Rain was pouring down on the island when they finally arrived at their destination. Signal Point was a cliff side sanctuary long ago, but it had been abandoned for decades now. A large three story mansion was build there, overlooking the cliffs and the shore down below. There were plenty of stories of how some daughters of the former owners flung themselves down there, their bodies breaking on the rocks that waited below.

The looming silhouette of the building was illuminated by a lightning far out in the sea.

"This place looks... Unsettling. Ren noted as they walked up the road that lead to the mansion. Large, old trees hung over the road, protecting them from most of the rain, but were also creeping them out.

"You think? I think it looks like an old castle!" Nora replied excited, almost jumping at the last word.

Ren had to chuckle at Nora, knowing that she loved castles from a young age.

"Soooo... Should we knock?" she asked as they stood in front of the massive wooden door that formed the entrance to the building.

"I don't think anybody is going to open, Nora."

"Huh? Oh, uhm, yeah, you're right." Nora stuttered, before pushing open the door so the two could get out of the rain.

The inside of the mansion was unlit and covered in dust. Old portraits covered the hallways however, most of them were covered in pieces of cloth, in order to prevent damage.

Pieces of the wooden wall were slowly rotting away, revealing the stone wall beneath. Interestingly enough, some parts of Sanctuary Point's seemed to be many centuries old.

"Who do you think are on all those portraits?" Nora asked curious as she peaked under one of the sheets.

"Probably some old owners. As far as I know it's been abandoned for over a century now..." Ren replied while looking at a bookshelf that was standing in the hallway.

It had a wide variety of different genres in it, but there were some books that stood out to him.

"Uhm, hey Ren. You said the place has been abandoned for how long?" the question interrupted the detectives train of thought.

"Yes..."

"So, then why is here a painting of the Mayor?"

"... What?"

With a swift pull, the piece of cloth revealed an image of a tall man, wearing a dark green suit. The small glasses on his nose seemed to be more a decorative item than anything else.

"That's..." Ren began, looking at the painting that already began to crumble in some places.

"Creepy?" the redhead replied, earning a nod from her partner.

"It's... Probably just an ancestor..." Ren said after a while, still looking at the painting.

Both of them entered what looked like it was once used as a library, but most of the shelves were either empty or burn marks covered them and the books that were stored on them.

"Hey, there are a few photos on the table..." Nora said as she walked over to it, picking one up and showing it to Ren "Look familiar?"

On the faded picture, there was a group of four people posing next to a tree. One of them Ren recognized as Taiyang, albeit at least thirty years younger. While Nora took a closer look at the photo, Ren noticed another picture, that was lying on the table. On it were who he assumed was Yang and her sister, faces obscured by scarfs they wrapped around their heads. In their hands they held what looked like expensive jewelry.

"Yang and Ruby return from their first coup alone." Was written on the back with a date on it. The date was the same day as the Rose Petal thieves' first robbery took place.

"Dammit..." Ren whispered as he put the picture in his pocket, without Nora noticing.

"I wonder what it would have been like growing up in a place like this." Nora mumbled with a sigh as she spun around in the middle of the room "Before the whole abandoned thing, of course!"

"It probably made you a snob." Ren jokingly replied as he walked over to her "Moreso than now."

"Oh, very funny mister!" she replied and playfully boxed him in the shoulder.

Laughing he stumbled back a bit, Nora's punches always hurt, and looked at her dead serious "You know we probably wouldn't have-"

A loud cracking sound interrupted him and echoed through the abandoned library.

"That didn't sound good..." Nora whispered and looked at the ground, expecting it to drop any moment now.

"No, it really did-"

Turns out, Nora was correct.

"Captain, we're sorry for trashing our car and-" a glance from the white haired woman silenced Jaune immediately.

Calmly, she took a piece of paper in her hands and then looked at them both "You two could have been killed today... This piece of paper could have been one of the letters I'd have to write then."

Both Jaune and Pyrrha looked ashamed at their feet.

"And all you two are concerned is the state of your car..." the captain continued, looking at both of them before letting out a sigh "Truth be told, I'm actually proud of you two for once..."

Both police officers looked surprised at their superior.

"What?"

"You are?"

A smile played over the lips of the captain, before she returned to her serious self "Don't let that go over your heads! I also decided to return the Rose Petal Case to you two..."

"Thank you, ma'am!" Pyrrha said with a smile on her face.

"But this time don't make me regret that choice!" the captain told them calm "And don't make me have to write those letters, either!"

"Yes, ma'am!" the two said in unison as they saluted the white haired woman.

