Wally didn't find anything, so he met them at the school.

Shine came out of her room after Emerald had banged on it and then told her what happened.

The others arrived shortly and filled them in.

"Can you find her using your Sight?" Oscar asked.

"Not if Kanap has her," Shine said.

"And why not?" Winter sounded stressed--for her.

"If I could do that, why would I not have already?" Shine asked, something they'd all completely forgotten about somehow. "I can't get a bead on her or her house or the Summer Maiden. The picture wasn't clear enough that Neo took, for the last one, and for the first two, it's shadowed. All I can assume is there is some dark, magical force already in place, or whatever she does must interfere with my ability in some way. God can see everywhere, but I can't. Also walking into that would be foolish."

"Why?" Nora asked. "We're all pretty tough."

"Do you really think Victoria Kanap would lure Raven or any of you there without some way to contain her?" Shine asked, like it was a stupid thing to suggest. "There's got to be something waiting...and you tell me Raven already went. I thought she was smarter than this!"

"I think that losing her tribe may have affected her," Oscar said. "I mean...made her more reckless. She's angry about it, and Kanap isn't Salem--she probably thinks she can take her...at least that was my guess."

"A good guess," Shine agreed.

"So what do we do?" Pyrrha asked.

Everyone looked at Shine.

Shine looked at them blankly. "I'm not sure."

"You're not sure?" they cried.

"But you always have a plan," Ruby said.

"An idea, an analysis, anything would be useful," Winter said.

"I've never met Victoria. I can't get a bead on someone before I meet them," Shine said. "Neo would have more insight."

Neo was there by now, and so was Roman.

Neo just signed something to the effect that she had no clue how to forcefully take someone out of there.

"Great plan!" Jaune was upset. "Right when we're really in trouble, you have no clue what to do?"

"Jaune, that is not fair," Pyrrha said. "We can't expect her to always have the answer. We have to think for ourselves."

He sighed.

"Yeah, we need to try." Oscar rubbed his chin. "It's not just Shine who can come up with something. We've all been trying to figure this out... I know, let's start with what we shouldn't do. Any moves that would definitely get us in trouble right away."

"Charging in blindly will," Shine said. "She'll expect that. Granted, she doesn't know you know where she lives, but she'll be prepared for Raven to have planned backup, no doubt."

"What can we do if we don't go after them?" Oscar said.

"That's leaving them to die," Ren said.

Shine pursed her lips. "I don't think she's planning to kill them, not yet. She'll want to run her tests. My best guess is that we should wait."

"Wait?" they all said, not very pleasantly.

"Wait," Shine said. "Take time to think and see if she makes another move. This could be a distraction--one thing in one place, so we forget to watch our backs. But one person who might know what she'll do is Theo."

"So you want to confront him finally?" Winter said.

"No," Shine said. "No, if we blow everything now, it was all for nothing. But it would also be odd not to tell him, and if he's not in on this, it may make him have second thoughts about who he's working for. If he is in on it, we can learn something from how he reacts. But it occurs to me that Vara herself is also someone who might know. Or know part of it... Neo did say she wasn't quite as sold on their plan as he was."

Neo confirmed this with a nod.

"But we don't know where she is," Winter said. "And even you can't find her."

"No, but there might be one way to," Shine said. "We'll need that key. I don't have a rescue plan, but I might have a way to get more info. That could be helpful. If that will suffice for now, you could help me with that."

"I'm willing to if it works," Pyrrha said.

"I don't know if I want to stake all this on something that uncertain," Blake said. "I think we need to go get them ourselves. I mean, the plan is no good if more of us die over it."

"Salem always makes you all desperate, then she moves," Shine said. "Whether or not this is her doing, it's not any different. Do not walk into a trap."

"No offense, but I'm not sure you know what you're talking about," Blake said. "You just said you don't know what to do. And I'm tired of losing people."

Shine gave her a long look, then, turning to the others she said, "To handle this with Theo, we're going to need Qrow and Tai. Theo has some kind of conscience, I've seen it. I'm not sure he'll resist them so easily, if they're upset. And they will be upset. Better them than one of us--it looks more convincing that way."

"I can't believe you're more worried about your plan than about Yang," Nora said, suddenly. "Do you even care about us as people, or is it just about doing your thing? You don't even like Yang. Is that why you're okay with stalling?"

