Hey everyone, sorry this has taken forever, but I'm deployed overseas and finding time while typing this on a phone has been a real pain. Notable life experiences have included being held at gun point by government forces, dance battling a high ranking foreign officer for gold, getting my first tattoo in some distant jungle village, and pulling a junior solider from a moving vehicle as he was being kidnapped by a hooker and her pimp. That all said editing may be a bit shit, but i figured it'd be better to get this out now as i'm going back into the jungle soon and don't know when i'll have the chance to get to this again.

So, thing about being a detective, you actually had to detect stuff. Thinking back on it Jaune probably should have realized he didn't ever have to do that on his past jobs. A bit of violence, sure, legality; selectively ignored, actually finding stuff, well, that was mostly handled by Cardin's familiarity with the city and Junior, being an information broker and all. Probamaticaly Junior had sworn he knew nothing about the Fang or Roman, very quickly and with a bit of sputtering he might add, but to be honest Junior was a wanna-be at best. Sure, he knew some stuff but to have info on the hottest crime wave in the city was believably beyond him.

Which led Jaune to his current situation; standing outside the club with Blake looking at him like he was supposed to know what to do.

"So….?" She questioned.

Quickly his mind looked for something that wouldn't out him as a complete moron. "Let's go over what you've found so far." He settled on, the line of questioning sounding reasonable enough that he probably should have asked earlier.

"Not much." Blake said with a frown. "I was hoping I knew someone from my time in, but looking through records I didn't find a thing. I mostly worked with people from Minstral and Atlas, and the Fang works on loosely organized cells to ensure security. The Vale cell was always the least organized and active branch so I didn't really know much about them."

"So that's why you think it's weird they suddenly are such a big deal now." He guessed.

"Exactly." She confirmed. "From what I heard the Fang here mostly did PR. Without many SDC mining operations near Vale and relatively little open racism from the government, faunus didn't really line up to support us here. Moving to stealing so much dust just doesn't make sense for them, not to mention working with a human criminal"

That did put some weight to her imposter theory. He was happy to see this wasn't completely motivated by Blake's belief in how just the Fang was. Still, it left him at square one on what to do now. If Blake really couldn't find anything knowing the Fang as well as she did he didn't think that he could do much on that front.

Suddenly, he was starting to understand why Blake seemed so hopeless. The entire city had been looking for the Fang for months, and if the entire police force and a former member couldn't find anything how the hell was he gonna do better? Once again it seemed his delusions of competence had smacked him head first into the wall of reality.

Looking over to Blake he must have been wearing his feeling of growing defeat on face as he watched the same hopelessness she'd had back in his office come back to her features. It seemed Blake's perceptiveness had finally revealed him to be a fraud. Only a matter of time, really. Internally, it twisted his guts and had the voice in his head once again laughing at his patheticness.

"Jaune, I appreciate you wanting to help." Blake explained, her own thoughts jeering at her for thinking this would work. She wasn't stupid enough to not know how hard a task she'd laid before the blond, but she couldn't help a part of her from laughing at her for trusting Jaune. So lost in her hopelessness that she'd put her faith in someone she'd known wasn't capable of her task. It wasn't his fault, but somewhere she felt an ugly pang of anger at Jaune for his inability to help. She knew it was wrong to think but he'd always been incapable in Beacon, and she was wondering why she thought he'd be anything else now. "But, maybe-" Before she could get out her suggestion that they part, a hardening look on Jaune's face told her he already knew she intended to leave him behind.

"Follow me." He ordered as his feet began taking him down the street.

"Ok." She agreed as she lengthed her stride to catch up to Jaune, his unexpected steel catching her off guard. While it gave a glimmer of hope to him potentially being able to help her, the recent sting of her thoughts kept from fully embracing it. Always the cynic, she knew it was more likely he was grasping.

Wordlessly, Jaune marched down the block towards his destination, only once sparing a glance at Blake's complicated expression. He'd seen it enough to know it well enough. It was the look of someone eyeing him up and leaning towards him not measuring up. It burned his soul every time, but he couldn't fault her. After all it was his own failings that put people in that situation. He'd promised to help, and the pathetic showing of asking one person and then failing immediately wasn't worthy of anything but disdain. It made him pissed, not at Blake, but himself.

