We didn’t speak again until we made it back to Tukson’s, meaning the whole walk was a long and quiet one. Especially for one in the dead of night, in the backstreets of Vale. I carried the White Fang Uniform folded under my arm the whole way. Could’ve ditched it, but at that point it had proven useful to keep around. I probably wouldn’t be able to use it more than once before it stopped working as cover. But with the way things had gone, even that was worth something.

Everybody shuffled back up the stairs and into Tukson’s former apartment. After everyone was inside, I locked the door and went to the map of Vale. Zwei, who’d been napping on one of the couches, groggily raised his head to look at us, blinked slowly, then went back to bed. Snarky brat. I marked off the locations me and Ruby had handled, added the spot Blake’s rally had been, and marked where Ironwood’s gala had been. Just another set of dots in a sea of them, adding no rhyme nor reason.

“Alright, that’s me and Rubes,” I said. “Jaune, Pyrrha, you got anything to share with the class?”

When I didn’t receive an answer, I looked up at them. Everyone, sans Penny, looked like they’d been through the ringer. Tired, a bit forlorn, and just a smidge anxious. They’d either taken to leaning or sitting on the couches in the den or walls, digesting the evening. Penny was the exception, because she just seemed to be casually observing the whole thing. Out of everyone here, she probably had the least knowledge about everything that was going on. Even if that wasn’t the case, she seemed to be good about processing things fast. Probably came with being part computer.

“… Gonna go out on a limb here and say tonight’s been a long night for everyone?” I asked.

I got a mumbled chorus of agreement in response.

“I found it’s actually been quite short,” Penny answered cheerily.

The look Blake shot her showed she didn’t appreciate it.

“I know things didn’t quite go to plan for some of us,” I said. “But we made it through, and we can rest now. In my book, that’s a good day. We rest up, get our bearings, and hit the ground running tomorrow.”

Blake shifted her gaze to me next. It was mirrored by a few others, though most lacking intensity. Ren, Weiss, Yang, and Pyrrha being perhaps the least upset.

“You call this a good night?” Blake asked, only barely keeping a growl out of her voice. “Sun’s been taken by the White Fang, you kidnapped Penny, and we didn’t actually learn anything!”

“Sun’s fine, Penny’s here of her own accord, and most importantly: no one’s dead,” I said. “On a scale of bad nights, trust me, we’re on the good end of them.”

I’m not sure what it was, but for some reason Yang started glaring daggers at me.

“I actually spoke with Papa earlier,” Penny added. “While he and the General are worried about me, they know I’m ok and will probably have someone come find me tomorrow.”

“... When did you do that?” Weiss asked curiously. A fair question, considering we’d been moving together pretty consistently the whole night.

“Uh… When you weren’t looking,” Penny answered diplomatically.

“The point is, everything’s as under control as we can make it. That tonight didn’t turn out much worse, makes it a good night,” I told her. When Blake’s glare didn’t ease up, I then, rather snarkily, added, “I also told you that going to the rally would be a bad idea. Despite that, I went along with it anyway. You made your own choices here, but we’re all dealing with the consequences of them.”

Blake didn’t respond to that, but it was enough to get her glaring elsewhere.

“Have you tried contacting Sun yet?” I asked.

“… I sent him a message about halfway back here,” Blake said. “He hasn’t answered yet.”

“Take it as a good sign for right now,” I said. “If he got discovered, they probably would’ve taken advantage of that.”

Again, no meaningful answer, but she did give a curt nod.

“… Who’s Taurus?” I asked, earning a few confused looks.

A tense, heavy look fell over Blake at the mention of the name. The giant Fang had made mention that he was someone important, and Blake knew him. Though judging by the reaction, I could tell it wasn’t necessarily a good relationship.

“… Someone I hope we don’t need to worry about,” Blake said, bow ears flattening against her head. She leaned against the wall and slid down it, curling up as she sat.

“Ok,” I said, choosing to let the issue lie for now. “I won’t press, but no more crap, alright? We’re all in this hole together, like it or not, we can’t be tearing each other apart for mistakes. Like Ruby said, we’re all friends. We’ve got to support each other.”

Again, Blake nodded.

“Now, if we can?” I motioned to the map.

Jaune looked my way and gave me a basic summary of what had happened with him and Pyrrha. Didn’t sound very noteworthy, out of all of us, apparently they’d had the most quiet night. I marked off the places they’d visited, then moved onto Ren and Nora, then Yang and Weiss. In all, we’d managed to cross off the last of the questionable locations from the list. Which meant the easy, if tedious work was done.

“What happens next?” Ruby asked, stretching then walking over to the map.

“Tomorrow, or rather, in a few hours, we start hitting what few rallying points and stash houses I’ve got left on the list,” I explained. “The places they’d most likely have intel, weapons, supplies. Without them we break any remaining foothold they might have in the city. Tonight was prep work for that. But I’ll be honest, I don’t like it.”

