A/N: Kept you waiting, huh?

Enjoy the chapter!

Jaune Arc

Jaune opened his eyes to the feeling of shattered bones and thoughts. The sudden onslaught of pain turned to nausea and he groaned, the action burning his throat from the inside out. He tried to push himself up into a sitting position, but his arms refused to move. He would have to make do lying on his side. Animal panic bubbled up within him, threatening to break free.

Deep breaths. He ignored the fact that he couldn't feel his limbs. One thing at a time.

He blearily blinked away the lights in his vision as pain continued to assault him like a swarm of wasps stinging every inch of skin on his torso. His post-coma confusion cleared as his memories flowed back, a burst sewage pipe of regret and pain. His mystery kidnapper had turned out to be far more dangerous than he had anticipated and Jaune paid for his complacency with his freedom and Aura. An unforgivable mistake. One of the many in the past few days he would have to pay for. Had paid for. Would keep paying for.

Why the hell is the default setting for nerves pain? Jaune groaned softly as a fresh batch of pain flowed through him. Without his aura he wouldn't be able to heal his rapidly deteriorating body, let alone move at all.

His mind was running at a hundred miles an hour trying to figure a way out of his current predicament. He had no idea where he was and if his current state was anything to go by, he'd been here a while. The stubble on his jaw itched and part of his vision was obscured by a cascade of dirty hair. His throat was swollen, and breathing was a chore. Constant suffocation was his reality

Almost faint from the pain, he gathered his strength and took a deep breath. His ratting cough echoed through the chamber.

"Who…who's there?" A familiar voice echoed through the hold. Jaune's blood ran cold.

Jaune remained silent, his internal calculations thrown out the window with the introduction of this new variable and all implications it had. What was she doing here?

"Speak up! Do you even know what you're doing?" Weiss's voice broke. "My team is going to hunt you down!"

He got Weiss too? Jaune cursed himself. Overconfidence in his abilities had allowed his opponent to fight him in the Bullhead where he had home field advantage. If only I'd fought him on the roof…

Weiss's fist slammed into the metal bar of the cage holding her and she muffled a very un-Weiss-like curse before sitting down roughly. All signs of her regal posture were gone, the confidence and poise replaced by resignation. Her hair was half out of her ponytail and was bunched up around her sagging shoulders. Jaune couldn't bear to see her like this.

He opened his mouth before closing it abruptly. That bitch Cinder broadcasted what happened in Ozpin's office. Jaune is probably the last person Weiss wants to hear from. She doesn't know about the Prometheans though…

Jaune would have slammed his head into the floor if he could've moved. Lies, half-truths, subterfuge. Somehow, in protecting his real identity, he had made Jaune Arc a more reviled figure in the public's eye than the Prometheans ever were. He'd have to pretend to be a Promethean, even in front of some of his closest allies.

He still couldn't bear to see her this way. Thankfully this body doesn't look anything like Jaune Arc. Even without half its face mashed to a pulp.

"I'm…not him." Caked blood and sweat on his face made moving his mouth hard. His voice was rougher than sandpaper. How long have I been out?

Weiss' head shot up immediately and she stiffened, before relaxing as she processed the words. She squinted to try and make out his form hidden in the shadows. "Are you a prisoner too?"

Jaune started coughing, feeling flecks of blood splash on his arm. Weiss shook her head sadly.

"You sound like a real wreck. How long have you been kept here?"

Jaune tried to estimate his stay here but couldn't conclude if it was a few hours or a few days. He barely remembered small windows of time when he had woken up to inedible slop being forced down his throat, immediately followed by a knock-out punch. His coughing finally, blessedly, ended and he drew a raspy breath. "No clue."

"Is there anyone else here?" She squinted at the other cages. There was one directly across her cage and next to his which was covered in a tarp. The one next to it was empty. Beyond that was a hole in the wall that led to the front of the Bullhead. "Seems empty to me."

Jaune grunted in response, feeling a broken ribcage grind painfully.

Silence fell between the two prisoners. The wind whistled outside the thin walls of the Bullhead; the din amplified by the metal walls. Jaune ran his tongue around his mouth, coaxing merciful moisture to wet his mouth and allow speech. He had to know more about his enemy before making any plans.

