Night passed into morning as Blake still hadn't come back following their big fight and Blake outing herself as not just a Faunus but a member of the White Fang as well. True to what Yang said, everyone was up at the crack of dawn and ready to go find their missing friend; since there wasn't any classes on that day, it meant that the group could spend all of that time trying to find her. Yang was determined to make sure Blake was okay, Ruby was too though she had the extra responsibility as team leader to hear the full story while Weiss just…was abrasive about the whole thing even after a full night's sleep.
Jae on the other hand was explaining the situation to his team, he had offered to help out with Team RWBY's search and it didn't take much convincing for Nora, Ren and Pyrrha to jump in for help. "So she just ran out and could be anywhere in Vale…with seven people total, we can spread out and look for her easily."
"But the question is where though? And why exactly happened that would make Blake run away like that?" Ren asked Jae in confusion, he was more then willing to help since Blake was Jae's friend too but he could barely understand what was so bad that made such an aloof and normally quiet girl run off.
"I…It's not my story to tell, I know it sounds bad but I want Blake to be able to tell her story rather than you hearing it from someone else." Jae pointed out, While he was willing to say all he could; he didn't want to out Blake as a Faunus, he himself wasn't sure either in all honesty whether she was or not. "But that's not important right now, we need to help out the others because I know that they'd do the same for us." Jae mentioned as the three nodded and headed out the door to meet with the others.
—One Airship and a brief summary later—
"Okay, so far we have Vale to look around and see if there's anyone who can recognise Blake or at the very least, someone who knows where she went." Ruby started off to explain with Jae standing with her.
"It's been a few hours but night travel out of Vale is scarce so she can't have gotten too far…I think that we should split off into groups of three or four to keep it even; So to make sure that no one gets lost or no one gets too heated, we take someone from each team and group up." Jae added to it as they started splitting off.
"Okay, Ruby and me can take Nora and Ren." Yang suggested, this seemed to put Yang, Ruby, Ren and Nora together but it also paired the last remaining person with Jae and Pyrrha.
"Absolutely not!" Weiss would object, her reservations about being anywhere near Jae was more powerful then her desire to be on a team with Pyrrha; an opinion that seemed to dampen Pyrrha's joy on being paired with Jae and definitely soured Jae's mood as the feeling was more then mutual towards Weiss; "I believe that as Blake's teammate: I should go with Yang and Ruby… So let Nora go with them."
"I don't know Weiss…I think you've done enough already." Jae admitted bluntly as he made his feelings clear enough, giving Yang another reason to eye roll and Pyrrha to feel concerned that the two were more likely to fight then help each other.
"Alright, how about this? I go with Nora, Pyrrha and Ren, while Yang goes with Jae and Weiss." Ruby put her foot down as she was honestly getting sick of the two fighting and if their training was a good indicator; Yang could stop the both of them before it got too heated.
"Ruby, Why not let Pyrrha go with them? I can stick around and help you out." Yang insisted as she was still a little nervous about letting her sister lead a team without her to help; "I can help you with finding Blake and Pyrrha's more then willing to go along with them."
"Yang, you're the only person out of the eight of us who could step in if things get out of hand…Pyrrha's not going to want to hurt Jae and Weiss is more likely to listen to you." Ruby pointed out as she went into Leader Mode; the fights between them was one thing but Yang was starting to hover around her more and it was starting to get a little annoying.
"She'll be fine Yang, you focus on making sure those two don't kill each other." Nora chimed in to reassure Yang and also to help put everyone back on track as they split up to look across town. "They'll be fine, Ruby…Yang's looking out for them and Jae's not the kind of guy to start fights, you know that." She would say to reassure Ruby who nodded with a slightly more upbeat smile.
—With Yang, Weiss and Jae—
"Alright, so Jae…you got any ideas on where Blake might go?" Yang asked curiously as she peeked in certain restaurant windows and kept a watchful eye in the crowds, Weiss was lazily glancing from street corner to rooftops and Jae was trying to think.
"Well…I'd say bookstores and cafes are probably the safest bet, but I'd take that with a pinch of salt though. If she wants to be left alone then she might just go somewhere else entirely." Jae mused out loud before stopping into one such bookstore.
A large man with sideburns looked up from behind the counter; "Welcome to Tukson's Book Trade, home to every book under the sun." Tukson said with a polite tone as he leaned over to watch the newcomers; Weiss had gone into a section for music sheets, Yang was reading up on bike maintenance to distract herself and Jae decided to head up to talk.
"Sorry to bother you, but have you had anyone in your store recently? Black and white clothes, a black bow on top…gold eyes?" he would ask the taller man, "She's our friend and we've lost track of her so we're kind of worried about her." Jae explained as he insisted on doing the talking here, partly because Yang could be…a bit much at the best of times and he certainly didn't trust Weiss to be much help beyond outing Blake and asking to use the phone for the police.
