Author's Note: Trifa? Who's Trifa?

The faunus girl in the cover art, featured briefly in volume 5. Seeing how today is April Fools, I figured what could be a bigger joke than writing the first ever Jaune x Trifa story? That absolute nothing of a character who has even less personality than the Malachite twins? Yeah. So... I hope you enjoy this rarest of rare pairs.

Cover art by Seshirukun.

To beat the best, you had to send the best. That was exactly why they'd sent her.

Scaling the walls of Beacon Academy was child's play for Trifa. A veteran White Fang enforcer, she was a master of covert missions, specializing in infiltration and kidnapping. The spider webs she was able to produce from her hands was her faunus trait, and if not for the twisting gray veins which snaked their way up her arms and chest, she may very well have been able to fit into society as a normal human. However, life hadn't granted her that sort of luxury. She wasn't like Ilia, Perry, or any of the other faunus who could easily hide their traits.

Hanging outside the window of her target, she reached down and pulled the long combat knife from its sheathe. A simple weapon for a simple job. Huge, unwieldy, and more importantly, loud weapons would not do in a simple snatch and grab mission. However, there was always the possibility that the thing being grabbed could fight back when that thing was a human.

Weiss Schnee. That snobby little bitch had fled Atlas to attend Beacon here in Vale. She must have been scared. Must have known that the White Fang was after her. No matter. Trifa always got her man, or in this case, her woman. The plan was simple.

The Schnee heiress would probably be asleep at one in the morning. Trifa would enter through the window. She would use her webbing to ensnare the girl and silence her screams in one simple act. The dainty girl would then be carried back out the window, and Trifa would rendezvous with Yuma before meeting back up with Adam. Simple. Precise. Effective. That was what Trifa was all about.

Going in legs first through the open window, she'd expected to land in a darkened room where her faunus-enhanced vision would be able to see fairly well in the dark. She hadn't expected a light source to be on from behind the blackout curtains. She hadn't expected anyone to be awake. She hadn't expected the lone boy who sat in front of the television.

She hadn't expected this not to be Team RWBY's dorm room.

Sitting on the floor, with a scroll doubling as a gaming controller in one hand, and his other stuffed inside a box of Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Crunch, the student stared back at her with wide blue eyes, even as he continued to chew a mouthful of dry cereal.

"Damn it, Perry," she swore under her breath. He must have screwed up with the blueprints to Beacon. She'd gone in through the north end of the building when she probably should have gone in through the south. As a result she was here. Here with him.

Trifa blinked, her pale cobalt eyes never leaving his. Like a frightened rabbit, not dissimilar to the one he wore on his pajamas, the boy simply stared back in silence.

Until those eyes of his shifted to the long, straight blade she held in her right hand. His jaw moved again as he worked agonizingly slow through the cereal that was still in his mouth. Trifa heard each crunch of the unhealthy, sugary breakfast food as he eyed her weapon.

"Ah, crap," she whispered, realizing that she was going to have to kill the boy. She may have been a terrorist and a faunus supremacist, but she hated needless violence and death. She'd never taken a life before. It was a shame that this innocent boy would have to be her first.

Innocent, her mind mocked. There's no such thing as an innocent human.

Apparently all he had wanted was a night of playing video games and eating junk food. Oh well. The casualties of war…

His eyes went back to hers, and a sudden movement of his hand caused her to flinch. Out of the box came a hand filled with pieces of cereal and marshmallows. He brought it to his mouth, and stuffed it all in, save the few pieces that tumbled down his chest onto his lap. The boy resumed chewing, all the while never taking his eyes off of hers.

Reaching back in for another handful, the crinkling of the plastic cereal bag was the only noise in the room. Trifa could feel her pulse throbbing inside her skull. The tension in the room was palpable. Logic and reason must have fled the boy's mind if all he could do was stare at her and eat.

Trifa spared another look at her blade. She should just hurry up and get the job done.

Big mistake.

The box came hurtling at her, and it took all her speed and skill in order to skewer it midair with her long knife.

Another big mistake.

The boy's scroll came next, and before she could move the now impaled box to block the airborne attack it hit her squarely between the eyes, causing them to squeeze shut and her to grunt in pain.

The third and final mistake.

