CHAPTER 36

JAUNE ARC POV

The city of Vale was large.

So large in fact, that whenever the student needed to go down to the city, they had to take a Bullhead because walking or even using any other form of transportation will waste too much time.

The city was twice the size of New York in his rough estimate. Still smaller than his Pocket Dimension but large enough to house over 10 million people.

The reason he was pointing this out was that he was finally beginning to understand why the Hunters never really caught Roman.

The Thief was good.

He would do his research, find out where the nearest huntsmen were at the moment, and then strike and quickly steal all of the dust before the Hunters can react.

And even if Roman was caught in a fight against a Hunter, he was no slouch in a fight and had Neo's help in escaping whenever things got too dicey.

All in all, if he wanted to search for Roman in this city then it was unlikely that he'll be able to do so on his own.

If he had the Bounty Tracker App then he would've been able to find Neo but as it was, he didn't have enough points to buy that app. Not at the moment at least

Nor did he have any connections in the underworld of Vale (which was much larger than just Roman and the White Fang) which will help him in finding Roman, Cinder Fall, or the White Fang.

Though admittedly, the reason he had come to Vale on this holiday was not to search for Roman Torchwick but to relax and have some bonding experience with his team.

"Jaune! Where do you think we should go first?" Ruby asked "Should we go to the bakery and buy some sweets. I mean, I didn't mean to say that your cookies aren't good enough. Because they are. But-"

"Ruby you dunce. Let him think for a moment at least." Weiss said and Ruby quiet down but pouted at her partner.

"Jaune. Is there a place where you want to go?" Pyrrha asked.

He thought about it for a moment but then nodded "Yeah. Let's go to a restaurant. I want to fill my belly with something before we start walking around the City of Vale. Ruby, can you recommend us any good restaurant?"

"Sure I can. Follow me!" Ruby said and started moving ahead.

During the walk, he kept an eye out for any sign of trouble. Like Roman Torchwick running through the streets on a giant Paladin or the White Fang robbing a Dust Store.

No such thing happened and they arrived at their destination without any difficulty.

He and his team arrived in the restaurant and quickly ordered something to eat, him having to order something cheap because of how poor he was. And how poor he'll remain until he finds a way to either earn some money or sell his Dust (which he wasn't willing to do now that he knows how destructive it is).

"So Weiss. I've never been to Atlas before. What can you tell me about it?" he asked curiously as he had nothing better to do at the moment.

Weiss frowned a bit but then she started to tell them about her home, her home life, and some general knowledge about the City of Atlas.

Once Weiss was done, he moved to ask Pyrrha the same but then he noticed something.

"Hey, Ruby! Isn't that the dude that you fought before you came to Beacon Academy?" He asked as he looked toward the place where the futuristic Television was showing the image of Roman Torchwick along with the White Fang Members and the images of a robbed Dust Store.

In the show, he never truly understood why Ozpin didn't simply send a Hunter team to deal with Roman Torchwick. Sure the guy was good but he wouldn't have lasted long against a dedicated group of Hunters after him.

But a little bit of research in the library and internet told him why that was.

Politics. Eugh.

As far as he could tell, Hunters were not allowed to operate within the City.

The situation could be compared to the Hunters as being the Army of this Country. They fought the Grimm and protected humanity from the outside threats but if one day the Hunters decided that they wanted to take over the City of Vale then there was really nothing the City Council would be able to do.

This was why the Hunters were kept as far away from the City business as possible.

So even if Ozpin wanted to order some of his students to go and Hunt down Roman, he couldn't do that because his hands were tied.

That wasn't to say they didn't have people with aura in the Police Department. Because they did. Except that those people were weak. Rejects from the Hunter Academies who decided to join the Police Department or people who got their aura activated by a relative.

Because you can't activate your Aura and not join a Government Organization. That would be against the law as Grimm are attracted to people with Aura and if a city has too many people with aura inside it then it'll suffer more Grimm attacks and would've to use more resources to combat the increased threat.

So if you have Aura then you either join the Government, get kicked out of the city, or join the Criminal gangs. No wonder there are so many criminals in Vale.

That is also why bandits like Raven didn't simply unlock the aura of every single bandit in her camp. It might make her group stronger but it would also attract Grimm. More Grimm than she or her group would be able to take on even with the added aura users.

Though he had a feeling that even if the fear of larger Grimm attacks wasn't there, the Council wouldn't allow people to have Aura without strict restrictions. Because that would give more power to the people which was something that the Politicians never wanted.

"Yep. It seems like he's still up to no good." Ruby said with a cute frown.

"Despicable. Though I shouldn't have expected better from scoundrels like him and those filthy animals." Weiss said.

He and his teammates exchanged glances at the sheer vitriol in Weiss' tone.

Oh yeah, Weiss still has a huge hate boner for the White Fang and the Faunus kind in general because the 'Blake's a Faunus' arc never happened.

He thought of something and asked "Say Ruby, Weiss, Pyrrha. If I wanted to go and capture this Roman Torchwick and the White Fang before they do any more damage to the city, would you help me?"

"Of course I will. You know I have your back Jaune." Pyrrha said as she put a supportive hand on his shoulder.

He did in fact know that. But he didn't want her to feel alienated by only asking Ruby and Weiss.

"I'll help you Jaune! We'll go around beating those criminals and everyone will see us as heroes." Ruby said as she gestured holding a gun with her hand and made 'pew pew' noises as she hit some imaginary enemies in her mind.

He turned to Weiss and that she looked a bit conflicted. But Pyrrha and Ruby had already decided to help him.

Peer Pressure might not seem like much at the beginning but under peer pressure, people do things that they normally would never do on their own.

"Very well. I'll help you." Weiss said in the end. "But how are we even going to find these people. It's not like we can just walk around Vale hoping to find them by luck."

He thought about it for a moment before he nodded "You can leave that up to me."

Mapper Purchased for 10 points.

Target Tracker Purchased for 10 points.

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AN: Wordbuilding people