A/N: Hi everyone it's certainly been a while. Real life has been hectic with the work increasing exponentially and the holidays. On top of that I've gone back through and reread my own story and taken notes so any small thing that might've gotten missed doesn't. I appreciate the feedback and hopefully I'll get back on track for more regularly scheduled updates. Maybe like once a month or so, I'll work out a plan in the future and update it on my profile. Will probably drop another musical one shot too relatively soon if you follow that as well. Anyway enjoy the chapter.

CH 21

Somewhere in Vale

"The number you are trying to reach is not available, at the tone please record your mess-" The automated voice said before coming to a stop as the scroll was slammed shut.

A laugh came from the man's left. Well he couldn't exactly hear the laugh but he knew it was there as he turned to face the little ice cream munching midget currently laughing at his situation.

"Need I remind you that this situation I currently find myself in, it involves you too." The red haired man said.

After a few hand gestures were made the man sighed once more.

"Yes Neo, I realize that."

A few more increasingly wild hand gestures.

"Look Neo I don't know what to do now. That bitch would kill us if we endanger her plans. Plus even then we still have to deal with those animals as well because for whatever reason they're getting some dust too." The man said before letting out a sigh.

"Man, I hate those psychopaths." The man said as he drew a cigar from his pocket and lit it before taking a long drag and plopping down next to Neo.

Neo just nodded in agreement and went back to munching on her bowl of ice cream and clicking through the various TV channels before stopping on a news channel report that caught her eye.

After watching it for a few seconds and reading the chyrons rolling across the bottom screen she turned to her right and tugged at Roman's jacket before pointing to the TV.

This pulled the thief out of his own thoughts as he turned to stare at his partner in crime only to see her pointing to the TV. As he turned his head towards the TV one small phrase escaped his lips upon seeing the image displayed.

"Aw shit."

Meanwhile in the basement of Beacon Academy

*tap tap tap*

*tap tap tap*

"What is that sound?" The thought rang through her mind as eyes slowly blinked open and her vision refocused.

As her eyes refocused, a panel of glass came into her vision as she was looking at a stone ceiling through it.

*tap tap tap*

"What is that?" She thought once again as she rolled her to the side to see the very smug grin of a middle-aged man with tousled silver hair with shaded glass spectacles hiding the thin brown eyes behind them.

She recognized him immediately.

"OZPIN!" Cinder shrieked as she tried to gather the maiden powers within her to fry the arrogant looking man in front of her.

"Ah ah ah." The spectacled man tsked at her, further infuriating her and driving her rage.

"When I get out, out of here, I will. I will." Cinder said as she started to become out of breath.

"I see you're feeling the effects of the transfer. Good to know that worked well too." Ozpin said as that stupid smirk of his grew wider.

"Will you stop antagonizing her, Ozpin?" General Ironwood said from nearby as he helped the bunny faunus student out of the other pod along with the towering man, who was somehow bigger than even him, who he'd come to know as Yatsuhashi in the about previous half hour.

"Are you kidding James? She tried to instigate a plot that would be the downfall of Beacon, not to mention she tried to kill the previous maiden." Ozpin said as he faced the general before turning his attention back to the prisoner in the pod.

"Anyway "Cinder", if that is your real name," Ozpin said as he used his fingers for air quotes around Cinder, while managing to hide the smile that came from seeing how this made Cinder more upset before continuing.

"You've more than likely noticed but you are no longer to draw upon your maiden powers. Likewise we have also placed you in restrictive huntsman grade cuffs that negate your aura and your semblance so you will be unable to draw upon any of those. So in short, your power is gone and so is whatever evil plan you schemed to bring down Beacon." Ozpin said as he watched her intently.

"Surprised I know that? Well you really shouldn't be. I mean come on, big Vytal festival coming up, Beacon is hosting, and the fall maiden trapped down below the school. What better way to cause a distraction than chaos within the biggest festival on the planet? Oh and your lackey sang like a songbird by the way. We have you dead to rights for everything." Ozpin said with a cheshire grin.

"He would never." Cinder said weakly as she breathed heavily trying to finish her thought. "He knows he wouldn't make it away from me."

