I'm pleased last chapter came out well. It was one of my favourite to write in recent times, with lore and worldbuilding and subtle little conflicts wrapped in revelations about Jaune and Ozpin's pasts. I said at the start this is an AU and elements of it were revealed last chapter. Many, many good thoughts and ideas in the reviews. And yes, obviously Salem is a thing in this story and you will learn about her later. Those defending Ozpin on her behalf should keep in mind there was no reason for either to bring her up at that point. Jaune, having been raised by his family and under the weight of his "duty" has a one-sided and biased view on things relating to anomalies. Then again, so does Ozpin. That's part of why I have been sticking to Blake's PoV in this story. The better to let you all see and understand things from one of the few unbiased sources.

I'm afraid this chapter won't have quite the same revelations, though it will have one or two…

Cover Art: Kirire

Chapter 6

For someone who couldn't lie convincingly to save his life, Jaune did a good job of remaining polite and professional around Beacon's headmaster. Only yesterday had they been sniping at one another, with Jaune calling him a worm and Ozpin laying thinly veiled threats on the table, and yet a new day resulted in a new face, the two shaking hands with warm smiles as if they were old friends. Blake stood awkwardly to one side, watching as Ozpin welcomed them to Beacon and wondering to herself whether the two were crushing each other's hands.

"Ah. Mr Arc. Miss Belladonna." Ozpin let go of Jaune's hand at the earliest and politest opportunity and took a measured step backwards. Blake wouldn't call it fear, not from someone like this, but the gesture looked cautious all the same. "I'm pleased you could make it so early."

"We take matters such as this very seriously." Jaune said. He turned to the woman next to Ozpin, who took Jaune's gloved hand with only the slightest hesitation and gave it a firm shake. That was enough for Blake to tell she disapproved of them. A life living as a faunus and dealing with humans offering the same snotty reactions had taught her to recognise that, though she doubted it was for the same reason this time. "Has the student body been made aware of us?"

"An announcement was sent out via scroll this morning on the issue. You won't be bothered. I would ask that you steer clear of classrooms when lessons are in progress but you otherwise have free run of the academy."

"Sir-" The apparent Miss Glynda Goodwitch interrupted. "May I have a word with you privately?"

"Hm? Of course. One second please."

Ozpin followed the woman off to the side, out of earshot, where they began to talk. The blonde teacher didn't look best pleased and was moving her hands about quickly as if cutting through the headmaster's comments.

"I don't think she likes us," Blake said.

"It's our age," Jaune said. "We're the same age as most of the students, which means we're idiots in her view."

"That's a little short-sighted."

"She's a teacher. I doubt she can look at people our age objectively when she spends every day cleaning up after their messes. I can be professional."

Blake shot him a smirk. "Can you? Yesterday with Ozpin suggests otherwise."

"Ozpin is a monster and a liar; she is merely misinformed. There's a difference." Jaune stopped speaking and started smiling again as the two returned. Obviously, they were staying, as Glynda looked more than a little put out. "I hope you listened to your assistant's concerns, Ozpin, and didn't just run roughshod over them thinking you know best like you usually do."

"I assure you, Mr Arc, that I greatly value Glynda's opinion."

Jaune smiled. It must have taken a lot of restraint for him not to have the last word. Blake wouldn't say she was proud of him for it, but she did send him a little nod to acknowledge it. He was her boss after all and she owed him some loyalty.

"I'm going to leave matters to Glynda for now." Ozpin said. "I'm after all a very busy man. Glynda is as well, but she can answer a few questions otherwise."

"That's fine with us." Jaune said. "I'm sure you have places to be, people to be."

"You mean see." Miss Goodwitch said.

"Of course." Jaune's eyes remained locked on Ozpin's. "Slip of the tongue."

Okay, maybe he wasn't that restrained. Ozpin's own façade dipped and he frowned at Jaune before turning to leave. It seemed they'd both decided that staying out of each other's way was the best approach to this. She couldn't say she disagreed. There were already a couple of students lingering around to get their first looks at the private investigators. Blake had to wonder if announcing their presence wouldn't make this harder. If they suspected a student, he or she would now know they were here looking for them.

"Glynda, was that what Ozpin called you?" Jaune asked.

"Miss Goodwitch." The woman's voice was clipped. "And that is Headmaster Ozpin, young man. You will show him the respect he deserves."

