The future had always seemed so simple to Ruby. She was going to become an amazing huntress, save all sorts of people, look cool doing it, and make sure to always come back home.

She loved her mom, and always would, but her loss had only made it that much more clear that she needed to come home every time.

Even when the reality of Jaune's semblance had been revealed to her… was it rude to refer to him like that? Maybe she should just call him Second Thoughts, even in the safety of her mind. Or was it safe? Jaune's thoughts weren't safe when Second was in his head…

…not important. Or, potentially important, but she could worry about it later.

What mattered now was that while Second's future telling abilities hadn't worried her, his latest predictions definitely did.

The headmaster dying? Penny torn apart? Other deaths that Second had been weirdly evasive about? And, while not as bad as death, her sister might lose her arm!

Obviously Second had been doing everything he could to help prevent that. The headmaster, and the teachers, and Ironwood… even uncle Qrow was helping!

But she wanted to help, too. No, needed to help.

She'd thrown team RWBY into intensive training after the big meeting. It seemed like everyone who wasn't able to do something immediately had thought to do the same. Professor Oobleck had gone with team JNPR, Sun and Neptune had gone to find the rest of their team, and Penny had said something about getting upgrades, which really interested her, but she'd held herself back. Penny could show her the awesome upgrades later, but right now…

Right now, dripping sweat and exhausted, Yang had her "I'm worried, but pretending that I'm not" face on. She didn't see it too often these days, but back when their mom's death had still been fresh…

Yang wasn't taking the news well, even if she'd refuse to admit it. She didn't think that Weiss and Blake were either, but she hadn't known them for anywhere near as long as she had her own sister, so reading their tells was a lot harder. Curse her lacking social skills…

But it would all be okay! She was Ruby Rose, huntress in the making, and, if she had heard Second correctly, potential dragon slayer?!

Using her semblance to her advantage, she was easily able to get cleaned up from their team training session first, sneaking off to find Second Thoughts while the others were hitting the showers.

It wasn't exactly hard to find him. Or at least, to find Jaune anyway, since teams RWBY and JNPR hung out together all the time, and the thought of Second being away from Jaune just felt unnatural. It seemed that they had just gotten out of their own training session, with Oobleck trailing behind the team, and Second looked grumpy…? Concerning, but this was important! He could be grumpy later!

"Second!"

Her blue friend startled as she ran up to him. "Could you not appear out of nowhere?! Jeez…"

"Do you really have room to be saying that?" Jaune teased.

"Shut up, I saw you jump too!"

Behind them, Pyrrha rolled her eyes. "Was there something you needed, Ruby? If you don't stop them now, they'll never stop."

If Pyrrha was able to say that after a single training session with Second present, she worried about how much the team had actually accomplished during it. But that was a team JNPR problem.

"Yes! You kind of skipped over it when you were explaining all the future stuff, but…" Wait a second. "Did you get taller?!" That wasn't fair! She had finally escaped the cruel fate of being the shortest in the group only for Second to sprout up in just a few hours?! She still had a bit of height on him, maybe, but if he was growing at this rate then it wouldn't matter! He'd be taller than her by the end of the conversation! Ruby frowned. "Stop growing, right this instant!" She could see team JNPR, and even Oobleck, smirking behind him. Traitors! The whole lot of them! But as egregious as Second's new height was, it wasn't why she had come here. "Actually, forget that for now. I was hoping to hear more about the whole dragon killing thing you mentioned…? I don't really get what you meant about using my eyes. Are you saying I get laser eyes or something? They must be super powerful if they can kill a dragon, which sounds awesome, but like, do I lose an eye and get it replaced with a mechanical one or something? Laser eyes sound cool, but I like my eyes as they are, and I'm not sure if-"

"Ruby." Second interrupted her. "Breathe. If you ask all these questions at once I'm going to forget at least half of them."

Right. Slow things down a bit. She could handle that. Especially since it gave her a moment to savor the fact that she was taller than Second. At least while it lasted…

"To cover what I actually got out of that, though," Second continued, "Yes, I have gotten taller. Your eyes… honestly your best bet for information would be Ozpin. I don't actually know that much. There's some old lady who would be a good mentor, but I don't know where she lives, and I'm probably remembering her name wrong. Calabara, Balaclava…" He thought for a moment before shaking his head in the negative. "Yeah, I don't know."

He didn't know?! What was the point of bringing it up then?! Just to tease her with the potential of laser eyes and then rip it out from under her?!

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"What I can tell you, is that it's to do with your eyes as they are now. Silver eyes. They're some sort of magic mumbo jumbo that's like… I don't know, an anti-grimm weapon? Your eyes can flash and kill them."

"Are you perhaps talking about 'Silver-Eyed Warriors'?" Oobleck interrupted.

Second blinked. "Uh, yeah, actually. You know what I'm talking about?"

"Ooh! Ooh! Tell me, tell me, tell me!" Ruby zipped right past Second and up to the history professor. For once he was actually talking about something interesting!

"Hmmm, if memory serves, they were supposedly an ancient lineage of legendary warriors, said to have felled whole hordes of grimm with just a glance."

"And?! How do I use it! This is going to be amazing!"

"I have no idea." Oobleck took her dreams and shot them right in front of her.

"W-what?" Was everyone going to do this to her?! She wanted answers!

