*Mission Impossible theme song plays in the background*

AN: We're back! After the absolutely fucking insane response that you guys gave the first chapter, I couldn't exactly leave you hanging. Never imagined my email inbox would be so damn full of reviews. We'll see where we go from here, didn't exactly plan much for this story aside from the first chapter. Now, without further ado, enjoy chapter two.

There were many things that Ilia disliked doing when she'd just woken up in the morning after having arrived to her current place of stay later than planned the day before. Trying to act friendly to the other people in the hideout, for example, was particularly straining on her newly sleep roused brain, so that was one of the first things she shucked out the window during mornings like this. Any greetings or questions she got were exclusively answered with noncommittal grunts as she dragged herself to the White Fang's most shameful, yet simultaneously sacred relic;

The Schnee-tech industries XXL Turbo coffee maker(TM).

It was only after she had a cup of extra strong black coffee in her hands and she'd taken a few sips of it Ilia finally became able to interact with the rest of the world. Sadly, the first of these interactions would be one that she had dreaded in the back of her mind ever since she got back to base yesterday, and she knew that she couldn't put it off anymore. Sighing, she threw her head back and swallowed the rest of her coffee in a series of loud gulps, the burning pain rising up in her throat helping to further wake her up. She'd never been a fan of the taste of coffee anyways, only really seeking out the caffeine, so she considered her intake of the liquid rather efficient, happily ignoring the horrified stares from the other White Fang members around her in the kitchen as she put her mug among the rest of the dishes and wandered off to the debriefing room.

Adam Taurus' seemingly perpetually frowning face appeared on the viewscreen in front of Ilia the moment that she pushed the call button, and he didn't waste so much as a second before interrogating her like she knew he would.

"You didn't send any reports yesterday, Ilia," Adam growled out slowly, his tone as bitingly cold as the featureless expanse of his mask. "I thought I'd made my orders very clear regarding your duties once arriving in Vale, but apparently not. You also chose to not answer any of our calls to your scroll either for some inexplicable reason. Care to explain yourself?"

Ilia winced internally at the venom in his voice, but the sooner she gave her side of the story, the sooner she could get out of here, scolded or not. It helped that she'd somewhat prepared what to say regarding her whereabouts.

"Sir, yesterday's journey did not go entirely as planned, sadly, and I apologize for my absence. I was attacked by a pair of human scum and dealing with the situation brought unforeseen… consequences, that kept me occupied for far longer than I had anticipated," Ilia replied carefully, bowing her head. She was doing her best not to lie directly to Adam, merely leaving out certain details that she wasn't too keen on sharing right about now.

Not while she still felt all tingly with strange emotions from the past day's events.

Adam regarded her silently, seemingly considering her words, for a moment that went on for longer than Ilia would have liked. Now more than ever, she could recognize how rash or outright stupid her actions could be seen as, even if, to her, they'd felt entirely natural. Something told her that her fellow Fang members wouldn't exactly agree with her, however, and she felt immense relief when Adam decided to move on from the subject.

"No matter. I can accept your excuses this time, but only if ensure it doesn't happen again. You're a valued part of the Fang, Ilia, but that doesn't make you exempt from being punished for further insubordination," he said, arms crossing in front of his chest.

Ilia simply nodded in understanding, letting out a breath she hadn't noticed she'd been holding, before giving her only slightly altered report in full. She regaled him dutifully with all the information she'd been able to gather from people in the city, mundane as most of it was, and only left out one particular individual from her recollection of the previous day's events. 'Human interference' and cleanup of evidence were believable enough 'complications' for Adam to instead focus on her new mission briefing. It did not take long for Ilia to zone out during the explanation, however, only paying enough attention to Adam to answer yes or no when needed and to make sure she had at least a passing understanding of what she was meant to do during the coming weeks.

"Humans bad, Faunus good, oppression and suffering, they live in a society, it was time for them to rise up."

It wasn't that Ilia didn't agree with his ideals or opinions about humanity—with the exception of maybe one certain human—but she'd gotten a bit tired of hearing what essentially boiled down to the same speech every single freaking time she got a new assignment. If the White Fang were ever going to be successful as bringers of justice for Faunus everywhere, Adam really needed someone to write some new scripts for him to regale the masses with or risk causing alarming outbreaks of narcolepsy all across the world.

