"I can't believe that my club has gotten destroyed again." Junior sighed. "Maybe I should just move my business elsewhere..."
Hei "Junior" Xiong felt like all his good luck had run out. First he was interrogated (and tortured) by a blonde brawler, his club got partially smashed and got beaten up by said brawler. Then, almost a year later, a black-bowed battler showed up, started a huge fight with Neo, and destroyed his entire club in the process. So now, he was close to broke, had only three henchmen left as well as the Malachite sisters and had lost almost everything. He wondered whether it would be better for him to stay or leave this nearly abandoned city.
"What now?" one of the henchmen asked.
"I don't know." he answered. "It feels like everything's been ripped from me."
Suddenly a blond-haired faunus ran up to them. "Hey um, excuse me, but have you seen this girl?" Sun held up a picture on his scroll; a photo of Blake sitting down on a chair with her legs crossed and a book in her hand. "I'm trying to find and aid her."
He waved his arms in exasperation. "That girl? Are you crazy?! She's dangerous!"
Sun raised an eyebrow. "Dangerous? What are you...?"
His face turned sour. "She ended up destroying my club while trying to interrogate someone for answers."
"Why would she- Never mind that. Where did she go? What became of her?!"
"The cops let her go!" He punched the nearest wall, before taking his bruised knuckle back in pain and groaning. "They really should have arrested her..." He held his knuckle with the palm of his left hand. "But I don't know where she disappeared off to."
"I heard her say to one of the cops that she was going to Fiti for whatever reason." Melanie answered.
"I know there's also a boat for Fiti leaving pretty soon." Miltia added.
"If he hurries up, he might be able to catch it and hitch a ride." another one of Junior's henchmen chimed in.
Sun immediately sprinted off desperately trying to find the boat before it left the harbor, running through the city. He didn't even pay much attention to his surroundings and how parts of the city were destroyed, but he didn't really care. Sun Wukong had more pressing matters. By the time he got to the docks, the boat had already taken off. He could even faintly see the boat in the distance for a few seconds until he couldn't see it at all.
"Ah, damn it. Now what?"
He thought of trying to swim to the boat, but he knew he wouldn't be able to catch up with it. He couldn't afford to wait for the next one. He looked around and saw something out the corner of his eye, getting another idea. He ran down the wooden walkway to the loading area and grabbed some oars, rope and a lifesaver and jumped into a raft. He untied the rope around the raft and started paddling.
Sun, you are fucking insane. He mentally told himself. Then again, this is not the first time I've gone off the rails!
Later that morning, Ren and Nora had just finished breakfast in the absence of their two teammates.
Nora put her plate and silverware into the dishwasher. "Hey, where are Jaune and Pyrrha?"
Ren answered, "Probably still asleep."
"Should we wake them up?"
Ren sighed. "We might as well."
The two went to their room and softly knocked on the door. They slowly pried it opened after receiving no response.
"Helloooo?" Nora called out. "Are you awake?"
Jaune and Pyrrha were still asleep, a single sheet covering their naked bodies. Jaune slowly woke up, and sat up on the bed, revealing his hickey to his teammates. "Uh..."
Pyrrha slowly stirred, yawning as she opened her eyes. "Em?"
Nora gasped. She and Ren were both left speechless.
"Oh..." Nora said, losing her train of thought.
The couple's faces turned as red as Pyrrha's hair.
"I'm sorry, we'll just be leaving now." Ren said. They walked out of their room and shut the door. Ren was speechless for a moment. "I can't believe it. They really did it.."
Nora shrugged it off. "It was bound to happen eventually."
"Come, we should probably leave them." Ren said, going back to the kitchen with Nora in tow.
Back in the master bedroom, Jaune and Pyrrha were sitting apart on the bed, Pyrrha still covered within the sheets. Jaune then got up and started to get dressed, his face still red as he put on his underpants, followed by his jeans.
"Well... That was humiliating." He sighed, putting his pants on. "Why doesn't this door have a lock?"
"I can't answer that. I should probably get dressed and try to present myself with my dignity intact."
Jaune scratched the back of his head. "Can we really even do that considering that they just saw both of us nude and know the events that occurred last night?"
