Jaune's first few days on Patch were pretty boring.

He'd kicked himself more than a few times for not bringing any games, movies, or even a book with him to Patch. Not that he had much extra space to carry any of those in his bags, but the grand total of five channels he could watch on his room's TV weren't exactly all that entertaining.

If he had to watch one more documentary about the history of mops Jaune was going to go insane.

So Jaune had to find ways to keep himself busy when he wasn't at Mr. Russet's shop. He'd counted every stain on the ceiling and walls of his room. It didn't take him long to realize why the room was so cheap.

The shower in the bathroom barely worked and never had warm water. The minifridge had its door ripped off, and even if it had a door, it still probably wouldn't work. The TV was one of those old box ones that would probably cause an earthquake if it fell. The bed was hard as a rock with a few of the springs poking through. And the blanket was paper thin, which wouldn't have been too bad if the heat worked.

Which it didn't.

It was going to be a long winter, and this room was far from the normal comfort that he'd experienced growing up. While the Arc's had lost a lot of their wealth since The Great War, they were still fairly wealthy.

But Jaune was willing to put up with a little discomfort to chase his dream, and this room will be nothing compared to sleeping out in the grimm infested forests when he's a full huntsman.

For now, though, Jaune was just a student with a part time job. Not too different than what he was back at home. Just without any family to help him.

After Jaune finished his cold shower (and deciding that the people who enjoyed cold showers were insane) Jaune got himself ready for work. Wearing the clothes that Mr. Russet had provided for him. A light blue polo shirt with a pair of khaki slacks. With Mr. Russet thankfully letting him wear his sneakers instead of some uncomfortable leather shoes. He had said that Jaune was going to be on his feet all day so he might as well be wearing something comfortable.

That day started out pretty much the same way it has since he'd gotten to Patch. With Jaune coming into work, stocking some shelves, arguing with some lady about their return policy, and unloading a shipment of parts. Though apparently some weren't for the usual customers. "These boxes are for a young lady named Ruby Rose," Mr. Russet had said while Jaune put the boxes behind the counter, "She'll be in sometime today to pick 'em up. Don't worry about figuring out who Ruby is, you'll know 'er when you see 'er."

But as the morning passed into the midafternoon, whoever this Ruby Rose girl was hadn't shown up. No customers really had, and so Jaune did what he usually did when things were slow. Lean back in his stool behind the counter and stair into space. Bored out of his mind.

Jaune was in the middle of a wonderful fantasy about his future huntsman career and all the awesome things he was going to do, with finding someone to settle down with being among them, when disaster stuck.

The front door flung open, with Jaune barely having time to process the sound of the bell ringing or the smell of roses and chocolate chip cookies in the air before the customer spoke. "Are the parts for my baby here yet!?" The customer, a girl that might have been a year or two younger than Jaune, said with the same excitement as you'd expect from a kid in a candy store.

Jaune would've answered her if the surprise of her entrance hadn't caused Jaune to lean too far back into his chair. And with all the grace one would expect from a huntsman in training, he flailed around trying to correct his balance, but just ending up looking ridiculous before falling over and hitting his head on the wall behind him.

"I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to knock you down! Are you okay!? Please tell me you're okay!" The girl said, speaking far too quickly for Jaune to understand her normally, but he had no chance of understanding her as he rubbed the back of his now aching head. Luckily, he hadn't managed to hit the Dust dispenser. He could not pay for all that wasted Dust.

"I'm fine. I'm fine." He said, finally managing to stand. It wasn't the first time, and would be far from the last, that Jaune had taken a fall into something hard. He wasn't the most coordinated guy out there, and his former classmates didn't help with his tripping habits.

"Well, that's… good." The girl said with an awkward laugh. After a few more moments Jaune finally got a look at the girl. She was short, maybe a whole foot shorter than Jaune who was six feet tall, and fairly pale. She wore a black skirt and a red sweatshirt with some logo Jaune couldn't recognize on the front. Her hair was almost black except for red tips that Jaune assumed were dyed.

Though the most notable thing about her was the pair of gray; no, silver eyes that she had.

And was she wearing a red cape?

"I'm sorry, again." She said.

