Author's Notes: This chapter was for some reason or another was at one point the hardest thing I've ever written in my life and I don't even know why! It's just for some reason I kept drawing a blank whenever I sat to write which was frustrating but, it was thanks to that writer's block that I became aware of a major problem with this story which made me rewrite the whole thing from the ground up. Sure the release was delayed by months but let me tell you that if you think this story sucks now! The previous version was a Black Hole from where no Light or Hope could ever escape.

Pacing around her Beacon dorm room was an irritated Cinder Fall and it is important to clarify that she was irritated, not upset. Getting upset was, in her objectively correct opinion, a childish response that was beneath someone as mature and intelligent as her, irritation, on the other hand, was a reasonable reaction in the face of the utter failures of the past few days. It was bad enough that he Breach happened far ahead of schedule which resulted in the derailing most of her meticulous plans and forcing her to start looking through a myriad of backup plans till she had one that might work but add insult to injury the "Tragedy of the Century," was resolved before the day was even remotely close to being done. Quite frankly the only thing that went according to plan was Roman getting himself arrested so at least she had that and then came a phone call from Hazel "Bleeding Heart" Rainart!

"What do you want Hazel?" she demanded. I do not have time for this.

"An agent of mine contacted me earlier and informed me of a potential complication involving your plan," He answered calmly, not even the least bit annoyed by her tone of voice which did not help improve her attitude.

"Please get to the point or stop wasting my time!"

"Very well, I am now sending you a file containing the profiles of four individuals. Though the real threat is their leader, a woman named Tock, no known last name, whose semblance is 60 seconds of complete invincibility."

For a moment Cinder was completely silent as she tried to process what she just heard, That's Bullshit! "You cannot be serious right now, Hazel!"

"Very serious which is why you need to pay attention, several months ago I hired these bounty hunters to go after a silvered eyed warrior and they succeeded at their mission. The problem, however, is that afterward for reasons I do not know they went to Vale and got caught up in the Breach. They survived and according to my agents, they are looking for anyone connected to the attack and this is where things get difficult for you."

"How exactly does it get worse?" she was going to pop a blood vessel if things kept piling up.

"Salem wishes to recruit Tock and has decided that you are the most qualified for the task, however your original mission is what takes priority here. Salem will understand if it proves necessary to kill her but would strongly prefer it if a diplomatic solution can be found."

"Hazel... why am I cleaning up after your mess?"

"I apologize, this is not a burden I wished to place upon you so to help you with this task, I am sending some hired hands to help you. They have already been paid and they do not ask questions nor do you have to meet them. They will allow you to find and negotiate with Tock without exposing yourself and should things come to it, simply send them a message and they will make sure Tock and her crew are arrested, good luck Cinder," Hazel then hung up.

Exhausted, Cinder dropped the scroll and allowed herself to fall on the couch behind no longer caring anymore to even try to keep up her carefully crafted image of high-class nobility, right now what she wanted most in this world wasn't a glass of expensive wine but rather a can of cheap beer and a whole pack of cigarettes. Meanwhile her minions Emerald and Mercury were close by and doing their best to stay out of Cinder's way as experience has painfully taught them to do whenever she got into this sort of mood, however, they couldn't simply leave the room either as they also learned the hard way that being caught trying to escape would be far worse.

"Alright you two, thanks to Hazel we have a potential problem that needs to be fixed right away," Cinder then picked up her scroll from the ground and forwarded the files of Tock and her crew to both Emerald and Mercury.

The two rarely agreed on anything but after skimming through the files they found themselves to be in total agreement over how unimpressed they were, "But, why do they matter, Mistress?" Emerald cautiously spoke up. " As far as I can tell these guys are just hired thugs sticking their noses into something far out of their league."

"You're right that most of them don't matter but, their leader is different." Cinder answered without even looking at Emerald.

"How bad could one knucklehead be?" the ever arrogant Mercury asked.