He had assumed that he was the sole target of whatever mission the aura-stealing freak was on, but Weiss's presence had dashed any possible explanation. Could he simply be cleaning up the students retreating from Beacon? Possible, but he had specifically ambushed Jaune at the warehouse. More information was needed. Information gathering is all I'm good for right now anyways.

"Do you know where he's taking us?"

Weiss shook her head. "No clue. I've been here for a day already. Though I think we're goi..." She stared at his cage with an intense expression.

He waited. She was deciding on something. Most likely if I can be trusted.

She sighed and looked down. "Never mind."

That hurt. It made perfect sense in the situation, but a lack of trust still hurt. The irony was palpable given everything he had done, everything he was. To his friends, to his mentors, to his enemies.

What hurt the most wasn't what he had done, but everything he had ignored. Deaths, betrayals, secrets. Everything that had threatened his mental state he had filed away, for later processing. He could feel the sludge leak from the cracks in his mental box, the trauma threatening to send him into a deep pit of self-loathing and inaction.

Not now. He took a rattling breath. He had to be strong now. Later.

"How'd you get caught?" An inoffensive question. A change of topic.

"I didn't." She chuckled mirthlessly. "I gave myself up."

"You didn't fight back?"

"I had to save my team."

"Your team?"

"I am, was, a Beacon student. Escaped the carnage with my team members through Vale and into the countryside. We made our way to Patch where two of my teammates lived."

"Ah. Did he kidnap them too?" Were any of the others here? Were they even alive?

"We'd split up to look for survivors hiding in the woods there. I came back to our camp to find that brute holding two of my teammates hostage. He said he'd give up my teammates if I gave myself up. The choice was easy."

Jaune held in his deep sigh of relief. At least now he knew Team RWBY were alive and out of Vale proper.

Jaune had opened his mouth to reply when the Bullhead's engines shut off completely and they started free-falling. His body cried in relief as his weight dropped to zero, but his senses cried in fear at the sudden loss of gravity.

Jaune heard Weiss cursing in surprise but his focus was on figuring out exactly what the hell had happened. No signs of attack, no mechanical distress, nothing to indicate an issue. But they were definitely falling, and fast.

Jaune closed his eyes, counting the seconds. We must be at terminal velocity now. A fall from a thousand meters in a Bullhead would take about 20s. That meant that if we fa…

The Bullhead's engines screamed, and the two prisoners slammed into the metal floor of the brig. Yang muffled a curse as her leg twisted under her body. All Jaune knew was pain as his broken body suffered the pain of 4 g's of acceleration. His hands clenched, the gloves on his palm preventing his nails from drawing blood. His teeth clenched, grinding terribly.

The Bullhead leveled out after a few seconds. Jaune's breath came rapidly, pain lancing through every iota of his being, the world passing into and out of focus. A tremor ran through the ship and the engine shut down. They had landed. He lay staring at the roof, too tired to even think.

The Bullhead's door opened and a massive gust of wind assaulted the insides of the brig through the hole in the wall. Voices mulled outside, followed the sounds of boots on the metal stairs leading into the Bullhead.

The door to the brig opened. Jaune felt unconsciousness sound a siren's call. He bit his lip to stay awake. He had to know where he was.

Why? A small voice spoke up inside him. It's not like that will do anything.

He didn't have an answer to that worm of self-doubt.

Weiss' cry of pain brought him back to reality. The door to his cage opened. A large hand grabbed him by the neck and dragged him bodily through the ship. Every single step sent shocks of torment through him and tested his tenuous grasp on consciousness.

They passed through the brig door and into the cold outside. White powder fell gently from the grey mass of clouds in the sky. He was high up, in a mountain. It was cold. Too cold for winter.

A pleased chuckle. The man dragging him stopped and dropped him causing his head to bounce off a rock. Snow. Mountains. Weiss.

Atlas.

A man appeared in his vision. Tall. White hair. Haughty and triumphant sneer.