"I show Ozpin the exact respect he deserves, Miss Goodwitch. I assure you of that."

Be nice, Blake tried to telepathically send to him. It didn't work. She was sure Glynda Goodwitch caught the message instead, the woman's eyes narrowing to thin slits. "I do not know why Ozpin chose to hire you-"

"Because we are the best." Jaune said simply. "And Ozpin knows it."

"You both look very young."

"Thank you."

The woman huffed and turned away, stalking to the school building and trusting them to follow. "Jaune!" Blake hissed. "Play nice. They're on our side and we're here to help stop some creep using an anomaly to spy on girls."

"I am being just as nice to her as she is to us," he returned quietly. "Ozpin has his hooks in her – she would side with him even if the world was ending. Don't trust everything Ozpin says. He loves to make excuses for his actions."

"Wouldn't he say the same about you and your family?"

"Of course he would. I'm not demanding you blindly trust us either. Make your own decision, but at least get a better view for the kinds of things anomalies can do before believing what it says."

They caught up with Glynda inside the first hall. "Do you know where you wish to start your investigation?" she asked in her clipped manner. "Or shall I make a suggestion?"

You could stand to be a little nicer as well, Blake thought. It was all well and good for Jaune to be criticised when he showed his passive aggressive side, but this woman ought to know and be better. If her complaint was their age and maturity, she shouldn't be acting the same way.

"There's no need for that. Ozpin hired us professionals for a reason." Blake whined quietly. She felt like a child caught between a messy divorce. "All we require is to know where we can find the latest case of unauthorised entry, and a little time to investigate the scene."

"Very well. I shall lead you there."

/-/

The dorm was a mess.

Blake reminded herself that it was probably a mess due to the actions of an intruder and not because the residents were slobs. It was a little hard to imagine that the three girls and one boy who lived there would have left all their drawers open, or their underwear thrown around the interior and across the floor like this. Blake stood in the doorway, stunned, while Miss Goodwitch wore a huge frown and Jaune just looked surprised to be in the middle of an explosion of lace, cotton and frills.

"The intrusion was detected this morning after breakfast when Miss Xiao-Long returned to pick up her homework." Glynda indicated the blonde nearby, dressed in the school uniform and leaning on a wall with her arms crossed. The girl was likely very attractive, but it was hard to tell because she was red-faced, fuming and gritting her teeth together hard enough to make grinding noises. Her eyes were a stark red. "Miss Xiao-Long then alerted us, and the headmaster asked for the room to be left as it was so that our investigators might see the crime scene in its fullness."

"A good thing you did." Jaune said. "There might be vital information here. Before I look, I'm going to assume the time you say this happen was one where almost every student would be free. Is that right?"

"Unfortunately, yes. It doesn't narrow down the list of suspects any."

"And the cameras saw nothing?"

"I personally traced them back all the way down several corridors just to see if we could catch someone. There was no result."

"They likely knew about the cameras." Blake said. She wished she hadn't when everyone turned to stare at her. She shrugged. "It's just a comment."

"The right one." Jaune said. "The cameras are obvious."

"They're supposed to be." Glynda said. "They are meant as deterrent as much as to capture anyone. The door itself should have been locked to anyone not having the team's scroll or an override key from myself or one of the other teachers. I can attest to their locations as we have teacher meetings each morning during breakfast. If any of us were absent, it would have been noticed immediately."

"Thank you for letting us know." Jaune nodded politely. "I don't think a teacher or member of staff is responsible or Ozpin would have caught them long ago. He's very good at controlling the people around him. If that's all, we'd like to get on with the investigation. Blake, would you mind talking to the witness? Take down anything of note."

Wait, what? Blake stared at him, wide-eyed. She didn't know a thing about the cover they were using as private investigators. What was she supposed to-? And he was already inside and had closed the door. Son of a bitch. Blake cringed when she heard a throat clear behind her. The blonde had pushed off the wall and was now before her, her eyes a lilac colour unlike the red before, but looking no less annoyed by all this. To be fair, it wasn't everyday you came back to your dorm being trashed and your unmentionables thrown around. Miss Goodwitch had already left.

"So…" the girl said. "We doing this?"

"We doing this." Blake cringed at the words even as she said them. "I mean, yes, we are having this interview. Can I get your name?"

