There was a hush in the small coffee shop as a dark and mysteriously beautiful woman and an armored blond-headed Huntsman stumbled into the establishment. It was clear that they had been through a great deal recently. They were exhausted, sweaty, and carried a few scratches that had slipped through their Aura. As the pair moved towards a window table in the back, the crowd parted. The woman's closed off body language when glancing towards anyone other than her companion made sure that no one would approach their isolated table.

"So, Jaune," Blake Belladonna spoke for the first time since the stealthy exit from the train had turned into a running battle against nearly eighty Creeps. "Is this sort of thing 'normal' for you?"

Jaune chuckled. "I did try to warn you before we jumped. It will take a while before the Doctor-ness is washed out of our systems. Expect weirdness to happen a bunch."

"I have to ask...that paper, what was it?" Blake wondered aloud as she looked at the menu.

"Psychic paper, evidently. Something about illusions based on electrical signals being transmitted to the viewer's brain or something."

"It is just paper," Blake stated flatly.

Jaune smiled a half smile that reminded Blake of better days. "Paper from a man with a Box that can travel through space and time that is bigger on the inside."

"That is a fair point," Blake conceded.

The continuation of the conversation faded away as the waiter approached. Blake ordered Kava tea and Jaune ordered coffee.

"Make sure it is about as black as my friend's lovely hair," Jaune added before ordering the most ridiculous chocolate doughnut imaginable.

The waiter laughed and went to put the orders in. Blake rolled her eyes. "Smooth."

"Felt we needed some humor," Jaune admitted. "I have to say, you're a great Huntress."

Blake looked down. "I'm...not a Huntress."

"Not yet, but you can be," Jaune prodded. "Look, you saved my life three times. Three times you had every opportunity to follow Rule Number One: Run. But you came back to save me. If that isn't a sign that you're meant to be a Huntress, then maybe I'm a horrible judge of people. I did hang out with the Doctor for nearly four months..."

"You barely know me!" Blake nearly shouted. She quickly quieted down. "I appreciate everything you have done for me, but I want to know why? What's your angle?"

"My angle?" Jaune squawked. "Do I have to have one of those?"

Blake's amber eyes bored into Jaune's blue. "Everyone has an angle. People I trusted for years, because I believed they had an angle I knew and supported revealed they were changing into dangerous people with even more dangerous angles."

"I haven't checked, but I'm probably blacklisted from every Huntsman Academy on the planet because of, you know," Jaune mentioned. "If I'm going to be honest, and I am, I want to at least feel like a Huntsman for a bit. Maybe I'm clinging desperately to some kind of fairy tale, but it is my fairy tale."

Conversation paused as the order was delivered. The pair sipped on their drinks for a few moments. "This is not a world for idealist," Blake lamented.

"Remnant really isn't," Jaune concurred. "But isn't it worth fighting for? I mean, I don't want to be beaten by the world."

"The world will try," Blake continued her lament.

"The world will try," Jaune actually agreed. "Remnant is going to throw everything it can at us. I plan on throwing it right back."

"So, you'd answer hate with hate?" Blake challenged Jaune's wording.

"That's not..." Jaune sighed. "Well, there goes my speech writing career."

The former White Fang member smiled weakly and shook her head. In her, very short, time with Jaune, Blake had picked up on a few tells. Jaune 'jawed' as he thought. He would open his mouth, and shut it, as he debated which word to use. Jaune wasn't the best speaker when put on the spot. He wasn't eloquent, but he was clever.

After the third 'open and shut', Jaune's brow furrowed and his eyes lightened. "What I meant was, I want to give as much good to the world as the bad I take from it. If the Grimm attack, I want to help fight them off. Then stick around to make sure the people can either build their defenses or help them find a new home."

"Idealist," Blake relented with a smile. Her thoughts traveled across the breadth of time and the sea to another pair of idealists. Shaking those thoughts away, Blake refocused on the man in front of her. "So, what are we going to do now? I don't think the two of us exactly have access to lien."

"We do have a particular set of skills." Jaune's head wobbled as he gave his answer.

Blake rolled her eyes. "We're not going to find, and kill, the human traffickers that kidnapped Spruce Willis's daughter."