"You don't need to apologize. All of my old teachers said I would bust my head open leaning back like that anyways." Jaune said, with an awkward laugh of his own, still rubbing the back of his, but more as a nervous habit than to dull the pain. Jaune pulled himself back onto his feet, dusting himself off a little bit before speaking. "Now what can I help you with? You said something about a baby?" The girl seemed more than a little too young to have a kid of her own, maybe it was her sister?

"Oh yeah, my dad told me the weapon's parts I ordered came in today," The girl said, going back from awkwardness to pure excitement now that Jaune seemed okay. "So do you have my parts?"

"We did get a shipment in today," Jaune said, "But what does that have to do with babies?" Jaune wasn't the smartest guy in the world, but even he knew babies and anything even a little bit dangerous don't mix.

Unless this girl was building a robot, but if that was the case, why a baby robot?

"Well, I've been designing my weapon for almost a year now," The girl said, a bit of that awkwardness returning as she poked her fingers together. "So, I've kind of gotten attached to her, you know?" Jaune didn't have a chance to speak before she continued. "I mean, I've been working on her all this time. I've planned out every little nook and cranny designing her."

Jaune tried to interrupt to no avail.

"So, she's kind of just my baby and I like other weapons, but Crescent Rose is going to be the best! Not that all the other weapons you have in here aren't cool, I love all of them, but she's just my baby so I just… you know?"

"You must be Ruby Rose then." Jaune said, with Ruby nodding back. Mr. Russet was right, Ruby was hard to miss. Though not in a bad way. "We have your parts right here." Jaune lifted the first of four large boxes onto the counter. "You sure ordered a lot of parts, didn't you?" Jaune said putting the rest of the counter.

"I had to get a lot of specialty parts for my baby to work." Ruby said, taking the first box off the counter, though she had a bit of trouble carrying it. "Can you hand me the next box?"

"Sure thing," Jaune said, putting the next box on top of the one Ruby was already holding. Completely blocking the young girl's line of sight.

Ruby shuffled the box around a bit, moving it to a slightly better spot. "Okay, put the next one on," Ruby said, the cardboard muffling her voice a little bit.

"Are you sure?"

"Yep, now hand me the next box please," Ruby said, and Jaune shrugged. If she insists she can carry all the boxes then he wasn't going to try to stop her. Jaune placed the third box on top of the others Ruby was holding. And she did manage to balance the boxes, if only for a moment. With every move she made the top box slide closer and closer to falling off. It was beyond clear at that point, Ruby wasn't going to carry the three boxes she had out of the door, let alone all four boxes all the way to wherever her house was. "Last box please!"

"You can barely balance that one," Jaune said, pushing the third box a little closer to the center. "How are you going to manage holding up the fourth one?"

Ruby didn't say anything for a long moment, "Can you get the third box so I can call my dad?" She said, with Jaune grabbing the box for her and sitting it down on the counter. Ruby sitting the other two down on the ground next to her. She pulled out her scroll and looked through her contacts. "If dad's even home yet."

"I don't think you'll need to bother your old man," Mr. Russet said, walking out of the forge. He was still wearing his old leather smithing apron and taking off his gloves as he walked into the main shop. "Jaune, what's the point of hiring a strong young man like yourself if you're not at least going to offer to help my best customer?" He gave Jaune a firm pat on the shoulder, with a wry smile under his mustache.

"Well, I'd be happy to help her carry some things," Jaune said, rubbing the back of his head, "But she didn't ask."

"You can always offer," Mr. Russet said, before turning to Ruby, "Would that work for you Ms. Rose?"

Ruby looked between Jaune and Russet a few times before answering. "I mean, I guess I wouldn't mind," Ruby said, before quickly adding, "If it's not too much trouble! If it is I'll just carry them all myself or get dad down here! Whatever works!" She seemed to be a bit flustered, Jaune guessed that she maybe didn't like asking for help, or it may have just been the fact he was a complete stranger.

But his mom always said that strangers were just friends you haven't met yet.

"I don't mind helping if that's okay with you Mr. Russet." Jaune said.

The old man shrugged, "Eh, we don't get many customers this time of day anyways." He said, before turning back to Ruby, "Just make sure Tai doesn't assume anything Ms. Rose. I don't need him putting my newest employee in the hospital over a misunderstanding." The old man laughed.