Instead, Ilia found herself thinking back to how Jaune had 'saved' her for what had to be the thousandth time since the event itself had taken place. She could still feel the slight spark that had happened when their hands had brushed against one another's when he'd given her her bag, the memory giving her goosebumps all along her arms. She found herself wishing she could feel it again—feel him again—and for longer than just a split second this time. She envied the orange haired girl he was apparently on a team with, since she seemed to have an all access pass to hugging on clinging to Jaune whenever she wanted.

Though it wasn't like Jaune was the only target of said girl's rather enthusiastic affections…

Ilia's attention was only brought back to the Adam's visage on the viewscreen when she caught his explanation winding down, and she let out a resounding "Sir, understood, sir!" in response to his questioning look.

"Good. I expect you to not make the same mistake of delivering your report late again, or you will find yourself replaced on this operation."

With that, Adam cut the video feed, and Ilia finally let herself relax slightly, some tension flowing form her shoulders as her body sagged. As one of her hands ran through her hair, she brought up her scroll for her actual mission details with the other—yet another reason why she didn't feel too bad about not paying much attention to her superior when he started repeating his speeches again. These calls were essentially just a formality, or so Ilia thought, but she knew that complaining about it wouldn't do her any good. Adam was her boss for the time being, and he wasn't exactly the most even tempered Faunus she'd ever had the pleasure of knowing, which was probably one of the reasons why breaking up with him had made it easier for Bla-!

With a clench of her fist, Ilia quickly stomped that thought down on instinct, feeling that pit from the day before slowly starting to crack open. In her head, the picture of the citrine eyed ravenette started to appear, but then, suddenly, it stopped. Instead, there was only the ugly scribbled image from the day before, and almost immediately after another thought took its place;

With her conversation with Adam over, she was now free to go back to him…

Ilia promptly spun on her heel and all but ran towards the base's exit, picking up a breakfast bar on the way and scarfing it down mid-jog. She had almost made it halfway when she suddenly remembered an idea that she'd had as the sun had started to set the previous afternoon, skidding to a halt in front of the large storage area where all their equipment was contained. She was skilled when it came to tracking and spying on people, but it never hurt to be more prepared…

XXX

Head requisition officer Striga only gave Ilia a deadpan look as she read through the list of items that the chameleon Faunus wanted to withdraw from their arms and armor stockpile for a second time. When she looked up from the piece of paper, trying to determine if this was some kind of prank or not, all she was met by was Ilia's smiling, hopeful looking face.

Despite being just a few years away from becoming an adult, she looked remarkably like a little kid right about now, one who had just given their Christmas list to their parents and was eagerly waiting for some kind of response.

As oddly sweet as it may have been, however, Striga knew she couldn't just hand out gear without proper cause. Especially not when the 'requisition order' contained such oddly specific items.

"So… you're going on a scouting and reconnaissance mission, yeah?"

Ilia immediately nodded.

"And you want me to check out one of our XV25 Stealth-suits for you? Along with a scent marker kit? For a scout mission?"

Again, Ilia instantly nodded, albeit slower this time.

For a moment, Striga simply had to lean back in her chair and clasp her hands together in front of her mouth, processing the information before her along with the sheer audacity of Ilia's requests. It wasn't every day she had someone come to her asking to take their top-of-the-line equipment for something that was almost akin to sightseeing. There were even more items listed on the paper in her hand, a diverse mix that went from outrageous to mundane and back again, but she could not for the life of her imagine how Ilia might 'realistically' need most of this gear.

"I have been given this assignment directly from captain Taurus himself and have been given permission to requisition any and all equipment I may need," Ilia said after another second of silence, her posture suddenly ramrod straight.

"Uh huh," Striga replied, not particularly convinced. "Pray tell, what are you planning on using these..." she glanced down at the list again, "Blacksun filtration goggles for exactly?"