"But we could probably take out a Creep using a bulldozer," Jaune pointed out.

"Please," Blake answered with a wry smile. "Don't bring up any more Creeps. I have destroyed enough Creeps to fill some kind of Huntress quota for the next year."

"For real," Jaune groaned. "I lost count after the one I killed with that shovel."

"Let's not talk about Grimm. This cafe is too nice," the ebony-haired beauty suggested.

"It is very nice," Jaune agreed. The light meal and coffee ended. Jaune paid with his account. Blake opened her mouth and started to lean towards Jaune. "There's a reason."

"I sure hope so!" Blake hissed.

"Later," Jaune promised as he rose from his seat. His grin was cautious and hopeful. Blake's shoulders slumped as the tension bled away. Her mouth narrowed to a crease.

As Jaune held the cafe's door open, he almost withered under the look Blake gave him. "I know you can open a door. My mom and seven sisters drilled courtesy stuff like this into me. I have an instinctive fear that if I don't do stuff like this, they'll teleport to my location and beat me into a very thin paste. If I go, I'd much rather be buried in something other than a tin pail."

"Seven sisters," Blake drew out the word as she walked past.

"Uh, yeah," Jaune confirmed...dumbly. His jaw clenched as he realized that Blake Belladonna did not walk. She strutted.

And by the Gods, did she look good doing it.

Jaune Arc hadn't expected there to be a woman on the planet comparable to Pyrrha, but Blake Belladonna was enthralling. His wandering thought, and gaze, was drawn back to the present proper course by a blunt "No".

"Aw come on, babe. I'm sure we can show you a time," a humanoid creep said with a grin that was greasier than a diner fried breakfast.

'Probably as healthy,' Jaune thought sardonically.

"I think the Huntress said no," Jaune quipped.

"Freaking beta," one of the locals grumbled as he flicked some lint from his jacket sleeve.

Blake didn't look back. She kept heading in the direction of a local hostel. Jaune lengthened his stride as he observed the tension in the lead creep's shoulders.

"Don't," Jaune ordered. "I'd really like not to have my friend elbow me in the face when I try to stop her from stomping you like the last dozen Creeps she's finished off."

"Wha?" The jacketed local spat.

Jaune rolled his eyes. "Do you think our weapons are for show? Just...go home."

Much like his traveling partner, Jaune didn't spare a second glance to the two locals. 'How does she move so quick in heels?' Jaune thought as he lengthened his stride to catch up.

"You didn't handle that like I thought you would," Blake filled the silence.

The wandering knight quirked his lip. "How did you think I'd handle it?"

"By making it all about you. Trying to see who was the 'biggest' man," Jaune's fellow fugitive explained.

"Three things. First, I've seen you fight. You didn't need help. You needed support. Second, again, I have seven sisters. They hated when people tried to fight their battles for them. And you definitely don't need anyone to fight your battles for you. You're better than I am," Jaune finished with a laugh. "Third, you remind me of my best friend. She's as capable as you are. I know better than to get in a Huntress's way."

Blake laughed. She actually laughed at Jaune's declaration. "Afraid of women?"

"Heck no!" Jaune shot down that notion faster than he had laid out Blass back at Sanctum. "I love women. I just know not to piss the fairer sex off. That never ends well."

"I will have to thank your sisters and mother for training you so well," Blake teased as she spun and paused in front of Jaune. The blond nearly ran completely into the woman.

"If you could distract them long enough so that they don't kill me for the fraud thing..." Jaune partially joked.

"You have seven sisters," Blake reminded Jaune. "I couldn't keep my eyes on all of them."

"Can I go fight the Creeps again? I think they'd have more mercy on me than Verte and Magnolia..."

The next morning, Jaune flopped into the chair across from Blake at the hostel's cafeteria. "I got us work."

"Work?" Blake asked with a quirked eyebrow.

"There's a riverboat taking some parts to a lumber mill near the coast. From there, we can probably catch a ship to Sanus," Jaune explained.

"Your 'psychic paper' probably came in useful," Blake pointed out.

Jaune patted the pocket where the tool from the Doctor rested. "It will. They asked to see our credentials. All we have to do is get on board, and we can take it from there."

