Chapter 9: Excuses

He remembered the first time he ever stole. It was a small thing. A bag of chips taken when the shop owner wasn't looking.

He remembered the disbelief and thrill of not getting caught. Was it really that easy? Were people really that trusting? What if he had stolen something important? He could have ruined them if he was somebody else. He could have taken something worth far more.

He remembered the second time he stole. When would they learn? Why didn't they protect the things precious to them more?

He remembered stealing again and again and each time he asked the same questions to nobody. Why didn't they care as much as they should? Why was it so easy for him? Did these people have anything precious to them at all? Did they just not care?

He wondered if that was the reason he had no name.

~Jaune~

"So how are we going to get back?" Jaune asked. They were back outside the factory on the street where Jerry had dropped them off previously. However, the dirty pilot was nowhere to be seen. Roman took out his Scroll and started typing on it.

"He'll be back shortly, kid," Roman said, finishing up his message and pocketing his Scroll. "All we have to do is wait here."

Sitting down on the curb, Jaune had a million questions swirling in his head. The past thirty minutes had been the craziest thirty minutes in his life. One moment he was a prisoner by the person he'd been told to kill, the next he was hired by the person, and then he had a tense conversation with the weirdest and scariest person he'd ever met who also nearly killed him with a playing card. A playing card! He pressed his hands to his temples and reorganized his thoughts. Roman, on the other hand, walked down the street, saying that he would be back.

Roman. While at first he seemed dangerous and terrifying, everything Jaune saw led him to believe that, perhaps, Roman just had a tough exterior and was really a good person underneath it all. When Jaune confronted him, Roman didn't confirm or deny it, which meant Jaune probably had the right impression of him. If the criminal had accepted that Jaune had the right idea, then Jaune would have known Roman was lying. Not to mention that Roman saved Jerry by stopping other criminals and even sold out all his criminal friends so that he could start over. If that wasn't proof enough, Roman even agreed to help save those kidnapped people!

Granted Roman was getting paid, but didn't Huntsmen save lives for payment too? Roman had sacrificed his way of life and saved countless others from exposing the other criminals around him. At the very least, Roman had done something.

What had Jaune sacrificed? Jaune sighed and looked up at the sky. Was he really just all talk?

Maybe Roman wasn't exactly a hero in the way Jaune imagined, but, still… he could probably learn something from working for Roman.

Looking up, Jaune saw Roman helping an old man up off the ground. Given the bottle in the man's hand, Jaune guessed the elder had too much to drink and had wandered into the wrong side of town. Try as he might, the blond couldn't help but smile as he watched Roman give the old man directions and pat him on the back. Although Jaune couldn't hear what they were saying, he guessed that Roman was offering to help the man and even saw the rehabilitating criminal pull out his Scroll as if to ask if there was anybody the drunk wanted to call. The drunk shook his head and stumbled away, however, but not without smiling as he did so. Done, Roman made his way back to Jaune.

"Oh, I almost forgot. Here," Roman's said as he dropped a lien card into Jaune's lap. Looking up, he found his heroic employer frowning. "Your first payment, kid. 10,000 lien for not trying to attack the Forger and getting us both killed."

Jaune's eyes widened.

"T-Thanks, sir!" Jaune exclaimed as he stood up. Roman clicked his tongue.

"Don't shout about it. You'll draw attention to us," Roman advised. Jaune gulped.

"Right, sorry," Jaune whispered. "Hey, quick question? What's the deal with Nilla? Does she work for you too?"

Sighing, Roman nodded.

"You really are slow if you're just now figuring that out. She's your superior and my subordinate. You take orders from me and her. However," Roman stopped and held up one finger. "My orders are absolute. You should always prioritize them. Especially if the orders she gives are different. If she ever gives any orders that would directly or indirectly harm me, then you tell me."

Jaune tilted his head.

"I don't understand. She works for you. Don't you trust her?" he asked.

Roman laughed.

"Trusting anybody completely is the same as lying on your back and handing the other person a knife. Most people prefer to be the one holding the knife," Roman explained. "Less risk of getting stabbed that way, kid."

"I see," Jaune said, but he really didn't see. How could you ever work with somebody if you can't trust them?

At that point, a rope descended from the sky in front of them. Looking up, Jaune saw Jerry's ship hovering overhead.

