Penelope looked around at the small cramped safehouse. It had taken all night for Vasily and Bonnie to take her here. It was smaller than their previous residence being a single apartment on the outskirts of Mantle, just outside the window she could see the frozen tundra in the distance.

"You own this place?" She asked standing in the middle of the room watching as Bonnie pulled plastic off the furniture uncovering it as they helped prepare their space for comfortable habitation.

"We have been renting it out for some time," Bonnie explained as off in the kitchen Vasily made himself busy cleaning his weapons, his recent brush with the Ace Operatives having given him more trigger time in five minutes than he had in months, a satisfied smirk on his face as he pushed the bore brush through the barrel of his rifle.

"Do you have many safe houses like this?" Penelope asked her wondering just what her current purpose was with no immediate threats to dispose of or targets to terminate.

Bonnie nodded to her opening one of the duffle bags they had kept packed in the truck pulling out several laptops, numerous cables and hard drives placing them down on the spotless desk. "We have several in each kingdom," Bonnie explained to her, "we rent most of them out through shell companies or we have contacts who keep such places for people like us, they're our homes and we need many just in case we are ever found."

"So you live your lives moving between these places avoiding the authorities?" She asked her watching as Bonnie started setting up her array of laptops, a wireless router and various other electronics interconnected with one another.

"Yes," Bonnie answered her, "we go wherever we can find work that… interests Vasily," she told her.

"Do huntsmen often find your safehouses?" Penelope asked her, Bonnie was always more receptive of her questions like this.

"No," Bonnie told her softly, laying her elbows down on the desk and resting her head in her hands. "What happened last night was a first… usually we have reason to suspect that authorities are watching and simply leave, last night was the first time anyone tried attacking us directly in one of our houses."

Vasily chuckled from his table as he ran dry swabs through the barrel scraping up remaining residue. "An interesting development to say the least, those operatives were not expecting my defences so strong. Doubtlessly Ironwood and his operatives thought they could catch me off guard."

"Indeed though this apartment will not be as easily defended," Bonnie explained, "Vasily… we should leave Atlas while we have the chance, Ironwood and his forces are closing in on us, we should leave. There's work in Vacuo I am sure will interest you."

Vasily looked away from his work and narrowed his eyes at ber. Bonnie figited at his gaze and averted her eyes away from him. "Perhaps you are right," Vasily admitted, "our employer has already begun their operation and we clearly have the attention of the authorities."

Bonnie nodded in agreement, "Precisely," she agreed, "We are not being actively pursued in Vacuo and there is plenty of work, many tribal leaders and criminals would want your skills and offer handsome rewards."

"Do not get ahead of yourself Bonnie," Vasily cut in, "before we can move onto different hunting grounds I must face Arc."

Bonnie looked sullen at the name Penelope had heard so often, her hand touched her belly. "Must we?" Bonnie asked him.

"He defeated me," Vasily told her, his voice holding a dangerous edge of what Penelope was coming to know as anger ready to boil over.

"You survived," Bonnie told him carefully, "if he defeated you you'd be dead, but you're not Vasily you're alive, if anything you are even!"

Vasily's fist smashed down on the table rattling the various weapon parts on its surface. "It is not even!" He snarled anger bursting forth, "He left him for dead! Like I was some insect beneath his notice, he left me scarred to remember him humiliating me and I feel pain with every step!" He seethed from his chair at her and Bonnie almost recoiled still holding her hand to her belly.

"There are no ties in this game!" Vasily growled at her, "There is no even, and there is no draw, there are winners and there are losers and that night he made me a loser and left to relish his victory! I will not stand for it! I will make him regret letting me live."

Bonnie nodded, "Alright… how should we do this?" She asked, bending immediately to his will.

Penelope watched in silent fascination as Vasily subdued any protest by only raising his voice. She watched his shoulders square and his gaze focus on her threatening violence that he hadn't needed to deliver. It was his power over her and she watched with rapt attention. Penelope had wondered why the fox tailed woman so talented relented to him easily, she understood now that she was weak, surrendering to the first sign of his anger.