"Nighttime reconnaissance over long distances. I need to be able to make out all the details of whome- whatever I am scouting out, ma'am." The practiced and obviously deliberate neutrality of Ilia's voice didn't go unnoticed by the officer. "I'd, uh, also like to make sure the model of goggles can minimize window glare," she added with an awkward cough, now sounding much more honest.

"Kid, these things will let you see the specks of dust floating around on that cracked moon of ours. They can handle a few panes of glass, don't you worry. Especially not considering I can't just give a pair of them out without really damn good reason. Sorry to say, kid, but your job doesn't qualify."

A flash of irritation moved across Ilia's features, and for a short second the requisition officer wondered if something bad was about to go down, but as swiftly as the emotion had appeared, it went away, and Ilia's face instead became one of resignation.

"Alright, fine," she huffed, leaning over the officer's desk, their gazes locked. "Look, either I walk back to the briefing room and call captain Taurus just to get a confirmation message for you, which is exactly the kind of interruption that he absolutely loves to deal with, or you give me what I've asked for and we can both get back to doing something more productive. If I'm lying, then I'll be the one in hot water for falsifying a requisition order, not you. You'd just be doing your job."

Despite her suspicions, Ilia's words were enough to make Striga take a pause to think for a second. She didn't entirely believe Ilia's claim about having permission from Adam, but she didn't put it past the higher ups within the Fang to give an operative like Ilia her own, secret mission, along with whatever she needed to carry it out either. Refusing to give equipment to someone working directly for their somewhat temperamental captain, if it turned out that Ilia was actually telling the truth, would definitely bite her in the ass one way or another, so the kid definitely had a point.

'All this inter-organization politics stuff is why I'll never accept that promotion they want to give me...' she thought to herself.

Despite knowing there was still a decent chance she'd regret this, Striga ultimately decided that she could pull enough strings to make sure Ilia got all the blame for whatever stunt she might be trying, and took out a scroll from the one of her pockets, fingers moving to fill out forms with downright professional efficiency.

"I don't get paid enough to deal with this crap..." she muttered mostly to herself before presenting her scroll to Ilia. "Press your hand to the screen to confirm your requisition order then wait here while I get your equipment for you."

As soon as Ilia had done as instructed, Striga snatched back both her scroll and the list she'd been given and entered the storage area. Had she chosen to turn around at any point, she'd have caught a certain chameleon Faunus fist-pumping wildly with the expression of someone who'd just pulled off a big heist on her freckled face.

Lucky for Ilia, Striga didn't, and only a bit later than she'd originally planned, she was finally off to begin her 'special' assignment;

Operation find a way to meet Jaune Arc again was a go!

XXX

Hitting Pyrrha's shield felt like he was trying to cut down the very tower they stood on with a butter knife, and Jaune felt the muscles in his arm groaning from the shock that went through them. Again, he tried to find a way to reach the girl behind the bronze shield, and again his sword was easily swatted aside, only for her own blade to smack against his unarmored side. She might have refrained from using the cutting edge due to their shared lack of protection, but the hit still made him let out a hiss of pain and take a staggering step back.

He felt so slow and sluggish compared to her, like he was trying to fight while submerged neck deep in syrup, and no matter how much the rational side of his brain reminded him that she had more fighting experience in her left toe than he had in his whole body, he couldn't help but get increasingly frustrated.

When he'd fought that bastard in that alleyway, he'd been unstoppable, at least while his aura had been active, but against Pyrrha, he was nothing more than a light nuisance, a fact supported by the rivers of sweat that ran from his body that were nowhere to be found on her own, or the heaving of his chest as he greedily tried to fill his lungs with as much air as they could handle.

He was already exhausted, all the while she hadn't even gotten a light workout.

As Jaune continued to stagger backwards, he soon felt his back bump against one of the walls beside the door leading to the balcony they were training on, and the feeling of a red-hot knife shot up his spine, his knees crumbling beneath him. He managed to throw his arms out to catch himself before his face slammed against the stone floor, but it was a small comfort when the whole of his back felt like it had been brutalized by a sledgehammer. That kick he'd taken from the lady the day before had evidently wreaked havoc on his nerves, and when Jaune managed to gather the strength to lift his head, he caught Pyrrha looking down at him with concern written everywhere on her features.