"Yang Xiao-Long. Shouldn't you be writing this down?"

"We're not police. This is an informal interview."

The girl shrugged. "Fair enough. What do you want to know?"

Good question. What did Jaune want to know, or was this just to better sell their cover and the information didn't matter? Better safe than sorry; there was always a chance Yang might have seen something.

"Can you recount your morning for me?"

"I woke up at seven like usual. Second to the shower. We talked a bit, got changed, dealt with my partner being an uppity bitch – the usual. We left for breakfast at eight and ate with a few other teams. We didn't take our homework with us, but someone comes back and gets it then meets the rest at class. It was my turn today, so I came back and found this mess."

"I see." Nothing unusual other than that the perpetrator knew they wouldn't be there, which suggested intimate knowledge of lessons. Which, sadly, was useless as Jaune and Ozpin were already sure it was a student. "Did you definitely lock the door?"

"It's an automatic lock and the doors are heavy. They don't stay open unless you wedge them."

"Alright. You found your drawers open and your… uh… unmentionables strewn across the room. Nothing else?"

"Nothing I noticed." Yang said. "Miss Goodwitch told us to stay out so we didn't ruin the crime scene." She looked back to the door uncomfortably. "Can't say I'm a huge fan of some guy playing with my underwear. I was kinda thinking you'd be older. Like, a lot older."

You and Glynda both.

"We're good at what we do." Blake said. "And he's professional."

Most of the time.

"Yeah, you must be if you got hired for this." Yang gave her a once up and down as well, and Blake could tell she was impressed by the suit. Even if she hadn't bought it herself, Blake preened a little. "That's a sweet getup you got there. You make the suit work."

At the price it cost, she certainly hoped so. "Thank you."

"So, what's it like? You must be around my age. Seventeen, right?" Blake nodded to the question, wondering why the girl was so curious. Maybe it was just that. It wasn't every day a pair of suits the same age as you came to Beacon and started snooping around. There'd likely be even more gossip about them by the end of the day. "Must be cool to be an investigator. What's it like?"

"Nine tenths bored out your mind, one tenth scared out of it," Blake answered honestly.

"Ha." Yang leaned an elbow on the wall beside her. "Sounds interesting. Maybe you can tell me some stories sometime."

"I'm not sure it'd be a good idea to talk about cases."

"Oh, I'm sure it's fine if it's between friends. I won't tell," she said with a little wink. "I've been looking for someone to hang around with outside Beacon anyway. Maybe we could catch a drink sometime and trade stories… uh…" The suave expression the girl wore was suddenly replaced with embarrassment. "I never caught your name."

To be fair, she didn't think Glynda had introduced them. "Blake Belladonna. And that was Jaune Arc. We're from ARC Corp."

"ARC Corp?" Yang pulled a funny face. It was somewhere between a frown and a laugh, the kind of look you got when you'd been told a particularly off-colour or problematic joke and weren't sure whether laughing would be suitable. Whichever it was, Yang pushed back off the wall and stepped away like Blake had spontaneously developed leprosy. "Aren't you the ghost hunters?"

And just like that, in so few words, Blake felt her pride turn to ash. Blood crept up her neck before she could stop it, and she doubted it was very convincing when she said, "N-No. We're private investigators."

"No way!" Yang's grin was growing wider and wider. Blake's embarrassed reaction must have been all the confirmation she needed. "You're the guys my little sis is always going on about! You totally are!" There was no escaping it now, and the girl was looking more amused than she was upset about her room. "I can't believe this! Ozpin hired ghost hunters to try and find the panty thief. What, does he think we're being haunted by Grasper the Gropey Ghost?"

"-not ghost hunters…" Blake mewled pathetically. "And who told you-? Oh hell," she moaned. "You're Ruby's sister."

Was there no escaping the excitable girl?

"That's me!" Yang held a thumb to her chest. "You know, dad was all kinds of freaked out when Ruby told us she wanted to become a paranormal investigator. I mean, it's her life and all but she's killing it at Signal and now wants to drop out to hunt ghosts…? That's crazy. Uh. No offence."

All taken, but not for the reason she thought.