~Roman~

After stealing Jaune's "pay" off a random drunk wandering the streets, Roman felt much better about how fucked his situation was. Of course, the kidnapping had to be related to his dream, which meant it had to be related to the stampede of Grimm. Anybody could have figured that much out. Cinder and her minions would only restrain him if they were planning on him dying immediately afterwards. However, he needed proof and a clear understanding of the situation if he wanted to survive and get paid.

"Surprised nobody died," Jerry said from the cockpit. "Old Dust factories are dangerous. Never know when you step on some left over Burn Dust and then 'Poof'! You're gone."

"Thanks for the concern," Roman said. Jaune was seated across from him, his mouth agape at the possibility that he could have died in there before even seeing the Forger. Roman clicked his tongue. At least that a small bit of pay was enough for the boy to not get any bright ideas and try to charge back in and challenge the Forger. The last thing he needed was more suicidal, self-righteous idiots to deal with.

"Jerry, you have some morphine on you? I'll pay you," Roman asked. He saw the back of Jerry's helmet dip as the man nodded.

"Duh, of course I do. Like I said, I get some kinky freaks. Pain meds help them when they're done with their shit and helps me when I'm done with their shit," Jerry replied. "I'll throw some your way once we land."

"Good," Roman said, scanning the messy floor around him.

Reaching down, Roman grabbed an empty beer bottle off the floor. Luckily, there was a proper metal corner on the edge of his seat, where the stained cushion ran short. Raised the glass by the end, he smashed the bottle against the corner, leaving himself with a sharp weapon.

"Hey! Don't break my things!" Jerry barked out before laughing. Jaune cocked an eyebrow at this display, so Roman decided to speak up before he had to play twenty questions with the kid.

"We need a story," Roman explained.

He cut his palm on the glass, deliberately keeping his Aura as off of the injury as possible, and blood flowed freely from the wound. Roman rubbed his bloodied hand on his clothes in several places before taking the broken glass to his face and leaving small, ugly cuts on his face. He let the blood ooze down his face before moving it around his face with his free hand and making most of his face appear bloodstained. He then stabbed the glass into his side, biting his lip to keep from crying out.

"We're going to have a good story to tell, kid," Roman said.

Jaune gulped.

"Now, as for your part," Roman started. He cracked his knuckles.

~Glynda Goodwitch~

Managing Roman Torchwick was, to say the least, infuriating. If Glynda had her way, he would have never crawled his slimy, greasy way into Beacon with all the students who actually wanted to be there for their own betterment. Just being around him made her feel sick to her stomach. Even if he had spared Dove Bronzewing and tried to be coy about it, that conversation with him in the nurse's office was beyond aggravating.

And now he took a student away. Who knew what he was doing with the boy? The last thing she needed was him corrupting young minds, especially those with promising transcripts like Jaune Arc. It was bad enough both Ruby Rose and Weiss Schnee ended up teaming up with him.

When she reached the cliffside overlooking Emerald Forest, she found his cigar box in plain view. Clicking her tongue, Glynda knelt down and picked up the box. It still had several cigars in it, so Roman didn't just take the cigars and leave the box. Given the fact that it was mere feet from the cliff, she supposed that they could have fallen off. Her grip tightened on the cigar box.

Neither of them had weapons on her as far as she was aware. If they somehow had fallen, then they would have been helpless. She almost leapt off the cliff herself to investigate further when she heard a voice.

"Oh, thank the Gods… You're here."

Turning, she saw Roman Torchwick limping out of the brush, covered in blood. Over his shoulder was Jaune Arc, unconscious. A weak smirk formed on Roman's face as he stumbled towards her and she found herself running to catch him from falling.

"What happened?!" She didn't meant to shout, but the sight of her students on the verge of death kicked in a maternal instinct she didn't know she had. Noticing she was touching him and getting blood all over her, she felt the strong urge to separate from him, but he held in her place by her shoulder.

"He wanted tips on how to lead a team from me," Roman said. He winced in pain, gritting his teeth and shutting his eyes. The cuts on his face could only be from... "He fell. You know him. He's not exactly the most coordinated kid. So I dove after him. Fell right in front of a pack of Beowolves. The fall knocked the kid out. If I hadn't have jumped after him…" Roman trailed off and fell to his knees, but kept a hold of Jaune. Laying Jaune on his back, Roman coughed. "Our Auras are recovering and have started to heal a lot of the damage. Still, you should probably use your Semblance and carry him to the nurse's office."