"Are you sure?"

The young man stared at his fellow-on-the-lam-associate. "Was going to wing it. Winging it has worked so far..."

"Jaune," Blake said with a stern look and even sterner tone. "We fought eighty Creeps."

"Yes, and we're alive," Jaune countered. "We also made sure that those Grimm never reached this town in strong enough numbers to put everyone here in danger."

"You aren't wrong," Blake relented.

"I sense a but," the young man added.

Blake shook her head. "You are taking risks. Big risks. First, you used an easily traceable lien card to pay for our meal. Second, you've signed us up for a potentially dangerous mission. Yes, things have turned out alright, but how long will this luck last?"

"There was a reason for the card," Jaune said in a small voice.

"What? Do you want to be tracked down?"

Jaune looked at Blake. "A bit, yeah. I can't call home. There's no way for me to contact my family or my best friend. Any letter I send would get seized before my parents even knew it was written."

"You're risking everything, to send an indirect message to your family?"

Jaune sighed. "I just want to let them know that I'm safe...ish."

Blake sipped at her tea and avoided eye-contact for a moment. Memories of home coursed through her veins like ice water. The warmth of the tea did little to chase away the chill in her gut. "I..."

"Don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." Jaune lifted his palms towards Blake. "If you do, I promise I'll respect your secrets."

"Thank you," the young woman whispered. It wasn't the reaction she had expected. Blake had become so used to people prying into her life. She had assumed everyone wanted to know her secrets to control her...like Adam had done.

"You're welcome," Jaune said genuinely before dashing off to create a towering monstrosity of a breakfast plate from the food line. Blake found his genuine attempts to politely pig out hilarious. It was the single most 'guy' thing she had ever seen. In the White Fang, everyone had eaten their rations in silence and as efficiently as possible. Jaune was shoveling food into his mouth as if he had never eaten before. "Oh my god, I haven't eaten since that cheeseburger on the train."

"I was as hungry as I've been in a while," Blake admitted without realizing it. She had no idea why she was letting her guard down around Jaune.

"I bet," Jaune replied. "Now, Blake. I have a hugely, monumentally important question."

"What is so 'hugely, monumentally important', Jaune?"

"Pancakes or Waffles?"

Blake blinked. "Pancakes or waffles...is important?" Jaune nodded. "I've never really had either. Pancakes I guess."

"Am I the only person who prefers waffles?" Jaune lamented.

"Well, pancakes are rarer. How often do you see toaster pancakes?" Blake asked, but quickly quirked an eyebrow. "I still don't get this conversation."

"Nothing really to get. I was just hoping that someone else would prefer waffles to pancakes," Jaune admitted.

Blake watched as Jaune fiddled with his fork. His attempt at humor had likely been an apology. Jaune's plans had become reckless, but they weren't bad plans. 'It's like he is trying to prove to the world that he can do it.' Blake thought. 'He believes that he can, but Jaune is trying so hard to prove it.'

"When do we leave?" Blake relented after a few moments in thought.

Erithros Stavro watched as the 'courier' of his latest message exited his office. The smell of alcohol followed the man as easily as trouble seemed to. Still, Erithros could not doubt the man's efficiency in sensitive matters. Word had reached the headmaster of Sanctum that Jaune Arc had used his Scroll in order to pay for a meal in a small village. Stravos knew Jaune wasn't that clumsy. The young man had been sending a signal that he was alive and most likely safe.

'In all likelihood, there will be investigators sent. Remnant's interests would be best served if Vale's agent got to him first,' Stravo thought.

His thoughts quickly turned to the questions surrounding Jaune's transcripts and applications had been leaked to the press. Currently, the investigation was being handled very quietly. The 'why' was fairly clear; a trashy gossip rag wanted some new dirt connected to Miss Nikos to sell papers. The how was also obvious. A tunneling program had been installed into Sanctum's computer network. Stravos had requested several Specialists from Atlas to quietly trace the impact the tunnel had on the security of Sanctum and, by extension, Mistral as a whole.

The program was fairly sophisticated. Colonel Arroz seemed especially troubled by how easily the program had been allowed to access so many parts of the network. The report presented to Stravos had even raised concern that the program could have spread across the entire CCTS.