He came in like a wrecking ball, and with surprising speed and agility for a boy his size, tackled her off her feet to the ground. Powerful hands grappled with hers, easily overpowering her tiny and lithe frame, and wrestled the blade out of her normally sure fingers. Trifa grunted and growled underneath him, but weighing a buck twenty tops, the boy easily outclassed her and pinned her squirming body to the floor.

Raising his arms above her head in an axe-handle grip, the last thing she saw before darkness overtook her was his pair of meaty hands plummeting down toward her face like a comet.

There was a throbbing pain in her head the moment her heavy eyelids cracked open. She attempted to rub her temples, but quickly found that her arms were bound to her side.

Trifa glanced down to see that she was sitting on a chair. More than sitting, actually. Her arms were pinned to her sides, tied tightly by… a bed sheet?

She looked up, struggling against her bindings in vain as she saw the blond-haired boy standing before her with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Untie me, human!" she snarled, tugging and struggling even while she made her demand. Just saying the word put a bad taste in her mouth. She pooled up a glob of saliva before spitting harshly on the floor next to her. The only show of defiance she could muster against her captor.

The boy looked unimpressed. He didn't budge from his spot a few feet in front of her. "Can you not spit on my floor please?"

She snorted a disgusted laugh. "What's wrong? Afraid of a little faunus spit? Are we too impure for even your filthy floor?" She spat again simply to spite him this time.

His nose wrinkled, and his eyes fell to the two spots where her saliva stained the floor. "No, but spit is just gross. One of us is going to have to clean that up, and I'm pretty sure it's not going to be you."

Trifa never wanted to have acidic saliva more than now. She could have burned through the bed sheets restraining her to the chair and tied the boy up herself with her own webbing from the palms of her hands. The apex predator would be back on top. The spider would devour the rabbit.

After several more globs of spit hit the floor her mouth had gone dry. Words alone would be the only weapons at her disposal against the cruel human overlord who had taken her prisoner.

Unless she could get him close enough to…

True to his word, the boy left momentarily to go to the small adjoining bathroom in the academy dorm room. He came back out with a fistful of tissues, and dropped down to a knee as he began to wipe up her warm liquid protest.

"So can I ask what you were doing coming through my window dressed in all black and carrying a big knife?" he asked.

He was close. Turning her palm around to face him, Trifa sent a surge of webbing from the spinneret located inside her palm. It earned a yelp of surprise from the boy, though sadly only one of his feet was covered in the strong, sticky substance. She couldn't get a good angle while her arms were bound at her side!

"Hey! Stop that!" he cried, taking several steps away from the spider faunus. "What's with you and messing with our floor!"

What was with her? She had a will of steel and would never give in to these disgusting humans. She would fight. Claw. Scratch. Bite. Use every tool at her disposal to fight the oppression that held her kind under the yoke of cruel human dominion.

This stupid boy was just one of many humans who would see her crushed under his big human boot like a disgusting little bug. She shivered involuntarily at the thought. He probably did have some big boots too. He was a tall one, standing at least six feet tall. It was no wonder he had been able to so easily overpower her once the element of surprise was taken from her.

"So, human. What do you plan to do now that you've captured me? Torture? Have your way with me?" The words were dark and bitter. She'd long ago accepted the fact that capture was possible in her line of work. She'd accepted the fact that humans would see her as little more than a plaything as well, and that they would take out their anger and frustration on her in any number of ways. Including those which would violate her body. However, her cause was just. She accepted the risks as much as she did the rewards. "I'll never talk, no matter what you do. You scum. You vile human scum. I won't scream. I won't beg no matter how roughly you take me…"

The boy's blue eyes went wide, and he took a step back even as his jaw dropped. "H-have my way with you? No! I'd never do that! That's gross!"

As much as the thought disgusted her as well, his words were a stinging blow to her pride. Of course he wouldn't want to violate her. After all, who could ever find a young woman such as herself attractive? Certainly not a human.

Trifa glanced down to look upon the gnarled gray veins that twisted up the flesh of her chest. Most men loved women's chests, but hers was marred by her damn faunus heritage. Her hands as well, which were gray as ash rather than what could be considered a normal, fleshy hue.

"So I'm not even pretty enough for that," she whispered harshly. Trifa knew that she wasn't as attractive as some of her compatriots. Pale skin. Gray-blue hair. The veins… she was hardly what anyone would think of when it came to classical beauty.

