"Alright, one more time." John commanded.

Ruby dragged her boot back and tightened her grip around her weapon, it was nothing like Rose's scythe, essentially being a regular gardening scythe with stickers on it but Ruby liked it, Rose forbade her from naming it or else she would "Become attached to an actual farm tool.", Ruby wanted to argue that she wouldn't but Rose just gave her that I'm literally you look that she does sometimes.

Jaune readied his sword and shield, the sword was pretty close to a scaled down version of his older counterpart's own but John didn't have any kite shields so they settled with a buckler for now, probably for the better given Jaune's size. Despite his solid stance, Ruby could tell the he was really nervous.

It wasn't hard to see why.

John stood before them, he seemed more like a walking mountain as opposed to a person, maybe that was just past experience changing her perception but that's what she saw, a mountain that loomed over them, watching them, judging their every move.

"Any day now," the mountain goaded, holding his arms up to show empty hands, "I'm an unarmed bad guy ready to do something naughty, what will you do?"

Ruby casted a glance Jaune's way, he held up two fingers on his sword hand then pointed to John with his shield. Ruby nodded back, team attack B was probably the best opener they had.

Jaune charged forward with a cry while Ruby used her semblance to cross over and come in from the right, John's left. The two were en route to clash with their opponent at the same time, Ruby brought her scythe back for a swipe at his side. A forearm came up to block the attack, causing Ruby to mentally celebrate.

He fell for it.

Ruby used her semblance to throw herself to the side and curve back in, reappearing from the storm of roses behind John. He was so distracted by his younger counterpart that he didn't notice Ruby's new position, just as they planned. Ruby aimed for the back of his knees with all her might.

Clang

Ruby yelped as her scythe bounced off John's aura and out of her hands. She barely fell out of the way an axe kick before staring up, when did he turn around? Why is he so fast? Ruby glanced around him to see Jaune climbing to his feet slowly, so much for being a distraction.

The girl took a step back, she then launched herself to the side using her semblance in an attempt to get her weapon back. She nearly reached it but crashed headfirst into something rock solid, throwing her on her back.

Aura nullified the blow but her ears still rang. She looked up to see John twirling her scythe between his fingers. How did he get to it before her? He wasn't this fast when they last sparred. What changed?

Ruby scrambled to her feet, Never get caught lying down, Rose always said. Well, Rose 'always says' a lot of things, like There's no such thing as too much red and Leave Blake's books alone, it's not worth it. Those other two probably didn't apply in a fight but the first one definitely did in more ways than one.

John used the butt of her stolen weapon to jab an incoming fellow blonde, Jaune didn't even get time to stagger properly before his older self kneed him square on the nose. Ruby winced. Yeah, John was a bit harsher on the boy, it wasn't like Rose was any different, though. Ruby didn't know if it still counted as child abuse if you were technically the child and the abuser but some of the "Girl's only training sessions" she had experienced definitely felt illegal in some way.

John rounded back on her, feeling satisfied with the beating he had bestowed upon his young, naïve counterpart. Ruby tried to think of a strategy to avoid her impending defeat but only came up with one.

Running, while being very un-huntress like, became all too tempting, she could call it a tactical retreat. John crouched and prepped the scythe with some flair. Why does he know how to use it? Ruby fell on her semblance once more, staring down the huntsman in hopes of dodging his approach.

An approach that never came.

John stood up straight and whirled to his left. Someone ran into the clearing from the direction John was now facing seconds later, a boy around Jaune's age, probably a bit older. The boy paused in surprise as he panted hard, clearly not expecting eyes to be on him upon his arrival.

"M-mister, uh, John?" There was a pause as the boy gathered his thoughts, "Goo-good evening, you're, uh, you're wife told me to call you?"

John leaned his body slightly to look behind the boy, then he quickly scanned the surrounding bushes, "Did she tell you why?" He asked, voice laced with more confusion than suspicion, "I thought she was asleep."