“… They’ve got something else planned, don’t they?” Ruby asked. “Something for tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “What we’ve found so far… I don’t like it. They’re getting desperate, hadn’t counted on people other than the police to push back. Whatever’s going to happen tomorrow, it’s going to be big.”

“It’s a jailbreak,” Blake answered.

“…” Ruby and I turned back to look at Blake. She was still sitting against the wall, looking a little downcast. But she was answering clearly.

“Sun and I were pulled into the briefing,” Blake explained. “They’ve got a bunch of people they’re planning to send in disguised as humans. I don’t know what the plan is beyond that, but they’ll be relaying information to the people inside. I guess it’s meant to help them escape.”

My gaze lingered on Blake, then traced back to Ruby, and landed on the map. My mind began to race. I thought about the gala from earlier that evening. It had been a sloppy, pointless attack. They’d had no hope of actually escaping even if they had killed Ironwood. Why?

Because they hadn’t been planning to escape.

What if they’d intended to surrender? Find some way to be taken in on their own terms. The police wouldn’t have realized that. But it would stack the prison with fresh numbers, people aware of the plan and ready to get everyone into position. Even with Ruby and me intervening, all we did is make sure they were in a position to be taken in.

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

The thought of it made my brain buzz. Made my spine tickle a bit with anger.

Maybe having Blake go in had yielded some meaningful fruit after all.

“That’s not good,” Ruby said, picking up a similar train of thought, she looked back at the map and I could see her face falling. “What are we going to do…” She looked back to Blake. “Do we know where it is?”

Blake shook her head. “They said we’d get more information once everyone was moved to their respective safehouses. But if it’s a jailbreak, that means they’d have to go to jail, right?”

“…” I looked at Ruby. “Where do the police take people after they’re arrested?”

“Um… I don’t know.” Ruby shrugged. “I mean, they go to jail- duh- but I’ve never actually stopped and thought about where that was supposed to be… Yang, do you… um?”

Ruby turned and looked at her sister, and I mirrored her. But Yang didn’t answer. She was leaning against a wall, completely zoned out and looking rather dour. Which for Yang seemed all the more notable. She might not have been a buzzing ball of electric joy like Nora or Ruby, but dour was not a word I’d associate with her lightly.

“You there sunshine?” I asked.

She blinked and looked up. “Huh?... Oh, uh, yeah… There’s a place that dad and Uncle Qrow told me about once…” She shook her head. “I can’t remember it right now.”

“… shit.” I swore. “… Ok, well, this changes things. A jailbreak is going to be a problem. I don’t know how this helps them right now, there’s no chance it’ll keep everyone distracted long enough, but I see it being a problem.”

“Then we’re going to have to deal with it,” Ruby said, before yawning. She tried to stifle it, but it was a big and long one. “… Maybe after sleeping… and breakfast.”

“Yay~” Nora droned, then flopped forward, landing hard onto one of the couches.

“Agreed,” I said, eyeing Yang a bit longer. “Whatever’s going on, we need to prep for it. Soon as everyone’s rested and fed, we’ll start going over what we know and try to nip this thing in the bud… Can’t shake the feeling that this is gonna turn into a problem.”

“… I call first dibs on the shower!” Ruby squeaked.

Before I could say anything, she’d grabbed her bag and bolted into the bathroom. Door locked behind her.

“… Figures,” I muttered. I fished around in my coat and pulled out the bottle of whiskey I’d acquired earlier that night. I grabbed a glass from the cupboard and poured myself a few fingers. In the dim light of the apartment, the liquor had a pleasant amber color. Perhaps a sign of quality, but even being a bit of a Gourmet I couldn’t quite judge this world’s spirits yet. The two of us didn’t exactly have a good track record.

Before I had a chance to remedy that though, I found myself interrupted. As I examined the glass, there was a tap on my shoulder. A quick turn revealed it to be Yang. I might not be the most perceptive man, but I could tell something was up just by the look of her. That dour expression she’d been wearing since we’d all met up was still on display. Made her look tired, more so than most of us surely felt. But, maybe it was just me overthinking things.

“Hey,” she said, before thumbing back towards the stairwell door “Can we talk?”

“… sure.” I said, uncertain where this was going. I motioned for her to lead on, and we headed back towards the stairs. Ren, Nora, and Penny seemed to eye us as we went, but the others were tapped out. Be a miracle if they showered before shuffling off to dreamland. We stepped out of the apartment and descended back into the backroom of the bookstore, being mindful as we went down about how much noise we made. It was getting to be early.

We stepped back into the back room and I shut the door behind us.

“… Alright.” I said, looking at Yang. “What did you want to talk about?”

Yang stared at me a moment before fidgeting, shrugging. “You said you’d wanted to talk to me about what happened at Junior’s Club, remember?” She answered. “Well… There’s not really going to be a better time. You scheduled an appointment, sooo… Here we are.”

“Ah,” I said, nodding. “Right. Hadn’t forgotten, just been busy with everything that’s happened in the, what, twenty four hours since?”