Jacques Schnee tilted his head and said something Jaune couldn't understand. The world seemed to be spinning and all sounds ceased to make any sense anymore. The stock of rifle appeared in his vision and Jaune Arc was forced into blessed unconsciousness.

Patch, Vale
Earlier

Ruby stared at the retreating Bullhead with wetness in her eyes, frustration in her soul, and a finger on the trigger. In any other situation she would have already opened fire. Her precious Crescent Rose was powerful enough to shear wings from a Nevermore; a Bullhead was no obstacle. Weiss could easily escape a crashing Bullhead; they had practiced landing strategies enough to easily fall the 300 meters the Bullhead was at.

The real problem lay with the kidnapper. Her Dust rounds did nothing against the man. She had sent explosive rounds, incendiary rounds, and even used up the last of her gravity rounds.

Nothing.

Each bullet that came close to the man seemed to lose all the power behind it, all the Dust acting like its namesake in both utility and usefulness.

Getting close was equally useless. Blake and she had tried to rush him down after their bullets failed to work and had gotten smacked around almost immediately. His uncanny ability to prevent Dust from activating had also somehow caused their semblances to also stop working near him, leading to Blake being blind-sided on her first use of a Dust clone. Ruby had tried to reach her before the brute could but she had just stumbled and watched helplessly as he knocked out Blake out.

With ineffective bullets, no way to use her semblance near the enemy, and with Blake out of the picture, Ruby had already lost the mental battle. It wasn't long before she had lost the physical battle too.

And she hated herself for it. In her mind, she was the one responsible for Weiss' kidnapping. Her failure at leadership had let the situation reach a hostage situation. Weiss had been forced to give herself up for their lives. Ruby tried not to think about she might be going through at the hands of her kidnapper, but an overactive imagination is rarely controllable.

Blake groaned and Ruby stopped watching the receding shape of the ship. Blake was as much a teammate as Weiss was and she needed her help now.

"Did you," Blake took a couple deep breaths before sitting up with a groan. A purple welt was forming on the side of her head but she ignored it. "Did you get him?"

Ruby felt tears well up in her eyes. She didn't trust her voice and instead shook her head in response. I'm such a failure.

Blake noticed the look in her eyes and the quiver in her chin and decided to do something very un-Blake-like.

She pulled her team leader into a tight hug,

That broke the damn inside Ruby and she let it all out. Everything she had bottled up since Mountain Glenn only a couple days ago. Doctor Oobleck, the attack on Vale, the fight on the bridge, the Battle of Beacon, Pyrrha…

Blake rubbed her leader's back and shed tears of her own, acknowledging their shared trauma and the horrors they'd just gone through. Everything that had happened so far seemed so needless. So many lives lost out of the blue, snuffed out on the whim of the forces controlling the strings. The people of Vale, Beacon, Pyrrha, Wei…

She shut that traitorous thought down immediately. "Weiss is going to be fine. She's strong and we will get her back."

She wasn't sure who this statement was more for, but Ruby seemed to draw comfort from it. Ruby's tears ended and she broke the hug, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Her eyes were bloodshot but a fire burned inside of them that resonated with Blake. It was determination and self-confidence, a promise made as much to yourself as it was a statement of reality. No words were needed to communicate that.

Cinder Fall
Later, City of Vale

It was currently 4:02 PM and Cinder was not happy.

Many asked to describe her flaws would use such words as 'impatient' or 'prideful'. She would respond with a burst of flame followed by agonizing death by flambé. Not to say they weren't wrong; even Cinder often said the same about herself. Not out loud of course, but in the confines of her mind, however devoid of emotion they might be.

As loath as she was to admit it, she missed Emerald and Mercury. Their skills added a degree of safety to any situation, allowing her more freedom to plan and allowed for more risks.

And now that Torchwick and his little pet have absconded, I need to reform my plans. Time is of the essence.

She was currently standing in an empty square in the middle of the ruins of Vale. The mercenary she had hired should have showed up already and she could feel every wasted minute grate on her already low patience. She was willing to wait for one reason and one reason only: he was worth the price he demanded. The target had been a constant source of irritation for her in the past year and she had been glad to get a chance to eliminate her.