"Now get out, I have still work to do. You two can go home." she told them cold, returning to a file that was on her desk.

"We should probably talk to the driver, before going home..." Pyrrha suggested as they left the office of the captain and returned to their desks.

Jaune grabbed the file that was in his own desk and flipped through it. It contained the criminal register of the woman they had arrested earlier this day.

"Blake Belladonna..." he read out loud from the file "Age: 27, has been arrested multiple times already. Mostly for reckless driving or... Huh, seems she used to be part of that Faunus Rights Group turned racist supremacists... Illegal gatherings, resisting dispersion of demonstrations, attacking a police officer and, wow, planning a bombing... She's got quite some stuff on record. Only reason she's not in prison is because she apparently rat out her bombing buddies before they were ready..."

"It's sad that the racism in our world forces so much faunus to do things like that..." Pyrrha said with a sad sigh "I mean, we could be sitting in there right now if it wasn't for... Well..."

Jaune let out a sigh as well "Yeah, I know... Let's go talk to her."

To their surprise, the jail cell was empty and the woman nowhere to be found.

"Where... Where is the woman we arrested today?" Jaune asked the officer in charge shocked.

"Uhm... Lt. Black came by ten minutes ago and told me to let her leave, because her bail had been paid and the actual robbers were already apprehended."

"What?" the partners shouted in unison.

"Yes, here are all the forms for it as well, so it apparently went smoothly."

"Okay, this is bad..." Jaune muttered, rubbing his temple.

"Wait, does it say who paid the bail?" Pyrrha asked, grabbing the clipboard with the filled out form.

The officer in charge of the jail shook his head "No, been paid anonymously..."

"Damn..."

The blond policeman let out a sigh "We can't do anything about it now, anyway... Besides, our shift is over."

"You're right..."

Both Jaune and Pyrrha left to go change out of their uniforms and then to head home.

"I think I've got a plan." Jaune said while changing, facing away from his partner and into his locker.

Pyrrha looked at him curious "What is it?"

"How about this: we go and talk to Ms. Belladonna on our own. At the very least we might be able to get some answers..."

"And how do you think we'll find her?"

"Where is the shadiest place in the city that we know for a certainty the Rose Petal thieves have been at?"

"... Junior's bar."

"Exactly! If she's not there, chances are Junior knows how to get in touch with her!" Jaune replied proud, turning around for a moment before immediately turning back again, face now burning red.

Pyrrha let out a chuckle "That's a terrible plan."

"And a desperate one as well. So, you in?"

"You're gonna go either way?"

Jaune nodded into his locker, while closing his belt awkwardly "Most likely, yes."

"Fine, I'm in." his partner told him with a smile as she closed her own locker "Now, let's get home. We'll meet back at Junior's bar."

"Sounds good. At ten?"

"Alright"

The world was pain. Pain and a lot of dust in the air.

Letting out a loud groan, Nora pushed herself up from the rubble that once was the floor below them.

"Ren, are you alright?" she asked, looking around the room they fell into.

"Just... a few bruises..." Ren's reply came after a while, after he dug himself out of the debris.

"Hey, that looks like a base of operations!" Nora exclaimed as the dust slowly settled and revealed the room they were in.

On the walls were the blueprints of multiple buildings, notes written on them where to gain entrance from.

"Could it be we found the base of the Rose Petal thieves?" she asked as she walked over to a blackboard that seemed to have the outline of a plan written on it

"Summer: getaway, Tai: distraction, Raven & Qrow: retrieval."

"I think we fell into the base of another gang..." Ren told her as he looked at a wall filled with newspaper articles.

"White Rose strikes again!", "The Hunt goes on." and " White Rose suspected to have stolen Vytal Diamond!" were a few of the headlines that stood out. But there were two in particular that caught Ren and Nora's attention.

"Raven Branwen sentenced to live in Prison" was one of them, the image showing a black haired woman, bound by multiple chains, standing in front of a jury.

"Leader of the White Rose, Summer Rose, sentenced to death" Nora read the second headline "That's been over twenty years ago!"

"Hey Nora, could you show me that picture again?" Ren asked and then held the picture so both could see it "So, then this is a picture of the White Rose... That would be Summer, then this Yang's dad, this is Raven Branwen and this..."

"That's this Qrow guy then. Like on the blackboard!" his partner pointed out to him, pointing over to the old blackboard.

Ren furrowed his brow "Huh, if he got anything to do with the Black Crow?"