"We'll start monitoring Arc's movements and set the stage," Vasily explained to her, "I want you to access the Atlas CCTV and start monitoring his movements and that of the android, we'll start tracking their movements, we'll go after the android first. Use Penelope, she can monitor them day and night."

Bonnie nodded, "Alright… I'll get access and hook Penelope in," she said with a nod.

"Good," he told her, "I will begin scouting potential areas for our confrontation. I will be in the bedroom, do not disturb me." Vasily finished reassembling his double rifle with practiced efficiency and left with his favorite rifle cradled in his arm.

Bonnie was silent as she finished setting up her computers and her router and Penelope watched her. "How did you meet Vasily?" Penelope asked her.

"What?" Bonnie asked her.

"How did you meet?" She asked, "how long have you been traveling together and performing professional assassinations?"

Bonnie paused and opened her laptops gazing at the glowing screens. "We met in Mistral… I was working for the Schnee Dust Company's research and development department at the time along with a number of fellow researchers, we were all developing mining drones to reach dust deposits too deep for normal miners. I had known most of them since university, we had all attended together on SDC scholarships and after four years our company contracts were expiring. We were working in a facility contracted to Haven academy but a local tech company offered us work when they learned our company contracts were about to expire. Most of us took the offer, it was very lucrative and much better than what the SDC was offering us. The company did not care for that very much. Vasily was hired to ensure that our talents didn't go to our competitors."

"Vasily was hired to kill you?" Penelope asked.

"We were taking a bullhead back to Atlas when he shot it down," she continued to explain to her, "We were stranded in the Mistral wilderness for days, grimm got some of us. The rest Vasily took down. We tried to run back to civilization, for help… but he took my colleagues down one by one. There were some huntsmen aboard with combat training and they tried to fight him and protect us from the grimm, but it of course never went well, they a. Vasily was playing with us, like a cat with a mouse. He could have just killed us all outright but he took the opportunity to relish us trying to outwit him."

"So why are you alive?" Penelope asked her finding it easy to imagine Vasily taking his time while Bonnie and her friends tried surviving in the wilderness of Mistral without a hope of escape or resistance. It made Penelope think about her test with the grimm out on the frozen Atlas tundra. The grimm had all been weak to her, killing them a simple task that had given her mild pleasure. She asserted her strength over them by taking her time, by dismembering them, by shattering their spines and letting them twitch and suffer paralized. Was that how it was for Vasily, watching Bonnie and her fellow researchers try survive him hunting them?

"I knew it was hopeless, after almost a week of trying to trek back to the closest settlement I knew I had no chance of surviving with the others in tow. So one night… I poisoned everyone's food. It wasn't anything lethal or anything, just some berries we found that caused severe nausea. I figured if I could get ahead, just take off and with enough food and water for myself he would be too busy dealing with everyone else and I could escape. So after dinner that night I filled my bag with food and took off, I also broke one of my friends legs with a tree branch while she slept. I hoped that would slow them down more or maybe even help scatter them and make it more difficult for our hunter. After she woke up screaming in pain I sprinted as far and as fast as I could."

"How far did you get?" Penelope asked her knowing that her efforts had to have been in vain.

"A few days," Bonnie admitted to her, "he eventually caught up with me once he had finished picking off the rest of my colleagues, I was dehydrated and exhausted and I had hardly slept, I knew he was close and I simply gave up."

"You gave up?" Penelope asked her, "were you afraid you were going to die?"

"I was terrified," Bonnie explained, "but I was more tired and frustrated and hungry and weak, even if Vasily had simply let me go I know I would not have made it out alive, I would have been lucky to die of exposure, I'd probably get torn up by grimm. So I dropped to my knees and I did the only thing I could think of, I begged for my life."

Bonnie closed her eyes as if reimagining it. "I told him that I would do anything he wanted, I promised to use my skills for whatever he desired, I promised to help him, that he could just say that I was dead. I suppose I might as well be. And I asked him if he wasn't going to do that then to just kill me and get it over with."