But he wasn't out of this just yet.

His feet took him a block or two to the entrance of a familiar sketchy bar coated in the stench of cigarettes; the bar he'd met Raven in. It definitely didn't have any Fang in it, but looking for them was a mistake he'd realized. Real or not they just knew how to hide from the law too well. The thing was, those weren't the only people who hunted faunas.

Shooting a look back to Blake he gave her the plan. " Wait a sec after I enter, find a corner, watch my back."

Simple plan for a simple job, he thought as he slammed the door open with as much force as he could muster without breaking it. Through the haze of smoke all eyes in the bar were on him, just like he wanted. It may have still been midday but the bar had a decent amount of rough looking customers in it. Briefly his eyes scanned their faces, a collection of rough looking patrons eyeing him with a look that told him they were ready to square up if he wanted to take it that way, some unsubtly reaching for concealed weapons.

A good deal of his marks holed up in these dime a dozen shit holes, the familiarity of them and the hostile nature to outsiders a deterrent to amateurs. They were fickle places for bounty hunters, if you handled them wrong you could have the whole bar on you as your mark escaped out some back way. He and Cardin had made that mistake once or twice starting out, but quickly got the hang of them.

At first they'd thought being unobtrusive would allow them to bag targets without incident from others, but as sound as that was on paper it never worked that way. The patrons would eventually notice them once they engaged and made a commotion and would hassle them. Mostly it was verbal, giving their mark a distraction to help bolt, but if the place was rough enough it would come to blows. If you were some criminal asshole and you saw some guys trying to sneak in and grab some scum, that could just as easily be you, in your hang it was in your interest to advertise the place as hostile; made it less likely you'd get pinched there.

The trick, he internally reminded himself, was to go as loud as possible. So as hardened glares stared him down he ignored them all with a cocky gate and a mean look on his face that begged someone to try something. With just that confidence most went back to their drinks. If you made it seem like the idea of someone's worst was a good time to you it didn't bode well to try to attack.

Course,that was smart, and if alcohol and poor life decisions breed anything it was stupidity. So when a large man stepped in front of Jaune's path with a hand pressed to a large knife strapped to his hip in challenge he wasn't surprised.

From a smokey corner Blake had melded into with Jaune's entrance she felt her hand nervously move to Gambol Shroud. Her senses told her it was't just her and Jaune's challenger moving weapons into place. Anxiously she realized she was seconds away from a blood bath.

SMACK

THUMP

At the flick of the wrist and the slightest bit of aura the large man hit the floor; a single backhand from Jaune leaving the man unconscious and bloody on the floor.

Internally Jaune felt his foul mood from his earlier failure start to evaporate as hard looks lost their edge and hands nervously went from weapons to drinks. Unbothered he scanned the patrons; their once challenging looks now not even managing to meet his gaze now. It was a group of four familiar faces sitting at a large table, doing their best to make themselves invisible that caught his eye .They may have traded their usually noticeable apparel for typical street cloths, but he recognised them all the same as the men who once so proudly declared themselves part of Cardin's father's anit-faunus gang. A dark sense of pride welled inside at him as their faces held barely restrained fear as he moved towards them; their earlier bravado and sickening pride now gone.

"Gentlemen." He spoke as he took a chair at their table, insultingly taking a beer from one.

"Gotta a lotta nerve showing your face here after what you done." The tallest man of the four spat with venom in his voice; fear sedated by pride and fury.

"Yeah, you ain't got no cops with ya now." Another added, starting to gain some spine at his friend's words.

"If you don't fuck off this bar will rip you apart." The third, a man with a scare, threatened. "Nobody takes kindly to law men here."

Casually Jaune took a sip of his new beer before turning to the bar. "Anyone here want to save their girlfriends?" He shouted, challenging the entire bar. Waiting a moment he saw no takers with more than a few people getting up to leave.

