Ch. 67 Hot

"Why hello, professor…"

"AH! Miss Fall… you startled me."

"Oh, surely not… or do you have a heavy conscience, Leonardo?"

"I… I assure you."

Cinder grabbed onto the scruff of his neck with her right arm, pulling the cowering man to face her as her only remaining eye lit up with fire.

"You assure me of nothing. It has come to my attention that there are… rats… running around. Maybe even birds, hmm?"

Leonardo's eyes went wide at first but quickly tried to play it off.

"I… yes, Qrow and his group have arrived but… I uh."

"And you were supposed to do what?"

He could feel Cinder's hand heat up, singing some of his neck hair.

"I um, intended to let you know… soon? I uh… I was wary of Qrow flying around keeping an eye on me…"

"Hmmm… perhaps you made the right call…"

The Academy's headmaster let out a sigh of relief upon hearing that and more importantly upon being let go. Unfortunately for him Cinder's eyes narrowed as she paced around the headmaster's office. She looked over the empty campus, her eyes landing at the building housing the great hall and more importantly, the statue she now knew led to the vault.

"My associate claims to be close to locating the key. So perhaps it's time for me to leave you to your own devices…"

A thing flew past the window and caught her attention. It was a small quadcopter drone. It hovered for a moment, pointing its camera at her before flying off elsewhere.

"Speak of the devil…" she mumbled.

Cinder approached the still trembling Lionheart and laid her left hand on his face smiling gently. "But remember professor, your role is set…" her face soured as she continued "...and you better play it well."

A little further off a raven watched a pair of drones pass each other in their patrol of the area, barely noticing the far off scream of agony coming from the headmaster's office.

=O=O=O=

Jaune was enjoying his rest on the train. Seeing as his prediction of a good night's sleep was correct the night prior he was currently enjoying a nap on the train.

Ruby was only happy to let him nap while he could. Seeing him peacefully asleep when she woke up that morning did a lot to calm her down. It seemed almost a shame to wake him up to leave, but the storm had mostly let down, regressing to a light yet constant powdering of snow.

Jaune was well rested when Ruby finally forced herself to wake him up to catch the train. Luckily Jaune's sister was still asleep when they left, otherwise she might have tried to get them to stay for longer. Terra, who was already awake thanks to Adrian, insisted on packing a breakfast and lunch pack for them. Something Ruby appreciated greatly as she munched on a peculiar sandwich of Cotta-Arc make.

Turns out all of Terra's food was somewhat strange, though not unpleasant. The sandwich Ruby was eating right now was a ham, ketchup and mustard sandwich, a fairly tame combination all things considered. The first one Ruby bit into turned out to be a peanut butter and cheese sandwich, which Ruby didn't like much and left aside after two bites, saving it for Jaune later while she tasted the other ones.

Ruby made a face when she bit into another sandwich. Peanut butter and mayonnaise.

Before Ruby had the opportunity to voice any opinion however, the trains suddenly went from a comfortable and smooth ride to an emergency stop.

While Ruby just dropped her food on the floor, Jaune wasn't so fortunate as he fell out of his seat, waking up to a face full of sandwich.

"Jaune! Are you okay?"

"Ugh, I'm fine… sorry about the sandwich, what happened?"

Ruby chose to ignore the sandwich as she personally thought it wasn't a great loss.

"We stopped. I think I heard some gunfire? Hard to tell with the sound insulation of these carts."

"Right, should we go take a look?" Jaune proposed after he wiped the mayo of his face.

When they walked out to the cart's corridor they could see the train's personnel talking to several of the people who similarly took initiative to find out what was happening.

"Please go back to your seats, I assure you the Grimm are not a problem currently. It's just a bit of snow that piled up on the track. We'll need to slow down on the next leg of the journey but it shouldn't be a cause for concern."

While the passengers grumbled, they did go back to their seats without much fuss.

"Oi, you lot. Didn't you hear?" A man in a uniform addressed the pair.

Ruby looked at Jaune for a second before she retreated back to her seat.

"Excuse me? I heard you say we'd need to slow down? How much do you think this will add to the journey?"

"Hmm? Ah, in a hurry are you? I reckon a day or two at most. Depends how bad the snowdrifts are but we will have to take it slow. Look, just stay in your seat."

Jaune nodded and closed the cabin door behind him as he sat down next to Ruby.

"Well?"

"Well, what?"

"...well are we going to sit here and wait or are we riding Ardera Ventis out of here?"

Ruby appeared pensive for a moment before deciding. She stood up with purpose in her step and reached for her bag, smiling back at Jaune.

"Well we are in a hurry…"

=O=O=O=

Raven silently entered Qrows room only to see him with his weapon disassembled into individual gears, going over each of them with a cotton swab.

"What the hell are you doing Qrow?"

"Hmm? Oh hey Rai. The damn thing is still having issues after the scorpion tail got into it. I gave up…"

"Cleaning everything part by part?"

"Everything again part by part…"

Raven shook her head before speaking.