"Nora!" Pyrrha cried.

"You don't know her that well either," Nora said to Pyrrha angrily. "But if you like her better than your own team, fine. But I didn't think that meant we just left our friends behind."

Shine looked bothered by that.

"Hey, hey," Wally said. "No one cares more than Shine about saving people--but you have to be willing to make tough calls. I'm not saying I like the idea of leaving Yang on her own, or Raven, but if we all get caught, we're worse off. I think maybe I could get them out."

"I don't feel like that will end well," Shine said. "This could happen again. We need an idea that will prevent that, not just a temporary fix."

"And you're gambling with our friends' lives about that?" Ren said. "I'm with Nora--this is not the time."

"Your impulsive decisions have not ended well in the past," Shine said icily. "Do you really want to go down that road?"

"You're not always right!" Ren said angrily.

"Enough," Winter cut in. "Miss Likstar has earned some amount of confidence on our part."

"Not really," Blake said. "It looks like her plan is unraveling the same way ours have. So maybe she's not really smarter than us. Maybe it doesn't matter. It seems like, no matter what we do, Salem or someone else is one step ahead of us. But we might be able to save our friends, now, if we hurry."

"You don't know that her plan hasn't worked yet," Wally said. "What about trusting us?"

Ruby suddenly looked up sharply.

Then she said, "I think we should do what they say."

"What?" Weiss was surprised.

"Why?" Blake said.

Ruby pulled them a little aside.

"Don't you remember what Alicia told us?" she said. "To listen to our teachers. That we have what we needed and stuff like that. Doing things ourselves hasn't gone that well in the past, if I'm honest. They're here--we should listen to them."

"I can't believe you, of all people, are saying that." Weiss was dumbfounded--almost.

"You want to risk your sister's life on what that strange woman told us?" Blake said.

"Maybe I don't want to risk Yang's life on doing this our way and failing again," Ruby said pretty somberly.

"But they're just human," Weiss said. "You know it. Even if they're...special. Ozpin is special too, and he doesn't always win."

"I'm not sure it's about that," Ruby said. "I just... Miss Likstar told me that leaders lift people up and don't claim to be higher than everybody else and stuff. I can't explain it exactly, but her idea is not to overestimate ourselves again, and it doesn't seem like that's been...a mistake we make a lot. Our plan is basically saying that we can handle this and don't need their help. I just don't think it'll work."

"We could try to come up with a better plan," Blake said.

"Well...Winter does seem to think we should just listen to what they're saying," Weiss said. "But I'm just worried about Yang."

"I am too, but we need to protect everyone, not just Yang." Ruby said the most mature thing she'd said in easily a long time--other than her whole admission that she'd failed several times recently.

Weiss and Blake exchanged a look, then nodded slowly.

They returned back to the others.

"All right, we'll go along with this for now," Blake said.

"But we have to be really precise," Weiss said. "And no more keeping us out of this. We're her team."

Shine was surprised that Ruby had pulled that off, but not displeased.

"Fair enough," she said. "Wally...could you find Qrow?"

"Sure, but wouldn't your way be faster?" Wally asked.

Shine lowered her voice. "I think we both have guessed where he is. I'm not sure I'm the one who should go in there and find him. I can look for Tai--hopefully he's just gotten distracted fighting some Grimm or something." [Pause to note that in their minds that's preferable to the drinking problem.]

"Oh, right, I see your point," Wally said. "I'll go look for him."

"Try that way." Shine pointed. Her eyes gleamed gold.

Wally left.

"Ruby," Shine spoke up, "if you could wait for Theo outside his office, if he gets in, tell him we all want a meeting with him immediately. Don't say any more than that."

"Okay..." Ruby said uncertainly.

"There's something you should know," Jaune spoke up. "Before she left, Raven told us Watts is still in Vacuo and he met up with Kanap, at least she thought so."

"Did he now?" Shine said. "Well, isn't that interesting. He did exactly what I thought he would. I'll just bet he gave her some tip offs too. Okay, I need two things: Blake and Sun, I want you to find Robyn Hill and bring her here. Tell her it's urgent. Team JNPR, I'm going to send you to find Watts and drag him back here."

"You want him to know we know about him?" Pyrrha said.

