XxXxX

"This is too nerve-wracking…" Jaune mumbled to himself, playing with the drink he ordered as he waited.

He could barely keep himself from pacing around and looking like a fool, so he crossed his legs under his seat and tried to relax.

It was the first time he would meet with Sally, a good online friend that helped him more than his own family. A person that he talked about everything and nothing in the span of last year. A person that he never really saw nor heard outside of her raging in the lobbies of the online games they played together since she decided to meet up.

That last thought did bring a smile to his face.

Taking a sip of his coffee, he looked at the people walking beside the sitting area he was in. There was quite a bit of traffic, taking into account it was the beginning of the weekend.

Looking closer, for a second he could have sworn he saw his mentor and combat teacher in the small crowd but it had to be a coincidence because the older woman disappeared without a trace. That was strange, he didn't think that Miss Goodwitch would go around the entertainment district but who was he to judge?

"... Rusty?" Suddenly, quite a familiar voice got his attention, especially with that nickname only one person used.

Turning his face to the voice his mouth felt dry like a dessert, his eyes widening for a second as he saw Sally for the first time.

She was quite tall, probably close to his own height. Hair redder than blood cascaded down her back and onto her shoulders, a long bang hanging on the left side of her heart shaped face framing her nervously smiling expression. And the eyes… gods… they were practically glowing crimson as the light reflected in them.

"... Sally?" He asked, taking a bit too long to reply but thankfully she didn't seem to mind.

"Hi." She replied with a smile, taking a seat just opposite of him.

A short silence followed, Sally seemingly content with waiting for Jaune to gather himself.

"Sally… It's good to finally meet you. Gosh… this is so…" He trailed off, trying to find words.

"Strange? Yeah… I know what you mean. I didn't have an opportunity to go for such an outing for a long time… everything seems to be so different." His online friend replied, looking around them with a soft smile.

Hearing a soft murmur, Jaune saw that a few patrons seemed to take notice of Sally, even going so far as pointing at her discreetly. Not discreetly enough. He sent a glare to a small group, making them look away.

"Would you like something to drink?" He asked, pushing the menu that was on his side to her.

Picking the small booklet, she started to look through it, her eyes sparkling at the pictures of cutely prepared servings of ice cream and cakes.

It was such an endearing look he couldn't help but smile.

XxX

"This is totally a date." Yang said, stuffing her face with strawberry ice cream.

"It's not!" Weiss replied heatedly, aggressively munching on her own, vanilla treat.

"We have to admit it does look like a romantic rendezvous.* Cinder agreed from the other side, drinking a coffee.

"Whose side are you on?" Weiss mumbled out, aggressively stuffing even more ice cream into her mouth, then regretting it after how cold her mouth became.

"No one's. I'm just stating the facts." Cinder replied flatly. "Have you ever seen any woman smile and laugh so much with any man, outside of romantic encounters?" The black haired girl asked back.

"I mean… " Looking once more at the pair of Jaune and his mysterious online friend, Weiss couldn't help but think that Cinder could be right.

Back in Atlas women only showed such reactions to the man they were attracted to, even if they didn't find them that funny.

And that red headed woman was clearly cackling like a Hyena at something that Jaune said, not even faking her reaction…

"But Jaune said they were only friends…" She softly defended her opinion, even if she wasn't sure herself any more.

"Soooo… What are we going to do now? Keep playing voyeur?" Yang asked, clearly starting to get bored by the lack of action. To her it was clear that the blonde they were watching was on a date, platonic or otherwise, didn't really matter to her.

Looking across their own cafe she was taken aback when she saw Miss Goodwitch on the other side of the outside seating space they were in. She would miss her if not for the iconic hairstyle and the glasses, as the older woman was aggressively chomping into a large parfait while looking across the road.

Shaking her head she decided to ignore that. It had to be a coincidence.

XxX

All of this… It was so amazing to the Queen of Darkness.

So novel.

She was a bit afraid that her disguise would fail or that her ex would somehow catch wind of her plans and stick his grubby hands in them.

But no, thankfully no.

"Then my partner, Nora, started to yell about us not taking her pancake freedom and started a food fight… gosh, Miss Goodwitch was so mad." Rusty laughed from the other side of the table, making her smile even bigger as she chuckled alongside him.