"Fuck you!" the tallest, and most likely the leader, snapped with rage. "We'll kill ya here and now without any of these pussies!" Shooting up he pulled out a handgun and pointed it at Jaune's face.

Unfazed he let out a laugh. Ignoring the gun he looked over to the only man out of the group to not speak and noticed a cheap prosthetic replaced his right arm, a new development since last time. "Looks like I already disarmed one of you." The wince on the man's face confirmed his hunch; back at the bookstore he'd used his aura to rend many a limp from its owner. "So why don't you sit your ass down before I start pulling you apart like the insects you are." He finished with his tone starting jovial and ending with ice.

For a moment the leader held his gun level, but his eyes betrayed as he glanced at his friend's prosthetic limb. The rage the man felt at the slight of Jaune's existence lost to the reality of the situation. Angrily he put his weapon down and resigned himself back to his chair.

"Glad you saw it my way." Jaune complimented with a hollow smile.

"You little fucker. If I was at that bookstore I would have made sure to slit your animal loving throat." The man seethed.

With the flick of his wrist Jaune sent his beer bottle into the man's face, the glass and beer mixing with fresh blood as it exploded on his forehead. Falling to the floor the man let out a screech of pain as he cradled his face.

"Now," Juane casually continued as he grabbed another beer. "We gonna stop pretending you all have any control of this situation?"

"What do you want from us?" The fromaly silent cripple asked, his tone marked with defeat and hopelessness.

"I want-

"Don't."

Hearing Blake's words he turned to see that she had appeared to level her gun at the man he'd smashed with a beer bottle. She'd intervened because he'd stopped sniveling on the floor and was aiming his gun at Juane's back. Not fatal only, but it could lead to the situation he'd dragged both of them into spiral out of control.

Shit, get your fucking head in the game man.

More words of disparagement at his sloppy mistake waited at the fore of his brain, silenced by a sudden need to act.

"Agghhh!"

In an instant he was on the would-be-gunman; fist raining down mercilessly.

CRUNCH

He was swift as he was merciless.

SPLAT

The man's attempt demanded retribution by the cruel laws of the lands they both inhabited and Jaune was happy to oblige.

"Now" he said as he stood covered in blood with thinly veiled cold rage in voice. "Where the fuck is the white fang?"

"W-what?" the amputee questioned in a terrified voice.

"The faunus!' He demanded as he slammed his fists into the table. "The one's stealing dust. You people have hunted the faunus communities for years, you know which are getting better armed and making moves."

"A butcher on market street!" The amputee quickly responded, the words leaving his mouth not a moment sooner than he could manage. "It was a fox that we'd muscle for payment for months. Then last week he refused and a bunch of fang fucks messed up the guys we sent to handle him. I got his address on my scroll." He explained as he hastily pulled up the information.

That fit the bill. If the fang were around Jaune knew they'd have to push back on these bastards' presence in some way. Instead of jotting the info on the scroll down he grabbed the device from the man's good hand and pocketed it. For a second he contemplated saying more but his job was done here.

"Hey." The man shouted as he turned to leave.

"What?"

The man, the only one gripped with fear and patheticness from the moment Jaune had entered, suddenly had a glint of the hatred that was the hallmark of the anti-faunas gang in his eye "You gonna do what you did to us to those animals?"

His hand twitched, even being at his mercy they couldn't take themselves from their hatred of faunus. Ideally his brain whispered for him to answer with his fists. It flashed memories of his beating at their hands and Blake's pained look in the forest. Internally he looked for a reason not to inflict more violence, but he legitimately couldn't find a reason at that moment.

A hand on his shoulder stopped his footsteps he hadn't even realized he was taking towards the criminals. Locking eyes with Blake he relaxed his fists. "What?"

"We got what we needed."

"Yeah?" What was her point here?

"So," She explained with unusual caution in her voice. "Let's go."

He shrugged "Sure." If she felt like they couldn't spend the time on this he was on the clock for her, technically. Leaving the matter he watched Blake seem to become more concerned at his casual answer. Before he could figure out what that was all about, a grizzled voice broke the silence of the bar.

"You piece of shit!"