Sienna was an exotic goddess. Blake, the traitor that she was, held a dark mystery about her that added to her beauty. Even Deery had that sort of humble 'girl next door' look to her. Probably because she was a literal girl next door. By day she was a florist in downtown Vale. But Trifa? There was no hiding the literal spider veins which crawled up her arms and chest. Her stomach. Her legs. All the parts which a guy like this one would normally want to see uncovered.

"Torture it is, then," she said softly. "Planning on taking me down to the dungeons? Telling your teachers you've captured a White Fang terrorist? I bet you'll be a big hero here at the academy for taking down a faunus…"

"No one's going to torture you," he insisted. "And for the record you're really pretty," he said a bit softer.

He called you pretty… her mind wandered. A moment later she shook her head. No. He's just lying to you. No human would ever find these… referring to the pronounced gray veins which ran up and down her body. Attractive…

Sweet words were lost on her bitter heart. This human was merely mocking her. Toying with her emotions. She wouldn't take it sitting down. Well, except for the fact that she was tied to a chair. She would take it sitting down literally, but not metaphorically!

"So what then? What do you plan to do if you're not going to do what all humans do to faunus? If you're not going to torture information out of me?"

"Well first of all, that's kind of a horrible thing to think about humans," he frowned. "And second, I don't have to torture you to ask you a few questions." The boy sat down on one of the beds opposite of the chair she was tied to. "How about we start with the basics. My name's Jaune. What's yours?"

"What's it to you, human?"

"Can you stop calling me human? It seems kinda racist."

The words hit her like a truck. She would have laughed if she wasn't so damn unbelievable. A human calling her of all people racist? She must still be unconscious right now. This must have been a dream. Only in some sort of fantasyland could a human get off on calling a faunus racist.

"The arrogance of your species is truly limitless, isn't it?" she asked. "After all the hate, all the discrimination, all the violence, you have the gall to call me racist?"

"To be fair, you're the one who came through my window with a knife," he pointed out. "And you're the one who keeps spitting on the floor. And calling me a human like it's some sort of insult. Seems to me you're the racist one."

Trifa thrashed against her bindings. The nerve of this boy to call her racist after everything he'd put her people through! If she could she'd wring his big, thick neck right now with her bare hands! "I am not a racist! I'm fighting for freedom and equality the only way your violent species understands!"

"By attacking some teenager in his dorm room?"

"No, by kidnapping the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company!"

Had Trifa been able to cover her mouth with her hands she would have. Cobalt eyes went wide as she realized that in her anger she'd just spilled the beans of what her mission here tonight had been.

Jaune's eyes went wide as well, and he glanced backward toward his door. Trifa mentally cursed. So she had been right. Team RWBY's dorm room was on the opposite side of the building. If she survived this encounter she'd knock Perry out for mixing up north and south.

"So that was what you came here for," he said knowingly. "To get Weiss."

"Figures that a human like you would know the queen of racism herself." Trifa felt the urge to spit again, but her mouth was dry and all this talking was making her thirsty. "Do you have anything to drink?"

Jaune blinked. To his credit, however, he stood up. "Sure…" he said hesitantly. "Be right back."

He disappeared into the bathroom, and Trifa resumed her struggling. Just how tightly had he tied these bed sheets? How good were his knots? What was he, a Flower Scout or something?

A few seconds later Jaune returned, carrying with him a small disposable cup of water. He stopped a few feet short of her, and glanced down to her sides where her arms pressed helplessly against her sides. "If I give you some water, no webs. Okay?"

Making a deal with a human? How repulsive. However, Trifa's mouth was very dry. Even if she did succeed in ensnaring Jaune in her webs, all she would succeed in doing would be incapacitating him, and leaving herself thirsty. Like it or not, she was at his mercy right now. She would depend on him to wet her lips and satisfy her thirst.

Trifa hummed with discontent and nodded. Slowly but surely, Jaune approached and held the cup of water before her face. Her mouth opened, and Jaune began to slowly pour the cool, soothing liquid down her throat.

It felt so humiliating, yet so satisfying. Like a slave being fed by her master, Trifa drank what Jaune gave provided. Her skin burned fiercely with anger and disgrace, and had she possessed Ilia's faunus traits she would have undoubtedly turned red.