'Arroz is certainly exaggerating. He is an Atlas Intelligence Agent. It is his job to overstate a threat so that the Kingdoms can be prepared for the worst possible outcomes.'

Still, it was worth bringing up to the Council. It was a shame Jaune had been burned so completely. The possibility of using the clever young man as a double-agent was tantalizing. Jaune could have been a great agent for looking into the source of the program.

"Some opportunities simply slip away," Erithros lamented. He keyed in a Scroll ID and connected on a voice call.

"Good afternoon, Headmaster Stravo. It is a pleasure. Is there anything you need to discuss?" Pyrrha Nikos greeted with the warmth and politeness she had become known for as much as her skill in the arena.

"I would just like to inform you that our mutual friend is doing quite well," Erithos reported.

"That is wonderful! I… have also been in contact. I was very glad to hear from him," Pyrrha both thanked and reported to her mentor figure.

'I should not be surprised. Pyrrha and Jaune were quite close,' Erithos acknowledged. "Excellent. I hope we can both catch up with him in person very soon."

"Yes," Pyrrha said sadly. Absence was certainly making the heart grow fonder. "That would be lovely."

"Have faith," Erithos said.

The 'Invincible Girl' sighed. "Is there anything else, Headmaster?"

"Miss Nikos, which Academy are you considering?"

"I," Pyrrha paused. "Jaune and I were very excited to apply to Haven together. That… is no longer an option."

"The doors to Haven, Shade, and Atlas are closed to Jaune. Beacon however..." Headmaster Stravo let the words hang in the air.

Pyrrha beamed. "I hear autumn in Vale is lovely."

"Quite," the headmaster agreed. "Good afternoon, Miss Nikos."

Pyrrha felt as though she was walking on air as she departed. There was hope yet.

"I can travel like this…" Jaune declared breathlessly. It was a way to cross Remnant in comfort and not in one of those awful flying things.

Blake rolled her eyes, but her wry grin betrayed her good humor. "Flying isn't that bad, Arc."

"You're right!" Jaune agreed. His grin was equally teasing. Blake found it was very different from the grins Adam used to send her way. Adam mocked in his smiles. Adam's smiles always held an edge of cruelty to them. There was no cruelty in Jaune Arc's smiles.

'He is too honest,' Blake realized.

"Flying is so much worse!"

"Is it?"

Jaune nodded with the intensity of the righteous. "So. Much. Worse."

"Motion sickness?" Blake asked.

"Motion sickness," Jaune confirmed with a nod.

Blake started to mention storms and the various pitfalls of sea travel. However, Jaune just seemed so happy. There was no way Blake could rob Jaune of such simple optimism and happiness.

Three hours later, Jaune Arc had come to the realization that he could not, in fact, travel like this. It wasn't necessarily the motion of the ocean. It was what happened when a storm arrived.

And the Grimm that followed the storm arriving as well.

Oh, and being one of four 'trained huntsmen or huntresses' on board. Jaune, being well… himself, could not refuse pleas for help. He had rushed onto the deck without a second thought. Blake had been right behind him. Jaune had read a bit about aquatic Grimm. He had heard of the great sea drakes, and Megaladons. Jaune hadn't expected a trio of hideous looking Grimm to flop onto the deck around him. Unnatural ice crystals rested along the dreaded Grimm mask. The air shimmered unnaturally around the massive bulbous creature. As it reared back, exposing foot-and-a-half long serrated tusks, Jaune got a solid look at a Death's head design of bone and scar-tissue upon the beasts' chest.

"Oh come on!" Jaune growled as the first Grimm flopped towards him with surprising speed. Fortunately, Jaune read the pattern. The creature relied on its sheer size to bowl into a victim before bringing down its vicious tusks down in a stabbing hammer blow. It was honestly pretty easy to dodge the attack.

Even though Jaune was struggling with his footing.

And his stomach.

Adrenaline could only help so much. Jaune knew he had to end things quickly. He charged forward, praying the water thrown onto the ship by an angry sea wouldn't cause him to trip at the worst possible moment. Jaune recalled Pyrrha's advice from his days at Sanctum.