"I only intended to let him get away long enough to make contact with the enemy," Shine said. "That's all I need. I have him right where I want him now, but only if he's here. Now I think all of you can take him. He can't possibly have had time to amass many weapons, and Pyrrha could handle most any weapons he'd use. I don't think he's much of a fighter. But stay away from any technology. You should catch him by surprise... You can handle this, right?"

"Yeah." Jaune was only too glad to have something to do. "We've got it."

"Sure," Nora said.

"Wait, what should I do?" Weiss asked.

"You and Winter will stay here with Emerald and Mercury," Shine said.

Mercury had hoped no one had noticed him in the back of the room, but so much for that.

"Just in case," Shine added. "We'll want the other Maiden guarded. I'm going to find Tai if I can. Message as soon as any of you complete those assignments or run into trouble."

"What about me?" Oscar said.

"I want you and Ozpin to make a map of the Vault of this school," Shine said. "Never know when it might come in handy. Even if we don't need it later, it's useful to stir up those memories. They could be important."

Oscar wondered why there wasn't more to his part in this than that, but he supposed, in all fairness...sometimes Shine was going to need Ozpin's help more than his--he did have all the experience with this stuff.

Shine left, and the others ran to do what she said.

* * *

Wally found Qrow after only trying a few bars.

He got in with some wary looks from other people, since his whole red-headed, happy-go-lucky persona didn't seem very Vacuo, but they didn't start it with him, thankfully.

Qrow was hunched over a table, looking pretty drunk to be honest.

Wally wasn't that bothered by drunk people--he'd busted into bars plenty of times--but he did feel bad for him, considering how his family felt and how well he'd been doing.

Still, Wally knew enough about AA to know that relapses are pretty normal, and he didn't think it was a huge reason to panic. He just wished he had better news for him right now.

He shook him. "Qrow, hey, wake up."

Qrow muttered something that was probably curse words and then, "Go away."

Wally tried again. "It's important, man, come on. We've got a situation."

No answer.

Wally rubbed his hands together and then gave Qrow a pretty decent electric zap.

Qrow sat up so fast he knocked over his glass, and then he glared at him.

"What the h--- was that?" he said. "What are you even doing here, West?"

"I don't have a nice way to say this," Wally said, "and I really wish I didn't have to say it, but, it's Yang."

Qrow snapped a little out of it and stood up. "What about Yang?"

"She's been...kind of kidnapped," Wally said.

Qrow scowled. "What?" he said darkly.

"I'll explain, but we've got to jet." Wally pointed at the door. "We're trying to come up with a solution, and we need everybody's help for it. Can you walk or should I drag you?"

That was the closest he got to a snarky comment about it.

"I can fly just fine you idiot," Qrow said. "I can hold my liquor."

"Can you juggle it?" Wally said the first thing that popped into his head.

Qrow gave him a deadly look.

"Sorry, don't know why I said that. Let's fly," Wally said. "Get it?--not the time for jokes, sorry. It's a professional habit. Never let anyone see you sweat."

"Shut up," Qrow said, walking past him.

"Hey, you have to pay," the bartender called.

He got the money thrown at him, but he didn't seem to care.

* * *

Shine found Tai doing pretty much what she thought, with some help from Zwei.

"Sorry, I just needed some time to think and not do anything complicated," he began.

"That's nice, Tai, but I'm afraid time's up," Shine said. "Yang has been taken."

Tai immediately looked horrified. "What? When?"

"Come on, we'll explain later," Shine motioned.

* * *

On further consideration, having only the two Schnee sisters and Emerald and Mercury there for this might have not been the wisest grouping.

Mercury was shadow boxing and looking placid as usual, but under it he wondered if this was going to mess up his plans too.

Emerald was rubbing her arms and looking agitated.

Weiss and Winter might have been trying to make each other feel better, in their way--but their way was to point out how naive they all had been and to overthink every little part of the day to look for anything they might have missed.

That made Mercury want to hit his head on the wall.

Shine returned with Tai first, since she had only to portal back, with Zwei, who had his eyes covered so the shock wouldn't send him spiraling.

But they'd already got through a part of the story when Wally and Qrow came in.

Wally had told him enough for him to be pissed off at Theo already.

There was a moment of awkward silence while everyone looked at Qrow, and you could just read the silent accusation in their faces.

Except Mercury, who didn't care.

Winter looked even angrier than the others, though she said not a word.