"Her semblance makes her invincible," answered Cinder.

"Th- That's just bullshit," Mercury was stunned and now mercifully silent.

Emerald however just saw her opportunity to boast, "I could take her."

Mercury glared at this partner and opened his mouth to shoot back however Cinder put a quick end to that mess, "And risk revealing ourselves for no gain and at the cost of going against Salem's wishes? No, what we are going to do instead is use a third party to extend an olive branch to those bounty hunters and clean up this mess diplomatically."

"And if they try something?" Mercury asked with a sinister smirk.

"Then you will do nothing, none of us will have to. Hazel, since this was originally his mess, has already made some arrangements in case all this backfires. So, let me make this very clear to you both, do not expose us. If you happen to see any of them in public then you will report to me and we proceed in whatever way I choose to proceed. Am I clear?"

"Yes, Ma'am!" They both said in unison.

Pyrrha was currently alone in JNPR's dorm room and was in the middle of a rather interesting book on the subject of Dust and the many methods created to utilize it when she heard the ringing of a scroll, so she put the book down and reached for her scroll only to find that it was not the one ringing. After a quick scan of the room she found a scroll on the desk from where the ring was coming from however she had no idea who it belonged to, Did Ren or Nora forget to bring it with them before leaving to train? No, it can't be, I saw them pack before they left and neither one forgot. That only left Jaune as the scroll's owner and he was currently in the shower, this left her in a bit of an odd situation as she wasn't sure if she should answer it but nowadays she couldn't discount the possibility that he might be missing a rather important or urgent call, I should answer it just to be safe. Her mind made up, she grabbed the scroll and answered, "Hi, Jaune's in the shower can I take a message?"

"Aye, ye kin dear, kin ye ask him whin he'll be available?"

"Available?" Pyrrha didn't recognize the voice, though she could tell this woman seemed to know Jaune. I don't think he has ever mentioned anyone with an accent as heavy as hers's but then again this is his business, not mine. Taking a moment to listen she could hear that her partner was beginning to rinse himself off, "He should be available before too long."

"Cheers dear, th' thing is that ah git mah night free 'n' ah wanted tae know if he wanted tae go out an ave a bit of fun?" the woman explained.

"O... Out!?" Pyrrha's mind was now in a state of shock.

"Oan a date, love. Ye'v bin oan them afore right ?"

"Of course I've been on dates before! I've been on plenty of dates!" she was now just blurting things out.

"Suuuure ye hae, ah believe ye."

Pyrrha couldn't see the woman's face but somehow just somehow she knew that whoever it was smirking at her, either way, she was done being on the backpedal. "I'm sorry but, who even are you, and how do you know Jaune?" she demanded while trying to make herself sound as authoritative as possible though to what ends she wasn't really sure.

"Th' name's Tock 'n' ye'll hae tae ask yer dear captain about th' exact nature o' our… re-la-tion-ship."

She was about to say something that she was going to regret but thankfully Jaune stepped out of the shower wearing his school uniform and was feeling refreshed and ready to take on whatever challenges the day could throw at him! Then he noticed that his partner was holding his scroll, "Hey, Pyrrha! I thought I heard my scroll ring, did someone happen to call me while I was in the shower?"

"Ya, um here you go," Pyrrha was a little reluctant to give Jaune back his scroll thanks to the less than flattering first impression she now had of the mysterious woman but gave it to him anyway, I have some questions for you Mister! She then went back to reading her book but now her attention was split between the pages and listening for when Jaune would be finished with the conversation.

"No, I won't be able to go then, I have to meet with a professor… Oh! Now that works!... Alright, so I'll meet you at the Crossing by the Station? No? Do you want to meet at the station itself? Alright, I'll see you then! What? What do you… oh my!" with that Jaune hung up.

