Though Jaune had still been very rightfully pissed upon his return to his dorm, discovering what had Professor Oobleck running off so suddenly had taken the wind out of his sails. The team seemed to come to an unspoken agreement that the issues between him and Second would be put on hold, at least for the moment, while they tried to make sense of the chaos in Vacuo.

Ozpin had visited them briefly, hoping to pick Second’s brain about the incident and any tangential things that might be good to know, but the headmaster had left empty handed. The man gave them a reassuring smile and told them that everything would be handled, but Jaune knew that he was disappointed.

The only thing that Second seemed to know is that Sun was originally from the desert kingdom, which led them to their current course of action. Though his stay in Vale hadn’t really been all that long, Jaune and the rest of the team viewed the faunus as a friend, and so they gave his scroll a call, hoping to be there for him in what was surely an emotional period.

They didn’t expect for the call to be answered with Sun’s face shrouded in darkness and illuminated only by the light of his scroll. There seemed to be some wooden boards behind him and his eyes kept flicking up and away from the screen almost constantly.

“Hey guys,” Sun whispered, “I take it you heard the news?”

“We did, yes…” Pyrrha answered, not immediately questioning the strangeness they were witnessing, “and we thought that we would-”

“Why do you look like you’re hiding?” Nora blurted out, never one for subtlety.

Sun winced and slapped at the scroll in a panic, not responding for a moment.

“Sun? Are you alright?” Jaune asked, worry bubbling up.

Sun’s eyes widened and he looked back into the camera. “Yeah, I’m… well, I guess I’m not really fine, but I’m as good as I can be,” he whispered. “But, uh, well…”

“We look like we’re hiding because we are hiding,” another familiar voice whispered.

Sun glared at where Neptune must have been off camera. “They don’t need to know that!” He whisper-hissed.

“Why not? They’re cool.”

“Given how we first met,” Ren spoke up, “is it safe to assume that you once again have stowed yourself away?”

Now that he mentioned it, it did sort of look like some sort of shipping crate behind Sun when the scroll’s light passed over it. If he had stowed away to get into Vale, then doing it again wasn’t some crazy leap of logic, but where would he even be going? What need was there to do it?

Sun’s worried expression morphed into one of determination. “Look, my home is in danger. People I care about are in danger or possibly dead. I’m going to Vacuo whether other people like it or not.”

“And they definitely do not,” Neptune supplied. “Sun is my bro, so of course I wanted to support him, but when we asked the new headmaster about flying out to help…”

Sun scowled. “Leave it up to the professionals,” he repeated in a mocking tone. “This is what we train for every day!”

He must have gotten a bit too loud for comfort, because Neptune quickly slapped a hand over Sun’s mouth and shushed him. Sun blushed before continuing again. “This is what we signed up for. I’m not about to stand around and do nothing when I could be helping instead.”

“And so the lovable idiot decided to hitch a ride with some of the Mistral huntsmen,” Neptune continued. “The whole team was behind him, but… well, this crate is pretty cramped and can barely fit the two of us. So Sun and I are heading out to help where we can, and our teammates are gonna try to cover up our absence while we’re gone.”

So Sun had been hit with the same line that Oobleck had given him. It stung a bit, knowing that Sun was forging ahead anyway where Jaune had just quietly accepted the order. Wasn’t that sort of attitude exactly what being a huntsman was all about? But at the same time…

“Sun…” Second hesitated. “I understand that this is important to you, but you were told to stay out of it for a reason. The grimm don’t just suddenly breach the walls, and the failed attack in Vale only happened because a bunch of criminals organized it. There’s no telling what sort of-”

“Save it, Second.” Sun shot him down. “I get that you’re just trying to look out for me, but nothing you say is gonna change my mind.”

“Plus we’re already on the way there…” Neptune reminded them.

Pyrrha sighed. “The grimm will likely be taken care of by the time you arrive anyway. Though I suppose clean up efforts could always use extra hands…”

Sun smiled bitterly. “I probably won’t be able to make much of a difference. But I have to do something, you know?”

The faunus suddenly tensed. “Gotta go, see y-!”

Before he could even finish the farewell, the call ended.

“Huh. How come we never go on secret stowaway adventures?” Nora asked.

“Nora, they were likely just discovered. And being a stowaway is illegal,” Ren reminded her.

“But if it was us, we could just fight them all and take over the ship! Oh! We could be pirates! Shiver me timbers or I’ll have ye walk the plank!”

“I’m fairly certain they were on an airship, Nora,” Pyrrha suggested. “I know he took a boat to reach Vale, but something this time sensitive would require air travel.”

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“That changes nothing! I’d still have them walk the plank!”

Part of Jaune wondered if Nora was like this on purpose. If she said ridiculous things to help the rest of them take their minds off the stressful topics.

“Nora, I don’t think airships have planks…” Second corrected.

“Argh! I’ll have ye be the first one to walk it for talk like that!”

As much as Jaune appreciated the effort, assuming he was correct… he just wished it was a little bit more effective.

----------------------------------------

Something was wrong.

He’d triple checked the area now, and there was nothing except for more bodies, all of them too cold to have been what he had heard.

Had he just imagined it? Maybe it was a trick of the wind blowing over these winding alleys?

He tried to come up with reasonable explanations, but his gut was telling him that something was up. Adding weird gut feelings, unexplained noises, and the fact that he was out searching for some criminals?