"Bandits, we're under attack by bandits, lots of them!" The boy's previous awkwardness was slowly being replaced with urgency.

It took John a second but he nodded in response, "Ruby, Jaune, be safe. I'll be back in a minute."

Ruby gave the man a little cheer while Jaune groaned, still kissing the grass. With that, the huntsman ran off.

Three seconds of uncomfortable silence passed before Jaune decided to break it.

"Are either of you gonna help me get up?"

Rose ducked under a machete swing, the wielder probably aimed to take her head but honestly, it was so slow it left the huntress feeling insulted, these were the oh so scary bandits that razed this village? Was there no huntsman living here before John and her decided to move in?

Well, probably not seeing as no one was trying to help her fight, they were all too busy cowering in fear. Rose didn't blame them for being scared, she did -however- fault them for not preparing for such a situation.

But that was for later, now she had to be a hero. Even if she was unarmed.

She swept a guy's leg and jammed her fist into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him as he hit the ground. The second guy caught her fist with his face before graciously offering his shoulders so she could vault over and dropkick a bandit behind him. Rose thanked him by hurling him at said bandit for a quick double k.o

She turned to her next target, a woman raising a rifle in the huntress' direction from a good distance away. She must have positioned herself so she could squeeze a few shots out before Rose got close, a sound theory were it not for one thing. The huntress dissolved into a streak of rose petals before reappearing behind the bandit less than a second later.

Wait, Rose felt gears turn in her head, this is perfect, I have to try. The huntress raised her hand and brought it down on the side of her opponent's neck in a quick chopping motion, she even channeled aura into the strike for a little extra oomph, come on, fall! fall!.

The bandit did not fall, she yelped in pain before rounding on Rose with a knife, aww, it worked for Ren. Truthfully, Ren only did the karate chop trick in front of her once but he looked so cool doing it, like an action movie hero. She had to try, right? No... no she didn't. In fact, now she felt kinda silly, luckily no one was there to see it, every other bandit was either beaten or escaped, leaving only this woman. Rose caught said woman's wrist before she could lift her knife, Rose then punched the bandit in the face, holding her close so she couldn't run. Once... twice... there! Rose let go and the bandit fell to the floor, unconscious.

That makes 23, she thought, and she did it without killing a single one. Sure, her experience has made killing all too easy for her, but the people of Sukengiri would probably feel very uneasy if they saw corpses strewn across the floor right outside their wall.

"Why'd you call me if you were gonna deal with it yourself?" John kicked the head of a stirring bandit as he asked that, sending them back to sleep.

"Half of them ran away, I want you to deal with these guys while I go after the rest." Rose made a vague hand gesture to her previous opponents.

"And, you're chasing random bandits through the forest at night for what reason?"

That earned him an eye roll, "Look at the bandannas, they're Brawnwen tribe, that means..."

"Raven."

"Exactly, I'm gonna give our spring maiden a little bit of a wake-up call." Rose flexed her fingers before pausing, "I need Jaune, though. Is he okay to go now, because I need to go right now."

John suddenly lost the ability to meet her eyes, "Yeah, about that."

"It doesn't make sense to me, how is it not your semblance?"

Qrow put his glass of whiskey down and turned to stare the huntsman in the eyes, "My semblance is bad luck, the bird thing is unrelated. Besides, can't we have this discussion in a less public setting?" He asked, gesturing around to the distinctively not empty bar they were occupying.

Nelson shook his head, "Nuh uh, we're talking about this now, you are a huntsman, you unlocked your aura, and now you can turn into a bird. It's a semblance."

"Why don't you believe me?"

"Because you can't prove you have aura powered misfortune, but I saw you turn into a bird. Besides, your parents named you Qrow, so it's probably hereditary."

"What proof do you need? You've had so much bad luck every since we started working together. What about that time you fell off that cliff, you nearly died?"

"I slipped on a pebble, even the best huntsmen make mistakes."

Qrow blinked, "An Ursa shoved you off."