Jaune lost a little color in his face at that, Ruby getting a little red in her face and quickly speaking up, "He's just joking!" Ruby said, "My dad only beats up grimm, bandits, and sometimes boys that try to touch Yang's boobs, but that's it!"

Sounds like Ruby had an overprotective father, and Jaune knew because he did too. Add in an overprotective mother and it's a wonder any of the Arc children have managed to date anyone. Well, not that Jaune had dated anyone, but that was something he could be depressed about at a later time.

"Well, I'm not trying to touch anyone's… anything." Jaune said, after a bit of color returned to his face. "So, I think I'll be fine."

"Then you two better be on your way," Mr. Russet said, "You don't want to have to walk back to town in the dark, Mr. Arc." And no, he did not. If Jaune was being completely honest, he wasn't the biggest fan of the dark in general. Add in a forest and potentially running into a literal man-eating monster didn't help that fact. So he picked up the boxes that Ruby couldn't carry and got ready to go.

As he and Ruby left the little shop, Jaune didn't stop to think about how Ruby had actually managed to walk in and get to the counter so fast.

Maybe he'd remember to ask her later.

Jaune never really had the chance to walk around in the woods on his own before.

Well, he wasn't really on his own. As Ruby hummed to herself as they walked through the forest and back to her home. Seemingly fine with the fact they were walking through a grimm infested forest. But why shouldn't she be? She does live out here, so the grimm couldn't be too bad. He still had no idea why she was allowed to just walk around here without someone protecting her at least.

Was he supposed to protect her? He didn't bring Crocea Mors, his shield, or even any armor. So, unless he was expected to punch some grimm to death, that wasn't happening. Though, as Jaune looked over to Ruby, he wondered exactly why she was even building a weapon. Maybe she was just an apprentice weapon smith? That's technically what he was, but why wouldn't she be working with Mr. Russet if she was? Jaune wasn't going to get any answers just wondering, so he decided to ask.

"So, what are you building a weapon for?" Jaune said, looking down at Ruby.

"What's a huntress without a weapon?" Ruby said.

"You're a huntress?"

"A huntress in training, yeah." Ruby said, looking up at Jaune. She didn't really look like a huntress in training to Jaune, she didn't really seem big enough to be one, and Ruby must've been reading Jaune's mind. Because she gave him what was supposed to be a stern look but was closer to a pout. "I know what you're thinking, I'm plenty big enough to be a huntress, and I'll get bigger! I drink milk!"

"I wasn't thinking that" Jaune lied through his teeth, and Ruby didn't look like she believed him one bit. So Jaune decided to change the subject. "I'm just glad to meet one of my classmates. You go to Signal, right?" It was the only combat school on the island, so it was a safe bet that she did.

"Yep!" Ruby said, popping the p for some reason. "I'm going to start my second year soon. What year are you in?"

"My last year."

"Really?" Ruby said, and Jaune nodded. "I didn't see you last year. Did you transfer?"

"Yeah, I transferred from," Jaune said, before pausing. What was the name of the school the Torchwick guy put on his transcripts again? Oh crap, he couldn't remember. "Umm, well you've probably never heard of my old school. It was a small one down in the southeast."

"Oh, that's cool." Ruby said, "Most of my classmates are from Vale." Jaune assumed she meant the city. "They come over on the ferry every morning."

"I don't think I would survive that,"

"Yeah, I would hate getting up early enough to catch the ferry every morning too," Ruby said, and Jaune probably have to agree with her. The ferry ride was a good thirty minutes, but that's not really what he meant.

"Oh no, I meant that I get motion sick and when I took the ferry over here it was," Jaune said, shivering from the memories. "Not fun."

"Sorry to hear that," Ruby said, walking just a bit farther away from Jaune. Assumedly out of the splash range, Jaune realized then that Ruby probably didn't know how motion sickness worked, but he wasn't about to explain it to her. So, he decided to change the subject.

"You live pretty far out of town," Jaune said, and they had been walking for more than a few minutes at that point. "I guess your family really doesn't like having neighbors." Jaune joked, with Ruby smiling back at him.

"It's nice not having to worry about waking anyone up when I spar with Yang, or I want to stay up late working on a project," Ruby said, "But my dad says that it was the only plot of land him, my mom, and uncle could afford back then."