Any personal satisfaction she got out of it would be purely a bonus. One was allowed to take pleasure in their work after all.

The sound of Bullhead engines broke the heavy silence that hung over the ruined city. It landed in front of her and the door opened swiftly. A tall armored figure stepped out, face covered in a white porcelain-looking material broken only by a garish, demonic smile painted across it.

Cinder kept her subtle smirk fixed upon her face. She had heard of the aura (or lack thereof) this man exuded and had dismissed them outright. Now, she wasn't so sure. Those with their auras activated always exuded a non-physical warmth, a sense which had been made more sensitive after she had been gifted the power of the Grimm from her Queen.

If normal Huntsmen felt like lamps, the man approaching her felt like a block of ice. There was something soul chilling about him that made her skin crawl. She fought it. The easiest way to lose negotiations was to go in off-balance.

The man stopped a few feet in front of her and tossed the woman he had been dragging at the ground between them. Cinder nodded at the man and crouched next to the captive. Her blonde hair, normally in a neat bun behind her, spilled across her cut-up face. Cinder grabbed a fistful and pulled her head up, her moan of pain a welcome sound.

Her wounds seemed to be even more severe on closer inspection, which sent a savage thrill through Cinder. Perverse satisfaction forced a sneer to her face at the sight of recognition in the woman's face.

"Looks like dear old Ozpin failed in the end." Cinder whispered, savoring the hatred in the woman's green eyes. "You know what he said when he lay dying?"

The woman tried to lunge at her but blood sprayed from a wound in her abdomen, turning her already ruined white blouse even more red. She fell back to the ground, chest heaving in exertion.

Cinder's laugh was malicious.

"That's right. Nothing. How'd you know?" The Fall Maiden splayed her free hand theatrically, coalescing glass out of thin air. A razor-sharp knife dropped into her hands, its surface glinting in the afternoon sun.

"You have been a nuisance for me. Few are and I commend you for being one of them. Sadly, our time is at an end." Cinder continued to maintain eye contact as the knife slid slowly into the prisoner's chest. "Do be a dear and try to die slowly. For my sake."

A smile crept across Cinder's face as the tip of the knife reached her heart, the organ fluttering madly.

Cinder stood up without a word. She nodded deeply at the mercenary still standing where he had stopped, looking for all the world a statue. His work was efficient and she respected that. She snapped her fingers and four grunts ran out of a van nearby with four silver cases.

"Your payment. The quality isn't as high as you demanded, but the amount is doubled to make up for that."

He swiveled his head to stare at her, ignoring the grunts struggling to get the heavy cases up the ramp into the Bullhead. She stared back, waiting for a reaction. The only sounds in the entire neighborhood were the sounds of the Huntress bleeding out on the ground between them.

He broke the stalemate, nodding slightly before turning and marching back into the Bullhead. The ramp went up and the screams of the four grunts began. They were, after all, the real payment. Cinder had been surprised at the demand, but it had been difficult to find 2 small-time criminals with the aura levels anywhere near what the mercenary demanded. She was pleased he had compromised with the 4.

She turned her attention back to the body at her feet. The only movement left was in the twitching of her fingers and the slow spreading of the blood from her wounds. Cinder flipped her over onto her back and placed a foot on her chest, crushing the glass knife beneath her heel. The act was barbaric, but it was payback for the headache Beacon's second-in-command had given her ever since she had begun executing the plan to destroy Vale.

"Goodbye Glynda." Cinder's footsteps left a trail of blood. "Rest in torment."

The corpse, naturally, did not respond.

A/N: RIP Glynda.

Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter! The next one I swear will not be nearly as long a wait as this one was. I had to deal with real-life stuff, college, writer's block, yadda yadda. I also wanted to kind of reformat and replan the story in my head. The original ideas for plot were a bit of a mess and I think the new refreshed idea will both be more engaging and more coherent (I heard your messages and reviews, you know who you are haha).

I'd also love to hear if you have any suggestions or ideas about our mysterious kidnapper's name.

As always, please do PM any ideas/feedback, leave chapter reviews, and follow/favorite. I love interacting with you guys and hearing your ideas and feedback! See y'all next chapter.