"Alright," Kali said with a sense of finality. "You've got your assignments, your scrolls are synched up, and we have a chain of contact established in case anything goes wrong. This should be a cakewalk… and also a needed distraction from working on the mansion."

"Don't you worry about the mansion," Daisuke reassured as he stood from his bar stool into an overhead stretch. "The Fang and Claw can handle simple construction for a bit on their own. What's the worst that could happen?"

"…Salem rolls up to the island in a boat while the six of us are out hunting?" Neptune offered as he, too, stood up from his place at the bar.

Qrow snorted, remaining seated at the table he shared with Kali.

"…if that happens, we'll all be dead, anyway, and it won't make a difference if we're here or out in the jungle. Might as well get something done before then."

Blake rolled her eyes and flicked Gambol Shroud back from its firearm configuration to bladed form.

"And you all act like I'm the one that's needlessly moody."

"Maybe not needlessly, but you are moody," Amaya reminded as she threw down the rag that she had been using to clean the bar. "So, let me get this straight- we're splitting up into pairs, sweeping the forest and eventually, jungle surrounding Menagerie, and calling in grunts to set up camps and establish a border once the coast is clear? This sounds like it could take days."

"It likely will," Kali confirmed. "But our people are reliable. Our people are strong… and Qrow can fly back and forth to check in on them, as needed. What we lack right now is influence, and to gain influence, we need resources. To gain resources, we need land, and to gain land… well, we need to kill grimm. After all, 90% of this island is crawling with the slippery bastards, and everyone in this room is more than capable of clearing them out."

"You make it sound almost like a vacation," Daisuke observed as he slung his weighty shotgun up and over his shoulder.

"More or less," Blake agreed. "Let's not waste any more time. We've got work to do…"

Glynda Goodwitch stared at Ruby as the girl finished her tale. The professor had remained completely silent throughout the explanation, her expression entirely neutral. As Ruby concluded detailing the three teams that she and her friends had split into, Glynda moved around the unoccupied teacher's desk and sat heavily into the chair behind it. Without a word, she steepled her fingers and looked out over the empty lecture hall, and the rows upon rows of vacant seats where students could have been.

Where students should have been.

"Is that everything?" Glynda asked, her tone as restrained and impartial as she could manage.

Ruby paused to look between Ren and Nora as the three of them stood before the desk together.

"…I think so, yes," Ruby affirmed as she reached up and scratched the back of her head. "If we left anything out, it wasn't intentional."

Glynda and Ruby locked eyes for a tense moment, before the older woman brought her elbows down to the desk and slowly ran her hands through her hair with a ragged sigh. She shook her head softly and removed her glasses, before letting them fall to the surface of the desk in a half-folded heap.

"…yeah," Nora acknowledged with a sigh of her own. "Yeah, that's… about how we feel, too."

Ren lightly put a hand upon Nora's shoulder, before pulling it back as though his finger had been pricked by a barb. The pair exchanged a mutually surprised look before Ren coughed into a balled fist and then clasped his hands behind his back.

"…anything we can do to help here, Professor G-"

"No," Glynda answered in an icy tone as she looked up at Ren with an unamused glare.

"No…?" Ruby asked, her voice cracking.

"No," Glynda said again. "Not right this second, anyway. It is clear to me that you're all exhausted, flying blind, and terrified. I do not blame you in the slightest, especially given that Taiyang and Raven are long-gone and headed for Vacuo. I knew about Ozpin's true nature and resurrection, and he planned to leave me in charge in the event that something like this came to pass. That being said… I am the only one who knows, other than Roman. Or rather… Mr. Torchwick."

"You told Torchwick?" Nora balked.

"No, you told him," Glynda reminded. "Or at least, hinted at it, without the full explanation. I had to fill him in after the ride back to Beacon, to avoid him spreading half-truths. Now, though, I suppose I should fill in everyone."

"The truth can only make us stronger," Ren pointed out as he shifted uneasily.

"Perhaps," Glynda offered. "Still, though… what students remain here are under duress on a daily basis, as are the remaining staff. Some have left, others have stepped up to fight… I want you three to take a day to simply refamiliarize yourselves with the campus, and rest. I'll need to put you four into strike team rotations as soon as possible, both to protect the school, and to fight off Salem's attempted expansion into Vale. After we get that matter settled… we need to figure out what to do with this decoy lamp…"

"Right," Ruby agreed. "But before we do, am I allowed to ask…?"

"…Torchwick," Glynda finished for her. "You want to know how and why he came to work with us, I'd imagine?"

Ruby, Ren, and Nora all nodded.

"…right. To make a very, very long story short," Glynda began, "he… got in over his head. Given that you know about who, and what Salem is, that saves me some time explaining. To Torchwick's knowledge, Cinder was more or less the top of the chain, with only a mysterious benefactor above her. He was told that when Cinder had the city of Vale secured, he would be free to reign as a crime lord and continue his petty thievery and shady dealings. He had no knowledge of Salem, or the extent to which he was being used. Being eaten by a grimm in the middle of the invasion somewhat soured his mood and incited him to switch sides."

"But… how did he survive?" Ruby asked hesitantly. "I saw him get eaten by a gryphon. In fact… I was distracting him, as it happened."

"He was eaten, yes," Glynda confirmed. "However, he was swallowed whole. Given that he was once 'the most dangerous man in Vale', or so he claims, fighting his way out of a gryphon's stomach was, while unpleasant, not beyond him. I found him fighting off an entire horde of grimm at the edge of campus, badly injured and missing an eye. I rescued him with intent to arrest him afterward, but… the information he has given us on underground transport and some of the people he has connected us with in Vale have been invaluable. Not only that, but he's been fighting alongside us ever since."