She could listen to him for hours like this…

With a smile she scooped a spoonful of ice cream arranged to look like a cute little kitten and tasted it with delight.

"Soooo… what was going on your side? Anything fun?" Rusty asked suddenly, seemingly content at drinking his iced coffee.

"On my side? Nothing much, really…" She replied trying to think about something that wouldn't make her sound like a monster she actually was.

There was that thing with the Fall Maiden and how Tyrian attacked her with little Cinder, but that was hardly anything to talk about…

There was that… what was it called? A computer disease or something that Watts wants Cinder to plant in the communication tower in Beacon…

Now that she thinks about it she needed to make sure the mustachio understood that if her online games were to be disturbed he would forfeit his life…

"Nothing much really… Oh, I recently bought a small place here in Vale, so I'll probably be staying here for the foreseeable future.* She replied at long last with a smile.

"Wait, seriously? That's amazing!" Rusty replied happily, making her blush slightly. This was one of the gripes she had with the polymorph spell. The forms one changed into showed emotions way too easily.

"We can arrange more meetings like this one in the future, that's wonderful!" The blonde continued, causing the Grimm Queen to blush even harder, her face now nearing the color of her hair.

"I need to show you something too!" He continued, practically giddy."I think I managed to create a way to fly using the Aura techniques you showed me. It's a bit crude…alright, it's crude as heck, but I think it's worth trying."

Flight? That was a rather advanced thing and she certainly didn't teach him any ways to manipulate gravity and such forces. It was more in her own domain of darkness, not in the light that she was teaching him…

"Truly? That's fascinating! You certainly need to show me!" Salem replied, actually feeling curious. It was such an alien feeling to her those days… Rusty was practically the only one who elicited it from her.

They continued their conversation, talking about all the things they didn't through the scroll before.

School, games or just small things. For some reason she couldn't help but want more of this interaction, talking with him like with a friend he was, being just another girl that was talking with a boy.

She felt alive again.

XxX

"Yeah…No. I don't know her at all… She looks a bit like that Mistralian champion girl but I think it's by accident…" Qrow said into his scroll, looking at the pair from the nearby rooftop, way out of the eyes of the crowds.

"Take some clear photos and send them to James, just in case. Maybe he'll be able to match her with his records.* Ozpin said from the other side of the device, clearly disheveled and with bloodshot eyes.

"You look rough, buddy… Is this really so stressful for ya?" The scruffy huntsman asked after taking a good look at his employer.

"Qrow… Magic like mister Arc displayed was lost millennia ago. Whoever is this woman that taught him, she's either from Salem or…" The wizard stopped, clearly uncomfortable.

"Do I want to know?" Qrow asked after a short pause, reaching for this flask just in case. And taking a few bigger gulps, just in case too.

"It's… a possibility. There were quite a few schools of magic back then… Some of them were researching the fabric of reality itself. Space, gravitational forces… time."

Qrow's flask stopped halfway to his mouth, the drunken huntsman processing for a good few seconds what he heard.

"Oz… are you suggesting what I think you are suggesting?" He asked with disbelief.

"It's only a wild guess. We won't know until we talk with this mysterious woman." Ozpin tiredly replied from the other side of the scroll. "If by any chance she is one of my people from before all this started… We need to secure her cooperation by any means. A true magic wielder of that scale would be game changing." The ancient wizard continued with bloodshot eyes.

"Oz, get a bit of shut-eye. You look more like a hobo than I do, and that's something." Qrow started, seeing the bloodshot eyes, the eye bags, the wrinkled and dirty clothes. It was as if Ozpin hadn't left his office since initiation, and that was a good few weeks ago.

"There are things more important than that. Keep up monitoring the two and try to follow our mysterious woman when they part. We need to gather as much information as we can." The green clad headmaster rebuffed.

"Great… You want me to be a stalker again…" Qrow grumbled out, looking back to the pair he was tracking. "Shit… they are on the move.* He relayed to his employer, starting to move himself. "I'll contact you later."

"Be careful, it's highly possible that mysterious woman can detect magical energies.* Ozpin replied, cutting the line from his side.

