"I know it's probably pointless to ask, but have any of you gotten even a clue about what's going on with the lad?"

Junior expected to return to many things, and he wasn't adverse to... questionable news. With Vytal Festival Betting now as underway as it can be without two of the other contenders currently present, he thought he could focus more on activity in his own home turf. He'd deal with the rest of the festival's chores when, and if, the others arrived; participation was not wholly necessary, and there had been years before where the game was canceled altogether because nobody wanted to play.

But still, the tradition remained a responsibility all of the families upheld, and he'd be damned if he was the first to chuck it away. Being the youngest of the bunch, it would be seen as weak, and spun as though he didn't have the skill to perform, which was something he couldn't allow.

"We don't know." At the very least, Melanie could keep a somewhat level head during everything, and as he shared a drink at her side before his own bar, Junior wasn't entirely set on any one decision. He saw the way she bit into her lip, a habit that showed itself only when her concern reached its peak. "One moment he's just starting to get hammered, and the next -" She made a popping motion with her free hand, with the other wrapped tightly around the mug clenched in her grip. "He's down and out like a light."

"And you're certain nobody tampered with his drink?" Junior never believed for a second that this was the case, but checking all possibilities was needed to avoid bad habits later on; sometimes the simple option turned out to be the correct one, even if that wasn't the case this time.

"I mixed a few of them myself when we first started off, and later on I had our men pouring up stuff from brand new unopened bottles; heck, I watched them pop the tops off each and every one directly." Slamming her fist down on the bar, she growled, clearly taking this a lot tougher than she really should have. "Fucking dust! I let my guard drop for a second and now this shit's whacking us upside the face!"

"Settle down there." She began restraining herself, although it was clear this was a difficult task with how furious she was. "No good will come from panicking."

"It was supposed to be a tiny little celebration." Gritting her teeth into a heinous snarl, she practically spat the words through sharpened fangs. "But noooo~ Once again, that little shit finds a way to piss in my liquor and serve it with a smile."

"It's not your fault."

"But I -"

"But nothing." Junior settled a hand on her shoulder. "If you of all people couldn't catch any poison, and what you say is true about the unopened drinks, then we can't blame any foul play on your lack of watchfulness."

She bit into her lip again, but while her body tensed up defiantly towards his reassurance, Melanie at least settled down midway through; she never really was one to just take help when it was offered, but poke at her enough and she'd eventually see reason. Was it possible to poison a bottle and reapply the seal? Of course, but with how little importance the boy had earned for himself so far, it was nonsense anyone would go through that much trouble. Perhaps Jay had pissed off Roman or his homicidal partner, but that was ruled out due to the lack of any slashing or stabbing; Neo never killed via clean methods, and Roman never killed unless he needed to. No no, Junior had a feeling there was no real foul play involved in this mess... or, at least not involving anyone in Vale.

"Melanie, I want you to answer me honestly now." He pulled his hand away, shooting quick looks to make sure nobody sober enough to really focus was around, and upon confirming that the only ones currently in listening range were completely thrashed, Junior posed an important question. "Have you noticed anything unusual about Jay?"

"All the damn time." Letting her chin fall atop the bar, she began mumbling. "I mean, at what point has anything involving him turned out normal? It's been a freaking circus since he arrived, and I swear, every step he takes with his oversized clown shoes squeaks some new bullshit every day."

"He doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, does he?" Junior felt it important to ask, especially if he wanted her to see things how he did. "Think about it: a man who looks like an up and coming student huntress just shows up out of nowhere. Not only that, but he also appears to attract some of the strangest figures in both the underground and above."

"Not to mention he's a walking paradox." Melanie began leaning on her outstretched arm, cradling the drink in a loose grip. "First he saves my sister like it's apparently nothing, but he's scared away by the slightest bit of opposition. Tie that in with how quickly he turns to booze to chase away his woes, and when doped up on the stuff he suddenly has the balls to act like a selfish little bitch. Some of the big wigs want his ass, and yet we know so little about him." Her eyes narrowed, more so out of frustration than anger. "Just who is he?"

"A walking paradox, eh?" Junior couldn't have put it better himself. And if Jay was bad enough, that was now paired with the sudden introduction of Josh - or Rex, if Jay's opinion was involved. While he at least had some general identification on the boy, he had nothing on this 'Josh' character. And to make matters worse, Josh was just as invisible to his semblance as Jay.