Glynda nodded. Beowolves. Of course.

"Of course. It could have been a head injury. We have to be careful moving him," Glynda said as she raised her wand and Jaune floated a few feet off the ground. She looked at Roman, scrutinizing his every feature. Roman could be lying. There were a thousand different possibilities as to what really happened. However, there were cuts on Roman's face. She knew very little about the criminal, but she knew the type of ego people like him had. They'd mark up everywhere but the face. If he was faking it, would he really mark his own face like that?

He'd have to be beyond desperate to do something like that, but this man had avoided the law long enough to develop some tricks.

Glynda shook her head.

No, she should stop focusing on the negative. Perhaps Roman was really starting to change already. The two months away from criminal society and his interactions with his teammates could have been more important than she thought. Maybe saving Jaune was an event that would forever change Roman. The joy and fulfillment from doing something good could work wonders.

"Thank you," Glynda said to Roman, who slowly pushed himself back to his feet. He nodded and grinned. Glynda would have to push Ozpin to put some sort of security detail on the cliff. They couldn't risk first years dying. "Do you need any help walking?"

Roman shook his head.

"No. My Aura is coming back quickly. I can limp along with you until I reach the dorms," Roman said.

And he didn't call her "doll" once.

'Maybe this is a good sign. I'm being overly cautious,' Glynda thought. 'Still… something feels off.'

"If you say so. Follow me."

~Weiss~

"And there we go. That's the basics of the Great War covered again. Any questions?" Weiss asked. They were back in their room and, keeping true to her word, Weiss proceeded to make sure her young team member was up to snuff. A chain was only as strong as the weakest link. Besides, Winter had once told her that one of the best ways to learn was to teach somebody else. In this way, Weiss would sharpen her own mind as well as strengthen her team.

"Bleeeeeeh," Ruby said, face down on her desk with a pencil in one hand. They could barely make it fit in their room, but Weiss made Ruby sit at it with while she stood beside the girl in red. Needless to say, finding that all of Ruby's notes so far had been doodles had been expected. "I hate this. What does old stuff have to do with killing Grimm?"

"If you have any real drive for becoming a Huntress, then you'll put in the proper work," Weiss scolded. "Knowing the events of the past can allow us to make better decisions in the future, else we'd be doomed to repeat them again."

Ruby looked up at Weiss and rolled her eyes.

"You sound like a textbook."

"Trust me," Weiss said as she cracked her knuckles, "You'll sound like one too when I'm done with you."

Over on her bed, Nilla stopped playing with her Scroll and made a heart with her hands and sent it towards Ruby, who weakly extended her hands towards the small girl.

"Help me, pleeeeease," Ruby begged as she reached out for her one and only hope.

Laughing, Nilla broke the heart in two and let one half fall.

"Traitor!" Ruby cried.

Weiss sighed. On this team, she could only have real conversations about things that mattered with Jack, even though he was an ass. As talented as Nilla was, her having to type everything meant that she was terse with her word choice and normally only stuck to Jack. Ruby was talkative enough to sustain a conversation with Nilla, but Weiss and Nilla's conversations often broke apart or dissolved. Then, of course, there was Ruby. Who took nothing seriously except fighting. And even then Weiss wasn't sure if Ruby was being serious.

"Hello, gang!" Jack said as he burst into the room, his hair wet and his clothes covered in blood. "I trust we're all getting along here! Turns out, they don't have spare uniforms readily available near the showers. You'd assume they would. Hard enough fights almost always end in a wardrobe malfunction! Ha!"

"Are you okay?" Weiss stuttered out. She glanced over at Ruby, but the girl's jaw looked like it had dropped straight through the floor. Jack smiled.

"I am doing wonderfully, dear little lovely prissy princess. Despite the fact that I'm wearing my blood like a holiday sweater, I've made a fantastic recovery thanks to that amazing thingly thingie thing called Aura! What a wonderful thing! It solves every problem! I love every bit of this screwed up world to bits!" Jack declared as he moved over to his bed. Weiss froze in pure shock.

"What's wrong with you?! The real Jack is never this happy!" Ruby suddenly cried. Over on her bed, Nilla rolled her eyes and smiled.

"Don't do drugs, little reddie red Red," Jack suddenly said to Ruby. "They're allllll for me." He yawned. "Goodnight."

Then he fell onto his bed and passed out.