"Maybe we should call it a day, Jaune? I think your injuries still need some time to fully heal," she said in what Jaune assumed was supposed to be a supportive tone, but he couldn't help but hear as condescending.

"I'm fine," he bit back, cursing himself inwardly at the flash of hurt that Pyrrha didn't manage to hide. "Sorry," he quickly added, somberly. "I didn't- you're not- ugh..." A sigh escaped him as shame crept into his stomach. "I'm just… sorry."

It wasn't Pyrrha he was angry at and she didn't deserve him taking it out on her, not when she was spending so much time helping him despite how big of a fraud he was.

Giving up the struggle against his legs, Jaune let himself collapse against the wall, Crocea Mors slipping from his sweat slickened grip with a clattering of steel on stone. A bead of perspiration ran down his creased brow, finding its way into his eye, and he wiped it away with the back of his now free hand, sweeping back his matted hair in the process. His body ached all over, and it wasn't just from the day before.

When Pyrrha settled down next time him, Jaune simply let out a deep sigh of disappointment and frustration at how little he fit in with people like her, Ren, Nora, or any of the girls in team RWBY. He felt more certain than ever regarding what he wanted to do after dealing with people like Cardin and the racist couple, but at the same time, his fake transcripts plan was only looking more and more rash and downright stupid.

His attention was pulled to Pyrrha when he felt her hand gingerly brush across his cheek, checking on one of his many bruises. Their eyes met, and Jaune had to ask himself just how he'd managed to get someone as amazing as her as his partner for what had to be the hundredth time. Despite having every right to tell on him to the headmaster, getting him kicked out and letting her get a proper partner instead, she was sitting here with him, helping him.

"I really don't deserve you, you know. The training, the secret-keeping, everything really… I shouldn't be here, dragging you and everyone else down with me," he chuckled dryly, entirely humorlessly, before looking away just as Pyrrha did the same, her cheeks far rosier than before.

"You're being too harsh on yourself, Jaune. There aren't a lot of people out there in the world who'd willingly risk their lives like you have done by coming here just because they feel like they need to do something for mankind. It's true your skills aren't exactly on par with everyone else's, but we've only just started. You're growing faster than most." She nudged his shoulder with her own as her expression turned contemplative for a second before her eyes lit up. "And don't forget,if you had never come here to Beacon, you would never have been in Vale and therefore able to save that Faunus girl from those humans. If it weren't for you, she could have gotten seriously hurt, maybe even worse."

Jaune let Pyrrha's words hang in the air between them for a moment, a part of him half tempted to brush them off, but then he remember the look in Ilia's eyes when he'd handed her her bag, and a new sense of purpose found itself breaking free from the gloomy expanse of his thoughts.

Despite his back still stinging, a small smile quirked across Jaune's lips as he let the cool stone of the wall behind them seep into his muscles, relaxing them. The fire of determination in his gut had been lit anew after being temporarily doused by his lack of skill compared to Pyrrha, and his fingers found themselves coiling around the grip of Crocea Mors again.

"Ozpin is far wiser than either of us put together and he wouldn't have picked you to be our leader if he didn't think you were the best person for the job," Pyrrha added as she hoisted herself off the ground, extending her hand to him.

With a deep breath, Jaune intertwined their fingers and, with Pyrrha's help, got back onto his feet with only a slight grimace of pain. "Thanks," he said honestly. "For everything. You're the best partner anyone could ever imagine, and I'm gonna make sure not to let you down."

He was under no delusions regarding just how far he still had to go to catch up to anyone else at Beacon, but he could also feel that the only way he could truly fail in the eyes of his partner and teammateswas if he gave up now. To showcase his new conviction, he tried to get into the ready-stance that Pyrrha had taught him, but the weight of the sword and shield in his hands was too much at this point, and all he managed to do was flail his arms with a tired grunt.

"I think that's your body's way of telling you that we should try this again tomorrow instead," Pyrrha giggled from the other side of the balcony. As much as it irked his pride to admit it, Jaune had to agree, collapsing Crocea Mors into its sheathed form.

Feeling even more sweat soak into his hoodie, he decided to simply tug it off entirely, leaving him in just a thin, previously white tank top that clung to his chest. He just barely caught Pyrrha's exclaimed "Head's up!" before a bottle of water landed in his reflexively raised hand.