"Underground transport?" Ren asked with a tilt of his head. "Sure, you don't mean literal underground transport?"

Glynda offered a crooked smirk for the first time that day.

"Believe it or not… I do. Come. Let's speak with Professor Oobleck, before getting you all settled in…"

Blake felt truly alive for the first time in weeks as she ran through the trees, Gambol Shroud drawn into both hands and her hair whipping along behind her. The massive white head of a snake darted out from the underbrush toward her at high speed, closing its jaws around where her body was only a split second before. Instead, the beast snapped its mouth closed around an intangible double as Blake kicked off a nearby tree and inverted herself above the creature in midair.

For a brief second, the muzzle of Gambol Shroud glowed a hot orange before she opened fire, raining dust-infused bullets down onto the creature's head from above. Small bursts of flame pinged against the creature's scales, and it whipped and thrashed its head from side to side to fend off the assault as it once again opened its mouth with a hiss. Just as its maw opened, Blake slung her weapon downward, embedding the bladed sickle into the grimm's soft upper palette. Using her downward momentum, she swung along on the attached ribbon, wrapping it around the beast's lower jaw.

As Blake neared the ground, a green spiral of rushing wind manifested below her, blowing her back up and around the king taijitu's head. Moving along with the current, Blake continued upward and looped her ribbon around the giant snake's head. As she landed, she pulled hard on the ribbon to force the snake's jaw shut. The grimm thrashed and squirmed, but to no avail as another figure leapt onto the scene.

Daisuke flew through the air, 'surfing' along the spread-open metal fan attached to the barrels of his shotgun. Just as he reached the captive beast's head, he inverted himself and took his bladed firearm in hand. With a skillful transition, he raked the fan's blades along the king taijitu's head as he started to run down its body, effectively cleaving the grimm in half lengthwise as it began to turn to ash behind him. Out of nowhere, the second, blackened head of the grimm came down upon him, and the man lifted his free hand in retaliation. A second burst of wind threw the head off to the side and caused it to miss its attempted bite, only for Blake to embed her sword directly through its eye. With a final, pained scream, the rest of the grimm exploded into a cloud of soot and ashes as Daisuke dropped down to the forest floor.

"It seems as though you've gotten your mojo back," the man observed as he nonchalantly dusted flecks of ash from his open vest.

"My mojo?" Blake asked as she quirked a brow in amusement. "Seriously?"

"…well, what would you call it, then?" Daisuke asked. Though she couldn't see his expression through the man's mask, Blake imagined that he was rather miffed by the callout.

"I… don't know," Blake admitted as she sheathed her weapon and secured it upon her back.

"Then it's a mojo, until you come up with a better suggestion," Daisuke answered as he collapsed the fan blades of his shotgun and slung it up and over a shoulder. "We make a decent team in combat."

"And hopefully otherwise," Blake replied as she began to walk deeper into the forest. "Still, you're right. I'm feeling better about this whole situation. I just needed time to come to terms with… well, everything."

"I can respect that," Daisuke admitted. "Things weighing upon you is an inevitable fact of life. Sometimes, that weight just becomes too much to bear, for a while."

"Speaking of," Blake began as she spared a glance over her shoulder at her companion, "I'm… sorry. About the other night, when I walked out on you."

Daisuke raised a brow, seeming momentarily confused before the other joined in, and he blinked.

"Oh! That's… don't worry about it. It's clear that I spurred some sort of unpleasant memory."

"…kinda the opposite, actually," Blake admitted as she put her eyes back on the path ahead. "You just made me think of… Sun. Sun, and how… how he saved me, actually."

"Well, we've got quite a distance to go, according to the map," Daisuke pointed out as he cracked his neck and rolled his shoulders. "I don't mind a good story, especially if it has a happy ending."

Blake took a long inhale as she pushed aside a large fern and stepped over a fallen tree.

"Actually… I was hoping you could tell me a story."

"I… oh," Daisuke replied, his surprise clear in his tone. "But I thought…?"

"I'll tell you all about Sun and I, if you'd like," Blake offered. "But first… I actually want to know about Cinnamon. Part of the reason I left that night is because your description of your relationship with her reminded me so much of Sun and I. The way you explained Cinnamon's attitude applies directly to me. Given that she and I aren't on the best terms, I didn't really like that notion."

"My apologies," Daisuke said carefully. "I didn't mean to offend…"

"You didn't," Blake reassured as she suddenly came to a stop within a forest clearing and turned to face Daisuke. "But… I'd like to understand. Who is she? How did the two of you meet? Why is she suddenly so willing to risk it all, when before she was so driven by personal gain? Does she actually care about you, or…?"

Daisuke came to a stop and shifted his weight to one side as he folded his arms across his chest. The man looked down to the forest floor briefly, before shaking his head in frustration and furrowing his brow.

"I… would suggest we keep walking."

Blake's ears flattened as she gave Daisuke an apologetic look.

"…sorry. I guess that was a little too far…"

"No, no," Daisuke reassured as he met her eyes once again. "You're well within your right to ask. I'd suggest we keep walking because this is going to take a long, long time to explain…"

Author's Note:

After seeing that dumpster fire of a Volume 8 premiere, I can safely say that the Volume 8 from this story will have literally nothing to do with canon at all. Dear god.

Also… Cinnamon backstory, next week. Get ready for some shit.

-RD