When she was finished Jaune stepped back, and Trifa found the moment perfect to summon another glob of spit and hurl it onto the floor next to her seat.

"Darn it," Jaune sighed. He grabbed some of the unused tissue he'd brought earlier and wiped up Trifa's latest show of defiance against her oppressor.

"That's right, human. On your knees. Know your place. This is what you deserve after all your cruel oppression against the faunus."

"I have never oppressed a single faunus in my life!" Jaune snapped, his eyes coming up to meet hers. There was a fire in those ocean-blue depths now, and for the first time since coming through the window, she sensed anger from the aspiring young huntsman.

"You may not have, but your people have," she whispered bitterly, glancing away even as he stood up after cleaning up her latest protest. "And if you stood by and did nothing to help then you're just as guilty as they are."

"And not all faunus are members of the White Fang," he countered. "Should I judge my classmates for what you've done here tonight?"

"I wouldn't put it past you," she said bitterly. "You'd be right about Blake."

He blinked. "Fair…"

"Disgusting traitor," she pressed, her thoughts for the daughter of the Chieftain of Menagerie nothing but negative. "A coward and a sellout. Abandoning her cause, her people, to try to live among humans. To join the very system which oppresses our race. I bet it's just non-stop cat jokes with her, isn't it? Stereotyping based off of a single facet of her person. Despicable…"

"Are you sure you're treated any differently by your own kind?"

"What are you talking about? We're nothing like you humans!"

Jaune smiled weakly as he approached, daring to come within a couple feet of her before dropping down to a knee. "First of all, yeah we are," he said, risking everything to take her hand in his. Her gray hand, capable of ensnaring him in a moment's notice. "You've got hands and feet. Arms and legs." He stared into her eyes, squeezing down on the hand in his to emphasize his point. "Eyes. Nose. Mouth. I don't see a faunus when I look at you. I just see a girl…" he trailed off before frowning. "You know it really would help to have a name right now."

Trifa's heart was thumping inside her ribcage as Jaune knelt only inches away from her. Her nose twitched, and she glanced away before finally giving up her name. It's not like it would matter now anyway. Sooner or later she'd be forced to give her name when it was tortured out of her by Jaune's superiors. "It's Trifa…"

"Trifa," he echoed, nodding with a smile which had curled his lips upward. "You've got all the same gooey bits inside as me, Trifa. Only difference is that you can do that," he said, nodding over to where the remnants of her webbing still stuck to the floor. "Honestly it's pretty cool. I wish I could do something like that. It'd help out a lot being a huntsman if I had a cool ability on top of my Aura and Semblance. Well, if I had a Semblance, that is."

Heart pounding and hand sweating, she watched as Jaune released his hold on her hand and stood up to step back. She couldn't believe it. She'd just allowed a filthy human to touch her. To hold her hand like they were dating or something ridiculous like that. How could he be so calm right now? With that stupid disarming smile he probably saw her as an unthreatening joke.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but you're a spider faunus, right?"

How perceptive of him. Did the webs give it away? "I am," she stated proudly. "What's it to you?"

"So your… allies found a spider faunus and decided she'd be perfect for sneaking into buildings and kidnapping people. People like Weiss. Dropping down from the shadows. Tying them up with your webs like a literal spider. You talk about stereotyping. Sounds like the White Fang are the ones who stereotyped you."

So he was trying to turn this around on her? What a joke. "It's not my fault my faunus trait makes me the perfect infiltrator and assassin," she protested.

What Jaune had said was just a coincidence anyway. It wasn't like everyone she knew was stereotyped by their faunus trait. It wasn't like Blake had an affinity for fish or chased after laser pointer dots because she was a cat faunus. It wasn't like Adam was irrationally angry and bullheaded because she was a bull faunus. It wasn't like the Albain brothers were sly and cunning because they were fox faunus.

Trifa blinked. Oh gods. Oh gods… What was next? A monkey faunus who was mischievous and playful? A rabbit faunus who was timid and shy?

"You okay?" Jaune asked.

She shook her head, staring down at her lap. "I think I just had an existential moment."

"You need to sit down for a minute?"

Trifa glanced down. Her mouth opened, but no words came.

Instead her chest heaved. An incredulous breath shot out, followed swiftly by another. Looking back up at Jaune, he was grinning at her like a moron. It was infectious, despite her best efforts.

"I really despise you," she forced through a teeth-gritting smile.

