It had been a stressful two weeks for Blake. Her history with the White Fang gave her basic knowledge of tracking, but not enough for a search this wide. She was literally searching almost the entire planet; how could she be expected to get any results?

Not to mention the people she now had to work with. She couldn't even call them teammates anymore with the way their team fell apart after the talk in the hospital room.

As far as she knew, aside from sleeping in the same room, none of the four of them had talked with each other, besides Yang and Ruby. They sat apart from each other at lunch and in class, scroll conversations were non-existent, and even in Team RWBY's dorm no one ever talked.

NPR was no better. Anyone who came near Pyrrha's room was led away by Ozpin and Glynda, who were the only two besides her team she allowed anywhere near her. They always said the same thing: If you go in there, we won't be able to control what she'll do to you. The fact that Pyrrha somehow forgave Nora and Ren was the only positive thing she'd seen in the past two weeks.

It was torture seeing her friends divided like this and knowing that it's mostly your fault.

"Well Blake, what do you think?"

"There's no one on Remnant that could make a fake video this well. Everything the police said about the crime scene is shown here. It even has perfect audio. There's not a doubt in my mind that this video is real."

She still felt disgusted that she'd believed that. The others had turned to her then, just as they did now, hoping that she would find something to prove Jaune's innocence. None of the mistakes that she made during her time with the White Fang could even come close to the one she made that day: she'd turned them against him.

Her attention had been spiked a few weeks before Pyrrha was attacked. She was watching Jaune spar with Cardin, getting his ass handed to him like he usually did. This time, though, it seemed that neither of them was getting into it. Cardin was normally laughing like a maniac around now, but this time he simply looked bored. Normally this would be weird, but the explanation was right in front of them.

In the two months they'd been there, Jaune hadn't swung his sword once in a spar.

It made absolutely no sense. Jaune had a sword and shield, and yet he never used them for offense, only defense. Whenever he did go on the attack, it was with an obscure body part like his elbows or his knees, all of which Cardin swatted away like flies. The weirder part is that Glynda would never comment on it: she would either tell Cardin to improve his attitude, or tell Jaune that his technique needed improvement. Never once talking about him not using his weapon.

After the spar, which Cardin won with literally no effort, Jaune and Pyrrha walked off to do whatever it is they did after school. Blake took the opportunity to talk with the other five members of their teams, specifically Ruby.

"Hey Ruby, have you noticed anything weird about the way Jaune fights?"

Yang, of course, didn't take it seriously at first. She gave her signature smirk and shoulder shove. "Blakey, why are you checking out Jaune, now? Am I gonna have to warn Pyrrha?"

Blake scoffed, not understanding the champion's attraction to the blonde idiot but not against it. "No, Yang, I'm being serious. Have you seen the way he fights?"

Ruby put her hand to her chin in the signature thinking pose before her face scrunched up in thought. "I'm trying to remember if I have seen him fight."

The sentence that doomed him.

Yang looked confused. "We just saw him spar. What are you talking about?"

"I mean, go all out. In spars he's always holding back for some reason.

Yang also put on a similar thinking pose before she said "That's actually a good point. Have we ever seen him really fight?"

Weiss answered. "No. Not once have we ever seen him fight."

Blake was only more confused then when she started this talk. "How could he have lasted this long without a single fight? Surely he's at least fought Grimm."

Ruby spoke up. "I've seen Jaune and his sword covered in Grimm blood. Pyrrha covered for him and said he fought well, but I didn't actually see it."

Yang turned to Ruby, surprised by the revelation. "When did Jaune get covered in Grimm blood?"

Nora cleared it up. "Initiation, remember? When they killed a Deathstalker?"

Weiss scoffed. "So they claim, but I highly doubt they killed a Deathstalker alone. It simply doesn't make sense."

"The Deathstalker doesn't matter! He was covered in blood when we fought the Nevermore. Same with Pyrrha."

Blake tried to get everyone back on track. "What do you guys think?"

Ren and Nora looked like they were starting to get nervous. They were good actors, but Blake was better at reading people. "What do you mean?"

"It's pretty obvious that Jaune's hiding his abilities. Why do you think that is?"

The bell rang then, making them split up to go to classes, but the seeds of doubt were planted with one question burning in Team RWBY's mind.

What is Jaune hiding?

Then two weeks later, Jaune came back to campus shadowing a medical team, Pyrrha on a stretcher. His sword was covered in blood, causing suspicion from everyone before he calmed them down. He told the story of how they were attacked by Roman Torchwick and Torchwick stabbed her with his own sword. Everyone believed him, happy to wait for Pyrrha to recover and put the incident behind them.

Until the video came out.

With the video, Jaune was arrested by the Atlas government before anyone even knew what was happening. With the video, the rest of her team approached her hoping that she could prove it was fake. With the video, she condemned Jaune to hatred from her friends. And with the video, she divided the teams.

"There's not a doubt in my mind that this video is real."

Silence reigned through the room. No one could believe that the innocent and naive Jaune had attacked Pyrrha (or that he managed to do that in the first place), but they trusted Blake's judgement. Well, most of them did.