'You will not always fight in ideal conditions. It will be more important than ever to be aware of your stance..'

Strange, but hearing Pyrrha's voice in his head was a comfort. Jaune quickly remembered to widen and lower his stance. His calf muscles burned as he pushed off to stab into the exposed flesh of the enemy. Crocea Mors bit deep into the pseudo-flesh of the beast. Jaune smirked as he was extremely confident that something vital had been struck by his attack. The fugitive Huntsman glanced over the form of his foe. He was worried about Blake. 'Probably shouldn't have been worried...'

Blake was practically dancing around the Grimm. She was moving with a grace and ferocity that was almost mesmerizing.

Besides, Jaune remembered that the best fighters he had encountered had been women.

Shame he couldn't remember he was in a battle to the death versus Grimm. Jaune had been certain that his strike had hit something vital. 'Mammalian' Grimm had roughly the same internal structure. He had landed a powerful stab to the 'core' of the Grimm. The core was tangentially the 'heart' of a Grimm. Jaune had struck close enough to that nebulous region to kill the Grimm.

Jaune barely managed to squawk out a "What?" before one of the enemy beasts crashed bodily into his back. The Grimm were likely very young, because the impact actually helped Jaune to a small degree. Crocea Mors was pushed deeper into the core. The Grimm died with a scream.

The semi-Huntsman didn't really hear the scream as he screamed from the force of the impact. He had been attuned to 'feeling' the status of his aura. Pyrrha, and the instructors at Sanctum, had drilled that he wouldn't always have a Scroll or arena screen to keep track of his Aura.

That blow had taken a huge chunk out of Jaune's Aura. Grimm evaporating when killed was a blessing, since this freed Crocea Mors. Jaune wasted no time and spun in a desperate horizontal slash. He had expected to strike the beast's tusks, but they cleaved straight through the Grimm's neck. The head hit the deck with an audible thud.

"You owe me one!" Blake shouted as she retracted the 'ribbon' part of Gambol Shroud. Jaune did not respond with words. His stomach was lurching more than the ship. Jaune had truly put up a valiant effort against his greatest and most terrible foe.

It was not to last.

Jaune, overcome with motion sickness, vomited on the last remaining Grimm as he spun to face the creature. There was a part of Jaune that wanted the Grimm to kill him then and there. He had just thrown up in front of a pretty girl that wasn't related to him. He had managed to have a real connection with just one other woman like that; Pyrrha. Jaune had ruined that shot by becoming an international fugitive. Now, his motion sickness had torpedoed that.

At least the Grimm seemed stunned.

The opportunity in battle, gross as it was, couldn't be passed up. Somehow, the 'outburst' had stunned the monster. The layers of fat-like material surrounding the Grimm prevented the usual tactic of piercing the core in a single blow. So, Jaune attempted to stab the beast in the face. The sole surviving Grimm was evidently made of sterner stuff than his kin. The beast lowered his head quickly to turn Crocea Mors aside with its tusks.

"Hiyyyyyaaa!" Blake cried as she landed on top of the Grimm and drove her sheath-sword deep into the beast's skull. It died with a whimper. "Jaune! Are you okay?"

"Physically? Yes. Pride… eh?" Jaune responded half-heartedly.

Blake flashed a comforting smile. "Don't feel bad, I can't handle spicy food at all. My m..." She paused and looked wistfully at someone. Someone who was very far away. "Well, I was always teased for not being able to handle my hometown's cooking."

"Can't have a reaction as bad as I did," Jaune countered.

"One time, my cousin snuck some specter pepper sauce into some of my spaghetti sauce. I cried. I can't handle the spice at all."

"No big brother to avenge you?" Jaune asked as Blake led him back into the ship. The other two Huntsmen had been older, and thus ordered to say inside as a second line of defense. Thus, it was just Blake and Jaune on the deck.

"Only child," Blake revealed as she fished a towel from a random suitcase.

"Thanks," Jaune replied.

"But yes, only child. I don't have seven siblings to either prank me or avenge me," Blake answered with a smirk.

"Sometimes, the pranker and avenger are the same people," Jaune revealed.

Blake laughed. "I have to hear that story."