Pyrrha did not waste a single second and turned to face her partner who was now blushing so hard she nearly mistook him for a tomato, "Jaune! Are you alright?" she didn't wait for him to answer before walking over to him and placing a hand on his forehead, It's not a fever so that's okay but then what's wrong with him? Wait? Is he blushing? Who is this woman and why hasn't Jaune mentioned her before? She then looked away from Jaune to take a moment to clear her head, Be reasonable, and don't jump to conclusions. Just ask him. She then turned back to Jaune who was also trying to calm himself down.

"Jaune, I want you to be honest with me," She looked at while trying her best to imitate the same stern look her mother would give to her whenever she did something wrong, Hopefully, I'm doing this right. "That woman, Um, are you… Um, well I was wondering if… Well, you see Jaune…"

While Pyrrha was making a fool of herself Jaune was also making a fool of himself as he attempted to explain the whole conversation away without giving Pyrrha the wrong idea or the right one. "Ah, you mean Tock! Well um, Pyrrha, Tock is ah um… what you would call a friend… ly? No, Let me start over."

"Pyrrha wants to know the nature of your relationship with Tock," spoke the calm collected voice of Ren.

Jaune and Pyrrha responded with a very simple, clear, and completely appropriate

"SWEET VELVETY BROTHERS ON HIGH!"

"WOULD YOU TWO PLEASE SHUT UP!" screamed Weiss who was now standing at the door sporting a glare that dropped the overall temperature of the room by several degrees and that was before she even entered the said room that soon changed and the temperature dropped another few degrees as she stepped inside. She gave a stern look at all of them as though she was trying to either figure out who the culprits were or freeze to death with the power of a vindictive glare, "What were you two even talking about?"

"Pyrrha was asking Jaune about his relationship with a Huntress by the name of Tock," Ren answered completely unaffected by Weiss' angry stare.

"That's right! We only screamed because Ren surprised us!" Jaune answered but then he realized something, What is he even doing here, and how does he know that!? So he just asked, "Okay I thought you and Nora said that you couldn't remember what happened that night because you were drunk so how do suddenly that Tock was a Huntress? Also, I thought you went out with Nora!? When did you get back!?"

"Actually, Nora said that we couldn't remember where we went, who we met is another story and we met Tock the same time you did remember? Me, Nora, and Pyrrha were there with you when you first met her and her crew during the Breach. Later Pyrrha left with Coco and Nora and I then joined you in getting a few drinks with Tock and her crew. I don't remember anything else after that, as for why I'm here is because I accidentally forgot my wallet and came back to get it," he said while holding up the aforementioned wallet.

"Why do you keep saying, crew?" asked Weiss who was still rather visibly upset.

"She dresses like a pirate, which I suppose is why she and Jaune hit it off so well," Ren answered once again with a voice so calm and steady that everyone had no choice but to accept it as truth.

"And this Woman? What's been going on between you?" Pyrrha finally asked.

If nothing else Jaune knew this one important fact about life: The Best Lies have a Little Truth in them. "Tock has been sparring with me as a way of thanking me for the assistance back during the Breach. She also recently gave me this incredible idea for a weapon that I was going to ask Ruby for help with."

"Oh, is that all? Well, that's nice of her." Pyrrha said with a fake smile. Tock said that she and Jaune were going on a date, was she lying? But why lie to me? Is Jaune lying… well, he has improved but, that doesn't necessarily mean that there isn't anything more going on.

"Well I'm going to go talk to Ruby about this idea, do you know where I can find her Weiss?" Jaune inquired.

"Ruby is with Penny down at the Forge," Weiss answered.

"Okay, Penny what do you think of these?" Ruby then produced a set of blueprints for a large gun-like weapon and showed it to her friend. Penny's eyes glowed for a brief moment and a green light emerged from her pupils and ran over the blueprints scanning them. When the scan was done she then closed her eyes and began running the calculations in her head and after only a second or two Penny reached into her back and pulled out a printed sheet of numbers.