"I think I know the girl you're talking about….But she hasn't been here in a while, I'm afraid. She was asking about books on Demons but then left…Sorry, if that's not much help." Tukson explained sympathetically; "Though I can ask some of my regulars, maybe they know."
"Thanks…Though do you have any books on Demons though? I have a….project I want to look into." Jae asked curiously.
"Beyond what you find in any library, can't really say I have anything specific…that's a pretty old part of history to look for and even then it's not much outside of children's fiction."
As the three left with no further progress, it was more than a little annoying for both Jae and Yang. "So much for the bookstore idea…" Jae sighed as Weiss kept her frosty demeanour; "If you have any ideas , Weiss…You could help."
"You know who could help us? The police…They keep track on the White Fang so finding her will be easy." Weiss huffed as she kept walking but then turned when she felt the dirty looks that the other two gave her; "It was a legitimate suggestion! Besides, I don't know why you're so insistent on barging in on this, Cielo."
Jae narrowed his eyes as he kept walking alongside Yang; "Because Blake's my friend too, y'know? Maybe if you looked outside your snobby little bubble then maybe this isn't all about you being right." He snapped as he crossed his arms.
"And maybe if you can look past whatever bad attitude you have then you can understand that her being a White Fang member is a very serious thing…Especially since she was in our school of all places." Weiss fought back; "Someone as common as you can't even fathom the kind of hardships that the White Fang brought to me and to my family."
"COMMON AS M-?!"
"Okay! Let's take it down a notch, you two…Weiss, Blake is Jae's friend too so accept that he wants to help! Jae, Weiss does have a legitimate reason to have a problem with the White Fang…" Yang said to the two of them.
"Hmph, serves him right!"
"But that doesn't excuse your attitude to Jae, he's trying to help and he's MY friend too so back off!" Yang snapped at Weiss as she couldn't let the Common jab slide.
Jae could feel his insides boil at her last snipe at him but stifled it down as he walked past; "Let's just find Blake, that's more important right now." He would say with a barely stifled hint of anger in his voice.
—Meanwhile with Ruby and the others—
"Thanks, anyway!" Ruby called as she walked out of a cafe; "Nothing…no one's seen her, I really hope she's okay." Ruby sighed as they were no closer to finding Blake either while Pyrrha tried to cheer her up with a light pat on her back as she sat at one of the outside tables with a coffee.
"We checked at the park and in a bookstore up the street…No one's seen her around." Ren would add as he came back with Nora earlier. "It's like she just vanished.
"She did run out in the middle of the night, perhaps some of the motels might have seen her if she stayed." Pyrrha would suggest; earning a nod from Ruby as they had their next objective.
"I'm just surprised that Blake didn't talk to Jae about this…If she's a White Fang member then she's probably a Faunus." Nora blabbed out loud as she held on to a cocoa.
"Nora, just because Blake was a member of the White Fang doesn't mean that she's a Faunus…We don't know that much about her and that's a rather personal allegation regardless." Pyrrha would admonish Nora as she knew what being labelled as a Faunus eventually leads to.
"Well, how else do you explain her distant nature…the fact she doesn't have a problem with going out at night in the dark? That bow of her's?" Nora remarked as she was thinking that she was on to something and even Ren had to admit he did see some parallels.
"She does like tuna a lot." Ruby mentioned; "But we shouldn't just decide that she is…If she is or she isn't then that's her decision to tell us that."
—Back with Jae and the others—
"Okay, thanks a lot!" Yang said as she finished talking with someone outside of a shop before coming back to Jae and Weiss; Jae was leaning against the metal railing by the dock while Weiss was pretending that Jae doesn't exist and trying to look through windows.
"Any luck?" Jae asked when he saw Yang come over but a shake of her head quickly made his optimism dim a little; "Well…There's no point in stopping now so let's keep it going."
"What's the point? She clearly made the decision to avoid us…So why should we keep looking for someone who's clearly not innocent?" Weiss grumbled as she walked with Yang.
"Because she's your team mate and our friend…I'd have thought you'd at least care a little about her." Jae mentioned to Weiss as Yang nodded in agreement.
"I'm sorry but the innocent don't run and I don't expect someone as thuggish as you to understand that." Weiss snipped at him and narrowed her eyes.
"Think what you will of me but I at least look out for friends, you just drop them when they become problematic." Jae said to Weiss, getting sick of her pessimism.
"Look, regardless of how this turns out..We need to be there for her if she does want to be found, Ruby trusts us to find her and as her older sister; I intend on making that happen." Yang chimed in to stop the two from arguing but at this point, it was less then effective.
"Oh, yes…And Ruby is SUCH a good leader because of you? With your coddling and your insistent enabling of her bad habits." Weiss rounded on Yang, she knew that Ruby wasn't the best leader but she could still fault Yang for at least some of her behaviour.
"I don't expect you to understand what I've had to deal with to make sure Ruby grew up right, so stop pointing fingers and help us look for Blake!" Yang barked back.