"I have… so many questions," Weiss said.

Ruby just looked at Weiss with a helpless shrug. Nilla got of her bed, dove underneath Jack's bed, and pulled out a black suitcase. Opening it, she pulled out a spare uniform and nodded with a grin. Then she started to unbutton his jacket.

"Nilla… what are you doing?" Ruby asked. The mute girl sighed then whipped her head to face Ruby. Nilla glanced at Jack's spare clothes, then gestured to his unconscious body, and then back to the clothes.

"I think we should leave the room, Ruby," Weiss suggested. Ruby shook her head fast enough that Weiss thought the girl used her Semblance and the two of them bolted for the exit.

~Roman~

Red leaves hung overhead, connected to dark tree trunks so densely placed that light could barely pierce the canopy. The grass felt soft. He blinked once. Twice.

His arms and legs were tightly bound behind him.

Tape over his mouth.

No gag or blindfold,

He winced.

Shoulder. Knee. Side.

Aura could heal him once it recovered.

Beside him, he heard whimpering. Faint weeping. Muffled. He turned to see a girl, a rabbit faunus with brown hair tied up in a similar way to him, but with a blindfold and presumably a proper gag. He turned his head the other direction and he could see and hear the distant sound of trees falling. He heard the thunder of hundreds of stomping feet. Perhaps the blindfold was a mercy.

Something in him burned and he forced his tongue against the tape on his mouth. With practiced skill, he slipped his tongue underneath the tape and began to loosen it. Moving his tongue around the circumference of his mouth while flexing his mouth into strange shapes, he loosened the tape and pulled it into his mouth before spitting it out on the ground. He could still taste the dull plastic. He tried to dislocate his unhurt shoulder to slip his bonds, but he found he had no proper leverage with the way he was tied up.

Thunder was getting closer.

He turned to the bound faunus. She was dressed in some sort of yellow and black armor. Most likely a Huntress. If he was going to get out of here and live to have revenge, he'd need her help.

"I'm a first year Huntsman in training at Beacon. You can call me Jack," he said. "Tied up like you. I'm going to need your help if we're going to get out of here."

Muffled words were his response. He clicked his tongue. She was gagged. He moved his face along her, bit the end of the tape and pulled it away from her mouth. She spit out her gag before her cries broke out into the air.

"It's too late! I-I can't move… My legs are broken," she said. "I can't escape."

Thunder was getting closer. Now he could see them. A swarm of Ursa. They must have had some sort of nest in Forever Fall.

"Calm down. We can figure this out. If you could just bite through my wrist bindings, I can get us out of here. Together," he lied. "What's your name?"

"V-Velvet… Velvet S-Scarlatina. Second year at Beacon," she said. "I can try to help, but…" She swallowed. "I can hear them… They're close! There's not enough time! I'm sorry!"

"We'll make time, doll," Roman assured her, the growing pit in his stomach agreeing with every word she said. "I'm not blindfolded. They're far away."

He looked again. They were getting closer every second. There wouldn't be enough time for both of them to escape, but if she could just at least bite through his bindings—!

"I'm not ready to die! I don't want to die!" She suddenly screamed.

"Shut up and stop squirming!" Roman shouted.

He spun around on the ground, intending to bring his bonds to her mouth.

His head was pointed towards the stampede.

Unfortunately, she was right.

His life was stamped out in an instant by the stampeding thunder, their roars the last song that Roman Torchwick ever heard.

~An Exchange of Texts~

{No, we're not going to warn her, Neo. She's perfect.}

{I get it! You're right. She's super important.}

{Exactly. You always catch on quickly.}

{But… what are we going to do about the Forger?}

{We're trapped, Neo. Everywhere I look there's some big, important figure waving their dick around. Spouting bullshit about testing me. Wanting me to be their pawn. Forger, Ozpin, whoever the hell that Ilia girl was talking about in my dream. No… given that she works with Cinder… She was referring to some White Fang leader? Well, whoever they are, fuck them. Roman Torchwick is not a pawn in somebody else's game. I refuse to be demeaned and turned into some two-bit act. I'm the star and this will be my show. Neo, we need to do more than just survive.}

{What's the plan then?}

{A secret. For now.}

{Even from me?}

{Even from you.}

{You don't have a plan yet, do you?}

{It may still be a bit rough, but I most certainly have a plan. And, if by some miracle nothing goes horribly wrong, we'll stop just surviving. We'll thrive.}

~Ruby~

The morning after Jack burst into the room covered in blood, she met him at the weapon lab again. To Ruby's relief, he'd cleaned himself up and was working diligently on mixing Dust and drawing up a few different design ideas. Ruby got back to work on his vambrace, modifying it and expanding it so it could fit the things he wanted inside. Although her progress with making it shoot was going well, she still couldn't wrap her mind around the second thing Jack wanted installed into it. It hardly seemed practical or useful against Grimm.