"That's one thing you and Weiss have in common. See? You and her are a lot more alike than you think."

To be compared to that ice wench made Trifa's blood boil. "How… how dare you…"

"Yeah that sounds like something she'd say too. Face it, Trifa. You've got a lot more in common with humans than you'd like to admit."

The faunus girl scoffed, looking away from the boy who seemed content to hold an actual and meaningful conversation with her. What was his deal? Like he'd inquired about earlier, she'd snuck into his room with a knife. She'd said she was after Weiss Schnee. Yet he hadn't alerted any of his friends or teachers.

Speaking of friends… "Where's your team?" she wondered. She may not have been an academy student, but she knew that they formed teams. A glance around the room showed four beds. It may have been late at night, but his teammates could return at any moment to discover the intruder tied to a chair, all but being interrogated by the big blond doofus.

"They're having a girl's night over at Team RWBY's room," he said. A smile came to his lips as he continued. "Even Ren's there since Nora said she can't sleep without him in the room. And as she said, 'he's basically a girl anyway," he mimicked in a falsetto tone. "So you know, even if you had tried to grab Weiss, you'd have a bunch of other people there who could all kick my ass there to stop you."

"I would silence her before she could scream."

Jaune smirked. "Trust me. No one can make her shut up."

Trifa snorted a laugh. Apparently there was little love between Jaune and Weiss. Unsurprising, considering that the heiress was most likely a complete witch. She had to be growing up in that family. Being groomed to one day take over the oppressive and racist Schnee Dust Company.

"I mean, if I of all peoplecould beat you… wait, why didn't you raise your Aura?"

Trifa glowered, cobalt eyes flicking up to stare daggers into him. "I don't have it. My job is to infiltrate and capture, not fight."

"They sent you to a huntsman academy with no Aura." Jaune paused, and his tongue poked around inside his mouth for a few moments before continuing. "Huh. So that's how it feels to look at it from the outside… man was I stupid."

She had no idea what he was talking about, but the fact that he'd revealed that the Schnee girl was all but surrounded by a fortress of other huntsmen students made her feel a little better about her current situation. If she'd run into a whole group of huntresses rather than just one, things could have been a whole lot worse. They might not have been so admittedly kind as this one.

"Maybe they don't care about you as much as you think."

So was that his game? Trying to break her faith in the White Fang? Well it wouldn't work. They were her family. They were a force of justice and change in the world. A no-good human like him would never understand. She was good and he was bad. She was a faunus and he was a human. Things in the world were binary. They were black and white. They were…

A gigantic centipede!

Trifa's eyes went wide, locked onto the wall beside her as the big, gross, hundred-legged thing sat. She swallowed hard, and her focus shifted from Jaune to the disgusting bug on the wall. Keep it together, Trifa, her mind begged. Don't show weakness. Don't show weakness…

"I mean, do they have any backup plans in case you get captured like this? Do you have any backup? Doesn't seem like it if they haven't come yet."

The centipede squirmed, its antennae, or maybe one of its pairs of legs twitching and rubbing together like a gleeful serial killer sharpening his knives in anticipation for a kill. It moved a few inches on the wall. Closer to her.

Trifa wasn't even paying attention to Jaune and his morality speech anymore. The White Fang, the Schnee Dust Company, huntsmen and huntresses, and especially this guy in particular could all go screw themselves. They paled in comparison to the clear and present danger that was the centipede on the wall as it stalked menacingly toward her.

"Trifa? Are you ignoring me?"

It moved again, coming within a few feet of her on the wall. Why couldn't it be moving the opposite direction?

That was the final straw, and Trifa finally broke as she was able to distinguish individual limbs on the big, hairy, vile insect. "Oh my gods oh my gods oh my gods!"

She began rocking in her chair, desperately trying to put some distance between her and the wall. Breaths came out in ragged gasps as she began to hyperventilate, still never taking her eyes off of the creepy, crawly bug on the wall.

"Trifa?" Jaune asked, his concerned tone falling on deaf ears as she continued to try to inch her seat from the wall.

"Get it away!" she yelled desperately. Her voice was frantic and utterly terrified at the creature which sat menacingly near her. With one final hard motion the chair tipped over onto its side, taking her with it as she crashed down onto the hardwood floor. She lay on her side, still bound to the chair and utterly helpless as she frantically cried out for relief. "Let me go! Please! Please! Get it away!"