Qrow took it in and then slumped.

Shine was the only one who didn't react like that, she just looked tiredly resigned to the situation.

"Where's Hazel? I don't want to explain this yet again," she said.

"Here." Hazel came in. "No one's tried to get in the school. Or out."

"Yay?" Wally said uncertainly.

They went over the whole story yet again.

Qrow scowled. "I knew this plan was never going to work."

"There are always things the enemy can do that you don't expect," Shine said. "That's why a plan that's adaptable is good. Anything that could go wrong at one point probably will go wrong."

"Especially with me around," Qrow said dully.

Tai glared at him. "It's not always about you, Qrow," he said. "Where were you anyway? I thought we were supposed to be all working on this."

Like he didn't already know, but still.

"We had no way to know this would happen today," Shine said. "We had other things in motion. It's just a setback."

"My daughter missing, and her mother, is just a setback?" Tai was angry. "What is wrong with you?"

"I can't believe Raven was stupid enough to just jump in there," Qrow said.

For some reason, it was that remark that made Shine snap, not Tai's.

"Well, it's a fine thing to listen to you gripe about how she never does anything for her family, and then complain because this time she did," she burst out. "Pick one, Qrow!"

Wally clapped.

"Why are you applauding that?" Winter asked him.

"Because it's about time someone said that," Wally said. "I've been listening to you guys pick on Raven ever since she got her, and I didn't want to make it worse, but it's almost like you don't even want her to do the right thing. No matter what she does, you complain about it. It's messed up."

"It's hard to trust someone once they've backstabbed you," Qrow said. "But you wouldn't know what that's like, would you? With all your loyal friends."

Shine and Wally both laughed oddly at that.

"Oh, Qrow," Shine said, shaking her head. "Wally's been betrayed much worse than that. His friends have almost killed him before, albeit maybe not the same--but one of them once betrayed the entire planet--not just one group of it, the whole dang thing--to a fate arguably worse than the one Salem has planned...or just as bad. Though she didn't know it at the time, but she almost cost them their world because of her blind trust in the wrong people."

Wally shook his head.

"It's true," he said. "That was a rough week for me. You think you know someone, and then they sell you out to an alien race to exploit your weaknesses and put you in prison."

"What?" Qrow said.

"That happened to you?" Weiss was incredulous. "And we're only hearing about this now?"

"I never thought it was important," Wally said. "I never think about it now, except I guess when I hear people say that they can't trust again...because that's what some of my other friends said about her. But I couldn't understand it, because in the end, she came through for us. She turned her back on her whole people because they were going to do something terrible and evil and she knew that. She was really the person I thought after all, just...she got confused. She made so many sacrifices, and a lot of people never thanked her for it, they just blamed her for what happened. She's still my best friend, at least out of the girls I know, other than Shine."

Shine smiled. "Well, I had a hard time empathizing with her," she said. "I've never had to do that. But I felt for her all the same. It's hard when people won't let something go."

She frowned at them. "And after the many times I've had my mistakes thrown in my face constantly, for years, in the past, I sympathize with Raven a little bit. I know what it's like to be the person no one wants to forgive. And you know what? It's utterly pointless to even bother trying to reason with people like that. I care about you guys, but sometimes you disgust me."

She looked fierce for a moment. "I don't mind your hang ups, but the way you keep pointing at someone else to say they're worse than you, it's...just... Do you think you can really help while you act that way? Do you think we like that? Do you think God does? If you bite and devour one another, what do we need Salem for? What do we need any enemy for?"

"I don't think Qrow was saying that we shouldn't help Raven," Tai said. "Just that she's been making this hard for us for a long time."

"You know, you have not made this easy for her either," Shine shot back. "You've all yet to apologize for that, by the way. To think, we're in this deep and you still want to make sarcastic quips. Where is that concern? You want to get Yang? Great. But not just Yang. And if and when we do find Raven, if one of you so much as says one thing to her about this--In fact, I'm not sure I want your help after all. This is making me feel sick."

"Hey, let's not get carried away," Tai said. "I'm not sure what we said that made you so angry, but we shouldn't just split over it."

"Now he says it," Shine said to Wally.

"This is making me feel sick too," Wally said. "But still, we probably should work past it."

"Just call me when Theo arrives," Shine said. "Or when the others get back, I guess."