"Hey, Jack," Ruby said with a wave. He stopped working and looked at her; all the energy and joy he had the previous night had vanished. "It's the second day, so I want to know something else about you. Like… why you really wanted me to be on your team."

Jack narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms.

"I've already told you that my Semblance told me you were strong," Jack explained, his tone suspicious. Ruby rubbed the back of her head and frowned.

"Yeah. You did, but…" She gulped and found her courage again. "That whole thing with the Sparring Club where you just kinda disappeared… Look, I'm not very smart when it comes to, well, people, but why would you use it to see how strong people are if your Semblance is supposed to do it for you? I want to trust you, Jack, but if you lied about your Semblance then… that means… did you lie about me being strong? Did you know about me before we even met for the first time? I just really want to know ho—"

"Okay, I get it, Red," Jack said, rolling his eyes. "You got me. I lied about my Semblance to make you feel better. Wow. I am so evil and scheming."

Ruby bit her lip. She didn't mean it like that. She had been freaking out and trying to impress her new partner and him telling her that did calm her down. Still… he lied to her like it was nothing. But it was for a good reason, right? That means it's fine, right?

"So, then… did we really meet on accident in the initiation?" Ruby asked. Jack nodded.

"I was aiming for the infamous Weiss Schnee and ran into you, Red. Luckily, I ended up on her team anyways," Jack said. "And for the record, regardless of my opinion of your strength at the time I called you strong, I currently know how strong you can be just from watching you. Your Semblance and weapon work shockingly well together."

'Weiss made it seem like a much bigger deal than it was,' Ruby thought, exhaling. Jack was her partner. If she was going to work with him for the next few years, then she had to be willing to give him the benefit of the doubt.

"So, Mr Team Leader, what is your Semblance?" Ruby asked, arms entwined behind her back. Jack sighed.

"I already told you your one fact. Let's focus on the task at hand for now," Jack said. Ruby sagged her shoulders in disappointment, but reluctantly nodded.

"Okay…" Ruby reached over and lifted up the vambrace off the workbench. It was now bulkier and, where there was once a single hole at the end of it, there were now two placed next to each other with one hole being much bigger than the other. "The firing mechanism is coming along pretty well. The, erm, air freshener thingie is already finished."

Jack pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I've told you several times already. It's not an air freshener, Red," Jack said. "Anyway, it's good to hear that you're making progress. I've been working on a few ideas of my own." Jack lifted a small, white capsule off the table.

"A false tooth filled with Burn Dust. If a Huntsman can't move, then they can bite into it and—" Jack began.

"Explode their head?" Ruby finished. Jack's eyes narrowed, but Ruby shrugged. "As far as I've seen, you can't really reinforce your insides with Aura. I used to try it whenever I'd get a tummy ache. It didn't work." Ruby forced a laugh.

"My… intention was to shoot fire out of the user's mouth, but now I seem like the idiot. What do you propose?" Jack asked.

Ruby put her finger to her chin and waited for a few moments to fake thinking about it. She already knew a much more simple solution.

"A choker," Ruby said with a grin.

"I'm not wearing a damn collar like a filthy mutt," Jack fired back.

"It's stylish!"

"No!" Jack crossed his arms.

"Yes!" Ruby's eyes sparkled.

"Never! Not in a million years!"

"...Do you have a better idea?"

Jack couldn't answer that question. Biting his lip for a moment, he sighed.

"Fine," he answered. Ruby pumped up one fist.

"Yay!"

~Roman~

It was lunch time again. Now that Roman had the poison in his possession, he didn't have to throw Neo his food and have her test it for him. Rather, Ruby had decided to throw food towards Neo during lunch. While Ruby was having fun, Roman just knew that Neo was never one to turn down free food. Nobody raised in the streets of Vale would. As for him, he could focus on scanning the cafeteria for a certain little rabbit-eared faunus.