"My dad used to live even farther out in the woods when my older sister was born, but it was really small so they had to build a new house."

"Is Yang your sister?" Jaune asked, with Ruby nodding in response. "Does she go to Signal too?"

"Yep, she's in the same year as you are actually. You'd probably like talking to her more than me." Ruby said, matter of factly.

"Nah, I'm horrible with new people." Jaune said, trying to lighten the mood, "So I think I'll just keep talking to you, even if you make me bump my head on something again."

Ruby didn't say anything to Jaune after that. Looking down at the trail in front of them, Jaune worried that he'd said something dumb to make her uncomfortable, but she finally spoke again after a few minutes. "Do you have any brothers or sisters?"

That was the question that would lead to a million other questions. "I have seven sisters," Jaune said, as he'd said a million times in the past and waited for the surprised response. Ruby immediately looked him dead in the eye with a look of complete terror in her eyes.

"Seven sisters!?" Ruby practically screamed in surprise. "Seven Yangs," She then said softly. "How did you survive? Are you the oldest? The youngest? How do you even remember all of their names? Are you okay?"

All questions he and his sisters had gotten before. "I'm the third oldest, but I have a twin sister so it depends on the day of the week who's older. I have all my sister's names written on the inside of my eyelids so I can remember them. Yes, we all have our own bedrooms. I know my dad was a very lucky man and I'm sure my mom will appreciate your condolences."

"And it was just survival of the fittest growing up. I started out with thirty sisters, but through ritual combat we eventually widdled it down to eight kids, and then we all celebrated by getting happy meals."

Ruby looked at Jaune like he had five heads. Which Jaune guessed was fair. "Don't worry Ruby, I'm just joking with you."

"About which parts?" Ruby said, with Jaune taking a long moment to think about his answer.

…

"Yes." Jaune said with a smile.

Ruby pouted at Jaune "You're a butt!" She said, causing Jaune to break out in laughter, which Ruby quickly joined in.

The rest of the walk was rather uneventful. Of course, it should've been. It's not like there would be packs of grimm or a gang of bandits lurking around this close to a town with so many huntsmen, even if most of them were students.

The pair finally arrived at, what Jaune guessed, was Ruby's home. It was a two-story wooden cabin, with empty planter boxes near the front porch. With a small shed not too far from the front of the house, and another building behind the house that Jaune could barely see.

"Where do you want me to put these boxes down?" Jaune asked, the heavy boxes having taken their toll on Jaune's arms a little bit more than he'd like and a lot more than he'd ever admit.

"Just set them down on the porch and I'll get them when I come back," Ruby said, walking towards the side of the house, Jaune assumed she was going to the building in the back with half the boxes of parts. She stopped for a moment at looked back at Jaune after he put the boxes. "You can play with Zwei while I'm gone?"

"Who's Zwei?" Jaune asked as Ruby rounded the corner. Or, he was trying to ask that, but he only managed half a who before he was suddenly attacked by a black and white beast! And all while Jaune was completely defenseless, without his armor or even his weapons. Though unlike many that came before Jaune, he was lucky.

It was just a corgi, who had managed to tackle him into the ground like a 200-pound man instead of a twenty-four-pound dog. And Jaune probably would die from all the face licks if someone didn't help him. "Zwei! Down boy!" A man said. With the dog, who Jaune guessed was the Zwei Ruby was talking about, jumping off him and running in circles around the man.

Jaune sat up on the ground, his work clothes now being covered in dirt, and wondered for a second if someone else was going to knock him down that day. Maybe Ruby's sister since it seemed her whole family was pitching in one way or another. But just because they were all knocking him over didn't mean he had an excuse to be rude.

"You have a… friendly dog," Jaune said, standing up and dusting himself off. "I guess you're Tai?"

"Taiyang Xiao Long," he said, standing with his arms crossed. "And who are you?"

"Jaune Arc," he said, deciding not to say the line he came up with the night before. Now that he was standing upright, he stood an inch or two at the most, shorter than Taiyang. Who would've fit right in at the Arc household. Same blond hair and blue eyes at least. Though he was a bit more tanned than any of the Arc, and he was sure his mom would've actually done a backflip he or his sisters got a tattoo that obvious. "It's nice to meet you, sir."