"I'll tell you later. I could use a bath and for the world to stop moving..."

Author's Note: First, the good news. New update! And yes, those were Walrus Grimm. I wish I could say that was planned, but the idea just came to me.

Now for the bad news...

Hiatus Notice:

I hate when writers do this, but I do believe you all shouldn't be left in the lurch. I'm putting all my RWBY stories on hiatus for the foreseeable future. There are several reasons for my departure.

First, I haven't been hugely thrilled with the direction of canon RWBY. Volume 4 and Volume 5 have been disappointing. V4, I gave a mulligan to. It was the first volume rendered in Maya and post-Monty. The volume… felt as though it was treading water. Volume 5 started with promise, but once it it hit the house… Everything just felt stalled. Instead of addressing the Pyrrha-shaped elephant in the room… we got BIIIIIIIIIIIIIRDS. Not to say there weren't great moments in V4 and V5, but the sense of stalling and other issues outweighed them from me.

Second, there is a lot of toxicity in this fanbase. I'm not a member of the subreddit, but even I know about the bumblebee song incident. It dragged the VAs into the mess. Then there was the AMA and how Miles is hestiant to write Jaune scenes because of the chorus of "He's an SI!" unwarranted criticism. I've also never seen so much cucking/NTR in a fandom. 90% of it is trolling of Arkos. I have never seen any other pairing targeted in the same manner. Speaking of which, you may have noticed that "Extra Curricular" is gone. That's no coincidence. I tried writing NTR. Damn near threw up. Deleted everything I had worked on past the first chapter. If "Extra Curricular" comes back, it will probably be a mix of lemons and slice of life oneshots… and exclusively Arkos.

The final reason is somewhat connected to the previous. The last straw in my decision to step back from this fandom is my experiences on a fairly well known RWBY, primarily Jaune, centric server. I met some great people on that server and had some good times. However, I never felt that Arkos and Pyrrha was a welcomed topic by a vocal portion of the members. I can name several moments where Pyrrha and/or Arkos were painted in a negative light where even mentioning Pyrrha was unnecessary. I'm not going to dredge up more dirty laundry about those incidents in public. The final straw, however, was on Valentine's Day. There was a massive amount of meme-ing about Pyrrha being dead. A message to the two members who were responsible for all of it: I get it. Pyrrha's dead. There was also a good bit of spamming Pyrrha cucking Jaune art. For two people who are 'indifferent', their actions gave proof to that lie. But the real reason I left? It was blatant trolling and most of the mods were as indifferent as the agitators claimed to be. Granted with the state of flux due to a semi-vacuum of leadership that existed, I should not have been surprised.

Now for the tl;dr version of this, I'm stepping back. My Naruto fic and Chains of the Kindred fans will be happy to know I'm going to focus on those fandoms for a while. I'll be looking at whether or not I'm coming back to RWBY. Thanks to two new servers I'm apart of… it's looking like I will be back eventually. I'm not sure if my current fics will remain as they are. Some, such as Beacon: Academy and In Vino Veritas will most certainly remain unchanged. Sanctum Days is likely to remain as is. Extra Curricular will be rebuilt from the ground up. Jaune Appetit… I'm debating.

I can promise you'll never see a color-swapped Weiss becoming some kind of thirsty mirror inverted… thing in any of them.

Sorry for being salty at the end, but I do hope I'll be energized by this hiatus and return. In the meantime, if you want to support some awesome Arkos writers, I suggest the following:

Smstanton of "4 Years at Beacon"
Solora Goldsun of many fics
soulfulbard of many fics
WarrenDSherman: of "From Embers to Dust" and great Artwork. He is responsible for the cover to "In Vino Veritas"
Harmonious Arkos Sloth: of "Product Placement" and "Blame Discord!" fame.

I am sorry to disappoint you all, but this is something I feel is warranted. I need to determine if I should continue as I was. Who knows? I may break down in a week thanks to my actual Discord friends and start writing and building up a backlog. However, I will probably not be back to RWBY fics until May at the earliest. As to when I start writing? I'm not sure. I will not be putting my fics up for adoption at this time. If you see any of my RWBY fics re-posted during this hiatus, they are not authorized and I will be reporting them.