"Yes, I would've stopped it if I didn't slip on a pebble. Either way, I lived, if your semblance was actually misfortune I would have landed on my head or something."

"Obviously my semblance can't reach you at the bottom of a cliff."

"What a convenient excuse, it only works sometimes, does it? Your bird form can be accessed at any time but your 'real semblance' is so limited and sporadic, forgive me if that seems unlikely."

"You know what!?" Qrow threw his hands skywards, "You're right, I've been wrong this whole time. I tried to trick you like everyone else but you saw through it, way to go, champ. Can we drop this now."

Instead of looking offended at the obvious sarcasm, Nelson's face spoke of vindication, "Now you're getting it. So, where are we going next? It's been almost year, I think it's safe to say they're not anywhere in Vale, nor the surrounding towns, what's the silver leprechaun got in store to get my son back?"

Qrow raised an eyebrow at what had to be Ozpin's twentieth nickname but chose not to comment, "Either Vacuo or Mistral, I personally think we should start with Mistral. "

"Oh, any reason in particular?"

"I can get us there very quickly. Well, I know someone who can get us there very quickly, she might even know something about the people we're looking for."

"That's great, why didn't you contact her earlier?" Nelson was practically beaming.

Qrow hissed, "Yeah, uh, let's just say she's not exactly on Team Qrow. But it's an emergency so even she has to be reasonable."

Raven wanted nothing more than to kill this woman and go to sleep. Despite that, she didn't seem like the angriest person in the room.

"This is bigger than your stupid tribe! You don't have time to play with these pathetic bandits!" The woman, so close to Summer in appearance that it might as well be her. Except, Summer was dead, even her semblance told her this was someone else, there was no bond. Maybe it was guilt that kept her from completely dismissing this "Rose" person.

It did nothing to quell the rage inside her, though, "Who are you to tell me what to do! Why should I even care about Ozpin's war?"

"What the fuck do you mean 'Ozpin's war', it's everyone war. Didn't you hear me, I said global extinction! I die, you die, these weak ass bandits die, everyone fucking dies!"

Again with calling the tribe weak. Raven found it more annoying than anything else, she took a deep breath to calm herself, "Who are you, anyway? Why should I believe you?"

The huntress opposite her's expression softened, "I told you, my name is Rose. I just want to save the world. We're all careening into a war and no one is preparing for it. No one except Salem."

There it was again, the guilt. She looked so much like Summer, too much, they had to be related, she called herself Rose for fucks sake, "Even if you're right, what makes you so sure we can beat her?"

Rose leaned back and sighed, "I'm gonna be honest, I'm not sure we can, I'm sure we have to. It's either we fight with everything we have or we die without even trying. The answer is obvious, especially if your whole philosophy is about strength." she gave Raven a wink on the last sentence, all previous heat seemingly gone now.

Well, obvious wasn't what Raven describe the problem as. On one hand yes; if everything Rose said is completely accepted as fact then Raven already had her answer . But there was also the very real chance that she was lying, using Summer's likeness to lower Raven's guard. Rose stood up before Raven could think more on it, "Hey, why are you telling me all this? What do you even want from me?"

Rose was already close to stepping out of the tent but she stopped to respond, "I want you to make a choice, do something, don't just sit around and wait for Salem to find out you're the spring maiden, also visit your daughter, she lost her ste-" she cut herself off as Raven's sword tickled her chin.

"How, who told you?" was all Raven asked, she inched her blade closer to make it clear she wouldn't hesitate to slit the smaller woman's throat if she didn't like the answer. Summer lookalike or not, there was too much to be suspicious about, she didn't tell anyone about the maiden's power, even the tribe hardly understood.

Instead of showing concern, Rose rolled her eyes, "Would you calm down?" she asked, placing a finger on the tip of Raven's sword, "You're not the only magical huntress in this tent, I was granted a gift as well."

Now she seemed more suspicious, "You're a maiden?"