"We're not just ghost hunters." Blake wished she could have taken the `just` out of there but Yang might have called her out on it, and this was clearly the cover story Ruby had given her family. Blake wished she could throttle the excitable brat. "We're private investigators. And yes, sometimes people hire us for nonsense like that but it doesn't mean that's all we do. We just don't turn down the work. No cases have ever ended with us saying it's a ghost. If anything, we find the real reason and tell them."

"Awww. Really?"

"Yes." Blake snapped. "Our last ghost case involved us finding that a tarantula was loose in a house." A big tarantula. A very, very big tarantula. "We find and fix problems. Mundane problems. Ghosts aren't real and you should… you should…"

Yang cocked her head to the side. "I should what…?"

Blake didn't answer. Her eyes were a little busy locking onto a floating pair of lacey panties that were bobbing up and down the corridor beyond them, acting for all intents and purposes like they were haunted. Apparently confused as to Blake's silence, Yang turned to see what she was looking at.

"What are you looking at-? Eh!?"

The underwear, pink, froze in the air.

Then, it started moving away. Quickly.

"Stop!" Blake yelled. "Stop right there!"

Brushing past Yang, she sprinted after the thing – after the person who was no doubt carrying them. Invisible somehow, either by Semblance or by anomalous artefact. It didn't matter which. They'd still been here, or around somewhere, when they arrived and this the perfect chance to catch them. No one could outrun her on the chase. No one but a huntsman or huntress, apparently. The frilly, lace underwear kept moving, swinging up and down as if held in someone's hand as they did the same.

Damn this school for huntsmen and its incredibly fit student body. Blake's sides were burning by the time she turned the corner. She was built athletically, but long-distance sprinting wasn't her forte. This would have ironically been a situation that Ruby would have been perfect for with her Semblance. On the next straight, panting hard, Blake unwound Gambol Shroud and took a risk. They were a huntsman, right? They probably had aura. To hell with it if they didn't. Blake took aim briefly and launched her weapon forward, dragging on the other end so that the black ribbon twisted around the empty space that a person must surely have existed within.

Sure enough, the ribbon caught! On something – even if it looked like nothing. The weapon yanked taut, nearly dragging her off her feet, but she recovered quickly and began to reel back, snarling and focusing on that frilly scrap of cloth as the only thing she could see. There wasn't even a blur like invisibility was depicted in movies or other culture. There was nothing at all, just a perfectly empty space where something was supposed to be but was not.

"Got y-"

Her ribbon went slack. The underwear fluttered to the floor.

When Yang caught up, skirt flapping as she struggled along in the uniform, it was to find Blake stood in the middle of the hallway with a pink piece of underwear in hand and a confused look on her face.

"Ha – finally." Yang gasped and clapped a hand on her shoulder. "You catch 'em?"

Blake looked back. "Who?"

"The panty thief!"

"What?"

"The person you were chasing!"

"Chasing…?" Blake shook her head quickly, dispelling the dizziness. "Oh. Right. Them." She wasn't sure why she'd taken that long to catch on when she'd just been hunting them down like this. She licked her lips and shook her head. "They escaped somehow. Pulled out my ribbons and got away." Helplessly, she offered the frilly material out. "I saved this at least."

Yang backed up, hands held up and palms outward. "Shouldn't you check those for prints?"

A police officer would and should, and she supposed she should as well. "Uh. Right. Sorry, I'm a little out of it."

"Blake!" Jaune came jogging round the corner, his blue coat flapping. Rather embarrassingly, he held a pair of black lace panties in hand that he must have picked up before he heard the noise. It wasn't hard to guess who they belonged to when Yang let out a keening sound and turned bright red. Jaune rushed up to them. "I heard shouting. What happened?"

"I saw the thief."

His eyes widened. He was so shocked that he didn't notice Yang slide a hand under his elbow, yank her unmentionables away and hide them inside her uniform jacket. "You saw!?"

"Well, no. I saw floating underwear. Then running underwear." Blake repeated the motion, swinging her arm a little to mimic it. Jaune seemed to understand. "I tried to chase and catch them, but they slipped my ribbons and got away. Sorry."

"You did your best." Jaune took the pink underwear and held it out for Yang's eyes. "Is this one of yours?"

"It's not mine."

"Is it your teammate's?"

"I don't know!" Yang whined. "What, do you think all girls can identify who a piece of underwear belongs to by sight?"

Jaune's hesitation was just a little too long. "No?"