"Well to be fair to him, you haven't exactly followed through so accurately on that. I mean you tried to kill Amber, threatened to kill me, and then threatened Ozpin, Beacon, and literally ALL OF VALE. You're kind of batting low here as far as followed through threats go." Qrow said with a grin.

"Qrow don't you have somewhere to be before your semblance shows up?" Ozpin said as he turned to face the usually drunken man.

"Alright alright, I'm going. Don't have too much fun." Qrow replied with a wink and smirk as he casually made his way to the elevator, taking a swig from the flask he pulled from his hip before putting it back.

With a ding of the elevator sounding, notifying the remaining parties that Qrow had left, Ozpin turned to the General and the specialist standing besides him.

"Well you two have fun. Myself and Glynda will be escorting Ms. Scarlatina and her team back to their dorm. Don't do any permanent damage to her, we'll still need to sentence her for her crimes and maybe try extracting info from her that her peons might not have been privy to." Ozpin said as he began walking towards the elevator as Glynda moved to follow suit behind him.

"Headmaster, should we really be leaving James and Winter alone with that criminal?" Glynda asked as the pair stepped onto the elevator, out of earshot of the two in question.

"It'll be fine. Cinder has had her power taken away, has little to no aura, and has huntsman aura prevention shackles on her to prevent her from restoring her aura to a level capable of drawing upon it or using her semblance." Ozpin said as he held the button to keep the door open as Ms. Scarlatina and her teammates slowly worked their way inside.

Once everyone was onboard, Ozpin pushed the button for the lobby and began to address his students as the elevator began to ascend.

"Ms. Scarlatina will more than likely be a little woozy for a bit, but do not worry as that is to be expected. Basically to put it in terms you all might understand better, is that she just took a ride on a tilt-a-whirl on steroids. That should wear off in an hour though at most. Just help her to her bed so she can lay down and maybe get a trash can by her just in case."

"But what about-" Coco began before Ozpin jumped in already knowing exactly where this was going.

"Once Ms. Scarlatina is feeling better, we can continue the brief conversation we had prior to the transfer and answer any and all questions you might have, including training, classwork, and attendance for you all and her because of her new found powers." Ozpin said as the elevator's ascent began to come to a halt and the doors opened to the main lobby.

"But for now please go let her get some rest and Ms. Adel if you really have any pressing questions I can answer them now rather than waiting for her to recover after a nap." Ozpin said as he stepped off the elevator and held the door for the students behind him.

"I think I'll be okay to wait until after we let sleepyhead over there take a nap but if I think of anything I can send you or Ms. Goodwitch a message or an email." Coco said as she cleared the way for Fox and Yatsuhashi who were carrying Velvet between them.

"Sounds like a plan to me Ms. Adel, now if you excuse me I need to go see another student and inform him of some news as well." Ozpin said after the two men carrying the rabbit faunus had passed him and he turned to head towards the infirmary to go update a blond knight on the situation.

Back at the warehouse somewhere in Vale

"I don't know what we do now Neo. I've never dealt with a woman who could kill us with her bullshit semblance getting captured by Beacon." Roman said as the ice cream themed girl made lots of hand signs.

"Neo, this was not in the criminal handbook for dummies, I don't know."

Neo made some more hand motions before acting like she was at a cash register and was checking out.

"We should cash out? Like sell all the dust?" Roman asked as he tried to confirm the hand motions made by Neo.

Upon receiving a nod plans started to form in his head.

"Well if we offload what dust we have here, we can possibly try to snag some more from those animals and then what we don't snag we can anonymously report the rest and stop their attack."

Hearing this Neo acted like she was holding a microphone and talking.

"Yes Neo, I'll probably use Lisa for the news tip."

Neo hearing this started making mock vomiting motions.

"Will you quit acting like you're throwing up? It's fine, it'll be just the tip."

Upon hearing this Neo started to alternate between laughing and mock vomiting.

"Ok maybe not the correct wording but don't worry I'm just going to inform her of the pending criminal activities by a certain terror group so she can report it to Beacon and they can stop it. Beacon gets a win, Lisa gets her story, and we get the cops off our back. It's a win-win-win."

Neo hearing Roman explain all this made a show of putting on imaginary headphones.