"You're wrong." The shaking and desperate voice of Lie Ren voiced out. It was a unique experience seeing Ren show emotion, yet here he was, looking like he was about to burst from anger and sadness.

"Jaune wouldn't do that. I know he wouldn't. Pyrrha is his best friend. He'd die for her!"

"Well I don't know what to tell you, Ren! This video is literally perfect! Do you have an explanation for this? Why would they target Jaune of all people?!"

"I..." he cut himself off. He shared a look with Nora, a silent conversation passing between them before he sighed. "That's not my business to say."

Yang jumped to Blake's defense. "So there is a reason? Well let's hear it!"

In response, Nora jumped to Ren's defense. "He already said it's not our business to say, so back off!"

Ruby got involved. "Guys, there's no reason to be angry at each other. So let's just calm down."

Naturally, she was completely ignored, Yang's anger too strong to stop now. "This isn't an issue of who likes who, okay? Jaune is going to prison forever if we don't clear his name! We need to hear it!"

Nora was about to respond, but Ren put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down. Nora looked back, watching Ren as he jerked his head towards the door of the room. Nora got the message, and without saying anything else they walked out of the room.

Yang looked angrier than Blake had ever seen her, which made sense considering she'd been completely ignored and walked out on. She finally let it activate her semblance, her hair bursting into flames. "The nerve of those two! They could save his life and they're not gonna say anything?!"

Ruby was desperately picking at straws, hoping to find something to justify their actions. "If Jaune has a secret, it's his to tell. We can't judge them for something we don't even know. For all we know, it would make things worse."

"How could things get worse, Ruby?!"

Blake ignored their argument, settling for an inner monologue.

How is it possible for someone, much less Jaune, to beat Pyrrha? She's the highest in the first and second years. Jaune, meanwhile, is at the very bottom. He can't even beat Cardin, but Pyrrha could beat his whole team without taking a hit. It makes no sense for Jaune to out of nowhere get these amazing skills worthy of beating a champion like her.

Then, a thought crossed her mind. Rather, a memory.

Weiss said it herself. We've never seen him fight. Is... is this what Jaune was hiding? Is this why he never fought?

As much as she didn't want to admit it, it made sense to her. If you were living with the enemy, you'd want them to think you were weaker than you were. At the very least, you wouldn't flat out show them what you could do.

Was Jaune evil this whole time?

"Guys", she said to silence the arguing sisters, "what if Jaune has been evil this whole time?"

Blake shook herself out of the memory, refocusing on the task at hand.

RWY expected her to be able to magically find Jaune and bring him back, but it wasn't anywhere close to that simple. He'd literally vanished out of thin air as far as the Atlas military cared. They knew that he was picked up on an Atlas bullhead, but neither him or the bullhead were seen again. His family had denied to comment.

She'd been searching the internet at this point, hoping to find a headline or anything that gave her a clue, but there was literally nothing for her to find. For all intents and purposes, Jaune didn't exist anymore in the eyes of the public.

With a sigh, she got up from her chair in the library and started the trudge back to her room in guilty sorrow. It was the same routine every day: stay away from the room as long as she could until she forced herself to go back. There was a curfew after all.

However, today turned out much different due to the sounds coming from JNPR's old room.

RWBY's dorm was silent as always, but with her Faunus ears, she could pick up a conversation happening inside their sister team's dorm. It wouldn't have been a big deal if it wasn't for one small detail.

They were laughing. Nora and Ren were actually laughing.

She hadn't seen much of them since the incident, but what she did see suggested that they were still grieving the loss of their leader. They weren't even close to being the same way they used to be, yet here they were laughing at something.

The urge was too great, and before she knew it she was knocking on the door. The laughing abruptly stopped when Ren opened the door and saw who it was, a scowl on his face.

"What do you want, Blake?"

That's actually a good question. Now that she was here, she didn't know what she was supposed to do. I suppose honesty is the best bet. "I was wondering how you were doing. You seemed happier in here than you are outside."

Ren looked surprised, before his eyes wandered to the bow on her head and realization struck. "We'd appreciate it if you didn't eavesdrop on us and left us alone. You've done enough damage."

Blake knew that couldn't have been more correct, but before she could turn and leave she heard Nora's scroll go off with a text and she said "Wait!" She turned back around, confused as to why she was being kicked out one second and told to stay the next, but Nora gestured to Ren with a 'come here'. Ren obliged immediately.

She showed him her scroll, presumably the text she just got, before Ren nodded and looked back to Blake. "I hear your Team asked you to find Jaune. Is that true?" She nodded. "You didn't find anything, I assume?" She nodded again.

Suddenly, her scroll went off, and pulling it out revealed a text from Ren. A set of coordinates? She looked back up at him, confused out of her mind, seeing a smirk on his face.

"That's Jaune's location. Good luck."

Line break

"And he wouldn't tell you how he got these coordinates?"

"No, Weiss. I tried, but he just shut me down and told me to not keep him waiting and good luck."

"Why would we need luck?"

"Something tells me he's not gonna be happy to see us Rubes. I just hope he's forgiving."