"I bring bad news from the tribe."

"And that is?"

"The same drones that patrol the academy are now all over my camp. The gang is taking potshots at them but the fact that they managed to get that far is worrying."

Qrow was apprehensive but not quite on the same page as Raven. "Why?"

"Why, you fucking idiot, because if they're looking to open the Vault they need Spring, but the fact that they know they might find the key around the Branwen tribe already is… It's too fast for my liking. I have a decoy in place but that won't help much if the half maiden is even a little sensitive to magic."

Qrow sighed. He thought Rai wes beyond running away… then again she was here discussing it and that was a step in the right direction at least.

"So? Look Rai, you're not one to get killed easily, so what is the problem?"

"It's about not having a target on my back… I think I should open the vault and let your group take it. Only then Ozpin would try to have it sealed in another vault, probably making things worse." Qrow could see that being the case. He felt bad for Oscar but since Ozpin was now wearing his skin he couldn't do much for the lad. Still he motioned for Raven to continue, promising himself to talk to Oscar some more before Oz completely takes over. "I could try to kill Fall but that might hurt Yang instead, no Fall needs to die by her hand."

That was guesswork at best from Raven but even so Qrow knew Raven was probably their greatest source of knowledge on maidens outside of the immortals. At least she was considering her daughter's wellbeing.

"And Leonardo?" Qrow asked.

"Alive, though he looked worse for wear when I saw him leave his office today."

Qrow frowned some more. Leonardo getting hurt was probably a sign of his usefulness running out.

"Shit. How long do you think you can evade them?"

"I can move the tribe maybe twice before they just send someone after us. Vernal is only good as a decoy until someone knows what to look for. You need to prepare the kids to go against her forces when they inevitably find Spring. There is little to do other than just do what they want and open it so you need to take it from under their noses and leave."

"And Oz?" The original problem remained. Ozpin would try to take control of the situation and send them who knows where to seal it. Probably with another relic…

"Do you have a better idea?" Raven snapped back "I don't like the idea of dying and running is only going to make me a target. Make them think Spring is no longer a necessary card to play and hide the card in our sleeve."

"What if we put it back in the vault and let them think we took it out of Haven?"

Raven shook her head.

"That can only work if you manage to defeat all of Fall's friends. And I'm certain those can be pretty nasty."

"Guess I'll need my sword for that."

Qrow would need to be prepared for the worst, though in truth at this point he hoped Ruby and Jaune would join them for this. Even the slightest chance of Ruby using her eyes to hurt Fall again would come in handy.

=O=O=O=

Yang worked through her workout with music loud in her ears. She was going through the movements almost mechanically as she desperately tried to push the difficult thoughts out of her mind and focus on the emotions of her music.

Unbeknownst to her she had attracted a small crowd around her. They weren't ogling her per say but her fiery display caught the eye of many students.

As she kept punching the bag with her bare fists her hair started to glow and then appeared to set on fire as each of her punches left a deeper indent in the bag filled with sand.

Good let it all out…

Yang gave that punch more oomph than she intended and let out a deep breath as her emotions calmed, the fire putting itself out with the sole exception of the molten glass indent in her punching bag.

"Hey Yang. Done with your workout?" Yang was a little surprised to hear Pyrrha behind her.

Turning around she could see the crowd disperse now that the fireworks were over.

"I guess so… Care for a spar?"

"I would love to." Pyrrha's smile was almost blinding to Yang.

As the two left the second floor and made their way to the sparring pits they caught the tail end of spar between two members of team SSSN. A shirtless and sweaty Neptune Vasilias twirled around his guandao Tri-Hard. Sage Ayana, who similarly discarded his long coat letting everyone see his tattoos, stood in a sword stance against Neptune. The large and heavy sword Pilgrim moving to block Neptune's blows with swift and precise moves in Sage's hands.

The fight seemed to be pretty balanced until Neptune managed to fake a blow from the top and instead swept Sage's feet while he entered a roof guard stance.

"Haa haa… I told you… haa… you need to take this more seriously or you won't improve Sage." Neptune was clearly out of breath as he gave it his all while Sage just went through the movements of training.

Yang looked around at the crowd and noted just how many of them were female. Team SSSN was always the boyband type of a team but Yang was still surprised so many girls went out of their way just to watch them train.

"Hey Nep! Training hard or hardly training?"

"I reserve the right to ignore that. How are you Yang, Pyrrha?"

"Just going for a spar… I don't suppose you two would like to go against us?"

"No thanks, I'd like to be able to move tomorrow. Either one of you could wipe the floor with both of us, the two of you together… yeah no."

Yang smirked at Neptune and gave him a friendly wave before following Pyrrha to the ring.

Unlike the boys, people didn't really fancy crowding around to watch the two spar all that much. Not that it wasn't a spectacle, quite the opposite in fact. The problem was that Yang's flames could get pretty hot recently and when Pyrrha really got into the fight weapons started leaving scabbards in the audience to join Pyrrha's onslaught.