"Of course she can… " The alcoholic huntsman grumbled, tucking his scroll away and starting to follow the pair.

XxX

Flashing lights, noise and untold masses of people… If anyone would have asked her before what was described she would without a doubt say that it was a magical battlefield…

"On the right! On the right!" Rusty's frantic shouts caused Salem to move her plastic gun to the right. She immediately squeezed the plastic trigger, making the contraption buzz in her hands as a series of virtual bullets ripped into two Beowulfs that tried sneaking on them.

Grimm Ripper 3 - Mountain of Doom. That was the name of the game the two of them were playing at this moment, cooperatively trying to defeat hordes upon hordes of Grimm of all sizes and shapes.

She wasn't sure that there were any land based tentacle Grimm but it did gave her a few ideas.

She wasn't sure if there were any Grimm with head mounted lasers either, but she could admit that the idea was hilarious…

She needed to take Watts to task on that.

"Sally, duck!" Rusty's voice took her out of her musings, just to have something looking like a minotaur based Grimm to charge her character on the screen and run it over, causing a big GAME OVER to be written across her portion of the screen.

"Aww…" She let out a disappointed sound, not wanting for the fun to end.

"I'll avenge you." Her blonde friend stated jokingly, his now solo character charging at the Grimm that killed her. After a few seconds her character was properly avenged, just for her companion's character to get overrun and die too.

"Well, that was fun." Rusty chuckled, stretching in his seat.

"It surely was… I didn't think that playing games with someone in person would make such a big difference." Salem agreed, a small smile on her face.

"What are we going to do now?" She asked excitedly, getting up from the machine so the other people could play it too.

"Well… I'm sorry to say it but I need to get going soon… " Rusty replied apologetically, taking out his scroll to check the time. "Time flies way too fast." He chuckled.

Ah… Right…

Rusty had to return to his academy, back under the nosy nose of her idiotic ex husband.

"Hey… don't make that face, I would stay if I could but my last Bullhead leaves in half an hour." Her blonde friend continued, making her realize that the polymorph spell showed her emotions way too easily yet again.

"That's alright…" She replied with a smile, a surprisingly genuine one, even if a tad sad.

"Yeah! I can't wait to introduce you to my friends too, they can be… eccentric but you'll like them, you'll see." Jaune continued with a megawatt smile. "I'll need to show you my flying trick too! At least after I'll iron out the details." Smiling sheepishly he scratched the back of his head.

She just smiled at him, a gesture more and more used since she started talking with him.

"I'll be sure to make time for you in my itinerary, Rusty." Even if she would need to do it by force.

XxX

This was so childish.

If she could, she would roll her eyes at her master. All six of them.

Why couldn't her master just take the boy?

She was a God among mortals and yet she played with the whelp as if he was her equal.

Hogwash.

In her place she would just take the male to her nest and do the deed instead of losing so much time.

But she was a good girl, and good girls helped their masters.

Flying high over the city she easily could see all that was happening, her size allowing her to blend in between other mundane birds.

That was how she saw the most peculiar bird.

Mostly because it changed into a human and then back.

It was also following her master and her mate, which was unacceptable.

She waited until it got darker, her six eyes easily piercing the darkness as she followed the mangy crow from afar, waiting for her opportunity.

She was patient.

She is the fiercest predator of the skies after all.

After her master separated from her mate it became clear that the dirty little birdy was following her master.

Unacceptable!

Her wings flapped a few times as she shot to the ground nearly vertically, in no time at all changing from the majestic creature of the skies she was into a missile of claws and death.

Narrowing her eyes she slammed into her target, squawking in surprise that it resisted her ultimate attack.

Frantically flailing in the air she managed to right herself, her claws feeling sore after the impact, the strange bird nowhere to be seen.

"Mojo?" Her master's sweet voice asked, the Queen of Darkness looking at her with a surprisingly happy expression.

"Squawk!" She replied happily, her mission of keeping her master safe successful like always.

"Let's go home, girl." Her master smiled, letting her alight on her outstretched arm.

She was a good girl after all.

XxXxX

Author's Note: Hello there people. Contrary to popular opinions, I'm still alive. Got sick, I'm in bed, I thought I'll write something. I hope it's still up to par.