Yang crossed her arms again, embarrassed.

"Can you call the rest of your team here so we can find out?" Jaune asked. Yang didn't look too invested in doing so, so Jaune explained, "I need to know who this belongs to because the thief just took it. If it's from another room, that's another crime scene. If it's from yours then that means the person was inside the room listening to us talk about the investigation."

"Oh crap." Yang caught on. Blake, too, eyes widening. She hadn't thought of that, but he was right. And if the person knew who they were? That could be very bad. "Uh. Yeah. Give me five to go get them. Meet back at our dorm?"

"Yes. Can we borrow your scroll to get in?"

"Sure." Yang handed it over. "Hold it to the lock and you're in. I won't be long."

Blake watched the girl run away. When she did, Jaune took her elbow and nodded meaningfully backwards. He wanted to talk in private. Nodding, she followed him back to the room, where they used Yang's scroll to let themselves in. Jaune closed the door and then started to move around the room, waving his arms in the air. He must have been checking for hidden objects. Blake did the same, feeling uncomfortably like she was a bird flapping her arms to take flight. Luckily, it didn't take them long, and the perpetrator had obviously run away from her the first time.

"Do you think he knows!?" Blake blurted out. "About ARC-"

"No. And he won't if we don't mention anything." Jaune zipped a finger over his lips as he said it. "We should probably stick to that anyway since this is a school and all. Assume nowhere is free from being overheard. Luckily, we kept our topics sanitised in front of Glynda and the girl, so he – or she; we can't afford to assume anything – shouldn't have heard anything they weren't supposed to."

"That's good. I can't believe they were right there!"

"I can."

Blake stared at him. "What? Why?"

"They feel unbeatable because of what they have." The anomaly. "It's made them arrogant enough to take silly risks. I bet throwing all this around wasn't just to steal underwear, but to watch their reactions when they got back. Maybe they wanted to sit around and peek up skirts when the girls cleaned up or get off on knowing they can do all this and get away with it."

"What a creep." Blake hissed with an ugly face. "And I bet they just loved hearing the teacher and us talk about them. It must have fed their ego."

He nodded. "There's that old saying about the criminal returning to the scene of the crime. I don't know how accurate that really is, but if you felt utterly uncatchable then maybe you would stick around if only to find out what's being done about you. Get ahead of the plans to catch you. Or just to feel superior about having all this attention focused on them."

Spying on the teachers and these new investigators, which the perp would have known about thanks to the announcement, to figure out how close they were to being caught. It made a lot of sense. "You think this was designed as a trap then?"

"It might be. They knew we were coming today so you'd think this would be the one day they didn't do anything."

"But they did." Blake finished. "They're that confident, huh? You think that can work to our advantage?"

"Hopefully..."

Jaune looked and sounded worried.

"What's wrong?

He thumbed his lips and looked around for a moment before answering in a quiet whisper. "It's not usually a good sign when a Triple-A case knows we're onto them. They're already A'ing the A-" It took Blake a second to decipher that – abusing the anomaly. "-and they might decide to use it against us as well. How effective that is will depend on the item in question, but if this guy can't be seen or tracked…"

"Then they can walk up and slit our throats…"

Jaune grimaced and nodded. It wasn't a pretty thought, not least of all because having aura wouldn't protect her any if she didn't keep it up all the time, and no one could manage that without exhausting themselves. And this person was a student. They knew how to fight and, if necessary, kill. Blake swallowed, suddenly a lot more nervous about things. It had been bad enough when she thought this was a pervert targeting women, but she'd assumed the only risk to her would be to her dignity, and there was a reason she'd worn the trousers today. Now, she was aware of the fact this person could become an unnoticeable and unstoppable assassin.

It could be used for a lot worse than rummaging through a girl's underwear drawer…

What if this had fallen into the hands of a human-supremacist? Or hell, into the hands of the White Fang! Adam wouldn't think twice using it to infiltrate Atlas military bases, plant bombs and kill people. This could be a mass serial killer on the loose in Vale, and instead it was some idiot getting their rocks off on other people's underwear.

But it could be worse. It could be so much worse. That was what they had to stop. If this person was getting off on stealing for now, and if they continued to get away with it, then they might feel confident enough to escalate to other crimes, some of which she didn't want to even imagine. They might decide to take more from the female students than their underwear, perhaps their dignity or even something worse.