"Well friend Ruby, according to my calculations there is a 64.4879478% chance that this weapon will blow up in our face instead and only a flat 15% chance that it will work. Would you like me to go through the other percentages?" she said with a smile.

"No, you don't have to." Ruby put the blueprints away, "Awww man, I wanted to make a real hand cannon! It would have been so cool!" She then made a finger gun and began dramatically posing to emphasize her point, suddenly the door opened and Jaune walked in.

"Ruby I-!"

"BANG!"

In an act of supreme treachery Ruby had spun around and pointed her imaginary hand cannon at Jaune and with a vicious smile shot him for no reason other than pure bloodlust! He fell to the floor and weakly raised his arm to his once best friend now an enemy and asked, "Et Tu, Ruby?" Even the strength to keep his arm raised soon left his body and just before the cold darkness could take him he turned to the only person that he could trust in that room "Penny, please tell my wife that… I love her," and with one last dramatic gasp of air, he passed from this world.

"I will do my best Friend Jaune! Yet please understand that I do not have Mrs. Arc's number on file however, I do have her image and basic information on file so I will attempt to find her to deliver your final words to her," Penny replied with a smile.

Ruby gave a cute laugh and turned to Penny with a big smile on her face, "Wow! I didn't expect you to go along with this," she then turned back to look at Jaune whose face had gone pale and now had a look of complete abject horror on it.

"How… How did you know?" he asked.

"It was a simple task to search through public records in order to find your spouse's information though it is rather sparse which suggests that she was born and raised in a settlement. Also while it is none of my business I must say that I find it rather commendable that you were able to redeem her through the power of love," she answered plainly.

"Power of love!?" asked a fully bewildered Jaune and Ruby.

"Is that not how it usually works in stories? A heroic and sexually desirable protagonist and an equally attractive member of the antagonistic faction fall into lust and through a variety of logically contrived events helped along by a large dosage of questionable ethics the protagonist redeems the physically attractive antagonist ultimately convincing them to switch sides all through the power of love!" Penny clearly explained.

Ruby is the first to recover "Wait! Wait! Wait! Penny, are you telling me that Jaune is married?"

"You did not know?" Penny asked rather surprised before turning to Jaune "I apologize if you wanted to be the one to tell them."

"Jaune! Why didn't you tell me? When did this happen? Where? Who? Is it Pyrrha? Is that why she has been acting weird lately? Wait no! She isn't a villain, is it... Weiss?" and the questions went on and on and on as Ruby who was still trying to process everything while trying to deny everything while realizing that it had to be true because Penny would never lie but what if she did because there wasn't any reason to think that Penny was incapable of telling a joke.

"Ruby I… I can explain it. You just need to give me the chance," he finally managed to stammer out snapping Ruby back to reality as she looked at him for the promised explanation

"Alright then, Jaune what happened?" She asked looking Jaune right in the eye with a look that made it extremely clear that he was not leaving the room without answering.

He could have told another lie but, he didn't or rather he couldn't bring himself to lie to the one person who had always believed in him. So, he took a deep breath and told her everything...

Ruby was rubbing her head trying to see if she could somehow massage the headache out of her skull while the source of her current pain was sitting on a chair close to the workbench. "Okay, Jaune let me see if I got this right, you got drunk and married and Faunus pirate?"

Penny then helpfully interjected, "Well Ruby while Tock has been in trouble with local law enforcement as well as the Academies it has always for her Bounty Hunting and occasional Mercenary work. If she is engaging in Piracy then no one has reported it yet."

"Well, I suppose that makes everything just better!" Ruby's sarcasm carried just a hint of venom in it.

"Tock and I are going to annul the marriage as soon as possible!" Jaune exclaimed. "Look, Ruby, I get why you are upset, and honestly if I was in your position I'd be upset too, but the reason why I didn't say anything was that it wasn't going to matter soon so I kept it myself to avoid any unnecessary drama! Also, we have far far far worse things to be worried about."