The dream the previous night had told him a number of things. First of all, his decision to recruit Jaune had led to his captors not blindfolding or gagging him properly. In that case, the most likely reason was due to them being in a rush. If he had JRNY as support coming to rescue him, then it made sense for Cinder and her goons to haphazardly throw Roman to where they knew he would die. Which would mean the swarm of Ursa was definitely planned. As flattering as it was that they would use such overwhelming force, Roman knew he wasn't the primary goal. The Forger had told him that Cinder was desperate. All the pieces started to finally come together. He smirked. It felt good to be ahead of the curve this time.

"Jack."

She wasn't at any of the crowded tables. Given that she was a second year, that very fact seemed odd. From what he remembered, there was only one lunch period, but a lot of the older students were able to go off campus and eat in the town in Vale. Still, he had to make sure she wasn't in the cafeteria before he went and looked around Vale.

"Jack," Weiss emphasized, clearly not wanting to raise her voice too high. Roman rolled his eyes and turned to look at her.

"I'm busy. What is it?" Roman said. Weiss cocked an eyebrow but let his remark slide.

"Are you ever going to explain what that was last night?" Weiss asked. Roman rubbed his temples. She wanted answers. Of course she wanted answers. Everybody wanted answers. He didn't expect Jerry to have morphine that strong.

'I'm an idiot. I should have asked Little Miss Goodwitch for pain meds instead. You did this on purpose, didn't you, Jerry? That conniving little cretin.'

"Fine. I went to help Nilla in the kitchen when Jaune wanted advice on being a team leader. Long story short, Grimm attacked and I saved him. Took pain meds afterward. Satisfied?" Roman answered. Off to the side, Ruby tossed a carrot high and Neo jumped out of her seat, grabbing it with her mouth before flipping and landing in a handstand. Some of the nearby tables clapped.

Weiss scowled as she stabbed her fork into a potato.

"You could have called us," Weiss said. "And you shouldn't have even gone near any Grimm! There's plenty of safe spaces at Beacon! Your behavior was irresponsible at best!"

Roman let his eyes wander around the various tables, continuing his search.

"Princess, I wouldn't have tried to save him if I didn't know I could succeed in doing so alone," Roman answered, perpetuating the lie. "If nothing else, at least trust in that."

Weiss huffed and turned her head away.

"I'll hit you if you do something like that again. Hard," Weiss said. Roman smirked.

"I'll hit back." At the moment, he saw past her head, in the corner of the large cafeteria, at a table all by herself, was a rabbit faunus.

Roman looked her over, taking in her long brown hair and ears before nodding to himself. That was the one. Now he just had to spin this the right way.

"That faunus girl over there is sitting all by herself. Let's pay her a visit," Roman said. Weiss cocked an eyebrow.

"What do you want from her?" She asked. Roman faked a laugh.

"Oh, princess. You know I'm the charitable sort. After all, I went out of my way to talk to you," Roman said with a wink.

"And everyday I regret talking to you more," Weiss replied and then sighed. "I suppose I have to come with you to make sure you don't do anything."

Roman turned his head to look at Ruby and Neo, but the two had stopped their antics are were both looking at Roman.

"I-I'll come too!" Ruby said with a smile. Neo just grinned.

~Velvet~

Velvet was having a nerve-wracking day. She got sorted into a different lunch hour than the rest of her team and on top of that she had to do makeup classes. It was hardly her fault that she missed so much class last year, but there was nothing to be done about the past. Now she had homework from two years as well as missions with her team. At the very least, that Cardin Winchester fellow that she'd heard awful things about had not passed the initiation. That fact brought her some relief in her current crisis.

'If I reduce my sleep schedule from six hours to three, then I should be able to get my history homework done. If I work hard, I might get more sleep than that!' Velvet thought.

"Eating alone?" A voice asked, breaking her out of her thoughts. She looked up to see a team of first years, led by a brown-haired, bowler-hat wearing individual who she swore could pass for a second or third year easily, if not a teacher. Her first instinct was to hide behind her camera, but it was packed up and not easy to get to. Her second instinct, of course, was to run away.

She recognized him now. Jack Candlestick.

He'd only been at the school for a few days, but rumors were spreading like wildfire people said he started in the Emerald Forest. Some said he abused his teammates. The most recent one she heard earlier that morning was that somebody saw him walking to the dorm covered in human blood last night. Velvet swallowed.