Jaune also had to admit that he looked more like his own dad than Ruby's, but maybe she just took more after her mother.

"Arc? I swear I've heard that name before." Taiyang said, Jaune panicking a little bit. If he knew Jaune's mom she might find out where he was and that would be it for his dream. "Did your parents go to Beacon a little over twenty years ago?"

Jaune didn't answer. Opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water. Taiyang stroking his goatee and raising an eyebrow at Jaune's non-answer. Before something seemed to come to him, and he smiled. "Oh, that's right. You're in my fourth period combat class this year."

"I am?" Jaune said, completely confused.

"Dad," Ruby said, coming back out of wherever she went to. "Stop messing with Jaune."

"I'm not messing with him," Taiyang said, turning his attention to his daughter. "I'm just asking who he is. For all I knew he could've been some weirdo following you home."

"Nope, he's just helping me carry parts back from Mr. Russet's shop."

"What about the weirdo part?" Taiyang asked, with Ruby responding with a so-so gesture.

"Hey, I'm not a weirdo," Jaune responded, "I'm just socially awkward. That's completely different." To which Taiyang responded with a hardy laugh.

"That's usually Ruby's line."

"Well, it's true!" Ruby said, before looking a bit embarrassed and changing the subject, "Jaune's nice. He has seven sisters."

"Seven sisters?" Taiyang said, looking back to Jaune. Who was dreading have to go though the whole seven sisters routine all over again before Taiyang responded. "I'd think I'd go crazy with seven sisters. I've only ever been able to live with two women at once without going completely crazy."

"You have no idea," Jaune said.

"Oh, and by the way Ruby, Yang's heading to Vale with her friends. So, I'm just ordering pizza tonight."

"Sounds good," Ruby said, picking up the rest of her parts boxes before it looked like she realized something. She turned to Jaune, "Hey, do you want to see my workshop? It's not as big as Mr. Russet's but I've got plenty of cool stuff if you want to look."

"Okay?" Jaune said his workday was already over, so there was no reason he couldn't stay for a few more minutes, but he wanted to ask Taiyang some questions first. "But do you mind if I ask your dad some questions before we go? If it's okay with him that I stay."

"Sure," Taiyang said, looking at Jaune a bit suspiciously, "But if you're going to ask about training here with me after class. That's gonna be a no. I don't do any personal training outside of that classroom. Can't show favoritism, you know?"

"Well, okay. I just wanted to ask about my class schedules and stuff." Jaune said, "My old combat school just sent out a folder for all that stuff, but I haven't gotten anything like that from Signal."

"Oh, alright. Well, you just need to go to the school website on your scroll and access the student portal if you want to see that stuff. You need any help with that?"

"I wouldn't mind some help."

"Okay, hand me your scroll and I'll get it setup for you while Ruby shows you around her workshop." Taiyang said, and as soon as Jaune handed him his scroll Ruby practically started dragging Jaune behind the house. With Taiyang and Zwei following closely behind.

And Jaune couldn't help but think this family was kind of weird. Nice but weird.

While Jaune was away and business was slow, it was the perfect time to finish up working on Jaune's weapons and armor.

Really, it was a simple job. Just adding a few connection points and doing some general maintenance, but when one had the opportunity to work with the Crocea Mors he had to take it. Even if it wasn't the first time he'd done so.

As Russet sat at his workbench, he drew the sword from its sheath. Looking over the edge that seemed far too pristine for one of its age and had she had seen more than her fair share of actions during her life. "Remember me, ol' gal?" Russet said, running his fingers across the length of the blade. "Been a long time."

Forty-two years to be exact. Russet was in the last year of his apprenticeship under Irvine Goyens when Sebastian Arc himself walked into their little workshop. Course, by then The Faunus Wars were in full swing, and Mr. Arc had lost most of his wealth at that point. He'd offer the both of them a good chunk of what was left of that wealth to come to work for him.

And they would, with Russet leaving only a few years later to found his own shop, but he'd always remembered the few times he'd worked on Crocea Mors.

Sure, it wasn't as complex as any of the mechashift weaponry he'd worked on. The old sword didn't shift, and if you just looked at it, you'd never guess it was anything special. It was a simple design, even for weapons made during The Great War, but it was not the form of the sword or even the great men who had wielded it that made it special.