Ruby was taken aback, "Look Jaune, I'm sorry. It's just that you have a little absent lately and I thought it was because you were trying to process everything and maybe get some training in-"

"And then you find out that all this time I've been having a fling with some Huntress I've just met and now you can't help but wonder if I'm taking this seriously?" he finished for her.

"Yes, Jaune, that is exactly how I feel- Wait a second! Did you say that she was a Huntress?"

"Why yes he did friend Ruby, however that is technically incorrect as Tock does not currently possess a Huntsman license. She is however considered to be a Freelancer in the kingdoms of Mistral and Vacuo."

Ruby then got close to Jaune, "Does she know anything about the Breach? Can she help us? No wait, first we need to find out if she's on our side, Jaune! Can you somehow find out?"

"Well we are going on a date tonight, does that help?"

"That's perfect! Just be careful about it, maybe just casually mention the Breach and then after that, you could… well, I'm sure you'll figure it out." Ruby stepped away from her friend before suddenly remembering something, "Oh yeah! What was it you were going to ask me for earlier?"

"I wanted your help in making me a new weapon!"

A shine appeared in Ruby's eyes as one idea after another began going through her mind and she wasn't alone even Penny began running numbers in her digital brain trying to calculate what the optimal weapon configuration would be for a man with one arm.

"Ooooh! This weapon is going to be Amazing! Just you wait, Jaune!"

"Ruby."

"Worry not Friend Jaune. Ruby and I will design and construct a perfect weapon for you."

"Guys."

"Come on Penny let's Start right away!"

"WAAAAAAAIT!" Jaune shouted at the top of his lungs. "I already have a weapon in mind!" He then reached into his pocket and pulled a design that he and Tock made together as well as his spare arm and presented it to the two mechanical geniuses who both leaned in to take a closer look.

"You want a Hook?"

"Exactly!"

Penny's eyes glowed for a second and a green light came from her eyes covering the paper and before Jaune could ask about the light, it disappeared. "Scanning Complete!" Penny cheerfully declared. "I will now begin running calculations… I have finished calculating and will return in a moment," she then walked right out of the room leaving Jaune and Ruby alone.

Ruby then walked right over to Jaune and sat down next to him, "So, tell me about her."

He scratched his head in embarrassment before confessing, "I don't know her all that well, and thanks to the Breach, I can't spend as much time getting to know her as I would like but I can tell you that she's not what you'd expect."

"So is it like those books that Blake likes where the guy has a rough rugged exterior but is a secret softie underneath?"

Jaune didn't even try to hide his amusement "No, Thank the Brothers it's nothing like that cliche. Tock doesn't try to hide what a real softie and romantic she is. For example, when we first woke up in bed together she nearly killed me because she saw the ring and thought that I was cheating on my wife."

"Then how did she react when she found out that she was the wife?"

"She took it surprisingly well, hell this whole time she's been helping me refine my skills. Though, now and then she does mention being stuck in Vale and how she'd love to find the ones responsible... I know what she's trying to do but the problem is I don't know how far I can trust her and that's assuming I can trust her at all. What do you think, Ruby? How much do you think I should tell her?"

She thought about it for a bit and with a dejected sigh answered: "In all honesty, you can probably tell her everything that we know since we barely know anything at all."

"Yeah, I thought that would be the case, either way, thanks." He began weighing the pros and cons in his mind, Tock has never given me any reason to doubt her and she has helped me… but I don't know anything about her. Maybe, I should try and learn about her during our date tonight and come with an answer at the end... Jaune then got up and began to walk out of the room, "Well I better get ready, my date will be ready soon and it would be rude to keep her waiting… I'm not sure if I can trust Tock yet, but I want to."

"Is that your heart speaking or is that your dick?" Ruby asks while maintaining a look of pure innocence.

Jaune, on the other hand, was caught completely off guard and fell face-first onto the floor "RUBY! WHAT THE HELL!"