She stormed out of the room, and they heard her slam one of the doors along the way.

"I think I'll just wait for team JNPR to come back," Wally said. 

He left.

Silence prevailed for a moment.

"We would have to alienate them on top of the other things," Winter finally said.

She got a glare in response to this.

"I know Raven kidnapped me," Weiss said, "but she also told us the truth. I never understood her very well. I'm worried about Yang...but I don't want Raven to get hurt either. Something about her just...kind of reminds me of Whitley."

Qrow shot her an odd look.

"Why is that Shine is so concerned about our family history?" Tai was puzzled. 

Winter spoke cuttingly. "At times like this, we should be focused on the solution, not on blame."

"No offense, but is this really any of your business?" Tai asked her.

Winter buttoned up her lips after that. She'd completely forgotten that Tai might see this as a family affair, not public knowledge. That embarrassed her. Qrow was so much more forthcoming about it--she'd started to forget about what was the professional line. Of course this was none of her business.

Weiss looked upset still after that.

* * *

Theo was at Vara's...house, for lack of a better word, to make sure she was safe.

Vara was not in a good mood that day. Apparently she'd had some dream that was worrying her.

"It's bad luck to keep sneaking around like this," she muttered.

Vara had always had an oddly superstitious streak for someone who was as reckless as herself most of the time, but usually she only worried about it when she was unsure of something. So the plan was still bothering her.

"Maybe we should consider you just leaving town," Theo said.

"I thought you said here was safest," Vara said. "That running never worked."

"I mean to buy some time," Theo said. "If there's nothing to find, then it'll be easier not to give anything away."

"How much do you think they've found out by now?" Vara said.

"I don't know," Theo said. "I don't think they're really onto us yet. My scare tactics haven't worked out, though. Every obstacle that Vacuo throws at them, they find a way to get around. I'd admire it if it wasn't pissing me off."

"And Vic? You've talked to her again?" Vara asked. "Any progress there?"

She didn't know his full plan there, but he said cautiously, "I think so. But she was vague."

This was not quite true.

Theo changed the subject. "I'm going to check the perimeter again."

He left.

"Always his way when he wants to hide something," Vara muttered. "How stupid does he think I am? Idiot!"

Suddenly the jacket on the table buzzed.

Theo had forgotten to put his scroll back in his vest pocket. Not unusual for him while he was indoors.

Vara plucked it out of the pocket and looked at the screen.

She recognized Victoria's number. And the message: Bird trap is lined.

"Bird trap..." she muttered.

She tapped out a response: Everything in place?

A reply came: Got the nestling, and the flock spotted us.

Nestling?

Vara mentally broke it down. Bird = Raven or Qrow. Nestling = someone younger than them in their family. Flock = their team or family as a whole.

Theo was going to sell out Raven, she decided. So the nestling had to be the blonde girl, the one who was on TV for cheating or something in the festival, though Theo said it was botched.

Wait a minute, though. Vara frowned to herself. She didn't care about Raven, but was Victoria actually going to use one of those kids as bait? Just how much as bait? She wouldn't do something to her, would she?

Theo walked back in just a few minutes later.

Vara had hidden the scroll by then, but she looked grave.

"What's wrong?" Theo said.

"Theo, did you set one of those kids up?" Vara said in a tone that meant lightning was incoming, usually.

Theo hesitated for a split second longer than he would have if he was innocent. "Did I what?"

Wind picked up along the floor.

"Don't. Lie. To me," Vara said, dangerously.

"Nothing bad will happen to her." Theo reverted to making excuses instead.

"Theo!?!!" Vara almost screamed.

"This is the only way to get a leg up on the enemy," Theo said. "We're out of time, Vara. And options."

"Victoria is crazy!" Vara thundered--literally thunder sounded behind her. "What if she gets a little curious about the best version of someone while she's got a victim all ready for her? Did you think this through?"

"She won't do anything to her," Theo said. "It's a part of the plan."

"It's not a good plan," Vara said. "That does it! I'm not going to start using these children as leverage. I'm going to end this now."

She ran for the door.

A knife sliced past her arm and nicked it.

She turned back. "Theo..." she said in horror.

"Sorry," Theo said. "I can't trust you right now. Maybe when you're not so worked up, we can talk about this."

"I can't believe you just..." Vara put her hand over her arm. "You jackass!"

She fell over.