'Be brave. You're his upperclassmen. Besides, rumors have been proven wrong before, right?' She thought as she forced a smile on her face and turned to look at him.

"...M-My teammates and I got separated in the lunch schedule, so—"

She was interrupted by Jack sitting down at the table directly across from her. He smirked and motioned to his teammates.

"Then I suppose you could do with some company, hmm?" Jack said. The white-haired girl, Weiss Schnee, rolled her eyes and sat at the farthest away seat on the opposite side of the table. Velvet could understand that. The Schnees didn't get along with faunus. A part of her hurt, but being ignored was something Velvet was used to. At the very least, it was better than being outwardly harassed. A short, black-haired girl sat next to Jack and slightly-taller black-haired girl with silver eyes sat next to Velvet.

"My name's Ruby Rose! What's yours?" The silver-eyed girl asked. Velvet swallowed.

"V-Velvet Scarlatina. I'm a second year," Velvet answered. At that, Ruby's eyes widened and she reached across the table to grab the hand of the smaller girl.

"Look, Nilla! A second year!" Ruby said, pointing at Velvet with the other girl's hand. The other girl, "Nilla", nodded, but then took her hand back and inspected it before setting it back on the table.

'I think she and I have a class together,' Velvet thought, trying to recall the somewhat familiar face. At some level, she'd seen all of them in passing, but Nilla stuck out to her. As far as she could recall, she hadn't heard the girl say a single thing. And Velvet prided herself on her hearing.

"Now, I'm sure you're aware, but the princess in the corner is the infamous Schnee girl and I'm the delightfully popular Jack Candlestick that everybody likes to spread rumors about," Jack said, interrupting Velvet's thoughts. He smiled. "I unfortunately have yet to meet whoever started all those rumors. I can assure you that they're I'm not the monster them may paint me as."

From the corner, Schnee added, "He's still an asshole."

Jack's smile grew wider.

"That I am. Would you like to be friends?" Jack asked, extending his hand across the table. Velvet's mind blanked for a moment before rebooting.

'Friends? When all my other classmates ignore me or stare at my ears… When they whisper when they think I can't hear… He wants to be friends?' Velvet's thoughts swirled in her head. While Beacon was perfectly fine accepting faunus students, they hardly enforced any fair treatment policy. Velvet had known enough humans to think Jack's offer was a bad idea.

Then she looked at Ruby, whose silver eyes sparkled with excitement. Her forced smile faded away and a true smile replaced it as she took his hand.

"That sounds nice, actually," Velvet said. At the very least, she could call Coco if anything went wrong.

~Jaune~

Class was over for the day, finally. Russel, Yang, Pyrrha… they were surprised to say the least when Miss Goodwitch told them Roman's made-up story. Yang and Pyrrha had been worried and Pyrrha even wanted to go and personally thank Roman for "saving" Jaune, but he stopped them in their tracks.

Jaune made a choice and it led him to this point, to the point where he now worked for Roman Torchwick. He didn't want them to get involved with Roman. After sleeping on it and letting his mind catch up to everything that happened, that was the decision he came to. He couldn't trust Roman. He couldn't trust anyone involved with Vale's underground. He trusted the Forger and all that got him was pain. Even if Roman seemed like a nice man or a hero, Jaune wasn't smart enough to tell what was real and what was fake. Part of him wanted to believe in the man wholeheartedly.

But the rest of him wanted to learn from his interactions with the Forger.

Jaune sighed. He was lying in his bed back in his dorm room as he thought about all of this. It was Tuesday. There'd be no Sparring Club today, but tomorrow he'd have no choice but to attend. Pyrrha and Yang went out. Yang to presumably hang out with her younger sister and Pyrrha to go out and train. Which left him alone in the room with Russel. The other boy in his team was sitting on his bed with a comic, reading it with a grin on his face.

"Hey, Russel?" Jaune asked. Russel grunted back.

"You're from this city, right?"

Russel grunted back again.

"What's a Nameless?" Jaune asked. He'd heard the Forger use the term before and even Roman apparently used to have no name before the Forger gave it to him.

"Stay away from them," Russel answered, still reading his comic. Jaune cocked an eyebrow and sat up.

"What do you mean?" Jaune asked. Russel sighed, closed his book, and then turned to face Jaune.