She smiled sheepishly, giggling for a moment or two. "We can certainly try."
The skies were still gloomy around the city, as if a shadow had fallen over the land and refused to leave. A crow flew through the city, seeing Glynda Goodwitch trying to repair broken structures with her semblance, only for them crumble apart again. She sighed and put her hand to her forehead. It was obvious to tell that her Semblance was being overtaxed, but to what extent, the bird did not know. There was nothing he could do to aid her, so he moved along.
The bird made it to the outer edge of Beacon Academy before flying past the walkway, through the courtyard crawling with Grimm and to a room that was partially in ruins before making it to a secret room on the first floor. The bird assumed its human form of Qrow Branwen again and he checked to see that he wasn't being followed.
He slid back a desk, revealing a trapdoor underneath it. He opened that door and went down to the cellar. The cellar consisted of a wipe open space with a bunch of storage space was little light here. As he walked through the cellar, he eventually came to the end of the cellar with doors leading to two different stone stairways. He went down the one on his right and descended the long stone spiral-shaped staircase. Using the light from the torches that still burned, he carefully placed one foot in front of the other. Despite his caution, he still somehow tripped and tumbled all the way down the stairs, screaming and cursing as he did so.
When he finally reached the bottom, he had gotten one or two bruises on his face, but nothing was broken. He groaned. "I should have known. Just when I think things are getting better, suddenly something bad happens." He stood up and opened the door, entering the Beacon Vault. He saw most of the lights were out, save for one. He looked around and saw nothing there but Amber's dead body and a cluster of ashes scattered on the floor along with Ozpin's cane.
Qrow sighed and looked down, crestfallen. He took out his flask and drank all of the liquor in it. "Ozpin, how many times must you die before this madness comes to an end?" There was no answer, but he didn't expect one either. He was talking to empty air. He picked up Ozpin's cane. "I don't know when you'll be back, but whenever you can, come find me as soon as possible. I'll be waiting."
He stood up and took one last look at the vault, only to notice Amber's corpse in the metal pod, the arrow that killed her still embedded in her chest. He sighed.
"Now for the real question... What to do with Amber's corpse, if anything?"
Jaune looked at the to-do list he had written out as he and Pyrrha started making their way back to the JNPR apartment. The sounds of the sword skirt could be heard around him as they moved along. He took a pen and make check-marks next to each item as he spoke. "Alright. Get my scroll fixed, check. Help Pyrrha acquire a temporary weapon. Check. Retrieve remains of Milo and Akouo from Beacon Academy. Check. Retrieve the pieces of the broken shield of Crocea Mors. Check. Get my shield and Pyrrha's spear repaired. Check. Looks like everything's been accomplished."
"What about discarding the old overly-large sword sheath you found after battling the Grimm?"
"I was thinking that I'll keep it. Maybe it'll come in handy one day."
The two entered the apartment complex. Pyrrha smiled nervously. "Seems like everything's going pretty well. Or as well as it can be in the aftermath of Beacon's fall..."
"Yeah. Everything will be alright."
As the two walked up the stairs to their apartment, Pyrrha followed slightly behind him and sadly looked away.
But we can't stay here forever... she reminded herself.
The two entered the complex to find Nora on the couch with her headphones around her neck and Ren sighed as he looked over a piece of paper.
"It feels like I should have seen this coming, but yet, I didn't..."
"Ren? What's the matter?" Jaune asked.
"I got bad news for ya guys. Our landlord's increasing our rent. He's doing this to everyone since many of the residents have packed their bags and left this city. I've done the math and we don't have anywhere near enough to continue staying here another week."
"How many days do we have left here?" Pyrrha asked.
"According to the notice, the rent increase will take place starting next week."
"So we only have three days left here..."
"Unfortunately..." Ren confirmed.
"Even then... we can't stay here forever." Pyrrha was downcast. "I hate to say it, but with the fall of Beacon Academy, there's nothing here left for us. We have no reason to stay here."
"But what about us?" Jaune began to ask her. "The team? You and I?"
His words tugged at her heart, but she said nothing, turning away and folding her arms instead of looking at him.