"Now you see the problem." Jaune said. He looked deadly serious, and she at last understood just why. This went so much further than an errant pervert. "This may seem stupid for now, but it has the potential to get much worse. We need to stop this as soon as possible. For everyone's sakes."

"Agreed. Wholeheartedly agreed."

"Good." He flashed her a smile. "And you nearly caught them. That ought to teach them not to hang around too much. Did you notice anything unusual?"

"No- wait, yes." Blake licked her lips again, trying to place the situation into words. "When I chased them, I caught the person in my ribbon. It was definitely a person; I think I caught their other arm. The ribbon was tight around something thin, like a wrist or elbow." And she knew from the case of the Guardian Weaver that a non-human anomaly wouldn't feel any interest or desire for women's underwear. These obviously weren't being used as food or for a nest if it stole one out of all these. "The thing is… when it slipped free I… I forgot what I was doing."

Jaune's lips thinned out. "You forgot?"

"That's the best way I can explain it. Yang came and asked me if I caught him, and I didn't know what she was talking about. I spaced out, couldn't remember what I was doing or why I was holding a piece of underwear. It didn't last long," she assured him. "I remembered a few seconds later."

"But you forgot for a while. Interesting." He rubbed his chin. "I didn't experience any lapse in memory myself, nor did Yang by the sounds of it, so it must have been localised. It's good to know."

"Did it… Did it damage me?"

"No." Jaune was quick to answer. "No, I don't think so. It's more likely it has some way to intensify the effect it has. Before, it was invisible – intangible to light, if you will – but the person behind it might have panicked when you nearly caught them and activated a heightened stage, becoming intangible to thought."

"To thought…?"

"It's just an idea at this point. Either way, they did something extra to escape you and it caused you to forget you were even chasing them for a moment. It clearing might be your brain catching back up, or it might even be them deactivating the anomaly. Whichever it is, your memory is back so I don't think it's permanent or anything to worry about. We can check later if you want."

"Check…?"

"At a hospital," he said, and she realised he was taking this seriously. "We can get you an MRI and some scans to find out if there is anything we should be worried about. It wouldn't hurt to be sure and it is your health."

"I…" Her first instinct was to say no. Vehemently. Then she thought about it and taken in context it sounded like a very fair and reasonable idea. "After the case," she said. "Let's get this over and done with first."

"We'll do that. For now, let's-"

Jaune cut off as the door beeped. He shot her a quick look, a warning to be back in their PI roles and not say anything they shouldn't. Blake nodded quickly and turned to face the door as it opened.

Yang was the first one inside, holding the door open for three others to enter. Two girls, one boy, a team of four as was standard for Beacon from what she'd heard. They filed in, the boy looking away from the scattered underwear politely, and the girls looking annoyed to see it again. All except the orange-haired one, who let out a strangled sound on seeing the pink material hanging from Jaune's hand. It looked like they'd found their victim, which only confirmed that the threat had been in the room when they first arrived. The thought was terrifying.

"These are my teammates." Yang said. "Proud members of Team YWRN – or Team Yarn! This is Lie Ren, luckiest man in Beacon to share a room with three hot babes." Lie, or Ren, rolled his eyes good-naturedly but didn't say a word. "The next is Nora Valkyrie, his childhood friend but totally not together with him – honest!"

The girl blushed even harder. Blake would have felt sorry for her if she wasn't busy trying to withhold a glare from the last member of Yang's team. White hair, pale skin, blue eyes and the trademark haughty arrogance that faunuskind had grown to despise. It took every ounce of Blake's self-control not to make a snarky comment. It took every bit of her to not sneer and snarl.

"And last and by all means least-"

"Schnee…"

The hateful name slipped forth. Blake would have slapped her hands to her mouth – if it was her who said it! All that self-control and it was Jaune who let out an angry, violent hiss at the snooty looking girl.

The Schnee's eyes narrowed and her own lips parted to sneer out, "Arc..."

"Aaaand you two know one another." Yang laughed the laugh of someone who realised they weren't being paid enough for what was about to happen. "And by the sounds of it, you're the best of friends. Great." Yang threw her hands up in surrender. "I'd hate for this to be awkward or anything."

"Our families know one another." the Schnee said carefully.