Surprisingly enough, it had been really easy to convince the others that these mysterious coordinates were Jaune's location. They were all desperate at this point to see their friend again, although now that term didn't seem right to use. More like 'known associate'.

The only annoying thing was that the coordinates sent them into the middle of the Badlands, so far away from the Kingdoms that they were close to the ocean. Blake could even smell the fish, but knew better than to let it get to her. Letting their guard down now could get them killed.

Glynda had volunteered to fly the bullhead out, giving them 30 minutes before she would return at the same spot. The coordinates were in a particularly thick group of trees, so they had been dropped off about half a mile away. With aura, however, the distance was crossed in 2 minutes flat. Now they were just looking for him.

So lost in their own thoughts were they that they didn't notice the Grimm sneaking up on them. Yang, however, noticed at the last second, but she couldn't even react with how scared she became when she looked behind her. The others didn't blame her, seeing as they had the same reaction.

The group of Grimm that had somehow managed to sneak up on them was so thick they couldn't even see the path they'd used to get there in the first place, only a thick cloud of black. They couldn't even tell individual Grimm apart from each other since they were so packed together.

Looking around them in a circle, they realized too late that this cloud had somehow managed to completely spread all around them in the few seconds they were distracted. How were they this quick or silent?! Grimm are never this coordinated! They were completely surrounded by hundreds of thousands of Grimm, all ready to kill them.

They all pulled out their weapons, waiting for the Grimm to make the first move, but after standing there for around 15 seconds, they realized something that should've relieved them, but only scared them more.

The Grimm weren't attacking. They were just standing there, looking at them. But they didn't even get the chance to say anything before the familiar voice that haunted all of them rang out from where they were heading.

"You actually came. I'm surprised." Jaune's voice rang out from the group of Grimm in front of them, and as they looked closer they could see the Grimm in the distance clearing a path for him as though he was their king.

"I expected you to not show up and just leave me here, waiting to pull out the welcome mat." The group of Grimm in the front finally parted, revealing a figure that, even with the hood up, was clearly Jaune. "Wouldn't be the first time you let me down."

If Ruby was affected at all by the insult, she didn't show it, instead immediately starting to run towards her friend. "Jaune!"

Any hope of Jaune forgiving them was immediately destroyed when he sucker-punched Ruby to the ground.

Ruby fell like a sack of bricks straight to the ground where she sat there, stunned at what just happened. She looked up at Jaune, scared of what she would see, and what she saw would haunt her forever.

His red eyes felt like they were staring into her soul, complemented horrifyingly by completely white skin and black hair. He looked at her with a rage that she'd never seen on another person before; not even Torchwick had ever looked so angry at her. Based on the way the others gasped behind her, they could see him too.

So this is why Pyrrha cried when she got that text. It must have been his picture.

None of them could even think of moving lest they disturb the Grimm, so they simply watched as Jaune picked Ruby up and tossed her back like a piece of trash. She just sat there, crying her eyes out while nursing her cheek. Surprisingly enough, Yang was the one who eventually got brave enough to speak.

"Jaune, what is this? Why are the Grimm listening to you?"

Jaune laughed. Actually laughed, not some dramatic evil laugh. He genuinely found this funny.

"You really have no idea, do you? Ozpin never told you anything?"

"He's been too busy making sure we don't go anywhere near Pyrrha."

Jaune tilted his head in a thinking pose before he said "I'll have to thank him for that." Then, he started walking around them in a dramatic fashion, clearly enjoying himself milking this moment for all it was worth. "Anyway, this is a really freaking long story, so listen up."

He snapped his fingers, making a beowolf no bigger than Zwei run up to him and jump in his arms. Blake would've thought the scene was cute if she had no context.

"When I was about six or so, my father-" they all noticed the way he seemed to spit that word, "decided to unlock my aura and start training me. It went well, at first, until the bastard decided to give up on me." The pure anger in his voice led to him squishing the beowolf, but aside from a squeal and all four of them jumping from the sound, nothing happened.

"I ran from them. I ran into the forest nearby, hoping that I'd just die and get it over with. But then, something happened." This time, a larger beowolf came up to him and sat on its hind legs. Jaune let go of the smaller Grimm and started stroking its head without hesitation. "A Grimm found me. One of the smallest beowolves I've ever seen. Probably didn't even know what a human was at that point. I readied myself to die, but the Grimm acted just like this one. It started acting like a dog, not a creature of darkness."

Jaune paused his story and smiled. Clearly, this part of the memory was a fond one. "That guy and I played in that forest for hours. Tag, hide and seek, you name it. It was great. Then the town guard came looking for me. When he saw me playing with a Grimm, he lost his fucking mind. Started accusing me of being the devil's spawn or some shit like that. But the moment he started talking about ruining my dad's life..."

He sighed, pulling his emotions back inside. "I lost control. Something shot out of my hand and into this dude's chest. I watched as he collapsed in pain, looking like he wanted to puke up all his insides. His hair grew out everywhere and turned solid black. It was... it was horrifying. I..."

He looked back up from the beowolf, looking into their eyes with an eerie smile on his face.

"I turned him into a Grimm."