Luckily for him, Josh actually made a little sense, and seemed somewhat normal; if not a little cheesy with his almost frat boy attitude.

"What should we do?" Melanie shot an eye at him this time, and he noticed traces of fear lacing her irritated vision. "We can't keep bumbling around in the dark, not when some new idiot sets their eyes on him almost daily."

"I wouldn't quite say it's a daily occurrence, but I suppose we're nearing that point, huh?" Lifting his glass, Junior offered up the only piece of advice he could. "The best course of action right now is to look after him. We need more info if we're going to make an informed decision. I don't quite trust him, or his friend, but he was good to your sister, and from the offset they don't appear nearly as awful as I'm used to. For now, just do your best to keep your head above water." Junior tried to hide it, but there was a darkness swelling in the pit of his gut, a strange foreboding he could not explain. "Because I have a feeling things won't be so simple from here on out."

"Hmm?" Melanie, like the tough young woman he knew her to be, rose cautiously from the polished wooden surface she'd picked as her temporary bed. "Does this mean you've discovered something?"

"No." Junior corrected, letting only a trace of his true emotion show, and even while scarce in potency, he knew she understood how he felt. "But I have a hunch. Something vile is on its way, and while some of the others may like to call it superstition, I've rarely come across strange events such as these that haven't foreshadowed change. I don't know what's coming, but I know for a fact that whatever it is, it sure won't be good for us."

"You have a hunch?" Melanie sat quietly, seemingly running back his words in her mind. To seal the deal, Junior decided to spell it out a little clearer, just to make sure they were on the same level.

"You know Qrow Branwen, yeah?"

"I do." She straightened her posture. "You and him have regular deals whenever he's in town."

"Yep." He was one of their best customers, and to add onto it, the man never asked for anything too outrageous or impossible; until a little bit ago, that was. "Fellow was once a bandit, you know."

"Of course. Branwen Clan, right? That gaggle of raiders who make their living off of trashing towns and stealing whatever survives: both people and produce alike."

"Exactly." Junior pulled his drink close. "Meaning you also know my ongoing investigation."

"Calling it that is a bit of a stretch." Melanie screwed up a smirk, for the first time showing positivity since they'd sat. "It's not really an investigation when you aren't putting in much effort."

"When I first started it I did." Junior propped up a hand to rest his chin on. "But whoever he really works for is either situated outside the kingdom, or they've somehow avoided detection from all of Vale."

"Based on how you mentioned going about things, I'm gonna say the former; nobody is good enough to hide from an entire city. Besides, I was under the impression you gave up on caring."

"You're right about that." He really didn't give much of a damn. Qrow made no real efforts to swindle or make excuses. When pressed, the man would just deny an answer, directly telling Junior he wouldn't reveal that little secret. At some point he just gave up and accepted the business Qrow Branwen brought; sometimes, you just had to let secrets lie. Right now though, this business was based more around what the man's presence meant.

"Sir?" Melanie's voice snapped some life into him, and Junior then realized he must have spaced out a bit. Beginning anew, he broke the ice which had settled along his lips.

"Listen, I bring this up because there's something I haven't told you about the man. Whenever we make deals, there's always a sure-fire way to tell if he's dealing in something dangerous." Gauging her reaction, Junior could see the tempered curiosity in her sturdy expression. "Normally, if he asks about weapons or grimm, we're in the clear. But on the off chance he starts asking about specifics, be it about people or individual days, well... You remember Mountain Glenn, don't you?"

"I do..." Her face went from sluggishly annoyed to locked on in a split second. "Don't tell me he had something to do with it."

"A week before it fell, Qrow came to me, asking about a Doctor Merlot." Crossing his arms, Junior recounted the general line of events. "Supposedly, he was a rather eccentric scientist; loved prodding with the grimm themselves while they were alive, and even the dying fumes of their evaporating corpses. You see, he disappeared a little bit before the fall, and Qrow wanted to know if he may have popped up back in Vale. Apparently, he had questions that only Merlot could answer."

"He never showed, did he?" Melanie scowled, hunching over and toying with her glass. "You would have told us about something like that if he did."