After Pyrrha's use of her semblance got televised during the Vital festival Pyrrha was a lot less concerned with hiding it and as a consequence of that tended to start a barrage of blades whenever Yang got the upper hand.

The silent consensus amongst the male students was that while the two of them were hot, they might as well be scalding hot since they were untouchable in more ways than one.

=O=O=O=

"So… do we go silent and risky or loud and flashy?"

"What do you have in mind?"

"We take the bike on the roof and drive off in front of the train ploughing through the snow, problem is we'll be loud and the driver will definitely see. Not a problem really, just not all that nice of us to give them a scare. Or, hear me out, we use your semblance to travel ahead of the train and get on the bike in mid air. You will tire yourself out carrying me and our luggage and if something goes wrong we get run over by a train. We could potentially get far enough ahead to get reasonably out of earshot and not scare anyone…"

"Could we just get off and ride alongside the rails?"

"Not likely, the rails are the closest thing to a road and from the looks of it, the surrounding is nowhere near rideable."

"Ugh, I don't want to have a train worth of people on my conscience just in case we scare the driver enough to mess with the train or attract Grimm. We go the flashy route… do you think we can go the flashy route?" Ruby came to a decision but immediately turned to doubt herself when the prospect of both their lives depending on her ability to keep her semblance going pretty much until exhaustion while trying to outrun a train.

"I wouldn't suggest it if I didn't think you could do it." Jaune smiled encouragingly.

"Ok, so we just walk calmly through the carriage and climb a ladder to the roof like everything is perfectly normal."

Ruby was mumbling even as they donned their backpacks and started walking through the halfway.

"Hey! I said…" The conductor that told them to stay put before started speaking, but Jaune walked up to him with a pleasant and confident smile. He had thought the days of using his customer service smile were behind him, but old habits never die.

"I know what you said sir. We're huntsmen and decided to get off early. We'll climb the roof, shoot some Grimm on our way and get off the train."

"I uhh…" The conductor stared at Jaune and Ruby's ID prominently displayed on their respective scrolls as they pushed past him.

"Don't worry we do stuff like this all the time." said Jaune jokingly while adjusting his goggles. Although, from how the man seemed to relax slightly, he didn't take it for a joke.

"Ladies first."

"And let you peek under my skirt?" Ruby replied in mock offence.

"Come on, I'm not like that, just trying to be polite… though now that you gave me the idea…" Jaune put on a face somewhere between thoughtful and daydreaming of the sight.

"Nope, you need to focus on the mission sir, up you go." Ruby replied more incredulous than angry at Jaune's antics

"Later then…" Jaune smiled and climbed up swiftly before Ruby could deny the prospect.

The conductor listened to the bi-play of the couple and came to the completely reasonable explanation, one which most civilians come up with at some point in their life, huntsmen are just insane. By the time he shook off the absurdity the hatch to the roof was already closed and the two were gone.

Jaune and Ruby walked at a swift place. Some Grimm got shot by the automated weapons but there truly weren't enough to be a cause for concern.

As they walked they looked towards the front of the train where the locomotive was. Or they assumed it was, because for the second time in recent memory, snow was obstructing the view forward.

The train had slowed down, that much was true, but it was still going at a considerable pace and the snow it was clearing out in front got flung up into the air. They could barely see the beginning of the first carriage with everything in front of it hidden by the cloud of snow.

"Ok, I need you to hold onto me. We'll start running and when we reach the snow cloud I activate my semblance. The moment we drop out of the petal burst it's up to you. You better not let me fall." Ruby put an arm around Jaune's waist and tried to focus on the task ahead before she felt Jaune's hand around her own waist.

"As if I'd let you go." He replied mischievously once again pushing Ruby's concerns of her own performance out of her mind.

"Less flirting more running!"

The next few moments happened in a blur. As they reached the snow cloud they both shot forward, cloaked in a flurry of rose petals. The moment seemed to stretch on for far longer than it should, the white darkness surrounding the red. Then the light of the sun shone through and moments later Ruby let go of her semblance at the exact moment Jaune activated his. "Equinus di Ardera Ventis!" The engine roared, already spun up while the hard-light wheels struggled to keep from sinking into the snow for just a second before Jaune adjusted their width to compensate. And before they lost any momentum the duo were on their way to Mistral.

=O=O=O=

Author's note:

So uhh... I realised after proofreading it that I went quite horny within this chapter. Oh well. Things are coming to a head in Mistral and Jaune and Ruby are on their way. Will they arrive in time? Who knows? (...well I do but shush.)

I had about a third of this written last Tuesday, so suffice to say I didn't make it last week. I also failed one exam so... yeah. Should be back on schedule now though so you can look forward to the next chapter next week.

Personal life wise I'm doing some renovations to an apartment I hope to move into soon. Removed the 30-ish year old carpet so far so thats a plus.

But hey if you want to support me you can do so on P a treon . com (slash) OlympianScribe

Anyway I hope you enjoyed and are looking forward to the next chapter: Ch. 68 Burning winds