"Appreciate it," he mumbled absentmindedly as he regarded the bottle, eventually electing to take a single deep swig from it and then dump the rest of the liquid contents atop his head.

In the very same moment, the feeling of being intently watched started scratching at the back of Jaune's mind, and he looked around at the windows of the towers around them. He definitely hoped that no one had watched his rather poor excuse for swordplay aside from Pyrrha, and despite the coast seemingly being clear, the feeling didn't go away.

"Hey Pyr, you didn't catch anyone watching us train, did you?" he asked over his shoulder, still looking at the surrounding towers for any sight of a spying presence.

Pyrrha—who unbeknownst to Jaune had been spending the last minute or so ogling the way his now all but transparent shirt outlined his torso—shook herself free of her thoughts long enough to let out a stammered "N-no!" before focusing her gaze on the very interesting way her feet were fidgeting, praying to all known and unknown deities throughout the history of Remnant that Jaune didn't notice her very fierce blush.

Despite what Pyrrha said, however, Jaune still couldn't help but think something was up. The feeling was only further solidified when he noticed a weird flickering near the top of one of the opposing towers, like there was something distorting the air...

Ultimately, he decided he was simply being paranoid, trusting the attentiveness of his partner even if he wasn't sure what his own eyes saw. Instead, he moved to pull on his hoodie again, only to remember his previous cooling-off-measures and how uncomfortable it'd be to put on something over his currently wet clothes.

"I think I'll stay out here for a bit. Try to relax and stretch while waiting for this thing to dry," Jaune said as he turned to face Pyrrha, tugging on the front of his tank top.

"G-got it. I'll see you later then," Pyrrha replied before quickly gathering up her gear and heading inside, forcing herself to keep her head and eyes looking straight ahead when she heard Jaune grunting. She was in no state of mind to stay and watch him go through the stretching routine she'd showed him, no matter how tempting the images her mind conjured up were.

Instinctively, she reached up and felt her nose, just to ensure that there wasn't blood running from it, her cheeks practically matching her as she finally left Jaune to himself.

XXX

After having spent the latter half of the previous day making her way around Beacon unnoticed, Ilia had had a lot more time to actually think about her actions as made her way around the school, now knowing the routes she should take to avoid detection. The weight and gravity of the measures she'd taken were settling in, how much time and effort she was spending simply to keep tabs on what amounted to just another human hunter-in-training. At one point, as she scaled the sheer wall of one of the towers, she went so far as to wonder if she was going a bit crazy.

But then, right as the thought hit, she'd glanced to look behind her where, on the other side of a window, she saw the one human who'd ever been nice to her, and her whole stomach lit up with that inexplicable warmth, wiping away any questions.

Jaune Arc absolutely needed to be watched because she simply couldn't get enough of the feelings that watching him brought up from deep inside her.

Deep down, Ilia knew that what she was doing was irrational, but she'd been so emotionally burned out these past couple of weeks that she simply couldn't care. Somehow, Jaune made her feel nice things, and recently that had become a scarcity for her, so she had become deadset on savoring it now that she had the chance. Just like the day before, after he'd helped her, seeing Jaune smile or laugh made butterflies flutter throughout Ilia's stomach, accompanied with a longing to be the one said smiles and laughter was directed at rather than his teammates or friends.

Just remembering the scene she'd stumbled on was enough to make Ilia frown, her eyes flicking down to her scroll on which she'd recorded numerous notes regarding the people that Jaune had surrounded himself with. Most of which pertained to the females of his circle of friends (a collection of people that Ilia absolutely refused to think of as 'competition', the word all but banished from her word catalog, much to the delight of her chaos-feeding mind gremlin).

Chief interest among them was one Weiss Schnee, an individual who Ilia had already harbored many negative feelings towards due to her obvious familial relations, but had recently made her way to the very top of the Faunus' rather short but important 'people-who-deserve-several-swift-kicks-in-the-bloody-shins' list (patent pending).