Swinging his head to met the challenge he expected some low life short on brain cells looking for a bit of concussion therapy Jaune felt his annoyance spike further as he locked eyes with something worse. That asshole that stole his bottle and was to thank for his terrifying hook up; Qrow.

"No, you're the piece of shit." Jaune shouted back,too mad to realize how childish that comeback sounded.

"Excuse me?" Raven's brother asked incensed, as if he wasn't the guy calling out Jaune to begin with.

"Fuck you!" Juane shouted, content to settle on nonsensical angry yelling to anything of substance right now.

"Fuck me? Fuck you! You hit me with a van the other day!"

Oh yeah, he hadn't really put that to memory, too busy trying to save Cardin and terrified by Blake's driving at the time. Still fuck this guy. "You wanna do something about it?"

"I wanna kick your ass!" He shouted as if that was a no brainer.

Now, somewhere Jaune had an inkling that a guy that shrugged off high speed collisions with vans, hung out in this kind of bar, and not least of all had to survive Raven for extended periods of time was probably out of his league. "Me too!" Jaune also knew he was having a pretty shitty day and he owed this guy some hands.

"What the hell are you pissed about? You hit me!" Qrow angrily questioned. He was the wronged party after all. Where did this little shit get off being pissed at him?

"I had to meet Raven because of you!"

"Oh" As if on a dime Qrow demeanor completely changed as he realized he definitely did more harm than a run of the mill car crash. "Yeah, that's my bad." He admitted as he rubbed the back of his neck. It had been a mystery who had unpleasantly called his sister to pick him up. The event had honestly been a real wake up call on his drinking, but he was at a bar at noon, so…

"You're bad? I had to sleep with her!"

"Had too?" Blake questioned with the maximum amount of bombastic side eye.

"Eh," Jaune explained with a 50/50 hand gesture. "I kinda talked some shit and it was seduce her or die."

Yeah, the face Blake was making at Jaune told him she didn't believe that. "You can seduce more than your left hand?"

Ok, it seemed that Blake was pretty done with his bullsit and contact with her would result in more emotional damage than he could handle. So, back to Qrow it was. Who, currently, looked like he was having a stroke. "You ok?"

The next words from Qrow were delivered in the same tone someone might ask for their cancer test results in "You used protection right?"

"Uuuuuuummmm….." Holy shit it was hard to think about anything other than the look of disbelief that he could be so dumb coming from Blake. "I puked up a condom?" He managed.

"No. No. Noooo..oo.o…" Qrow moaned. He loved his nieces but holy shit they were part of the reason he had some much gray hair. If Ray had another kid, gods, somehow a bottle was already in his hand at the thought. She obviously won't keep it and this guy was a shady, violent, eighteen year old who frequented the same bars as him. Not exactly someone who Qrow saw raising kids well.

"Wait, I only went in the backdoor." Jaune finally remembered aloud.

"Oh, thank gods." Qrow proclaimed, that was amazing news. That was news so great he needed a celebratory drink. Thank the gods he already had one. "That saves us a lifetime of insanity."

"Is whoever Jaune slept with that bad?" Blake questioned. This whole thing seemed ridiculous to her.

"Yes." Both said in unison.

"Ok." Blake backed off with raised hands.

"Alright kid, never thought I'd say this but we're even on van thing." Qrow yielded.

Jaune raised an eyebrow. "Even?"

"Fine. I owe you a bottle. Happy now?"

"I'll take it."

"Uggh," the older man grumbled. "Damn blondes."

Well, that had Jaune feeling a bit better.

"Done yelling about your sex life, Jaune?" Blake asked, annoyed.

Ah, probably not exactly professional to goad people into fights on the clock. "Yep." he said with a cocky smile.

With one final eyeroll at his expense the pair finally left the bar to step onto the street.

"Want me to get a picture of the girl?" The man holding the camera from the driver's seat asked.

"Of course." Lisa chastised. "We have no idea who will make this story blow up."

"You really think this guy is news?" Her camera man questioned.

"No, I just like following random people all day." She snarked.