"But he took you up on your offer," Penelope said, "You work for him now."

Bonnie smirked wryly, "He did, he actually said he was surprised by me, that unlike everyone else I was willing to sacrifice everyone else to survive. He said I was stronger than the rest because I knew what I had to do to survive and was willing to do it. And then… I faced him and stopped running from death, I submitted to him knowing that I could never outrun a predator."

"I see," Penelope said, "so from then on you have been traveling with him."

Bonnie nodded, "I became his assistant, his armorer, I was able to put my talents to uses I never dreamed of, it was freeing. I no longer had to file reports or answer to company bureaucrats that were always trying to cut corners or focus on aspects I never cared about. Vasily always took my work seriously, he never stifled my creativity and he taught me how to fight, he even unlocked my aura. He took me in as an asset and in time I became his hunting partner and his lover."

"Lover?" Penelope asked her, unfamiliar with the word.

Bonnie smiled a bit, "We… care very deeply about one another, Vasily has saved me more times than I could count. When he first took me in I was scared of him but I soon saw him for what he really was, a powerful and intelligent man who thirsted for a challenge and traveled the world looking for one. He simply needed help, he needed better weapons, someone to collect intelligence on his targets and bypass security systems. Our attraction became physical, there were other women who tended to his carnal needs but they came and went, they were like prey, his pleasure in them was with the hunt, they came and went like his other challenges but I remained by his side and I will continue to do so."

"I still do not understand, Vasily hunts women?" Penelope asked her.

"Not like with grimm or huntsman," Bonnie explained, "he pursues them for physical desire, he… actually you do not need to know about this Penelope, it isn't relevant. Come here."

Penelope stepped forward at her request, still curious to exactly what she was talking about, it seemed to make Bonnie uncomfortable however and she decided not to pursue the subject.

"Alright," Bonnie said, attaching a long cable to her laptop, "Alright… I'm going to link you up with the Atlas CCTV network, you'll be able to access the numerous camera feeds around Atlas and Mantle, we want you to start tracking Jaune Arc and Penny Polendina as best you can, we also managed to find a couple of their social media accounts but they're not very active but some of their friends in teams JNPR and RWBY are a bit more active so monitor them as well."

Penelope nodded and took the cord from Bonnie's hand. "Alright, what should I be looking for?"

"Look for details, a pattern in their movements and behavior, we want to know where they go, where they sleep, what they do for fun and all that kind of stuff. We want to know where they are most vulnerable and if there are details we think can be useful. If you need to record what you find and send it to my email."

"Very well," Penelope nodded, pulling her hair up to reveal a jackport where she pluggled the cord in connecting her with her laptop. Her consciousness seemed to split, while she remained in her body she felt her mind stretching out being pulled by this cable and spread out through the internet. As instructed she connected to the thousands of video feeds from the Atlas CCTV network, she scanned every feed as no human could. Each and every image perfectly scanned and processed faster than human thought. The images passed her by yielding nothing of interest or relevance to her.

The whole process only took minutes to her superior positronic brain. Humans were so slow at processing data, every camera feed she sent through facial recognition finding no one that matched her sister Penny or Jaune Arc at first, everything she witnessed through the digital lenses of these numerous cameras meant nothing to her, she watched everyone milling about their daily lives with a cold detachment, it meant nothing except to show her how different these humans were.

She stopped, the blonde boy known as Jaune Arc stood in the middle of the crosswalk holding up a large red sign as a line of… children walked across in a single file line with a group of older women following close behind the group.

Target aquired.

Jaune blew his whistle ordering this small company of children to stop which they did allowing him to again start leading them down the sidewalk to the school. With everything that had happened in the last couple days between regular shifts with border security and supply runs it finally felt good to return to something resembling normal. School had been temporarily delayed and the minute it had been announced that it would start up again he had applied for his old job of helping escort the kids and their mothers and luckily enough his schedule had shifted enough to allow him this.