For some ungodly reason, the pompous heiress had somehow earned Jaune's attention in ways that did not at all make Ilia feel pangs of jealousy (no sir!), and instead of cherishing every minute she could spend with him around, the special snowflake of a Schnee instead told him off at seemingly every given opportunity.

The dejected looks that Ilia had seen on Jaune's face after he'd spent any time talking to Weiss were almost enough for her to want to blow her cover, and it was only the knowledge that Adam had very special plans—violent plans—in mind for every member of the Schnee family after the Faunus uprising had officially begun that made her restrain her fury.

Why exactly Jaune thought that the Schnee heiress was worthy of his time, Ilia had yet to understand, but her preliminary findings were still plausible enough to conduct further experiments.

"Jaune Arc attention grabbers(?):
Long hair.
Short?

Family history of Faunus exploitation?

Skirts.

Riches?

Lack of development?"

Rereading her list, Ilia looked down at herself, considering her own assets, or lack thereof,for a moment before she had a sobering thought.

'Never imagined I'd be so relieved to be a B-cup… also, I need to get a skirt...'

As the afternoon sun began to shine its rays over the impressive structures that made up Beacon academy, Ilia felt a twinge of disappointment well up inside of her that she'd have to leave the school to conduct the actual reconnaissance that she'd been tasked with, but then, just as she'd started to prepare her exit strategy, the sound of a door opening reached her ears, and as she turned her eyes to check whether she needed to hide or not, a very familiar head of blonde hair stepped into view.

Ilia watched with rapt attention has Jaune and his partner, the world renowned Pyrrha Nikos, walked out onto a balcony of which she had a perfect view of. What they spoke of, she couldn't make out, but before long they got into positions that she immediately recognized as sparring stances. Why they weren't training in one of the academy's facilities, she didn't know, but she wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth either. Not when said horse took the shape of being allowed to watch Jaune in action again.

For the next two hours, Ilia sat fixated at the simultaneously enrapturing and vexing display that was Jaune Arc sparring with Pyrrha Nikos, her hands clenching whenever Jaune stumbled or made a poor move. Even from her vantage point, Ilia could easily tell that he wasn't acting with the practiced ease that a student at Beacon should be, that he lacked the coordination that she'd consider crucial for someone training to fight Grimm, and he struggled far more than he aught to be against someone who clearly wasn't putting their all into their fight.

It was confusing, to say the least, and only made more so by the fact that Ilia could tell there was something else going on beneath all the mistakes. She was a person who knew how to fight, far better than most in fact, and as such, seeing Jaune keep getting up after his mistakes were punished with surgical precision by his partner, especially considering the beating she'd watched him receive the day before, baffled her. What the boy lacked in skill, he almost entirely made up with endurance the likes of which would put fully trained and hardened White Fang members to shame, and every time he fell, Ilia could feel that he'd learned something from it. Anyone else that she knew of would have simply stayed down after the third or fourth defeat, but not him. She'd lost count of how many times he'd been brought down only to rise up straight away.

As Jaune finally sank to the ground and stayed there, Ilia felt as if she'd seen something impossible. There were hundreds of questions buzzing around in her head, but before she could find any answers to them, something else caught her attention.

Something that she recognized, even if she didn't want to.

Whenever Pyrrha Nikos looked at her partner, there was an unmissable veil of longing shining from her expression, and despite her best efforts, it didn't quite go away when Jaune looked at her. Whether he had noticed and was ignoring it willfully or if he was somehow unaware, Ilia had no idea, but one thing was very, very obvious to her;

Pyrrha Nikos had feelings for Jaune Arc.

And the reason Ilia could tell was because she had seen that very same expression on her own features whenever she'd looked in a mirror after being around Blake Belladonna...

By now, it had almost been a full day since the ebon-haired Faunus had entered Ilia's thoughts, something she hadn't even truly noticed with everything that had happened with Jaune, but her return made a feeling almost akin to retching rise up Ilia's spine, her hands curling into fists and jaw tightening until her teeth started to hurt. All of it was unwelcome, unneeded, but despite closing her eyes and doing her best to clear her head, the feelings and thoughts remained.