"Since you won't leave me alone, I might as well tell you. The only people in this city that have no names are the ones who didn't have anybody to give them one. Kids from the streets who have no orphanage. They're used by criminals all the time. Vicious, violent kids that grow up to be vicious violent people if they live that long," Russel answered, scratching the back of his head.

Jaune stood up.

"Why would…" He couldn't force the words out, yet Russel got his meaning and nodded.

"You're from a small town, so you don't really get it, dude. The city of Vale is safe from the Grimm. That kinda safety comes at a price. Some people can't afford to live here alone, let alone with children. Or sometimes people need to leave for other reasons. You can't travel with a baby. Those things draw Grimm like nothing else, man. So they leave 'em behind. Sometimes there's nothing else you can do," Russel said with a shrug. "This is all pretty common knowledge, but there's nothing Ozpin can really do other than try to make more orphanages. But then kids get grabbed up by criminals on the way to or from the orphanage. Sometimes they run away on their own. I mean, these kids grow up to be criminals and bandits. They have a special kinda insanity."

"I see," Jaune said. What else could he say to that?

"So I'm guessing you met one then?"

Jaune jerked.

"Huh?!" He swallowed. "No, I just heard the term somewhere."

Russel shrugged and picked his comic back up.

"Eh, it's not my problem. I don't really care too much, 'leader'. As long as you don't get us all killed and we're able to look good, that's all I need from you," Russel said. Jaune looked away from Russel and fell back onto his own bed.

"Sure. I can do that. I think," Jaune said.

~Roman~

He fell to his knees, blood oozing from his multiple wounds. The surrounding cave seemed larger, blurrier, darker than he remembered. Melodic Cudgel had broken. He was out of time, out of Aura, and out of luck. His body had long stopped listening to him and escape was impossible. The others wouldn't make it in time.

"Now that is a good position. Kneeling," a voice said. Familiar. He looked up and saw him. Roman snarled.

"One that you're used to, I'm sure," Roman fired back as he looked up at his foe. He wiped the blood from his eyes and for a moment they focused. The boy with the steely hair. Mercury. The shit stain of a once famous killer now busy being Cinder's mad dog. Mercury laughed.

"You see, that's why I hate you, Roman. You remind me of my father. Always wanting to get the last word in. People mean nothing to you. Just like they no longer mean anything to me," Mercury said as he walked closer. Roman's vision swam and then dived deep into the darkness below and he struggled to remain above the surface of consciousness.

"Daddy issues? Again? Further proof that family ruins people. Always," Roman said. Mercury chuckled.

"I couldn't agree more."

Then he brought his leg back...

And killed Roman with a kick.

Roman woke up, gasping for air and clutching his head in pain. After a moment, the pain passed, and his breathing evened. He could never get used to dying. He stared up at the white ceiling, the faint bit of moonlight that passed through the window illuminating the room just enough for him to see.

Slowly, he put the pieces together in his mind.

Cinder's desperation.

A swarm of Ursa.

The White Fang.

The assassin girl, Illia.

The cave where he would fight Mercury.

The hostages.

'So she's resorting to using human bait to draw a horde of Grimm. Cinder, your cards are showing. You're that desperate for Dust?' Roman thought with a smirk. 'You've provided the perfect opening for me to tear you apart. And I have more than enough time to do so.'

When he finally left his bed and the others had started to rouse, he noticed a slip of paper in front of his door. He bent down and picked it up only for his eyes to widen. He grit his teeth and threw it behind him before leaving his room and stomping off to the dorm showers.

'Shit.'

The message rang clear in his head.

"Due to some scheduling malfunctions, we are moving the Forever Fall field trip up to this Friday. Please get all your documentation in before then."

And it was fucking Wednesday.

Next Chapter: Revenge

A/N: Sorry it took so long to get this out! I was very busy and, to be honest, season 5 of RWBY hampered my motivation. Still, I have no plans on quitting and will continue this fic to its planned conclusion as best as I can.

Mystery of the Chapter: In an enclosed room, there is a corpse. There are two doors on opposite sides of the room and no windows. In the middle of the room, there is a chair that has been bolted to the floor. The corpse is leaned up against the wall facing the chair with each door on the left and right of the corpse, respectively. Attached to one of the door knobs is a long string. In one corner of the room is a locker with cleaning supplies. The doors are both locked from the inside of the room. The cause of death is strangulation, but not suicide. How did the victim die?