"What is a Schnee doing here?" Jaune asked in a voice so cold it could have frozen the ocean solid. "I thought you were hiding away in Atlas."

"That is precisely none of your business, Arc."

"It is exactly our business. I swear if you're here to run an auction-"

"I'm here on my business. Not my family's." The girl swept some white hair from before her face dismissively. "So, as I said, it's no business of yours, Arc. No need to let your paranoia get the better of you."

The Schnee knew. There was no doubting it with the way she said it, and apparently the fact they knew was not a surprise to Jaune. It was ridiculous to realise in the silence that she - Blake Belladonna; former terrorist – was expected to be the mediator in protecting the heiress of the Schnee family. So ridiculous in fact that she shrugged and decided not to bother. If Jaune lost it and smacked a bitch, so be it. Hell, she might join in.

Office loyalty, of course. No other reason.

"Weiss." Yang said, voice tight when she realised no one else was going to get between them. "Maybe you could afford to be nice to the private investigators here to solve our panty raid problem."

"Private investigators-?" Weiss snorted. "I suppose they are that. I'd call them exterminators myself."

Yang stepped between them both. "Okay! Enough! Geez! I don't know what your issue is, but step back." She pushed Jaune away. "And you, Weiss, can suck in that acid tongue for one second or I will tell Miss Goodwitch you're insulting the headmaster's guests. I bet that'll show them why you ought to be leader over me, won't it?"

"That's not-" The girl gritted her teeth. "Fine. Whatever. I'm not talking to him though."

"I'll count myself lucky if that holds true." Jaune returned. He held up the pink underwear and asked, "Who does this belong to?"

"C-Can I have it back…?" Nora whined.

"Catch." He tossed it to her, and the orange-haired girl snatched it out the air and tried to hide it from the boy next to her. A valiant, if doomed, attempt given the floor was covered in more. The boy did his best to act like he hadn't seen anything. "I'd like to have a word with you and your partner if that's okay. Blake, deal with the Schnee please."

Was she someone to be given all the undesirable tasks to now? That was hardly fair. Well, in all fairness she was his employee, so she supposed it made sense. Sighing, Blake let him take the other two away, grumbling under her breath as she approached the angry looking girl. Yang came with, possibly to stand as mediator.

"You as well?" the Schnee snapped. "I saw you glaring at me earlier."

"You're a Schnee and I'm a faunus." Blake pointed out; she tried to say it casually, like it wasn't such a big deal, but the way the girl was glowering at her didn't make it easy. "Your father as good as treats us like slaves."

"Better than how they would have treated you."

"What?"

"Nothing." Weiss sighed. "Forget it, there's little point trying to talk things through with your kind."

"My kind?" Blake snapped. "Faunus?"

"No. Your kind as in working for them. Ask your questions."

"Weiss." Yang warned.

"It's fine." Blake said. It wasn't, but the Schnee was toeing the line close to things they couldn't afford to be said out loud, and she didn't want to risk it any further. Jaune would explain things later, she was sure. "I want to ask if you've noticed anything unusual in your room of late, or if anyone has been acting strange around you in classes or around Beacon. Anything that might have predicted this individual targeting you or your team."

"Nothing that I or our team noticed and the fact he was asked to come here to investigate explains much of why that is." Yep, she knew. She knew everything. "I hope you deal with the problem quickly. For all our sakes."

"That's why we're here."

"Oh, I know it is. I'm asking you not to fail. Is that all the questions? Very good." She turned away. "I have a call to make. Please excuse me."

Her piece said, the girl turned and stormed out the door, letting it shut behind her with a heavy slam. The second it did, the absolute nanosecond, Yang was there. "I am so sorry about her," she said. "Weiss is normally a bit of a bitch, but I've never seen her that bad before."

"It's fine."

"It's not." Yang shot a glare to the closed door. "You're doing your job and whatever is between her and your boss isn't your issue. I'm not letting her get away with that."

Blake could have said that since she'd sniped about faunus, she had entered the battlefield as well, but she wasn't above being petty if it meant putting that arrogant little snot in her place. "Thank you. I'd appreciate that." Suck it, Schnee. "Can't be easy to be on a team with her."

"Try being team leader. First week is nothing but her testing me and trying to see how far she can get away acting like the boss. Honestly, I'd have let her if she wasn't such a pain about it. Now I'm holding on for dear life just to spite her."