"Yes, this situation is most troubling. Nora, get the map." Ren ordered.
She got out a big piece of paper that was folded into four square sections. She unfolded it and showed it to Ren. He held onto it with one hand as Nora held it with the other and they looked over the map together.
Jaune and Pyrrha looked over their shoulders. "What's with the map?" Pyrrha asked.
"You might not be aware of this, but in the years before Beacon Academy, me and Nora traveled the world, trying to find a place we could call our forever home. While traveling the world, we created these small safe havens we call safehouses. We have several of them all over the world, at least seven in every kingdom, and there's even one in Menagerie." Jaune gave him a strange look. "It's a long story. These green X's mark the location of a shelter that we set up in the past. Sometimes they're camouflaged shelters we built ourselves, sometimes they're tree houses, other times they are abandoned buildings like log cabins, all kinds of temporary hiding places. So Nora, any preference as to where we will go?"
"Not sure. I was thinking somewhere with warm weather..."
"Let's see..." Ren examined the lower right corner of the map. "Shelters in places with warm weather... There's the one in Menagerie, which is really far away... Some in various parts of Mistral... How about the tree house on the outskirts of Fiti? It was recently built, not horribly far from where we are now, and it's pretty nice this time of year."
"That works."
"Then that's where we'll go."
Jaune looked away. He didn't even think about it until now, but Ren and Pyrrha had a point. There was no reason for them to stay here, no point in staying together. Beacon Academy was in tatters, and most of the students they knew had already left to go back home or to go apply at another academy. Many of the residents had fled as well. Others were not so fortunate; The death toll was confirmed to be over 5,500, and that number was still increasing. There were over 10,000 injures, and most victims were still in recovery. Within less than two weeks, the population had dropped from several million to several thousands. The future team JNPR (and almost everyone else for the matter) all foresaw was destroyed along the academy, and there was no reason to stay here.
But the young Arc didn't want to leave. He didn't want Pyrrha to leave. He almost lost her, how could he let her go?
Several hours had passed, and Sun was stranded in the ocean. The sun was setting and his stomach growled loudly. He lost track of the boat within the first hour of rowing and by this point, he had lost all his oars to whales. He was lucky that he didn't get swallowed. The monkey faunus shifted from leaning over the edge of the raft to lying down on the surface of the float on his back. He was exhausted, starving and in no shape to continue or get anywhere. Even worse was that he had no idea where he was, or how far he was from Fiti.
"I am a horrible castaway. I probably should have just stowed away on the next boat." he said to himself.
He recalled how he got into this situation; chasing after Blake, whom was probably close to Fiti's docks by now. How long the voyage actually took, Sun had no idea. But he couldn't help Blake if he failed to save himself. He needed time to recover. He reached for a water bottle he found and cleaned earlier, and took a few sips. He groaned, as this crazy stunt was proof that he was a fool.
"Maybe I should have asked my team for help." He paused to himself. "Oh wait, Neptune wouldn't be very helpful with his hydrophobia. Although Scarlet and Sage might have been able to help me find a way out of this or maybe even convince me that this was a bad idea in the first place."
He imagined what his teammates would say if they were present;
Neptune: (curled up in a ball, whimpering and cowering)
Scarlet: Anyone got any ideas on how to get to Fiti from here?
Sage: (glaring at Sun) Sun, this was a bad idea!
Sun: Yeah, I know...
Or perhaps they would have reached Fiti faster if Sage and Scarlet helped. (He theorized that Neptune wouldn't do anything because of his harrowing fear of the water.) The former leader of team SSSN sighed to himself as he came out of his imaginary vision. He thought of using his staff, but if the lost it, he'd be defenseless.
He sighed. "Well, it's not like it can get much worse..."
At that moment, a schooner appeared out of nowhere only 15 feet from Sun's raft. A woman standing at the bow smirked maliciously as she collapsed the telescope.
"Well, well, well, what have we here?" she asked.
"Looks like a filthy Faunus castaway!" one of the men aboard shouted.
"Get him!" the woman commanded.
Oh shit...
The schooner approached him and he got out his staff. "Just my luck." He sighed. "I spoke too soon."