"Well I think that Weiss and Yang's hair look wonderful today." a fourth voice peeked out as Penny almost appeared out of nowhere, throwing the group out of their tirade and nearly scaring the wits out of them.
"Penny?! Where did you come from?" Yang asked as she got her breath back and looked to the rather peppy redhead.
"Oh, I heard you three talking and since I consider you friends, I thought you would want to talk." Penny chirped with a soft smile on her face, not catching on to the fact that Weiss and Jae were at each other's throats.
"Oh, that's great and all Penny bu-" Jae started before he was interrupted rather harshly.
"We have more important issues to look into as one of our team mates is missing and we need to look for her." Weiss quickly cut in as this seemed to distract them from their current situation.
"Do you mean the girl in red or the Faunus girl?" Penny would ask in curiosity, bringing the three into a slight shock when Penny brought it up.
"Wait…Faunus?" Weiss asked, she had a feeling considering it was the White Fang but she didn't want to assume, a thought that was shared with Jae.
"Yes, I refer to the cat ears on her head." Penny explained while pointing to the top of her own head while sporting an innocent look on her face.
"She wears a bow, Penny…She doesn't ha-…Oooooooh!" Yang tried to argue the case but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense.
"Perhaps I can help? You could probably use some added assistance if Ruby isn't here to help." Penny offered kindly and then saluted; "I will do my best to search for your team mate."
"Look, Penny…As nice as that is, we need to search for Blake as a team…it's nothing against you but we really need to stay on track with things." Yang explained while trying to let her down gently.
"I see…Though I don't understand why you have him helping you…As far as I recall, the Demon boy is not a part of your actual team, is he?" Penny asked them with a look of confusion.
Jae felt his blood run cold, he went to great lengths to try and hide what he thought was a potential thing from everyone outside of his team and Ozpin. Even he didn't know if he was legitimately one or not, he had hoped to see this "Atlas Specialist" to confirm but now he, Yang and Weiss were now aware of Jae's secret…And Weiss was the absolute LAST person he wanted to know.
"You're joking, right? Penny, Demons don't exist anymore…They're extinct and are basically fairy tales told to keep kids from doing bad things." Yang would remark, trying to laugh this off like it was a bad joke she had told.
"But it is not a joke, there's the discoloured mark on his arm, the unstable and rather strange flow of Aura in his system along with the fact that hi-"
"Penny, please stop it!" Jae would try to stop her from saying anything else as he was starting to worry, if Yang was protective of Ruby before…there was no way that she was going to ignore this.
The air was deathly silent as Penny stopped talking and the fact that everything about Jae seemed to make sense when that was an option to consider.
"Jae…You're a Demon?" Yang would start to say, feeling concerned as Jae looked like he was frozen on the spot like a deer in the headlights.
"Of course, it all makes sense now!" Weiss finally broke the silence as she looked Jae in the eye. "All those times that you acted so aggressively to Cardin, your poor attitude towards me and the fact that you were always so secretive." Weiss would list off as she finally had an answer but Yang was looking to Jae out of worry. "It's no wonder that you were such a rough and mannerless brute!"
"Stop it.." Jae growled through grit teeth, the anxieties he felt and the growing frustration at Weiss made him all the more agitated.
"So what was it then? Did your parents lose the genetic lottery when you were born?" Weiss asked as she gazed at Jae's pale face; "Or maybe you were some weird experiment by a lab?"
"Weiss…Seriously, That's enough!" Yang protested as this had gone beyond what it had before.
"Or maybe you were a mistake…to be let into Beacon, to be dropped at a strangers home? Or you were a mistake to be born as a Demon Chi-"
"WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM?!" Jae finally snapped and roared at Weiss, that was it…All throughout the school year, Weiss's comments and snipes at Jae had made the long fuse dwindle down and now it had reached the breaking point.
"I've done nothing but be civil to you and you've treated me like dirt ever since you first looked at me! I know I'm not rich and I'm not from a high end family but I never thought that you could say such coldhearted things?!" Jae would yell at Weiss who watched him and slowly step backwards; "What else did you want to break me down for now?! My time in foster care? The fact that I know people will never love me, family or otherwise?! You already jabbed me for what I…" Jae started to slow down on his tirade and stepped backwards from everyone. "No...I don't even know what I am, anymore….." He finished with a small and broken voice, showing that he was done pretending that Weiss's words and the thoughts in his head didn't affect him.
Yang could only watch with a heavy heart as Jae showed what he truly was: a lonely and frightened boy that didn't even know who or what he was, someone who had let all this malice and negativity build up inside and eat him away ever since he was old enough to know what a Demon was. She quietly walked over to him and reached out to gently grab his arm. "Jae…I-" She would say quietly but flinched as she felt him brusquely pull his arm away and started to walk off
"Don't….I'll look for Blake myself, with or without your help, Schnee." Jae spat out with a voice that was broken with all manner of emotion before finally running around the corner into an alleyway, disappearing from their sight leaving Yang and Weiss alone at the boardwalk with the last of his words ringing in their ears.