of aura," Neptune replied. "I'm almost dry already. And it works better the more skin I have exposed. I don't usually have time to strip in intense fights. If I do get a chance to fully charge, though… I could probably clear a pretty decent patch of forest on my own. I've done it once or twice and done a lot of damage."

"…then we'll work on that," Amaya offered as she clapped a hand upon his shoulder. "We're gonna have to get a little creative to tap into that power. It's got way too much potential to just ignore."

"Maybe," Neptune considered as he watched Amaya walk through the area they had already cleared. "Where are you going…?"

"Just making sure we don't leave this behind," Amaya replied as she came back into Neptune's line of sight, wearing his bright red jacket. "I'll keep it safe for you until we get back to the tavern."

Neptune simply stared for a moment, before letting out a groan.

"You're making me hunt shirtless? It's the middle of the night! It's cold!"

"I know," Amaya agreed as she zipped up her borrowed jacket and refastened the buttons. "So be a gentleman and let me stay warm. Besides, this is semblance training for you. We've got more areas to clear, and you said your semblance works better with more skin exposed. I expect to see you in boxers at the next fight. Show a little more skin for me, tiger."

"Amaya!"

The woman didn't reply as she began to walk through the trees once again, leaving Neptune to grumble before he moved to follow.

"…I should've just lied and said it was the stomach thing," Neptune muttered to himself as he began to undo his zipper.

Author's Note:

It wouldn't be this story if Neptune's semblance wasn't something completely insane…

-RD