Rose sighed and shook her head, "If only, this could be so much easier."

Raven leaned forward, her sword ground against the aura coating Rose's finger, "Then what are you? Give me a straight answer."

"I used the relic of creation to give myself magic, I wanted to become a maiden but it didn't work the way I thought it would. I guess you could say I'm a bootleg maiden," Rose shrugged, " it helps me see the power on you, though. The same way Ozpin or Salem would probably be able to tell if they saw you."

That... was actually a straight answer, it could be a lie, but so could everything else. Raven lowered her sword and let out a sigh, she didn't want more answers, she needed to think, "Leave, I'm done talking to you."

Rose huffed, "Rude. Also, don't tell anyone about me, please. Not even Qrow, I don't need Ozpin's attention right now."

"Yeah, sure." as if she was in contact with Qrow, or anyone for that matter.

Rose stepped out with a wave and a smile, leaving Raven alone with her thoughts. Though there was really only one thought bouncing around in her head.

'What the fuck?!'

Is this how friends are made?

Before they reached the bandit camp (or tribe, Jaune didn't know) Rose told Jaune to try and find a girl named Vernal and befriend her, saying that she "might be useful later on". The idea of choosing friends based on how useful they were already rubbed the boy but then he found her really quickly and decided to give it a shot, maybe they could click like he did with Ruby.

Yeah... Jaune wasn't sure about that.

Blue eyes glared hatefully towards the boy, their bearer spat sand to the ground, which was also sand, Vernal picked up her weapons -a pair of daggers- and prepared for what had to be round 6 by now.

Behind her, a couple of bandits were watching with lukewarm interest, they stood a few feet away from the thick length of rope on the floor that served as a boundary for the "Sparring ring". Personally, Jaune saw it as more of a pit than anything else but that was probably just him.

He was getting distracted.

The boy deflected the first swipe with his shield, he leaned out of the way of the second before stepping forward and shoving Vernal with his shoulder. As she stumbled back, Jaune planted a foot in her midsection as hard as he could, causing Vernal to fall on her back with a grunt.

"When do I win?" Jaune asked, using the tip of his blade to tap his chin, "You said we could be friends if I win, when does that happen? I'm tired." as he said the last sentence, he realised he really was tired, John was working him to the bone with all the sparring, and now he has to do more sparring just to gain a new ally? Being a hero is hard work, it's just one thing after another.

Vernal answered his question by snarling and throwing a dagger at him, she probably didn't do that often because the weapon sailed over him shoulder and presumably out of the pit, Jaune didn't want to look away from his opponent to be sure.

His caution was rewarded as he had time to raise his shield and block Vernal's second dagger throw. The blade landed on the sand and Jaune stepped forward and onto it in case Vernal wanted to re-arm herself, "There, that has to be my win, you don't have any weapons." Jaune had sheathed his sword an was in the process of putting away his shield when Vernal rolled back on her feet and shot up in a fighting stance, "Aw, c'mon!"

"Fuck you, you got lucky in the first round, I won't fall for that again." Strangely enough, Vernal didn't look as angry as before, in fact she looked more... focused? Besides that, what did she mean by "the first round" were all those times he knocked her down only one round? Was that how bandits did rounds? How many rounds were there? This was getting ridiculous!

Vernal took a step forward and bent down, Jaune guessed she was preparing to charge or something like that. Luckily she was stopped by a voice that Jaune could not appreciate more right then.

"That's enough, you two can play some other day," Rose grabbed Jaune's shoulder and pulled him back. Vernal look ready to complain but shrank back when Rose gave her a look, not dissimilar to the way the other bandits around seemed to slowly drift away from the huntress' location, "let's go home." this time she was talking to Jaune alone.

Jaune nodded and instantly regretted it when the world seemed to bend around him as he dissolved into a flurry of rose petals, 'not again!' he thought, his insides already growling in defiance, but it was too late.

Jaune closed his eyes and accepted the incoming motion sickness