“Hm, time flies,” Yang said, expression unchanging. “… So, what happened? Why did you want to talk about this?”

“Well…” I said, trying to find the words, put myself in the headspace to talk about the matter. I knew I’d have to talk with her about it, but it preferably would’ve been any time but after a night like that. Few and scarce though they might’ve been. Beggars can’t be choosers though, even if I had asked for this. Best just to get it out of the way. “… Let’s start with this: we both made mistakes that night.”

“Ok…” Yang said, eyeing me.

“We both should have been reading the room more than we were, and we shouldn’t have taken stupid risks,” I told her. “We definitely shouldn’t have stuck around for Junior to call his boys on us… and I wish you had just told me what you’d done to him in the first place.”

Yang’s eyes narrowed at me. She crossed her arms in front of herself and asked. “Is that all you wanted to do? Tell me we should’ve done things differently?”

“… No,” I answered. “I’m trying to get myself in the right mindset for this conversation, and it’s not working well.” I sighed through my nose. “… Yang. Things didn’t go the way they were supposed to that night.”

Something in Yang’s expression fell when I said that. I don’t know what it was. Worry? Disappointment? I couldn’t tell.

“I don’t want to go into detail about what happened. Things just… they escalated once the fighting started,” I explained. “I’ve told you girls in the past, what it’s like trying to survive in the wasteland. How a lot of the time, the only options available are… permanent ones… Junior… He put us in that sort of situation. One where the only answer to our problems was going to be a permanent one: Us, or them.”

Yang’s expression grew darker with every word I said. It was painful to watch. Yang was a cheery girl, sunny as the hair on her head. Moments of dour self-reflection seemed few and far between for her. Those that I had seen, at least. But it was clear, by looking at her, that there was something reflecting in her head. What thoughts, images, memories or sensations those were, I didn’t know. But I could see it was beginning to trouble her, greatly.

“… I don’t remember what happened that night,” Yang said after a moment. Voice strong, but sounding like she’d had the stuffing kicked out of her. “I… I’m trying to remember what happened that night, but the whole thing is one giant blank for me…” She looked at me squarely. “Six… why can’t I remember what happened?”

“… Junior drugged us,” I told her. “Slipped something in our drinks before the fighting started.”

Yang’s expression entered freefall. Like watching crystal-glass fall through a sunset sky. Only to shatter hard against the ground. “...” She pursed her lips, looked as though she tasted something bitter. “…How many?”

“How many what?” I asked, feeling a small pang in my chest.

“People,” Yang said, finding some steel to prop herself against. Only for her to slowly lose her grip on it again. “How many… are dead?”

“… Too many.” I admitted. For them, I didn’t feel a thing. They made their choices, walked that road.

But my heart ached for Yang. The whole mess could have been avoided if we’d just been smarter about all of it. I could see she was grasping some of that too. She looked at me like a lost child. So completely out of their depth that no answer could console or guide them. She blinked once, twice. If it were anyone but Yang, I’d have said she was on the verge of tears. But not her. She was a strong one, a fighter. She wouldn’t let one mistake push her there.

She swallowed, and walked up to me. I was reminded then about how nice her outfit looked. Don’t know what it was in that moment that made it stand out so much more than her normal one. But for a moment, she seemed far more mature than I knew the girl wearing it to be.

Yang’s hand landed on my shoulder, and she squeezed it.

“… I’m sorry,” she spoke, voice a raw whisper.

Then she was past me. Before I had a chance to say anything more she’d already returned to the stairwell, and was going upstairs.

“… Me too,” I answered.

There was no taking back the things I did. No un-killing the people I’d taken down. Too many times do I regret needing to.

But I regret the way Yang had to be involved.

It was the kind of guilt that eats a person alive.

Neither of us was the one to bear that guilt though. That fell on Junior. Our own mistakes aside, he made his own choices. He still attacked us. Still made the calls that got his boys killed, likely committed worse before we met him.

For his sake, I hoped we’d never meet again.

For Yang’s, I hoped we could move forward.

But as I turned and headed back up the stairs, a thought occurred to me. I looked down at my Pip-boy, waiting for it to make a noise. It’d deemed what had happened between me and Yang important enough to be a ‘quest’. But for some reason, it remained strangely quiet. Which was worrisome for reasons that didn’t make sense. How blunt did I need to be for this thing to understand? Especially when Yang had already understood. I exhaled heavily and climbed the stairs. We weren’t gone long. By the time we got back up, I could hear the shower running. The others were mostly zonked out in the den. Zwei was cuddled up against Yang, who was sitting curled against one wall, his head nuzzled against her leg.

Nora swiveled her head towards me, looking bleary-eyed. “So what’d you two talk about?”

“None of your business, Nora,” I said, probably a little more harshly than I meant.

But Nora must have missed it. She merely rolled her eyes, then passed Ren some form of marker, which he pocketed. Wondered what bet that one was about.

I went back to the kitchen, and looked at my glass of liquor.

I put it aside and grabbed the bottle.

I would need a hair of the dog.