The oddity of a crow flying around Vacuo be damned, he transformed and went over the area for a fourth time from above, hoping that nobody mistook him for a particularly small Nevermore. His quick flight through the turbulent airs over the city didn’t reveal anything to him immediately, so he expanded his search radius, thinking that perhaps something had slipped past him.

Nothing again.

But did that really mean anything when one of Cinder’s lackey’s had a semblance that could alter your perception?

Fearing that he was about to get a glass arrow straight through his tiny body, he flew away from the area, only transforming back into his proper human self when he was certain he’d cleared enough distance.

Pulling out his scroll, he quickly started a call with Glynda.

“Have you found something?” were the first words out of her mouth. In the background he could see that the wall was as good as she was going to get it on her own, and she was probably just supervising at this point.

“Nothing concrete,” Qrow hedged, “but something is definitely up. I heard… well, I’m not sure what I heard, but I couldn’t figure out a source for it.”

She frowned. “Perhaps we should regroup then. They have little need of me here, and I could do without the static in the air. Shall we gather at Bartholomew’s location?”

Qrow nodded absentmindedly, before pausing. “Static in the air? I didn’t notice anything.”

Glynda hummed. “There’s not much, just enough to affect my hair slightly. Some of the workers for the wall repair informed me that it’s probably related to a sandstorm of some sort, but that sparked a debate and I’ll admit that my knowledge on the subject is rather lacking.”

A sandstorm? Maybe that had to do with how weird the wind was around here. He’d never tried to fly in that sort of weather so he wasn’t sure either. Bart would probably know, he liked that nerd shit. But this also wasn’t the time to be discussing the weather.

“Right. I’ll head on over to Bart then, meet you there.” When she nodded in acknowledgement he ended the call, putting his scroll away.

He made his way over on foot. No sense in rushing over by air when Glynda had to meet up with them as well, and it gave him some time to think.

A possible sandstorm would suck, but that would be just the sort of thing his semblance would throw at him. It was looking like the grimm were taken care of at this point. His strange experience with that sound…

Hmm. When he put it like that he sounded a bit crazy, didn’t he? But as silly as it might have come off as, he had been in this job for far too long to not trust his gut. Reactions that he didn’t quite understand had saved his life on numerous occasions.

And you could never be too careful when dealing with Salem and her pawns.

He was almost certain that they were here. Learning about all the problems they’d caused in all of those other… well, Qrow really didn’t like thinking about it, but information on the enemy was always useful.

Maybe that Tyrian guy would leap out at him? Having a scorpion faunus attack him in the desert kingdom seemed thematically fitting, at least.

He didn’t think Watts would be here. Some tech lunatic would probably prefer to deal with things behind the scenes.

Hazel…? Eh… even with what Second had shared, he didn’t feel like he had a good read on the guy. Might be here, might not.

But really, with the head of some weird hypnosis ring being assassinated, his mind went back to the last time Cinder had been seen. If she was willing to try and off Aurelius’ kid right out in the open like that, Emerald’s semblance notwithstanding, then maybe this sort of thing was just her style.

Whatever the case though, he just knew that he wasn’t looking forward to the inevitable confrontation. Fighting other people seriously was never a good time, especially since he was in unfamiliar territory and an area where possible hostages would be in no short supply. The streets were empty at the moment, but they wouldn’t stay that way for long and he wouldn’t put it past some monsters in human skin to wait for that time to use it to their advantage.

Qrow sighed.

At least the kids were being kept out of this.

----------------------------------------

Cinder huffed in annoyance as she pushed the body out of the way.

She’d heard that Vacuans were known for their great hospitality, but this fool had dared to turn her away in her time of need.

Though perhaps she should be praising his self preservation instincts? He’d managed to clock her as a dangerous person after all, not fooled in the slightest by her impromptu sob story about how she was a poor tourist trying to find shelter from the grimm. Many were too blinded by her beauty to pick up on that right away. Not that it’d done him any good, of course, but what could be done about such a power imbalance?

Nothing.

She was the powerful Maiden who needed a spot to hide from the authorities for a short time, and in a hurry. He was a man who, unfortunately for him, had nobody else in his home and was foolish enough to answer the door when she knocked.

This was only the natural course of things, though he could have kept his life if he’d simply shut up and accepted her lies.

But thinking further about a dead man would be a waste of time.

Now with a spot where she could plot in peace, she needed to figure out the next course of action.

These Crown fools likely weren’t going to ally with her now that she’d killed their leaders. Not the fanatical ones, at least. Surely there were a good portion who were simply in it because the criminal lifestyle suited them, and perhaps she could convince them to follow her plans with the right… incentives. She’d shown that a semblance as powerful as mind control wasn’t enough to stop her. That had to elevate her in their minds.

Though she might also just murder them all. Their leaders daring to even think about brainwashing her was a serious offense, let alone the fact that they’d actually tried to do it.

Emerald and Mercury… searching for them would be a waste of time. Emerald, the simpering little girl that she was, would assuredly search high and low and bring the group back together if only for a chance at some praise. What a simple girl.

After that…

Her planning paused as a strong breeze battered the door of her temporary base and she felt static electricity start to charge her perfect hair.

Interesting.

Even if her initial plans with the Crown failed, perhaps something could be gained from this awful place.

Salem would be pleased.