Anger erupted within Ilia's chest as her attempts at finding equilibrium failed, washing her emotional plate clear for a moment. It was the unfairness of it all that she found herself focused on, how Blake had been allowed to simply leave without any signs of distress—like she hadn't ever cared—while Ilia was left with all these untethered and blood-raw emotions.

It simply wasn't fair.

Nothing in her life was, she was slowly coming to realize, and she hated it.

She had to wonder if the foul taste of betrayal would ever wash out of her mouth.

As these thoughts threatened to forever blacken Ilia's heart, she glimpsed down at the balcony again just in time to see Jaune getting up off the ground, his posture changed from just a minute earlier. He stood straighter, with more purpose, and for whatever reason, the sight begun to resonate like a struck cord within Ilia's turmoil filled heart.

Again and again, she'd watched him fall, but he didn't let himself be kept down. He didn't give up, despite the clear gap in skill there was between him and his partner. To Ilia, it felt downright inspirational. She was instantly reminded of how he'd looked the day before; bloodied but unbroken, with that smile that was more genuine than anything she'd seen before.

If Jaune could get back up again after getting beat down, so could she, Ilia realized. She unfortunately didn't know him well enough to understand all his own thoughts and emotions, but something deep in her heart told her that he wouldn't want Blake to control her like this, no matter how deep of a wound she had caused when she'd left.

All of a sudden, Ilia felt as if a great weight had been lifted off her back, like her breathing was now easier and her eyes had become clearer. Something had clicked again, and the chains that had kept her from moving forward from Blake had been shattered in an instant.

She felt free.

And all from witnessing the resolve of a human who had risked his own safety to for her sake.

What had once been a massive, impossibly realistic, and exquisitely radiant painting of a young man with golden-blonde hair and eyes the color of deepest of oceans inside of Ilia's mindscape was at once transformed. No longer was the shirtless stud contained within canvas and frame; instead, there now stood a statue so grand and impressive that it would have had people come from far and wide to leave gifts and offerings to what had to be a deity of masculinity and glory were it to actually exist in real life. Perfectly cut marble, the likes of which not even the greatest artisan on Remnant could have chiseled, gleamed and glinted in the shine of a heavenly light from on high, every single breathtakingly beautiful detail from the painting made three dimensional. Warmth, safety, hope, inspiration, all were exuded from the statue.

It was a dream that was too good to be true, but at the same time, to Ilia felt entirely accurate when it faded away, melting into the image of Jaune Arc looking down at a water bottle in his hand.

It was then that time caught up to the chameleonic Faunus, and she realized fully what she was looking at. For once, there was no fantasy playing out before her mind's eye, she was actually looking at Jaune, in the flesh, with his big hoodie on the balcony beside him. In a flash, Ilia had a pair of binoculars in her hands, focusing intently on the incredibly distracting way that Jaune's arms shifted and moved minutely with every breath he took. A light sheen covered his exposed skin, and it only helped to accentuate the muscles she could clearly tell were being grown throughout his body. There was strength within those arms, the kind that had always existed but never been truly used until very recently, and Ilia observed them carefully as they worked to bring the bottle of water to their owner's lips.

What happened next all but caused Ilia's heart to skip and entire minute's worth of beats, all the while her brain simultaneously fried itself like a server farm being hit by a firehose.

What had just been a clingy, damp tank top only a second earlier suddenly turned almost entirely transparent when Jaune decided to empty a water bottle atop his head, drenching his entire upper body and making Ilia catch herself on the tower she was sat atop lest she fall right off it. It certainly wasn't the first time she'd seen a half-nude man before, the relatively small size of the White Fang hideouts she'd all but grown up in hadn't exactly had privacy or modesty as a chief concern, but something about seeing Jaune in such a state, and not just in her head for once, was so very different.

Never had she appreciated how wide a boy's shoulders were before, nor how solidly built their chests could be, or simply how big they often got compared to her, but she most definitely was now. Unlike the imagine that her subconscious had conjured up for her, Jaune's entire body wasn't made up entirely of rippling muscles the likes of which could crush stones between them, but in a way, the real thing made her stomach tingle far more. This wasn't the body of a seasoned warrior, instead it was a firm foundation from which said warrior could be forged like a sword by a master blacksmith. And Ilia liked the look of it. Liked the look of him.