"Seriously, all day?" he complained, used to Lisa's antics but none too happy to waste a day following some random bounty hunter. "Ya think maybe you're grasping at nothing with Jan breathing down your neck?"

"The hell do you want me to do, Dave?" She irratly asked.

"The White Fang stuff has been good." He offered genuinely. Lisa might have been abrasive as all get out, but he worked as her cameraman long enough to know she was a good sort. She actually cared about being a journalist, not just some sponsored plastic idiot parroting whatever some suits put in front of her like most on air. "If we keep working it the pay off would could put us above Jan."

"We've been working it too long." Lisa sighed as she took a cig from a pack on the van's dash. "I need something new."

Ignoring Lisa stealing one of his cigs, Dave knowing she only had the very rare smoke when she was stressed, he relented on the issue. "Alright, lets go stalk some randos a bit longer."

It was a warm morning accented with a beautiful pink sunrise shining above the forests canopy, the rare moment of nature's serenity gifted to those that slummed it in the wilderness long enough. It put the men and women packing the camp in good spirts. It just made Blake feel more out of place.

The Fang encampment had more reason than the weather to keep the happy. The evening before they'd successfully ambushed a SDC convoy without taking any losses save for a non threatening wound to a newer member's leg. Even now Blake watched the young man boast of his bravery and newly gained war scares. It made her stomach feel sick.

The ambush had been textbook, with her and her boyfriend, Adam, leading the charge. The guards had only the chance to let loose a few rounds before they laid into them, forcing a swift surender. As she had watched the guards toss their weapons away and put up their hands she hadn't joined in the victorious shouts of her comrades as she had in the past. The feeling of relief at not having to kill anyone, was all she could feel.

It had been a few years since she'd left her parents to follow Adam and the Fang and she had proven to be nothing to be an asset to them sense that fateful decision. Her speed, stealth, and combat prowess made her looked up to by their newer members and her cheeks burned red at the memory of praise from Adams words and his body; It was euphoric. As she had improved scouting became infiltration then raiding, noting the numbers of oppressors had changed to fighting them head on. She took a deep breath through her nose as she looked back at her time in the Fang, a happy tune being whistled joyfully somewhere from the camp.

It had been rainy, she didn't see the guard behind the corner and he'd been on her in an instant, emptying an entire mag at point blank range had shredded her aura and put her on the ground flat. He would have killed her if he had gotten one more round in his weapons chamber, but it took her less time to roll and draw a bead on him than he could reload.

Adam had been understanding; praise, booze, and hot sex coming that night too fast for her to delve on thoughts of reflection. A pang of guilt lance into her brain at the memory of her joyfully toasting her comrades to the man's death. She had just been happy to do Adam and the fang proud.

It had been a few years ago, and never bothered her much in that time. He'd been a soldier, he knew what he did, just as she did; it was just war. Just like every other soldier or guard she'd killed sense. It was the cruel price of justice she told herself, and she'd racked up that price for the SDC and Atlas. The whistling changed melody to a popular song.

It chafed at her but she was still loyal to the cause. She would keep pushing until she saw her people free, and when she'd started every raid felt like a step towards that freedom. Now she knew well enough that the SDC and Atlas wrote the casualties they caused as overhead of operating. The fang could kill all it liked, it didn't stop anyone, if anything it just gave humans an excuse to lean on the faunus harder. So if this killing wasn't doing anything why did they keep doing it?

The whistle grew louder until she saw Adam come into view. Seeing him had always brought a smile to her face, especially seeing a rare moment of him being so carefree, but instead it just widened the pit in her stomach.

"My Love." He greeted.

"Adam." She acknowledged.

"Something troubling you?" He asked, sensing her unease.

The convoy had been secured, all the SDC employee, some techs amongst the group, where linked up at gunpoint besides a APC. Adam was looking all them over as some of Fang searched them for intel or concealed weapons. Business as usual for Blake as she made herself useful by mending their only wounded.