Jaune was upon her in an instant, and in her abject terror she felt him undoing the knots of the bed sheet which trapped her to the chair. For the first time since waking she was free, and Trifa scrambled up to her feet to put the gigantic body of the boy between herself and the centipede.

"Trifa?" he asked again, looking back around over his shoulder. He found nothing but a head of bluish-gray hair, her face burying into his back as she wrapped her arms around his torso.

"Kill it," she pleaded, eyes squeezing shut against his back. "Kill it please!"

"What? Kill what?"

"Centipede! On the wall!"

Seconds seemed like hours as she clung to the boy's back, all pride and rational thought chased away by her sad phobia. A phobia of bugs. For good reason too. They were creepy and gross. They could be anywhere and everywhere. They always managed to find a way to you, even when you were in the securest of safe houses. They were terrible, horrible wastes of existence that she wished would just vanish from the face of Remnant!

She felt Jaune begin to move, and Trifa reluctantly released him as he went over to one of the beds to gather up the last of the tissues he'd brought out to clean up her spit. She watched as he balled them up and approached the disgusting centipede on the wall. With one swift strike he smashed it, and she nearly threw up at the thought of its guts and twitching legs wrapped up in the tissue.

Trifa sat down on the nearest bed as Jaune went to the bathroom to dispose of the smashed centipede carcass. Catching her breath and calming her nerves, she stared down at her shaking gray hands, freed for the first time since encountering the boy.

Frustration. Embarrassment. Anger. Hate… All emotions coursing through Trifa's body as she thought about what had just occurred. What she'd just shown that human boy. She was supposed to be strong. Supposed to be an assassin. How could he ever take her seriously again after he'd just witnessed her freak out over a bug?

Well, there was one way.

"It wasn't even that big," Jaune said as he emerged from the bathroom. "And a spider faunus being afraid of a bug? Are you serio-"

He didn't get a chance to finish his question as Trifa's hands came up, shooting webbing out of the spinnerets in her hands and wrapping Jaune up in them. He fell forward, landing on the nearest bed with a dull creak of the mattress. Order had been restored to the world. The predator had taken its rightful role. Now Jaune was bound and restrained. Her prey to do with as she pleased.

"The irony isn't lost on me, human," she growled, standing up to approach where Jaune now lay.

"Trifa?" he asked, doing his best to peer up at her while flat on his stomach. "Why?"

"I told you," she spoke darkly, hunching down to regard him more closely. "I have a mission. I am to abduct the Schnee heiress and bring her back to my superiors. But first," she continued, and moved Jaune into a sitting position atop the bed. "You and I are going to have a little chat. How many people are with her, and what are their capabilities?"

Crossing her arms in front of her chest, Trifa stared down at the boy, who looked utterly hurt by her sudden but inevitable betrayal. "You don't have to do this."

A long exhale shot through her nostrils. She did. She absolutely did. Failure was not looked upon kindly by the White Fang. Especially not by Adam Taurus.

Trifa slowly walked over to the desk where she found her long knife sitting. Reclaiming what was rightfully hers, she examined the blade briefly before sheathing it at her hip once more. She turned back to Jaune, who looked more like a sad golden retriever than a threatening huntsman student right now.

"How many?" she pressed. "And what can they do? What am I going up against?"

If she wanted any chance of succeeding she needed to know what she would be facing. Who she was going up against. If what he said was true and Weiss Schnee was going to be surrounded by her friends, she would need every piece of information available to her.

His gaze met hers, and gone was the sad puppy dog expression of hurt and betrayal. In its place was strength and resolve, the kind that a prisoner would have before the torture process began. Before they were inevitably broken by pain. Unfortunately she didn't have time for that, nor could she afford him to scream.

"I believe you're better than this," he insisted. "I believe you're a good person deep down. You just need someone else to believe that too."

Trifa snorted a laugh. "Oh yeah? And are you going to be the one to do it? Going to believe in the big bad terrorist?"

"People can change. Blake did."

Just hearing the name of that traitor made Trifa's face twist in anger. Before she could continue, however, the door opened.

Eyes went wide as another boy, this one with black hair with a tiny streak of pink, stepped in. He stopped in the doorway, blinking at the sight before him.