"Oh c' mon, that was pretty funny. You can't tell me that wasn't!"

"If Yang heard you say that-"

"She wouldn't do anything except laugh because I'm sixteen, not six! Now get off of the floor before Penny comes back."

The door swung open again whacking the poor boy in the face and knocking him down onto his back as Penny walked in holding a large spool wrapped in a surprisingly thin metallic wire and very nearly stepped right on Jaune. "Salutations! Friend Ruby I have brought something that will greatly assist with the construction of friend Juane's new weapon!" Penny then turned her attention onto Jaune who was still on the floor "Friend Jaune, is there a reason that you are on the floor? Are you perhaps requesting to be stepped on?"

"What no! I just slipped that's all!" He quickly answered while rapidly picking himself off of the floor.

"Penny, why on earth would you think that?" asked Ruby who truly did not want to know the answer.

"I have often overheard the soldiers of Atlas expressing the desire to have Specialist Schnee step on them. I have also heard many of the students of Beacon express the same wish but in regards to Professor Goodwitch. To better understand this, I began to do research which led me to the subject of BDSM, which I found rather enlightening."

It was at this point Jaune decided that he did not want to hear any more and so he betrayed Ruby's trust by abandoning her in her time of greatest need by escaping and leaving her at the mercy of a friendly and naive robot talking at length of a subject that she did not truly understand.

Mistral was the biggest of the four kingdoms and easily the most diverse in terms of landscape and cultures. For proof, one only had to take a look at team JNPR who was entirely Mistralian even though all four members looked vastly different from one another and yet Lie Ren was born in valleys and Nora Valkyrie grew up with him, while Pyrrha Nikos was from the coast and Jaune was from the plains. However, Qrow Branwen wasn't here to visit any of those places, no the agent of Ozpin had come to the beautiful land of Mistral and went immediately to one of the least hospitable parts of the kingdom, the mountains.

"Damn it, why would anyone choose to live here?" Qrow bemoaned as he made his way through a small unnamed village that according to his investigation was where his target had been last sighted and so he kept going. He was aware that the villagers were giving him angry and suspicious looks and he was also aware that more and more of the village seemed to be following him, Looks like they are going to try and ambush me, though if that's what they wanted why haven't they attacked yet? Is it because I'm a Huntsman? For that matter why are they picking an unwinnable fight? Deciding to stop beating around the bush, he turned around to face the villagers, "I'm looking for a Huntress that went missing about a month ago, her name is Maria Calavera, she wears a porcelain mask shaped like a skull, dresses in blue and uses two scythes as weapons, does anyone know where she is?"

Suddenly every single villager pulled out a makeshift weapon and surrounded Qrow but they made no effort to attack, they just stood there waiting. Then an elderly man dressed in simple yet thick brown clothes came forward, "What do you want with her?"

"Look, I'm a friend who simply wants to know if she is alright."

"Hmmm, hand over your weapon and sit on the ground with your hands up, and then maybe I'll believe you."

Qrow considered his options as he looked at the mob and to be frank, they were no match for him, and judging from the fact they were trying to make him disarm himself, they knew it too. But they only became like after I mentioned Maria… are they protecting her? Did something happen to her? She was never the easiest person to keep track of but, after The Breach, I suppose nothing is out of the question. Qrow removed his scythe and tossed it away and then sat right down on the ground which seemed to greatly relieve the villagers.

"Alright then young man, please wait and don't make any sudden movements." The elder then turned to another villager and whispered something that Qrow couldn't make out but, judging how fast the villager then left, he could only imagine that it was important. The elder then turned back to Qrow, "Well soon we'll find if you're telling the truth. But I warn you! If you are lying your will not leave here alive!" Judging by how they were gripping their weapon and the steel in their eyes, Qrow had no doubts about whether or not they would try to keep that promise.

However he could only smile which greatly unnerved the villagers but he didn't care because, Looks like my luck is finally turning around!