Shrugging, Nora turned away from Him and looked through the shelves that lined the walls. Most of them were filled with blueprints and old gadgets. Some still seemed functional, but most where already rusting away.

While browsing through the stuff in them, Nora noticed that on one particular shelve, there was something strange about the layers of dust that settled there. In one place, there was far less of it covering the board then everywhere else.

"Someone took something from here not too long ago!" she told Ren, who was browsing through the blueprints, but didn't seem to find anything in particular.

Shoving the blueprints back into the shelf they came from, Ren made his way over to where Nora was, to inspect her findings as well "It looks like there was a box or something... Maybe a book?"

"You could be right..." Nora said as she looked closer at the dust, before inhaling a bit of it, which caused her to sneeze and blow part of it away.

"Well... Whatever it was, the print in the dust is gone now..." Ren said with a heavy sigh.

"Sorry..." Nora replied, rubbing her itchy nose.

"Don't worry about it..." Ren told her, it might have been just an unimportant thing someone stole, while doing so, he also noticed something else "Hey, Nora, do you smell that?"

After a moment, she shook her head "No, what is it?"

"Smoke..." Ren told her worried "We might have to grab what we can and then leave quickly!"

"Okay, what do we need?" Nora said, clapping her hands together.

"Get the newspaper clippings and the pictures, I get some of the blueprints and other stuff!" her partner told her, as he proceeded to grab those plans that seemed important.

"Uhm, hey Ren, I think the newspapers were covering something..." Nora told him after taking off the old newspapers, revealing a door that previously had been hidden.

Looking up, Ren could already hear the loud crackling sound of fire, slowly creeping up to the library "I think we don't have any time, Nora."

"Then let's get going!" Nora said with a nod as she shoved the newspaper clippings in her bag.

As they climbed back through the hole they fell through, thick smoke was already hanging in the room. The dooming glow of fire shone from the still open door of the library and as they left the room, both could see down the hallway, where the fire was eating away on the structure.

"Let's get out of here!"

Bursting through the main door, both stumbled out into the pouring rain again.

"You alright Ren?" Nora asked, breathing in deeply, after having inhaled too much smoke.

"Yeah..." Ren replied, but sounded absentminded "But I think we got another problem right now..."

"What is it?" Nora asked as she looked over to her partner, before seeing what he saw as well "Oh..."

Two women were standing in front of them, one of them looking eerily familiar, but neither of them could really tell where they saw the faunus woman before.

"The way I see it..." the woman wearing sunglasses and holding a large rifle pointed at them said "You really have one option here... Handover the stuff you got out of the mansion and we might let you live."

"And what if we don't take that option?" Nora asked, the grip around her bag tightening.

A small chuckle escaped the woman, as she pointed her rifle at the redhead "Well, then prepare to die."

Lightning illuminated the sky for a moment, before the thundering sound of a rifle echoed through the air...

"Hello again!" Pyrrha greeted her partner, who was already waiting for her outside of Junior's bar.

Jaune gave her a smile "Hey there, Pyrrha."

"You're looking nice." Pyrrha complimented the blond man with a smile.

Surprised, Jaune looked down on himself. Wearing a simple brown leather jacket over a checkered dress shirt with a black tie, he didn't seem to have put much thought into what he wore. On his right shoulder, it looked like a patch was sewn on, but had been ripped off.

"Oh... uhm, thanks? But I think you look way nicer!"

Wearing a simple red dress and a coat over it, Pyrrha chuckled at him "Let's go in."

"Let's"

The bouncer standing outside looked both of them over, before opening the door for them and letting them in "Enjoy your stay at Junior's..."

"Thank you." Pyrrha told him with a smile as they entered, slightly irritating the bouncer for a moment.

"Uhm... You're welcome?"

The bar was, to the surprise of both police officers, quite full, with people sitting on almost all available tables. Smoke hung heavy in the air, while one of the twins was on stage, singing about flying to the moon and playing among the stars.

"Hello, what can I get you two lovely-" Junior said behind the bar as the two approached before recognizing them "Oh, it's you..."

"We're off-duty, Junior..." Jaune told him as he was sitting down at the bar.

The black haired barman's jaw dropped "Wait, so you two... Damn..."

Hand reaching in his pocket, Junior pulled out a bundle of Lien, counted them and handed them to the other twin, who was working behind the bar at the moment.

With a satisfied smile, she took the money, before winking at Jaune and Pyrrha and disappearing from behind the bar, probably to bring her money to a safe place.

"What was that about?" Jaune asked confused, pointing after the singer.