"Fine, put your earmuffs on when she comes over, not like it'll matter."

Even with that assurance Neo was still sure she would need them.

Beacon Infirmary

*knock knock knock*

Jaune turned his head to the door where the knocking sound came from before calling out, "Come in."

After hearing permission the door opened and in stepped Headmaster Ozpin and Ms. Goodwitch.

"Good afternoon, is there something I can do for you two?" Jaune asked the pair as they walked over and took a seat near his bed.

"We've come to inform you that we have apprehended Cinder, the girl who attacked Amber, as well as her followers." Ozpin said as he leaned in to judge the boy's reaction.

Jaune smiled and nodded before responding that Qrow had in fact done the job Ozpin had sent him to do and told him of that.

"Well did he tell you that we were able to strip her of the powers she stole so she won't be able to harm innocents using them ever again?" Ozpin said with a grin as he continued to gauge the boy's reaction.

What Ozpin saw wasn't entirely obvious to those not looking as Jaune hid it well, but a sense of relief that seemed to wash over Jaune was noticed.

"It's good to hear someone else say that. Qrow stopped by earlier but hearing you say that brings me relief. He didn't mention that part, he just wanted me to let them know she was stopped and couldn't come after anyone here." Jaune said as he smiled and leaned back into his hospital bed.

"Well I've got some good news on top of that too Mr. Arc." Ms. Goodwitch said as she spoke for the first time since entering the room.

"Oh?"

"It would appear you are being cleared to be released and return to your dorm room." Ms. Goodwitch said with a smile.

"Awe heck yeah." Jaune said with a fist pump, showing how excited he was to get back to his own room and bed.

"Indeed," Ozpin said as he stood up with Ms. Goodwitch following suit. "We'll let you be so you can call your teammates and those you care about to inform them of this. I'd be expecting the doctor to come here sooner than later so maybe have them come and escort you back in case of any lingering issues. Can't have a student collapsing in the hall, now can we?" Ozpin finished with a smile and turned as he moved to the door.

Ms. Goodwitch followed suit, standing and wishing Jaune a good day and congratulating him on his recovery before moving to the door and following Ozpin out of it as Jaune pulled out his scroll to call his teammates.

A few pushes of buttons later and the call connected as it began to ring.

"Jaune, it's good to hear from you. We were actually just about to walk over and see you." Ren said through the scroll.

"Great, I was actually about to ask if you guys could come see me. I'm going to need some supervision/assistance getting back to our dorms. Doctor / headmaster's orders." Jaune replied

"We're on our way, Jaune." Ren replied before the scroll conversation was cut off.

"Well now that they are informed, I might as well call Willow and let her know I'm being discharged." Jaune said as he pushed a few buttons on his scroll and dialed his wife.

After a few rings the call went to voicemail, so Jaune hung up and sent her a text of "Being discharged from Beacon's infirmary today. The Headmaster and Doctor said I should be good to go. Might try and see if I can get a few extra days off class. :)"

A few moments later he received a text back from Willow that read "In a meeting, call you back later." Followed by an additional text that read "Hooray!" and was accompanied by a few party emojis.

It was clear to Jaune the first text was sent before she got his but he was happy the message was conveyed nonetheless. "Hopefully her meeting is going well." Jaune thought to himself as the door opened up and Tsune walked in.

"You're being let go today, Ozpin probably already told you that. Don't push yourself too hard. I'm excusing you from combat class for this week but that doesn't mean you don't have to show up to it or your other classes. Glynda pitched a fit when that happened last time and I'm not taking the blame for anyone. Anyway that's it so if you understand that, your team will be here in a few minutes so I'll get out of your hair and let you get ready for them to help you walk back to your dorm." Tsune said with a final wave as she exited out the door to move onto the next task needing her attention.

Meanwhile over in Vale

*Knock knock knock bam*

"That must be Lisa now." Roman said as he looked over at his ice cream themed partner in crime who was indeed munching on more ice cream.

"I swear I don't know how she doesn't get any cavities with all that sugar shen consumes." Roman thought to himself as he walked to the door before stopping to confirm it was who he thought it was.