It hadn't surprised him too much, with the recent attacks by still unknown perpetrators the potential threat of these kids to get attacked on their way to school had been elevated and right now it was more important than ever that the citizens of Mantle feel safe and calm and not draw more grimm than they already were.

Stopping in front of the school he blew his whistle to stop them and proceeded to award them all their humble stickers for being so good and brave adding them to a personal chart they each carried to show their parents and teachers how good they were. Not that anyone in particular was giving him trouble. With a few more words of praise to congratulate them all he dismissed them all to go play with their friends and relax before the first bell.

As the little kids scattered he heard the dull roar of jets above put a grin on his face and he turned looking upward to the sky seeing his girlfriend descending from the sky landing right in front of him.

"Hey superhero," he greeted her, stepping close and greeting her with a kiss. It was little more than a quick peck on the lips but it still felt amazing to him, "keeping the city safe?"

Penny nodded, "more than usual," she explained to him, "I have been missing you," she told him.

"Me too," he told her. He had barely managed to see her in the last couple days, he had thought their schedule before was hectic but now with the entire city on alert they were all running on minimal sleep and rest and they never had time to rest and catch up together, in the last two days since waking up in her bed with her hands through his hair he wasn't sure they even had a full ten minutes and most of that was from waking up next to her. Nora had of course jumped to her own conclusions when she learned that Jaune had spent the whole night with Penny, no matter how much he insisted that it wasn't like that she decided she liked her imaginations series of events more than the truth.

It was admittedly strange waking up to find a girl playing with his hair and watching him knowing she had merely spent the whole night watching him. "We have very poor timing," Jaune sighed wishing that they could at least have an hour a day to see one another instead of a couple minutes. "Just a couple weeks earlier and this would have been much easier," he lamented wishing that fate had been different.

Penny nodded in agreement, "I know… but I am hoping perhaps we can have dinner together tomorrow, perhaps more dancing or a movie," she suggested, "I very much want us to have our first official date. I know it has barely been two days but I am most excited."

Jaune chuckled, "I am excited too," he assured her, "and I'd love to have our first real date but my schedule is full up tomorrow, isn't yours?"

"For now," Penny told him, "I wanted to talk to you before putting in an official request with the General," she explained to him, "I have accumulated quite a lot of time off as have you and tomorrow night you are only scheduled for border patrol, all you need to do is get someone to accept your shift."

That sounded easier said than done. Everyone was running ragged with these extra duties, Jaune certainly knew if he had a slot of free time in the evening he wouldn't be surrendering it to anyone but it was worth a shot at least. "Is there anyone from Team RWBY not working that time slot?" he asked her figuring they would naturally be the most willing to accept some extra work on his behalf, if some stranger had asked him to work an extra several hours waiting around in the cold and dark so they could go have a nice dinner with their girlfriend he would have told them to go to hell.

"Team RWBY has the security shift behind you and the rest of your team," Penny explained to him, "all you would have to do is get one of them to agree to take your place."

That was good at least, though convincing them to take a double shift would be hard. He might be able to trade them another double shift at a later date, he'd probably regret it later but right now just a simple night with Penny sounded wonderful. "I'll talk to them," Jaune assured her.

Penny grinned in pleasure and bounced in excitement, "alright, I'll submit my request for the night off to Ironwood… I'll see you tomorrow if everything goes well."

Jaune gave her a kiss goodbye and watched her take off into the sky.

"You have a girlfriend?"

Jaune turned to see the blonde haired Cassie staring at him along with the other mothers who had joined him as he escorted their children safely to school "Yup," Jaune confirmed for her looking back as Penny soared across the sky, "that's my girlfriend."

As usual I hope you all enjoyed this week's chapter and will review to leave me with your thoughts and comments. Hope everyone is staying safe in these uncertain times. AS usual I'd like to thank MidKnightMoonglow99, Firefly25, DrknssRules1 and MajorBrony95 for all their help and ideas for this story and future stories.