"That's all the information I have. I only vaguely recalled an old fairy tale, it's by no means a historical account. Perhaps I could find where I read about it if you gave me some time, but I highly doubt that it will contain any information you would find useful. When I read it initially I assumed it was the same as any other fairy tale. Mostly fiction, but perhaps serving some sort of educational or entertainment purpose."

"B-but… my laser eyes…"

"Relax, Ruby" Pyhrra placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. "Second said that Headmaster Ozpin would know about them, you can just ask him."

"And if he doesn't, we can beat the answers out of him!" Nora proclaimed.

She heard a whimper behind her.

"No, Nora." Ren denied her. "You've already traumatized Second enough. We don't need to do the same to the headmaster."

She didn't have time for Nora's antics! "Does anyone know where the headmaster is then? Is he still in his office?"

"I'm afraid that you'll have to wait if you're getting your answers from him, Ms. Rose." Oobleck went back for her dreams for a second time, double tapping them like she had so many times in those zombie games. "I believe he has already left for Haven to deal with the situation there."

How was a girl supposed to use her super awesome laser eyes if nobody could give her answers?!

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"Yes, councilman Anders. Yes. I'm aware. There's no need-" Qrow watched Oz bite back a sigh as the council continued to chew him out over the scroll. Heh. Serves the bastard right for making him come and deal with this mess.

"James, surely you, at least, can see reason!" His latest headache whined. "I have an image to uphold! I'm sure this is all just one big misunderstanding, but if things go on like this then there will be chaos!"

"I sincerely hope that this is a misunderstanding that we can all be embarrassed about afterwards." Jimmy Irondick reassured him.

Leonardo sighed, seemingly thinking that he'd won over the general already.

But Mister Uptight didn't stop there. "I genuinely want that to be the case, because the alternative is that you're a traitor to humanity, your kingdom, your school, and us on a personal level. That you're responsible for the deaths of countless people through your action, be that directly with the missing Huntsmen, or indirectly through the civilians they could have saved."

The headmaster of Haven looked much more worried after that.

Oz walked up beside him. "You had better hope that there is more than circumstantial evidence here, Qrow, or a lot of people are going to be very unhappy."

It went unsaid that Oz would be one of them. Not that he could blame him, what with him having trusted Leo for years, decades even. But Qrow was pretty damn sure that he'd gotten this one right, even if Jimmy's men had screwed the pooch on the execution.

Atlas never had known the meaning of "subtle". Where he had been able to investigate in his avian form, checking things out right under the noses of everyone in Haven, those morons had stuck out like sore thumbs since the moment they arrived. And with a criminal underworld as prevalent as Mistral's… well, Atlas soldiers snooping around wasn't exactly something that would go unnoticed, even if they had gone about things properly.

The ones Irondick had brought with him didn't seem half bad though. Trace ops? Base ops? He hadn't bothered to actually listen to the introduction, but it must've been something like that. Anything that came out of Jimmy's mouth went in one ear and out the other if he could get away with it, and wouldn't you know it? He was getting away with it right now. Standing back, letting the newcomers take over, and enjoying a relaxing sip from his flask was something he was more than happy to do.

He could feel Oz glaring at him though. Maybe he'd gone on for longer than just a sip…

"They're dead, Oz," he started. "The official story is that they're all out on missions, but they've been gone for too long. I looked into the ones that I knew personally, just to find that they'd all but disappeared. Unpaid tabs, long overdue rent…" He took another sip to cool his nerves. "If it had been one, maybe two teams, I could understand. Stuff happens out in the field." Summer came to mind. "But we're talking about dozens of teams. And with the lack of investigation on Haven's part… I've half a mind to start investigating the other staff members as well. It's weird that he's been getting away with it for so long."

Oz was silent for a moment, staring at Leo, who had gone back to pleading his innocence to Jimmy. "That is… concerning. Very much so. We will look into it immediately." Good. At least he was being taken seriously. The whole alcohol thing hindered that sometimes…

"However," aaaaaand there it was. "That is not going to be enough for the councils. We need something more direct, or the council of Mistral will see us removed and the relationship between kingdoms strained. That is not an acceptable outcome."

How like Oz to rain on his parade.

Luckily, a distraction made itself apparent when a bookshelf suddenly rolled to the side, revealing a secret passage. "I've found something!" One of Jimmy's men called out.

"Good work, Clover." Jimmy nodded to the man before turning back to Leo, who had suddenly gone extremely pale. "Would you care to explain? I don't remember this being here the last time I'd visited. Though, like you said, I'm sure this is all just a big misunderstanding." He all but growled the words.

Ozpin, meanwhile, had walked to the now open doorway, leading the group as they started to walk down the hidden path. Jimmy kept his prosthetic hand wrapped around Leo's wrist as he dragged him along.

They didn't have to walk far. Floating at a dead end just around the bend was a grimm. Not one he was familiar with, but it was rather obvious what this meant.

"A seer." Ozpin's voice was almost concerning. Faint, disbelieving. "I see. Would someone please take a picture?"

Evidence for the councils, he supposed. He didn't look to see who snapped one, but one second he heard the tell tale click, and the next Oz's cane had popped the thing like a balloon. His jaw was set like his teeth were grinding, and his eyes seemed distant and unfocused.

"What's your explanation for this, Leonardo?" James asked, looking ready to crush the coward's wrist right then and there.

"I-I, well, you see…"

Not exactly the happy ending he'd been hoping for, but at least this meant he could stop sleeping in the woods.

Assuming his semblance and Oz allowed him some peace and quiet, that is.