Looking at Adam she shot him a smile, her boyfriend humorously sticking his tongue out at her before smiling back. He was really a goofy guy when they were alone, it made her ach for the day this war was over and he could be all hers. It had been a rough few months but that smile lifted the weight of all the fighting for a moment. They had been arguing as of late, it seemed like she was the only one troubled by their violence and her questioning of their increase in violence had been putting her at odds him. It was good to remember she was fighting for justice with the man she loved.

One of their men approached Adam and informed him that they'd completed their search. Casually he spoke a few words to the man before dismissing him. Looking back he flashed Blake a smile that made her heart soar.

CRACK

Her heart fell almost as hard as the prisoners corpses.

"Love?" Adam questioned, bringing Blake back to reality. "What's wrong?"

Shaken from her memory she looked back at her boyfriend. For a moment the words of what bothered her lay in her throat, but they died. She had done this before;told Adam what was wrong, how she hated all this and seemed to be the only one not reveling in hatred and savagery. It always lead to a screaming match, before Adam dismissed her in a rage of his own. "Nothing." She replied in a tone he should have seen right through. Mabye she was too tired to lie convincingly anymore, maybe she just wanted him to care.

"Good to hear love." Was all he said before turning away. As he walked out of her sight he began to whistle his happy toon again.

"Blake?"

"W-what!" She exclaimed loudly as Jaune's question shook her from unhappy memories.

"You just looked like you were spaced out." He asked from their place on the street.

"Yeah….Not a big fan of that song."

"Oh, my bad." Jaune apologize. "It was just really popular a few years ago and I got it stuck in my head." Embarrassed, he rubbed the back of his head. "Didn't even realize I was whistling" he mumbled.

"Were you gonna attack those guys in the bar?"

Jaune was caught for a moment at her question. "I was thinking about it."

"Why?"

"They were bastards." He answered with a shrug as he reached for a cig in his coat pocket. Looking down he brought his light to the cig he'd placed in his lips, frustratingly the first few strikes of flint failed to produce any flame. Still trying, his eyes absently moved to Blake.

A look too complex for Jaune to decipher stopped the flint in his hand. For a moment they stayed still; blue and gold eyes locked.

Finally, Blake spoke with a voice that dripped with disappointment. "That's not good for you."

He didn't exactly know how, but he was too familiar to not recognize that he'd disappointed someone else in his life. Burning humiliation welling inside him as his mind flashed a million repeats of this moment with only the faces of disappointment being different. With shaking hands the light moved from its position and the knee-jerk word of sorry came to Jaune's lips as it always did in this moment he never seemed able to escape.

A cold shiver had him shiver and a foul sent assaulted his mind more than his nose. Tearing his eyes from Blake's he looked to a dingy alley beside him. Even as hurt burned at him he couldn't help but notice an overhang and a dumpster holding some not-so-rotten food that his brain casually denoted as a great place to sleep for the night.

When he looked back to Blake no thought of sorry existed in him. With a flick of his thumb a flame was produced and his cig started to burn. Blue met gold again, matched with faces mirrored in anger.

"Hey, guys gotta have something to numb this city." He retorted before turning to continue on.

He was numb and covered in blood.

Looking back on it when Jaune had planned out how he was gonna find out where the Fang was from the butcher it had all seemed pretty simple. Guy sounded like just some scared shopkeeper in over his head, not some hardcore terrorist. In his head he'd kinda figured he could just ask for the information, maybe a touch of light intimidation if the situation called for it.

The butcher lay on the ground; his blood pooling on the ground from a massive bullet hole in his forehead.

Needless to say, things hadn't gone to plan.

"Uhhhh…." he managed through the shock that had settled over him since everything had gone to hell. "Blake you wanna…."

From the store window he could see his new "partner" was about a block down the road and showing no sign of stopping her dead sprint. Guess she hadn't taken the butcher's phone to call an ambulance.

Ideally he noticed the sirens first, then the blue and red lights painting the walls almost as much as the blood did.

The bell on the business's front door rang, heralding the arrival of someone new.

"Mr. Arc." An overly polite voice spoke, drawing Jaune's gaze. "I thought it was past time we met." The person Jaune recognized as a police LT continued. "We have much to discuss." He spoke with an evil smile.

Well hope you all enjoyed this. See ya'll next time.