At least, if you believed the legends behind its forging. Most didn't. Seeing them as nothing more than fairy tales made to boost the prestige of a once proud family. Even Russet had believed it so at one time, but he knew better now.

The person, the woman, who had made Crocea Mors had put everything that she could into making it the perfect weapon.

Even her very soul.

Jaune thought weapons were cool. Sure, most of the experiences he had with them were in movies, video games, or the few times his parents let him watch them train. But Ruby loved weapons.

"This is Thistlewhip," Ruby excitedly showed another of the weapons she'd designed. This one was a gauntlet looking one with a fairly large box behind the knuckles. "She's one of the early designs me and Yang came up with for her weapon. Yang wanted something to help her punch harder, and I wanted to do something where she would be able to use different types of Dust."

"The idea was to have a whip covered in whatever type of dust you wanted to use. So, Yang could have a bit more range with her attacks." Ruby continued, Jaune having been completely lost about two weapons ago. "But we ran into a problem with the reservoir at the back. First, we had to figure out how to get the dust on it, but we just used a little wind dust to fix that problem. The next problem was balancing it out so the whip could be long enough to actually be effective, and having enough dust so it could be used for more than a few attacks."

"Which didn't really work out. It would always have a range problem, or Yang would run out halfway through a sparring session and have to just punch her way to the end." Ruby paused for a second, looking at Jaune to make sure he was still listening, he guessed. He responded with an awkward smile before Ruby continued. "So, then we tried having less types of Dust. But it still didn't really hit that sweet spot, even when we completely narrowed it down to just Fire Dust, because of course Yang picked Fire Dust."

"After that still didn't work, we decided to go back to the drawing board, and we would eventually settle on the early design for Ember Celica."

"What's Ember Celica?" Jaune said, sealing his fate.

"Oh, Ember Celica are Yang's pair of shotgun gauntlets," Ruby said, just as Jaune was realizing his mistake. Not that he really minded listening to Ruby carry on about weapons all that much, but he was on a bit of a time limit. "They can actually collapse down to bracelets, and let me tell you, that took forever to design. Like a whole semester. Though once I figured out that-"

"Sorry to interrupt, Ruby," Taiyang said, handing Jaune back his scroll, "But I think Jaune's going to have to leave soon and he probably wants to talk a bit about his class schedule."

"Oh, right. Sorry Jaune," Ruby said, looking a little guilty. "I just like talking about weapons a lot."

"No worries, my dad always said that it's good to have something you're truly passionate about, even if nobody else gets it." Jaune said, giving Ruby a smile before looking down towards his scroll. His smile immediately disappeared seeing he had a math class first thing in the morning. Why did math have to torment him everywhere he went?

"Like I said earlier," Taiyang said, pointing at Jaune's fourth period class. "You have me for Combat IV in fourth hour, and you're in my combat tactics class after lunch."

"Hey, I'm in that class too!" Ruby said, walking over next to Jaune and taking a look at his scroll. "And you're in Mr. Russet's eighth hour weapon forging class with me too."

"Well, that's cool," Jaune said. Having someone he knew, if only a little bit, in two of the same classes as him should make things a bit easier. Though there was one detail that caught Jaune's eye. "Wait, Mr. Russet works at Signal?"

"Yeah, he's my third favorite teacher!" Ruby said, and Jaune could probably guess that the first was her dad. He had no idea who number two could be though.

"He's the head of the smithing department at Signal," Taiyang said, "If it involves maintaining or building weapons and armor, he's the teacher you go to." That would explain why he wanted someone who could work during the school day, though he had no idea why he hadn't told Jaune about him teaching at Signal.

"He didn't tell me he works there," Jaune said.

"He's always been a bit of a private guy," Taiyang said, "Doesn't like people getting into his business. Heck, none of the staff even knows what kingdom he's from. Leads to a lot of… interesting rumors."

"Like what?"

"Doesn't really matter, all of them are wrong except the one about him being an assassin during the Great War." Taiyang said, about as sarcastically as one could manage. "I think that one might be true."

"Dad," Ruby said, really stretching out that a. "If you're going to make jokes, make a good one."

"A good joke? Like the one about what the ocean said to the beach?"
"No! Not the dad jokes, anything but the dad jokes!"