With an angry sigh, Junior shook his head "Nothing... So, what can I get you?"

"Well, we were here to talk with you actually..." Pyrrha told him, before the man pointed at a shield hanging above the bar.

"No drink, no food, no talk."

"Ugh... Then a gin and tonic, please..." Jaune ordered with a sigh.

"Me too, please"

Junior nodded, grabbing a bottle from behind him "Two gin and tonic, coming up."

"So, you know the Rose Petal thieves, right?" Jaune asked as the two glasses were placed before them.

The man froze for a second, before he glared at the blond "Who told you that?"

"They wrecked your place no two days ago..." Pyrrha replied, before taking a sip from her drink.

Leaving his head hanging and letting out a loud sigh, Junior nodded "True... What do you want to know this time? I already told you I barely know anything about them..."

"Do you know a Blake Belladonna?" Jaune asked while playing with his glass.

"I don't..." the man shook his head, before shaking it again "Wait, actually... I think I know her. Black haired faunus with kitty ears?"

"That's her..."

"She used to be a member of the White Fang. You know, that faunus supremacist group? Left it a few years back after the Lavender assassination as far as I know..." Junior told them, while filling up a glass of his own with whisky "Been a driver for a few years before retiring. Way I heard it she's been only working for friends now..."

Jaune began to cough violently after taking a sip from his own drink, before waving away any help "Sorry, just swallowed the wrong way..."

"Sure..." Junior said with a cocky smile, before emptying his own glass.

"Do you know anything about her whereabouts?" Pyrrha proceeded to ask him "We might need to talk with her."

The barman shrugged "Sorry... last time I saw her was a few weeks back. Hasn't been here since."

Writing down what he told them on a small notepad she pulled out of her purse, Pyrrha smiled at him "Thanks! You sure you don't know more about her?"

"Not really, no..." Junior replied, shaking his head "But, if you stay here, you might get lucky and she shows up... Heard she botched a heist today, so maybe if you're lucky?"

"So what, we just sit here all night and wait to see if she shows up?" Jaune asked confused, while grabbing a handful of peanuts that were in front of him.

With a grin, the barman pulled out two more glasses and filled them up with whisky as well "No, you gonna sit here and drink. The amount of money I lost because of you two isn't gonna get less if you just sit here."

"Uhm... I'm not good with alcohol, thanks." Jaune replied, gently pushing the glass away again.

"We'll see about that..."

A few hours later, Jaune and Pyrrha found themselves exiting the bar via a side exit that Junior showed them. As soon as the fresh air hit him, the blond man stumbled behind a dumpster and threw up.

"You alright there, Jaune?" the redhead asked worried, not sure how long it would take for her to follow his example, while her partner stumbled back towards her.

"No..." he groaned "I told him I wasn't good with alcohol..."

"Mr. Arc? Ms. Nikos?" a voice asked from the front of the ally they were in.

Trying to see who was talking to them, Pyrrha answered hesitant "Uhm... Yes?"

"Excellent!" the voice said as two men walked towards them "You see, our employer asked us to bring a request to you two."

"And what would that be?" Jaune asked, leaning against the dumpster.

"Well, it is quite easy. You two stop all your investigations in the Rose Petal case and accept the men arrested as the culprits behind the robberies." the man explained calm, while the other one was silently standing next to him.

"Or what?"

"We'll make you..."

Pyrrha laughed at the two men in front of them, while trying to appear sober, failing miserably at it "I'd like to see that."

"Uhm, Pyrrha, I think they might be serious..." Jaune told her worried as the two came towards them.

"Oh yeah, we are!" the man replied with a grin as he put brass knuckles on.

Stepping in front of Pyrrha, Jaune raised his fists "You really think we go down without a fight?"

"At least a little struggle would be fun, yes!" The man replied before swinging at the blond, hitting him straight in the face and bringing him down to the ground, while his partner grabbed the redhead.

Pyrrha tried to brake free from his grasp, but the alcohol in her system made her underestimate the strength of her opponent. Even though she managed to free one of her arms, she was barely able to do anything against the man. The only swing she took at him was easily blocked and her arms were both back in the same position as before, only this time the grip was far tighter.

The other man meanwhile kicked Jaune in the stomach, causing him to groan in pain.

With a smirk, he continued to kick the blond man on the ground, while his partner made Pyrrha watch "Besides, we only need to beat the crap out of one of you. And we're gentlemen after all..."

Nothing to note on this chapter, except maybe that I already have plans for a sequel, which makes me somewhat upset for different reasons...

Anyway, till then!