After a quick look through the peephole Roman saw the familiar head of pale white hair with purple hues and began unlocking the door and letting Lisa inside quickly.

After Lisa entered, Roman shut the door and locked it behind them.

"All right Roman, what's this big story you're talking about that is so big we had to meet in person?"

"The White Fang are planning an attack on Vale with the dust stolen in the past few months."

The fact that Roman was so blunt about what he just said was just as much a shock to the reporter as it was the actual info in the words he just said.

"Can you say that again?" Lisa asked nervously.

"The White Fang are going to commit an attack on the city of Vale before the Vytal Festival." Roman repeated.

"Oh shit, that's what I thought you said…" Lisa said as she trailed off and began to be in her own thoughts, only for a moment though before she spoke again.

"WAIT A MINUTE! ROMAN YOU'VE BEEN STEALING DUST FOR PSYCHOPATH TERRORISTS!?" Lisa shrieked.

Roman had never been more thankful he installed excellent soundproofing.

"Lisa calm down and let me-" Roman said before he got interrupted.

"No, don't you calm down Lisa me. This isn't a bank robbery at the 1st Valean street down at the corner of Brick and Reed. This isn't even't the OLD White Fang we're talking about here when they were peacefully protesting and picketing for better treatments. These are a bunch of psychotic murderous fanatics!"

"Look I didn't have a choice alright? It was a literal gun to the head moment." Roman tried explaining.

"What bunch of poorly trained terrorists managed to get the jump on you? You really expect me to believe that?" Lisa said as she gave the thief a deadpan stare.

"No it was the huntress and her huntsman minions behind her that did it. You really think a bunch of ragtag terrorists could get the jump on me? I'm THE Roman Torchwick."

"You're THE pain in my ass is what you are." Lisa muttered to which Roman simply raised his eyebrows repeatedly.

Roman could almost hear the mute girl behind them sigh and begin putting on her top of the line noise canceling headphones she 'found' and her footsteps as she began making her way to her own room.

"Why must you antagonize that poor girl like that?" Lisa half asked and half mumbled.

"Because it's fun, now back to the important issue at hand here. Terrorists, bombs, chaos equals a great inside scoop for Lisa to give to proper authorities."

"Yeah because the Vale Police Department can handle a bunch of radical terrorists and their huntsman backers." Lisa said with a roll of her eyes.

"Not those proper authorities, those guys couldn't catch a fish in a barrel, let alone stopping an actual criminal. Hell I've done more than those bozos and I'm ME, ROMAN TORCHWICK, when I stopped a mugging just a few days ago just down the street." Roman said before Lisa cut him off.

"Wait, that was actually you? We had a report on that but no one would believe it so it didn't get run."

"Well maybe you should've reached out for comment. Jokes aside though the proper authorities here are Beacon. They already caught the backers, now I just need you to give them the info on the peons so they can catch them too."

"Alright, give me the info." Lisa said with a sigh as she held out her hand before a manilla folder containing a surprising amount of paper inside it.

Lisa opened the folder and looked through it all, noticing how detailed things were before she looked back up.

"You didn't do this, did you?" Lisa asked with a skeptical tone as she continued perusing the information in the folder.

"No I didn't but I did remove some of the documents in there. Notably any information made by a now prisoner of Beacon's making it clear that I wasn't doing this completely at the gunpoint. Oh and the location of two of the safehouses containing dust." Roman said with a smirk.

"You're going to go steal the dust you stole, aren't you?" Lisa asked with another sigh.

"That's something I won't answer so you don't get implicated." Roman said with a grin as he began walking to Neo's room.

"Alright I'll go head to Beacon, I'll see you later Candlestick." Lisa said with a smirk of her own as she walked out and heard the annoyed growl of Roman through the door. "Heh, funny everytime. Might be paying for that later, but first to Beacon. I have information to give and a scoop to score." Lisa thought to herself before jumping in her car and gunning it to the bullhead docks.

Meanwhile at a warehouse in Vale, a group of men in black suits with red ties and sunglasses approached the building, at the front of them was Roman Torchwick and Neo.

As the group came to a stop just outside the building, Roman nodded to Neo who disappeared into a shatter of glass as the bowler wearing thief turned to the goons.