This… was not good.

Hovering over the bound and tied Jaune who sat on a bed, Trifa looked all the part of a burglar in her skintight black outfit. It would take only a single word from Jaune and this would all be over. Or perhaps he need not say anything, and the other boy would still have the right idea of what was going on. She could encase him in her webs as well, but that would only be delaying the inevitable.

"Oh, uh, hey, Ren," Jaune said awkwardly. "This is… my… uh…"

The other boy, Ren, held a hand up to silence Jaune. "Jaune. What you do in your free time is none of my business. We all have our own needs and ways to satisfy them. This is a kinkshame-free dorm."

Trifa's eyes widened, and her head snapped back to look down at the boy she'd tied up on the bed. He was tied up. She was wearing black leather. In the middle of the night. On his bed. She clearly wasn't a Beacon student. One could only assume that she was…

Oh gods no…

Jaune nodded slowly. "Yeah. Trifa is a… dominatrix."

She was shaking now. Literally shaking with anger, frustration, and most of all, utter mortification. This looked so bad right now. And yet with the way Jaune had spun it… it made so much sense as well.

"Uh, sorry to interrupt then…" Ren said hesitantly. "The girls said they heard screaming from across the hall and sent me to investigate. But I see… there's a reason…"

"Yeah," Jaune agreed hesitantly. "Trifa… knows all the right spots…"

She could just die of embarrassment right now. Yes. She, the hired call girl dressed in black, was making him scream with oh so pleasurable pain. Well, it was better than being outed as a terrorist and assassin.

…right?

Ren nodded in turn. "Right. Um… I'll just leave then. Enjoy your night?"

Jaune smiled weakly. "I… will…?"

With one final nod Ren backed out and closed the door once more. A deafening silence filled the room, and all thoughts of completing her mission had fled Trifa's mind. What an utterly horrifying night. First she'd been captured. Then she'd freaked out over a bug. And then one of Jaune's friends found them, only to believe that she was a prostitute.

To top it all off, Weiss Schnee and her friends were in fact awake across the hall. Alert and aware of something utterly unwholesome going on only a few feet away. Ren would undoubtedly spread this little piece of gossip to the rest of his and Jaune's friends. There was absolutely no way she would be able to complete her mission here tonight.

Yep. Things really couldn't get much worse.

With nothing left to lose Trifa sighed and closed her eyes. She turned back to Jaune, who remained bound and seated on the mattress. "Why'd you cover for me? One word and you could have had your whole team take me down."

Jaune shrugged. His clueless expression told her that maybe even he didn't know why he'd done what he did. "If you were arrested would that have changed anything?"

She frowned. "Your friend would be safe."

He shrugged again. "She's already safe. Weiss has three people who'd go to the ends of Remnant to protect her. And she's not exactly helpless herself."

Trifa nodded toward him. More specifically the webbing that trapped his arms against his torso. "You are right now."

"She's a lot stronger than me," he smiled. "Trust me."

Trifa pulled her scroll from a pocket to check the time. Two in the morning. The mission was a bust. She should really get back to the safe house now and report her failure. She could only hope that her superiors would be forgiving of the fact that she wasn't able to secure her target.

There was only one loose end left to tie up. Jaune, the blond doofus who sat helplessly on a bed, was a liability. He could talk and ruin any future chances to take out Weiss Schnee or Blake Belladonna. Security in Beacon would likely be enhanced due to this incident. At the very least they'd probably not sleep with their windows open anymore.

Unsheathing her knife, Trifa stared down at the long, straight blade. Aura or not, she could carve through both it and Jaune's neck and silence him forever. A little webbing over his mouth would stifle the screams. Even if someone did hear something, they'd just assume he was being 'punished' by his dominatrix call girl…

Trifa's hand shook just thinking about it. Not out of rage or embarrassment this time. But rather…

"My mom always says that strangers are just friends you haven't met yet, but she has another saying. Sometimes a single act of kindness can save a person's life. Maybe that life can be yours, Trifa. Maybe not ratting you out just now will make you rethink what you've been doing with it. It wasn't too late for Blake and it's not too late for you either. I honestly believe that. I believe in you."

Hesitation.