"Good to know you can still recognise my trust in both you and your sister." While it didn't happen often, these little moments where the twins would pry the answers right out of his mouth reminded him why they'd earned that trust in the first place. "What I did manage to gather was that he'd gone mad, or so the rumors say. Some old colleagues of his escaped the fall by the skin of their teeth, and it did a number on 'em. Left them scared and all scientific curiosity they might have once harbored got shelved by whatever they saw, and they ended up working desk jobs in other fields."

"Then what did they see?"

Junior shrugged. "Who can say? No matter what, they never said a word about what they saw. Some brought up ideas of beating the answers out of them, but when I took one look at them myself, I knew it wouldn't do any good. Best case scenario, they'd die of shock just trying to recall; had that jittery look to 'em that you see in experienced hunters; you know the one."

"Geeze."

"Stress is a heck of a drug, isn't it. Although sometimes..." Junior took one brief sip of his drink, settling it down as those frightful faces of the past were, in his mind, briefly overlapped with his own. "I think it can be worse."

.

.

"Hey buddy." Taking a seat on the edge of the bed, Josh gave a small wave to his bedridden friend. "You're not going to keep playing the K.O card, are you? Because it's getting harder and harder to ignore."

The only answer he received was a steady whistle of breathing. Keeping up a genuine smile was a touch harder to do when you couldn't help but worry. A part of him wanted to complain, but he doubted Jay was any happier about this than he was. Looking upon him now, Josh couldn't keep from thinking back to the first time he saw his friend again.

From one death to another, with the bullet drilling his head being the only remnant of that gruesome memory.

"You always stick by his side, don't you?"

Now he wouldn't go so far as to say that, but it wasn't far off. Miltia shut the door to the room, and walking in, she looked to be carrying a bottle of water with her.

"Here." She handed it to him, and he took it gratefully. "Pretty sure your raspy screeching isn't too easy on his ears."

"I doubt my throat is that dry." Then again, he had been questioning his pal quite a bit since laying him down, and his mouth could use a bit of rain. "But thanks anyway."

"You're welcome." She took a seat beside him as he gave a couple gulps, taking down half the bottle in one fell swoop. Her sight toppled over to Jay, and she broke open her own concerns. "Something's wrong, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Twisting around, he paid extra special attention to Jay's face. There were no shivers, twitches, or really anything peculiar about it; just a blanket of apathy, no different than the fluff tucking him in. "I don't know what happened, but this isn't like him. Sure, sometimes he'll drink himself to the floor, but never like this. Think he got pilled or something?"

"He couldn't have." Miltia furrowed her brow, with a thin, uneasy frown making way for cautious words. "We were celebrating."

"What does that have to do with anything?" Celebration or no, there was always a chance some slimy bastard would try their luck. It was people like that which made it harder and harder for him to keep his hopes up, but even so, Josh refused to let them drop.

"Melanie has a special selection of drinks always set aside for when we let loose, and a specific way of handing them out. The liquor we were served came from her private collection, and those that didn't were the ones she mixed herself."

"Huh... Then I guess we can throw that idea out the window." That explained why she constantly ordered whole bottles to the table. Josh hadn't paid much attention beyond just having fun... Well, that, and making sure Jay wasn't left in the space between sober and sloshed for too long.

Right before the point of senselessness, but having just gained the newly found confidence of diluted function: this was the five minute time span where Jay was at his worst. He wasn't yet far enough along to really lose his ability to completely function, but he'd also reached the point where he didn't care about what anyone thought of him. And so, in this state, he would spew out what he really thought of everything. It resulted in a lot of ass beating; usually just his own.

Or, in other words: he'd fuck around and find out.

This itself wasn't what had him on edge, but rather, it was the internal demon threatening to break out whenever Jay ended up like this. As the guy's self appointed best buddy, Josh had long since observed and found the deeper rooted issue buried within his friend, which only acted up when the fear ruling his buddy's life vanished. To put it best, there was a single word that Josh found synonymous with his friend.

And that word was 'hate.'

Jay hated a lot of things, and he meant a lot. Honestly, there were times he couldn't quite grasp the extent of pure, unadulterated aggression his friend could show during the stupidly short span of time before going over the top in booze. Once he got into the silly drunk mindset, then things smoothed out, but while he still held some control over his mind, Jay was his absolute worst self. It made wishing the best a hell of a lot harder, but then again, Josh never went into things expecting them to be easy.