"Umm," Jaune said, having no idea what was happening at this point. "I think I should probably go back to town now. It's getting late."

So Jaune would say his goodbyes to the Xiao Long family, most of them at least. He still hadn't met Ruby's older sister, but that could wait for another day he guessed. Ruby thanked Jaune again before he left, and he made it back to town without too much trouble. No grimm or overexcited corgi attacks this time.

They did seem nice, and it was probably a good thing that he knew a few of his teachers before the school year actually started. Though a part of him did worry that they would notice Jaune's lack of skills all too soon.

He guessed that only time would tell, and his time to start at Signal was quickly approaching.

Ignatia stared at the map of northern Vale laid out in front of her.

With marks made for every single death that fit the Red Hand's usual targets. Namely those with silver or gray eyes. Even up close it could be hard to tell the difference at times, and they tended not to get too close. They just appear one day, destroy people's lives, and leave a trail of destruction in their wake.

Ignatia supposed it made sense in a way. That those who dedicated their lives to worshiping the queen of grimm and doing her every bidding should act just like the grimm. Less than human or faunus. Maybe that was what made the idea of what Ignatia and Qrow planned to do to them once they found whatever whole the Red Hand had crawled into all the sweeter.

Grimm knew no mercy and neither would they.

But they would need to find them first. Studying where they had struck and trying to find some sort of lead. Without one they would just be wandering around random cities, hoping they would get lucky and manage to stop one of the killings.

Ignatia was deep in thought and barely noticed when Qrow came back into the safehouse they were using. Sometimes it even amazed Ignatia how many resources Ozpin had, even if she'd seen behind the curtain herself long ago. Qrow was carrying a few bags of supplies they would need.

Normal things like food and drinks. Some rope, duct tape, some lighters, and other stuff they'd probably be put on a watchlist for buying if they weren't licensed huntsmen. Even then they still might be.

"I got us some takeout. if you don't like it, I'm fine eating it all myself." Qrow said, putting the bags down. "Any breakthroughs while I was gone?"

"I might have," Ignatia said, as Qrow came over and stood on the other side of the table, looking at the map. "All of this suspected activity is fairly spread out, but I have noticed a few things. First, I noticed that despite the fact that all of the major cities in this region have at least some activities, the coastal cities seem to have far more,"

"So, you think they might be holed up on the coast somewhere?" Qrow asked.

"Not just on the coast," Ignatia said, pointing towards the north coast. "You'll notice that the only reports we have of their activity outside of the major city is on the north coast." Ignatia then pointed towards Vytal. "And the Vytal islands."

"Guess that narrows it down," Qrow said, "Vytal is a fairly small city if they wanted to set up there. Lots of ships moving down from Atlas and onto Vale."

"If they could infiltrate the crews, they'd be able to move all over the coast without too much problem," Ignatia said, "And it keeps them away from the Academies. Less huntsmen around than if they were based out of the capital."

"Seems like Vytal is the best place to checkout first then," Qrow said, "Hope you like the cold, I'm pretty sure they're already getting snow up there."

"I did two years mostly in Atlas after I graduated," Ignatia said, that was where she met her husband.

"A little snow won't hurt me."

Author's Notes

Thanks for reading!

There's chapter 2 out of the way. This time a little shorter, but it gets the job done I guess.

Thank you to everyone who left a review last time. As far as the main ship goes, it seems there's a lot of support for dragonslayer and some for lancaster too. With some others as well, including everything but dragonslayer. But again, it's going to be awhile for anything to get off the ground shipping wise, so I'll figure something out when the time comes. I'm going to play it by ear mostly, but I would consider doing a vote if I get stuck between a few options.

As for how I'm going to structure this fic,

And if you consider that spoilers, I guess a spoiler warning is in effect now.

The Ignatia and Qrow plotline is definitely going to be the B plot for the first arc/volume of this, with it mostly being there to get in a little action and give me something to cut to when I'm stuck on a scene. And one more thing. There will be two full arcs at Signal. With each arc taking up a full semester at Signal. With Yang being introduced next chapter. The rest of the mains not involved with Signal will start to be introduced in arc 2. Except for one, but that would be major spoilers, so I won't be talking about it here.

But I thank that's enough rambling, thanks again and I'd appreciate any comments you want to leave.