"Good. Spite her as hard as you can."

"Ahah." Yang rubbed at the back of her head. "Y-Yeah. Sure. I don't suppose you have any idea what that was all about?"

Blake had an inkling, but she shook her head. "I can only imagine ARC Corp took a case against the Schnee family once and they didn't like it."

"I guess that makes sense."

"Blake!" Jaune called. "We've got all we can. It's time to leave Team YWRN to clean up and start planning our next move." He came back over to nod to Yang, while Nora and Ren had already started picking up clothing behind him. "Thank you for you and your team's help."

"No problem." Yang said. "So, think you can catch this creep?"

"Absolutely." It felt less like Jaune was sure they would and more that he wasn't going to give up until they did. "I'm hopeful we'll be able to locate them soon, but after the near miss from Blake, I expect they'll go to ground for today. The problem is, all they need to do is turn off their Semblance and act like a normal student and there isn't much we can do."

"Yeah, that's lame. Any advice on how to avoid a repeat of this until then?"

"Invest in some padlocks for your belongings and barricade the door shut at night. The same for the window."

Yang laughed.

Jaune did not.

"Wait, you're serious…?"

"Deadly."

"Well…" Yang swallowed. "Shit."

/-/

"Klein, it's Weiss."

"My lady." The butler, her butler, sounded pleased to hear from her and she felt a stab of guilt for not having contacted him sooner. "It's good to hear your voice – the Schnee manor has been awfully quiet without you here."

"I'm sorry, Klein, I hope mother and father aren't being too much of a hassle."

"No more than usual, my lady. They spend little time together and your mother is currently on an excursion into the far reaches of Atlas. A certain rumour has caught her attention and she's eager to see if it's true, preferably before `other parties` catch wind. I do believe she sees profit in it."

Weiss grimaced. "There's a bit of a problem with something like that here actually."

"Oh dear. Are you safe?"

"For now." Weiss glanced around to make sure no one was listening. You couldn't really find many places to be alone in Beacon, but the passers-by were mostly in their own conversations for now. "I'm not sure how long that will last. My dorm was just targeted."

"Should I contact your sister and ask her to visit Beacon?"

"No!" The thought alone was terrifying. "No, no, no. ARC Corp are here! No need to turn the school into a running battle."

"ARC Corp is there? Miss Schnee, are you safe?" Klein asked sharply. "Do you need extraction?"

"It's fine, Klein. It's fine. They know better than to start anything here. That goes for us as well though, which is why Winter can't come and make things worse than they already are. The headmaster hired them, so ARC Corp can have this one." Weiss really didn't feel up to competing, and not with what this bastard had done thus far with the anomaly. "What I need you to do is go through the latest sales records, though. Check the last auction mother held." Weiss bit her lip. "If anything was sold to Vale that would make a person invisible, intangible or unnoticeable, then I need to know to whom. And quickly."

"Miss Schnee, you know it is your family's creed not to delve too deeply into `how` anything you sell is used. If you break that accord, faith in the Schnee family will deteriorate, and your mother won't be best pleased."

"I know. I know. But this is…" Weiss shook her head quickly. "I'm not having this weigh on my conscience, Klein, and my own life could be in danger as well. If something goes wrong and it's found that we're responsible for selling it without any care for the consequences, that will be bad, especially if ARC Corp are the ones to find out. I just need you to confirm if it's one of ours. That's all."

"I will look into it, Miss Schnee."

Uh-oh Weiss. What has your family been up to? I'm sure many fans of the SCP mythos will catch the inspiration for the actions of Weiss' family here. More of their past will be revealed later. But hey, Willow is more active in this story. Let's just say the SDC has multiple divisions and the dust aspect of it is the open and publicly available one run by Jacques. Willow, as a trueborn daughter of the Schnee, much prefers the other side of things. The monopoly (and importance) of dust provides the Schnee family a certain degree of immunity from being dealt with by ARC Corp.

Also yes, someone is using the anomaly to be a creep and a pervert – which sounds nasty and stupid but imagine how much worse it could be if they really wanted to be, or if they were allowed to continue getting away with it and decided to take things further. It's not the anomaly's fault its wielder is being a complete creep, but there's a reason ARC Corp needs to hunt down and destroy or contain them.

Next Chapter: 23rd May

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