30 Black Feather

After that night at the docks, a few weeks have gone by, and also a dozen mission has been a successful and with the addition of team RWBY assisting them.

Zack and Blake are walking together in one morning as they are headed to Tukson's Book Trade.

"Ugh, remind me again why we're going there first thing in the morning?" Zack groaned out as he was being dragged by Blake.

"Ugh! You're heavy! C'mon, it's all your fault anyway, because of your carelessness everyone in our group knows that I like that book!" Blake replied exasperatedly as she is second-guessing herself in picking this moron.

*sigh* "I already said I'm sorry you know, but I guess it was indirectly my fault so let's go ninja-lover!" Zack suddenly got up then walked ahead of her.

"Heh, that's just like him, his motivation is just like a flip coin," Blake said amusingly to herself as she followed him.

Pyrrha and Yang wanted to come as well but with the existence of their truce, it made it possible that she could spend some time with Zack. The funny thing about their truce is that even though it's been a few weeks in its creation, Zack has still no freaking clue about it but the one thing they couldn't change is that Glynda is still the one leading them as they still regularly go for different outings together.

If this continues, Glynda will be the only one Zack will choose instead of all of them. They have to do something drastic or nothing will ever change but she still didn't think raping him is the best idea courtesy of Yang and Pyrrha.

They eventually arrived at the shop, they went in and saw Tukson, a man with hair that was cleanly cut, and he had noticeable sideburns, along with hairy, and muscular arms, he was arranging some books.

"Welcome to Tukson's- Oh Blake... and the brat" Tukson started with a welcoming tone but died down in the end when he saw Zack.

"Sup! Old man Tuk! Do you have any motorbike catalogs?" Zack ignored the tone as he asked calmly.

*sigh* "Sure, we got them, it's just at the front by the window," Tukson said as he always hated being called an old man and Zack hardly changes his mind in calling him that.

"Anyway, Tukson, do you… have it?" Blake looked seriously at him.

"Heh, you wouldn't believe what I went through just to get this book, I had to smuggle this out of Mistral, c'mon I got it at the back for protection and remember this well Blake, there are only three copies of this and you now have one of these three," Tukson said seriously as he motioned Blake to follow him at the back.

"Hey brat, we're going at the back so make sure not to destroy anything while we're gone," Tukson first reminded Zack before walking away.

"Cool, old man, whatever you say!" Zack said as he read the catalog of the best recent motorbike this season. Zack doesn't look at the catalogs to pick and admire motorbikes across Remnant, he has a nasty hobby of mocking and comparing these motorbikes to his baby, Fenrir, which is still being taken care of by B7 and B8 even though they became Alphas, it's still their duty.

"Hah! You call that a motorbike! You mongrels!!" Zack said with an expression of a certain Golden Servant.

Zack was so absorbed in his own little world that he didn't notice a guy and a girl went inside.

A pale, young man with gray eyes with silvery-grey hair that is partially slick back wearing mostly grey and black in color. He is accompanied by a young woman with medium-brown skin and dark-red eyes. Her hair is a light, mint-green with a straight fringe and bangs as well as two long locks on each side in the back.

"Huh, there's no one at the counter," the young man said as he curiously looked at everything but he saw that there is someone reading by the window.

He motioned his partner to look as well.

The young woman approached Zack as she curiously tapped his shoulder.

"Hmm, what's sup?" Zack turned his attention to the young woman.

"... I'm sorry but are you Tukson?" she asked curiously as she felt Zack was really familiar to her somehow.

Zack looked back at the empty counter then looked everywhere for Tukson, when he didn't see him, he immediately went to the counter, took out his teaching glasses, put in on, and faced them.

"Yes, yes I'm Tukson," Zack acted like a professional.

"Ugh… alright, we were actually looking for a book?" The girl asked innocently.

Zack curiously raised one of his eyebrows at them.

"Do you have the Third Crusade?" the girl continued as the guy she is with begins to walk forward to the lights.

As Zack was about to answer the girl suddenly froze and hastily said to him.

"Uh, you know what, nevermind, we actually have somewhere we have to go to, good day," the girl quickly said then dragged the guy she was with towards the doors.

"What a weird bunch, maybe my acting skills are really superb now! Well whatever, now, where was I," Zack said as he shrugged his shoulders at that weird couple then continued his reading.

Back at the green-haired girl and grey-haired guy.

As soon as they got off of there, the girl ran as fast as she can while dragging the guy with her. They continued to run until the girl made way in one of an isolated alley they could find.