"Alright look boys, what we have in this warehouse is literal tons of dust so I'm going to need you all to look alive. Remember, no explosives and no firing of guns. You all are here to drive the trucks away. Neo is here to incapacitate the White Fang inside and I'm here to give instructions, supervise, drive one of the trucks, and make sure this goes off without a hitch. Now when Neo returns, we'll all make our way inside, jump in the trucks and haul ass. Any questions? No? Good." Roman said before taking another drag from his cigar and putting it out.

As Roman finished putting out his cigar the air to his left began to crackle as Neo reappeared with a smile on her face and began making a few hand motions none of the goons could understand.

"Done already huh? There weren't that many of them? Really? Well talk about a lucky break." Roman said to his partner in crime before turning to the hired help.

"You heard her boys, the enemy is incapacitated so let's get the dust before the others come back from their donut and coffee run." Roman said as he started to jog towards the building as the goons followed in hot pursuit.

Upon entering it was increasingly obvious Neo had not only dealt with the terrorists inside but also fleeced them all and whatever valuables she could find.

"Always the efficient little runt." Roman muttered before spotting the trucks, which thankfully still had dust in the beds.

"GO GO GO!" Roman said as the group made their break for the trucks as another frantically hit the buttons to open all the garage doors before jumping in the last remaining truck and throwing it in gear as the trucks peeled out into the street and drove off into the sunset.

About 10 minutes later a young bespeckled man came back with coffees and a bag of donuts from the shop down the street. "Hey guys I'm back, aw shit. Adam is going to blow his top." Perry said as he looked around at the carnage and took in it all, including the missing 6 tons of dust.

Back at Beacon, the latest bullhead had managed to touchdown and off stepped one Lisa Lavender, who after taking a minute to get her bearings began making her way to the headmaster's office.

As she was making her way there she saw a group of students walking back. There was a ginger haired girl, a black haired boy, and Pyrrha Nikos along with that blond huntsman student who stopped Roman at the restaurant a little bit ago appearing to lean on her for support a little bit. Deciding that they might know more information on the the location of the headmaster or Ms. Goodwitch, Lisa approached them.

"Hello." Lisa said with a wave as she walked closer to the students.

"Oh hello there, um can we help you with something?" The black haired one asked.

"Hopefully you can, I came here to give some information to Headmaster Ozpin and Ms. Goodwitch, and was wondering if you knew the location of either of those two. I was just going to head to Ozpin's office but since I saw you all walking here I thought I'd take my time and ask to possibly save myself a trek." Lisa explained.

"He should be in his office I think." Pyrrha said as she pointed with her free hand towards the direction of the tower.

"Ah, I figured that thank you for confirming that Ms. Nikos." Lisa said with a nod.

"Hey wait, you're the TV lady. You're always on every morning giving the news." Nora said with excitement.

"I am and you are?" Lisa asked slyly.

"I'm Nora and this here is my partner Ren." Nora said as she grabbed one of the boy's hands as he gave a polite wave with the other hand.

"Nice to meet both of you but it looks like I've held you all up for too long as it appears um- I didn't get his name but you're blond friend here looks like he needs to go rest." Lisa said.

"Oh that's our fearless leader, Jaune. He got hurt pushing himself too hard in training." Nora explained as Jaune gave a polite wave similar to the one Ren gave.

"Interesting, well please be safer in the future. You all are the future protectors of humanity after all. It wouldn't do for you to get hurt in school and be unable to graduate." Lisa said with a sincere smile as she began walking off towards the headmaster's office.

"Bye TV lady!" Nora said with an over exaggerated wave as the group of four began making their way back to what Lisa guessed would be their dorm if the way Pyrhha was supporting Jaune was any good indication.

"Very interesting how a certain fearless leader had a ring on his left ring finger. I wonder if the Schnee matriarch knew the blond boy was taken when she pecked him on the cheek." Lisa thought to herself before deciding to push those thoughts away and come back to them later as she had a more important task to focus on.

After arriving at the base of the clocktower that served as the headmaster's office, Lisa checked the doors to see if one was unlocked. It was and with a pull of the door she went inside and began making her way to the elevator across the hall.