"Are you alright?" Miltia questioned, and as he ripped his eyes away from Jay, he noticed the gal's eyes were on his chest. And then he felt it, the way his hand wrapped around the decorative piece of his childhood gift instinctually, hidden underneath his shirt. Even now, the edges dug lightly into the skin of his palm through the fabric of his shirt. "Did you hurt your chest?"

"No." He let go, allowing his hand to settle down beside him. "I'm just... trying not to worry."

Her sight remained set to his chest a little longer, clearly curious, but she seemed to let it go and return her gaze to Jay.

"It's hard to sit by, knowing there's nothing you can do."

"You just had to spell it out, didn't you?" Coughing out a little chuckle, he gave his sleepy roomie's hair a good ruffle. "But you're right. There's nothing we can do but hope he'll be alright."

"His body looks relatively normal, so I'd say that whatever happened is either the work of someone else, or a medical condition." Miltia crossed her arms, focusing more on his face. "And considering he was fine just before passing out, I'm willing to put my eggs in the second basket."

"Must be a pretty nasty bug if it's got him out cold like this." Sheesh, and now they had to factor alternate dimensional sicknesses into the mix of nasty events; this new world was starting to seem like a real bummer.

"Not quite." Miltia laid her hand on Jay's forehead. "He doesn't seem to have a fever, and he isn't sweating or showing other signs of illness. Taking into account how suddenly he went from one hundred to zero, I'm not so confident I want to rule it as a deeper illness either; he would have mentioned something like that when he first started working with us. And even if he didn't, you would have."

"Damn straight." Watching her stand, Josh followed. "So what's all that supposed to mean?"

"The only thing I can think of capable of causing something like this would be a semblance." Passing out into the hall and soon halfway across the club, Josh spied Junior and Melanie over at the bar. With how they were both sharing a drink, he'd reckon the guy just got back a little bit ago, meaning Melanie may have told him about Jay already. Apparently, they were not the targets in Miltia's eye, and he ended up following her outside before asking what they were doing.

"Where are we headed?"

"Jay mentioned spending time with Ruby and Coco, remember?"

"Yeah."

"Well, until he wakes up, I think our best chance of finding answers would be to check with the two themselves, especially Coco; if he was acting differently while out, she would have caught it."

"You think they might have had something to do with it? Coco's your friend, right?"

"She is." Keeping her stride, Josh paid extra mind not to bump into people as the swift little angel flew through and between the few people interspersed throughout the sidewalk. Needless to say, with his slightly larger size, he wasn't so fast, but he managed to keep close enough to hear her. "I can tell you for a fact she's got a better set of eyes than likes to keep profiles of people in her head, and that's what I'm counting on."

"Why? Hold on a second, you're not thinking that Ruby girl is behind this, are you?"

"With the way Roman likes to complain to Junior about her apparent knack for "justice," no, I don't think so. But I do believe she might know if someone or something got a little weird around them." She slowed her pace, allowing him the opportunity to catch up. Setting himself at her side, she looked at him. She looked about ready to pounce every second, but not outwardly jumpy. It was more like a cat when it stalked something like a rat or mouse; small animals and that. "Lately, Vale's been pulling in all sorts of creeps."

Creeps huh? Great, that was just something else he'd need to get a grip on. It really sucked that he hadn't developed super powers yet; Josh kind of thought they'd just spring up or something on their own. This was an alternate world based on fiction, right? Wasn't that, like, the thing that was supposed to happen to everybody? He supposed his jump thing was a super power, but it didn't really show up again, so he couldn't exactly claim it as his own; you kind of needed to control it a little bit on your own, otherwise it's more of a hindrance.

Whatever. Super powers would come later. Setting his eyes back on the path ahead, he wondered if talking with either Coco or Ruby would even matter. Not that he distrusted either of them, but from the way Jay was speaking earlier, before his untimely nap, it didn't seem like anything bad went down during their little outing.

Oh well, a poor lead was better than nothing. It wouldn't hurt just to check.

Author's note

...

Nothing much this time. We've got Junior and Melanie working on understanding the mess that is their lives now, and we also get some time with Miltia and Josh who are on their way to question two certain individuals.

Quick note: My schedule's about to be potentially packed, so if you don't get any updates within the next two weeks or more, that's why. It's still a bit up in the air, but expect slow progress.

Until next time.