*Huff* *Huff* *Huff* *Huff*

They waited for a moment to catch their breaths.

"W-what the hell was that Emerald! We were about to finish that guy but you sudden- Hey are listening to me?" the guy quickly asked.

"SShhh!!,... Good, he didn't follow us…" Emerald quickly relaxed after realizing they weren't followed.

"I take it that you know the guy back there?" the guy asked again as he stood up straight and asked Emerald again.

"N-no, I don't... but I know he's one of the Queen's interest, he was the one that she ordered me to destroy his scroll back then at the Land of Darkness," Emerald calmly answered.

"Huh, that's it? I was thinking of the guy that the Queen always watches as he destroys hordes after hordes of Grimm all by himself, now that guy I gotta respect his strength," the guy reminisces about one meeting they had.

"H-he is that same guy Mercury…" Emerald hesitantly commented.

"..."

"Huh, he changed a lot then, I didn't even recognize him back there... wait a minute, if he's here then doesn't that mean our plan to bring down Vale is already shot?" Mercury asked.

"..."

They grew quiet for a moment as they thought about it carefully.

"...Let's go... we have to inform this to Cinder for now," Emerald said as she walked away with Mercury nodding at her then following as well.

…

Zack and Blake eventually went back but Zack did mention those two he encountered earlier to Tukson.

Blake was really happy that she started to hum while walking with him, she even bought some chocolates for him in which case Zack was really grateful that he gave her a quick hug.

Blake suddenly thought of something about his chocolate addiction.

'What if I use chocolate' Blake thought of as she suddenly imagined herself naked with chocolate plastered on her body then Zack attacking her ferociously for days. At that image on her head, Blake's face slowly blushed, her head started steaming, and a tiny blood trail was coming out of her nose.

Her eyes were losing focus on everything fast but as an ex-member of White Fang and a loyal follower of the "Ninjas of Love" series, she won't let this beat her easily but as she thought of this she saw Zack eating an ice cream clumsy.

*gulp*

Blake unintentionally gulped all of a sudden as she could faintly imagine what would happen next in front of her.

"Damn, there's still some left, good thing this is delicious," Zack said as he licked his finger then he looked curiously at her.

At Blake's mind though, she saw him licked his finger slowly and provocatively while looking towards her. Her imaginations ran full speed as she could hear Zack say to her "C'mon Blake, let's do it already"

"..."

*thud*

"Huh, Blake are you listening to me? I said let's do this event already, they have this chocolate-eating contest! What do say-Oh, you alright?" Zack enthusiastically said as he finished his ice cream really fast but as he looked back to his company, she was on the ground.

She has a blush on her face, her nose is slightly bleeding, and she has this massive creepy smile on her face.

Zack looked on for a minute as he suddenly remembered that he saw this kind of face before, it was from his partner, every time he would take a quick shower or after taking his shirt from being sweaty, he would always see her knock out on the ground with the same expression.

Zack picked Blake in a princess carry as he continued his train of thought.

'Maybe there is an illness going around, I should probably ask Glynda about this as it seems to only affect young women' Zack thought of as he continued carrying Blake but as this was on his mind, his chocolate-eating contest earlier was totally forgotten and as a result when he did actually remembered it, it was already over… he was depressed for one week.

During that 7th day of his depression, he still went on a Grand Alpha extermination mission but this time he went alone and he didn't take his team or team RWBY as he stated that he wanted to blow some steam.

Everyone grew worried for him as well as his mentality he had while going on that kind of dangerous mission but against better judgment, Ozpin allowed him much to the other's disapproval.

They questioned Ozpin as soon as Zack flew away and he said to them that he felt something bad would've happened if he didn't agree. That drew their attention but they decided to trust their leader to make it back alive.

The next morning.

Zack returned at dawn, he was already back to his normal self, and not an ounce of injury can be seen in him. The only thing that changed though was the silver in his hair grew more.

Everyone dismissed this as it was weird but as Ozpin grew curious about what happened to his mission, he sent out a scout team to check on Zack's location previously.

A day after, Ozpin got a startling image, the landscape in that area was flatten to a degree, what once a thick forest became barren as he did notice there were big craters all over but what was surprising was that a few long ravines that were formed and it looked like it was cleanly cut by something.

Ozpin thought of Zack's Blade beam, but he shook his head as the size of this few long ravines looked like it was twice or maybe thrice stronger than that.

The scout team eventually got back but as they reported back to him, they gave him the one thing they only found on that barren land, a long black feather.

The feather that was too small to be that of a Grimms and it was too big for a normal bird. It almost looked like it was from an angel.