A lot.

So much so that Ilia only had a fraction of a second to duck down when he realized that Jaune was looking right at her hiding spot, her eyes wide and hands clamped over her mouth to contain the squeak that hap almost escaped her lungs. For a full minute, she just laid on her back, hardly breathing, as what she had seen replayed itself over and over again in her head. Had she looked down at herself, she would have seen the spots covering her dusty brown complexion practically glowing a hot reddish-pink, but she remained entirely frozen, vehemently ignoring the small trickle of drool that had begun to dribble down her cheek sometime ago.

Once the shock had mostly faded, she very slowly rose up into a sitting position, eyes just glancing for the briefest of seconds down to where Jaune was now stretching before her head snapped around and she focused on the sky in the opposite direction.

'Holy shit...' she thought as her hands finally moved away form her mouth and down to her stomach where she felt a completely foreign throb shoot through her, the temperature all around her feeling as if it had risen by several hundreds of degrees. The little gremlin in her mind whispered in her ear about how she should look back down again, make sure that Jaune was still there, but she couldn't risk being caught like that again. Not when seeing Jaune in this state did so many strange things to her.

Ilia wasn't entirely sure how long she spent sitting and looking anywhere that wasn't in Jaune's direction, but when she finally heard the distinct sound of a door being shut, she chanced a glance over her shoulder and was both relieved and disappointed to see that Jaune had returned inside. As strange as he was making her feel, deep down, it all felt good in a way, and losing 'access' to it was less than fun.

With a groan, she stretched her back out until she felt a satisfying pop and rose onto her sore legs. She hadn't noticed just how rigid her whole body had become after sitting still for hours, but now she regretted not getting up sooner. She couldn't exactly go back and change her actions though, so now she had to live with the consequences.

It was getting fairly late, and Ilia knew it was time for her to get back to her actual mission now that Jaune had finished his training and the chances of her spotting him again were pretty slim. Doing a final stretch to limber up her arms, she began to descend from her 'perch', making sure to follow the same route she'd taken when climbing up. For such a prestigious academy, she was kind of surprised at how easy it was to bypass the alarms and guards, but she figured it was an ego thing. With some many hunters and combat-ready students, the headmaster probably thought they didn't need the kind of security that might have made her job difficult. Not that she was complaining though. Lax security meant she was able to focus more of her attentions on more important subjects rather than making sure no one spotted her.

A small shiver tip-toed up Ilia spine as she remembered how broad and strong Jaune's shoulders had looked when he'd taken of his hoodie.

'Man… I wonder how it would feel to wrap your legs around those…?' she pondered for a split second, before immediately pushing the idea out of her head when she almost slipped out of one of her footholds. 'No! None of that! Not now! But maybe later… when you're back at base… and alone...' Unknowingly, Ilia's teeth latched onto her bottom lip at the prospect, her markings once again a radiant hue of red.

At this point, she wasn't sure what she was doing anymore, or where her actions were taking her, and at some level that should have worried her, she knew that, but it just… didn't. Not really. Not when she could simply imagine the smile of her 'savior' and be filled with a sense of comfort.

Nevertheless, one thing Ilia knew for certain was that she was going clothes shopping whenever she got a chance.

'Need to buy a skirt… and maybe put my ponytail on the side...'

AN: Now comes the tricky part; where do we go from here? First off, I'd really like to know if you guys enjoy the level of humor that has been on display in these two chapters so far. When I originally thought up this idea, it was a lot more... crack-y, if that makes sense, but I am rather new to writing funny shit, so I abandoned that route since I couldn't get the timing right, I felt. The result is a mix of some "serious" moments and then jokes, mostly at Ilia's expense, but if you guys think I should lean into either side more, I'd very much like to hear your opinions.

Secondly, seeing as I haven't got a roadmap for this story yet, I'd love to hear any and all suggestions for scenes that might make it into future chapters (with the exception of Blake and Ilia confrontations, since that moment I do have planned fully already), and what kind of direction you think would make for the more enjoyable story; a complete romantic comedy, or something with a bit more meat to it?

Please leave your ideas and thoughts in the reviews, or send me a PM. Have a good one!