The complete and utter genuineness in Jaune's voice told her that he believed every word he'd just said. He had covered for her out of nothing but his own belief that people, no matter who they were, were capable of redemption. Even she, a girl who'd come to kidnap one of his friends, could change. As he'd said, if Blake could go from being Adam's hand-picked right-hand woman to a huntress who'd befriended a Schnee, then why not her as well?

"Damn it," she whispered, gripping the handle of her knife tightly as she approached Jaune. "Why do you have to make this so difficult?"

He took a deep breath, staring up at her with those hopeful blue eyes of his. To his credit he didn't scream. He didn't cry for help. He didn't beg or plead for his life even as she brought the blade up.

And sliced through the webbing which constricted his arms and body.

She sheathed the blade, and her hands clenched into fists as she closed her eyes and sighed. "Why'd you have to open your big, dumb mouth?" A hand came up to her forehead, and she ran it down her face in frustration. "How can I kill someone like you?"

Jaune smiled as he sat there, probably feeling incredibly smug that his words of kindness had gotten through to her. "Maybe that's your conscience talking."

Whether intentional or not, that smugness did rub her the wrong way. She leveled a finger at Jaune accusingly. "Keep saying things like that and I might change my mind."

He was quick to nod in understanding. "Duly noted."

"So… I'm going to go now…" Her right hand came up and began to nervously rub her left arm. Pale eyes flicked up to look into his. "Thanks for not ratting me out."

"Thanks for not killing me."

Trifa frowned and nodded. What an utter failure of an assassin she was.

Not that she'd ever killed anyone to begin with. She may have called herself an assassin, but she'd never actually carried any assassinations out. Up until now she was mainly a spy and a kidnapper. After tonight she wondered if she would have what it took to do the deed. If her targets were all as kind as Jaune was once she actually got to know them…

She supposed this was why they always said to never get to know your target. Never get attached. Never get to know them on a personal level. Keep them at a distance, and keep things professional.

Trifa moved toward the window she'd come through, and on her way stumbled upon the box of Pumpkin Pete's Marshmallow Crunch that had been turned into a missile weapon against her. She picked it up off the ground. Failure had a way of making you hungry. Unhealthy cereal would make for a decent comfort food.

"I'm taking your cereal," she announced, uncaring of any protests he might throw her way. It wasn't much, but she could at least claim some sort of prize from him. She did it more out of spite than anything.

"Yeah. Enjoy."

She sighed with disgust. Honestly she would have loved a little bit of confrontation. At least then she'd be able to insult him some more and feel like she was getting one over on him by stealing his food. But for him to so willingly part with it, it almost felt like charity to the faunus girl. Like he was helping her out once more.

Like he wasn't so bad for a human.

Damn him and his kindness.

With the box under one arm, Trifa stuck one leg out the window. She was stopped midway through by his voice. "Hey, Trifa?"

She turned back to see him stand from the bed. He didn't approach, and made no attempt to stop her. "Yeah?"

"Maybe think about your life," he offered with a smile.

A few simple words. No preaching. No lecturing. No guilt tripping. Just a few words that would make her think about both them and herself long after they'd been uttered.

She climbed out of the window without responding, and the webs from her free hand secured themselves to the wall and allowed her to climb down the outer wall of the dormitory.

The moonlit trip back to Vale was one made in silence, even as many of the words from the blond boy resonated in her head.

He called you pretty… her mind recalled as she dashed through the abandoned campus.

Author's Note: When it came to personality I didn't have anything to go on, really. So I modeled Trifa roughly on another terrorist who had an affinity for getting captured. Kallen from Code Geass. Defiant. Strong-willed. Professional. Loyal to her cause. Hopefully Trifa came off as these things, as well as having an ironic phobia of bugs. Just a little quirk to make her a little more humanized. Or should I say faunusized.

She went down pretty easily here because, well, she did in canon too. Blake knocked her out with a single punch, so I doubt Trifa has Aura or is much in the way of a serious fighter. Definitely not huntsman level. With her abilities she's probably not a huge combatant, and relies more on her stealth and spiderweb abilities to get things done.

This could be a very short story, if you guys are interested in seeing more. Maybe 2-3 chapters. There's definitely going to be some fallout from her failing her mission. So who knows. If this is well-received and there's interest there, it could be more than just a one shot.

My thanks go out to the Work in Progress Discord for chiming in with their help and advice for making this character. And of course, my thanks go out to all of you for reading.

I hope you enjoyed it.