After waiting for the elevator she got in and pushed the button for the top floor and waited as the elevator began to ascend. After a short ride the elevator made a pinging noise as the elevator doors began to open. Upon their opening Lisa saw four heads turned towards her. Headmaster Ozpin's, Glynda Goodwitch's, General Ironwood's, and one of in not the best huntsman in Vale, Qrow Branwen as his head was turned to the now open elevator doors.

"I'm sorry Ms. Lavender but I don't believe we have a scheduled interview or anything for today or in any recent memory in fact." Ozpin said as he lowered his mug onto his desk.

"Well you did have me escorted off the premises after asking you and your students questions for an interview." Lisa said as she stepped out of the elevator and into the main office area.

"Indeed, so that begs the question of why are you here?" Ozpin replied.

"Because talking about this," Lisa said as she held up the manilla folder that she had kept under her arm, "over the phone would be too dangerous and you all are the only one me and my source can trust to deal with this problem."

"All right then, well let's see just what this "problem" is." Qrow said with a hint of sarcasm as he grabbed the folder and walked over to Ozpin's desk as the four of them gathered around the folder as it was opened.

After a minute had gone by and it was clear the four of them had read the information in the folder, Lisa heard Ozpin let out a sigh before speaking.

"Qrow in the future, please don't speak and tempt that damn semblance of yours."

"Sorry."

"Ozpin do you realize what this is? The White Fang are going to attack the city of Vale. This is horrible." Glynda said.

"I will deploy extra soldiers and bots to the areas in town." General Ironwood commented.

"Actually you may want to look at the back pages. There's notes in there from my source. The one who had a literal weapon to his head was forced to work with the terrorists by a certain raven haired huntress who spoke of a strong mysterious backer." Lisa said, trying to explain it the best she could.

The four others crowded behind Ozpin's desk looked at each other briefly before moving papers out of the way to get to the aforementioned notes in the back of the folder.

Once there they all began to read over them as Lisa watched the expressions on their faces change from those of intrigue to shock, horror, anger, and all the other emotions in between.

"This is ludicrous. She was actually planning all of that? It's a good thing we got the information when we did to stop Cinder and her minions." Qrow said as he was the first to speak.

"Indeed." Ozpin said before turning his head towards General Ironwood. "James, I want your bots to go search the underground sewers and see if they are using that as a passageway to get into Mountain Glenn. Glynda update the next missions for the first year students. I want team RWBY with Dr. Oobleck AND Port on this mission." Ozpin said before Qrow interrupted him.

"You want to send my nieces to fight these damn terrorists? Have Jimmy send his troops over there instead." Qrow said as he tried to protest the decision.

"Don't worry Qrow they'll be safe, because you're going to and we're going to have another team follow them soon after." Ozpin said with a smirk.

Qrow made to reply but was interrupted by a cough from Lisa to remind them all that she was still there. "I'll just be on my way now if you all don't need me for anything." Lisa said as she turned and walked to the elevator.

As she did so she heard Ozpin's voice call out from behind her. "Thank you Lisa and tell Roman we'll try to ignore his working with terrorists for providing us this info, but he will still need to face SOME consequences for attacking and trying to rob the person planning to bring millions in revenue to the city."

"You're welc- wait how did you know it was Ro-" Lisa replied but was cut off by the elevator closing.

"How did you know Torchwick was the source?" Qrow asked the gray haired man.

"Because Roman is a thief with morals. The fact that he was working with the terrorists, much less the White Fang of all people, showed he wasn't exactly doing it of his own free will." Ozpine explained.

"A good observation Oz." Ironwood said as he held up another one of the papers, and read it before giving a shout.

"They have the code to overwrite our Atlas Knights?! I need to immediately inform Atlas about this so we can patch this." Ironwood said as he went over and hopped into the elevator and began the descent down.

"Yeah I guess I'm going to head out and start packing up some stuff for the trip." Qrow said as he walked over to a window and opened it before jumping out and transforming into his bird form to fly off.

"Do you really think all of this will be enough to stop the White Fang?" Glynda asked as she looked at Ozpin who simply turned his chair and stared out the window to the world below.

"It'll have to be Glynda. It'll have to be."