"All I'm saying is, knowing Pyrrha, she'll be back any day now." Ren patted Jaune on the back, but gently. The poor guy looked like he was going to be sick. Pyrrha had been gone ever since her fight with Penny at the Vytal Festival, and people were beginning to talk. Pyrrha was at the height of Powered achievement, a symbol of competence and conscience in equal measure. In truth, Ren was just as anxious as Jaune; for if Pyrrha could vanish, anyone could.

A table away, team RWBY nattered away, happily discussing classes. Ruby was a little subdued, but the others seemed to lean into their leader, supplying her with the energy she didn't have. That is, until someone touched Ruby's shoulder from behind.

"Uncle Qrow!" she squealed, grabbing his arm. "What are you doing here?" Yang sprang to her feet, and Qrow found himself squeezed between two cheerful nieces. He peeled them off his sides and turned them around to face away from the table.

"Hello, girls," he said, nodding to Blake and Weiss. "You mind if I borrow these troublemakers for a few minutes?" Without waiting for their agreement, he grabbed Yang and Ruby by their elbows and marched them outside. There, he set them against the wall.

"Uncle Qrow, are you okay? You seem tense." Yang crossed her arms, a slight tension in her face. Qrow ran his fingers through his hair, which lay limp and flat against his head. Upon reflection, he looked terrible: unshaven, unkempt, and haggard, like he'd aged a decade since they last saw him. He looked up toward Ozpin's tower, then to his watch, and back to the girls.

"I don't have much time. Take this, leader girl." He handed Ruby a file folder. "Get your team together, read what's in there, and please get out of Vale. Your dad wouldn't forgive me if I didn't tip you two off to what's about to happen." They stared at him. "Come on. Go!" Startled, Ruby and Yang ran back into the dining hall, grabbed a friend each, and ran for the dorms.

When they arrived in their room, thoroughly winded, Blake and Weiss turned on the two sister.

"What in the world—"

"Shhhh. My uncle Qrow gave us this and told us to read it with you guys." Ruby waved the folder around. C'mon, let's at least look at it." Ruby opened the folder. Inside was a thick document with an official seal on it, labelled "People's Protection Act". Weiss frowned.

"Isn't that the law on regulating Powered people that passed last year? The one that's over three hundred pages long?" Ruby didn't even try to read it straight through. Instead, she flipped through until she saw a highlighted section. It was only about a sentence, and she read it out loud.

"...granting those selfsame powers the reserved right to neutralize individuals deemed deleterious to public order...well, what does that mean?" But Blake had already fallen silent in horror, clutching her mouth. Ruby turned to the next sheet of paper. It was a picture of a numbered list of names. The list's title was "Dangers to the State", and it read:

Pyrrha Nikos—invulnerability coupled with high profile and martial skill

Penny Polendina—artificial Power technology

Raven Branwen—unwilling to cooperate

Adam Taurus—unwilling to cooperate

Ozpin Head—unwilling to cooperate

Qrow Branwen—unwilling to cooperate

Ruby Rose— eyes indicate potential to equal Summer Rose in power

The further down the list Ruby went, the more of her classmates' names she saw on the list, with labels like "high potential" and "dissident attitude". Every member of Team RWBY was in the top thirty, and everyone she'd gone through initiation with was in the top fifty. When the nearly one-hundred strong list was done, she turned to the next document, which was just pictures. The first one caught her eye with a flash of red.

Pyrrha, with a hole in her forehead. A picture of Pyrrha's body being buried in a forest under the cover of night, and the coordinates of her grave.

Penny, her body hacked up and looted for parts.

And then after that, voyeur-style pictures of everyone else on the list, going about their daily lives. Ruby's skin was naturally fair, but she was as pale as a sheet. Someone out there had it out for an entire generation of Powered kids deemed too powerful, and everyone she loved was on the kill list.

Team RWBY sat for a moment in silence..

"What do we do? Do well tell Team JNPR about Pyrrha?" Yang asked, eyes still wide. Blake shook her head violently, her "bow" waving back and forth.

"I think your Uncle Qrow means us to get out while we still can. While we can guarantee our safety. They can't make ALL of us disappear. If they want every name on this list, they're going to come for our whole academy. And I don't want to be here when this happens." Ruby mumbled something, her bangs hanging over her eyes.

"What are you saying?" Weiss demanded. "That we're going to leave our classmates to die? My father has ships, I can call in his help."

"What if your father is in on this? And if he's not—how long until his name is on this list?" Blake asked, almost shouting. "I want to be safe!"

"They killed her," said Ruby. Everyone stopped talking and looked at her. Tears were streaming down her face, and her eyes seemed to glow faintly silver in the light from the window. "Penny. Pyrrha. They died, for what? So someone else could feel safe. I don't want to be safe if this is what it costs." Yang immediately rushed to Ruby's side.

"Shh, it'll be okay," she said. Ruby shook her head.

"You don't understand. I'm not leaving Beacon. I'm fighting for it. I don't want to be safe. I want to stand for something. Will you guys stay with me?" She looked from face to face. She saw shock, confusion, and fear in all of them. But they all nodded.

"Team RWBY is what we are. No splitting up, no leaving people behind. We're with you, leader," said Blake. "Promise." Weiss gave a weak smile.

"How long do you think we have to prepare?" she asked. Ruby frowned.

"I don't think we have much time at all. We have to get the word out. When they come to Beacon, we'll be ready for them. For now, get in all the training you can. We won't have the luxury soon."

Hours later, as the sun set, Ruby was walking by herself. Her trademark cape fluttered in the slight breeze, and she had her arms folded over her stomach, taking every step carefully. She was so absorbed in her thoughts that when someone stepped out from behind a shrub, she nearly drew her weapon before she caught sight of a familiar blue-white and realized it was Weiss.

"Hey," said Weiss, blushing. "I, uh, saw you. Through a window. Thought you might want some company. You know, girl to girl." Ruby took a deep breath, still recovering from the shock. Then she mustered up a smile and took her hand off of her scythe.

"Sorry about that. I'm a little paranoid. Yeah, of course you can walk with me. What's on your mind?" Weiss laughed, but it sounded almost like a cackle.

"You know what's on my mind, Ruby. What else could I possibly be thinking about? It's like my whole life, I was living this dream where we and the regular people could live together and get along. I closed my eyes every time I heard of a Powered kid getting killed by cops, or Paladins converging on another protest. I thought we could live in this dreamy let's-all-work-together paradise, but they just won't let us.

"What did we do to deserve this? Did we reveal ourselves too fast? Not polite enough? Too scary all at once? Or was it the fact that we huddle up in academies and don't let them in? Was it...was it my family, making money with our powers? I just don't understand anything. And I'm scared, Ruby. I'm really scared." She broke off, and they walked in silence for another few seconds. The path turned to grass under their feet. "Ruby?"

"I'm just thinking."

"About what?

"What you said. I've been thinking ever since we got the file. And I've been crying, like, a lot." Weiss smiled a little.

"Me too."

"And I decided that I'm not going to be afraid anymore. I decided that even if I have to do it by myself, I'm going to fight until we have a world where a powered person can be a hero or a schoolteacher and no one blinks an eye. I'm going to fight until there's no one left that stands between you and that dream. Because we deserve that world. Pyrrha deserved that world. Penny deserved that world."

The path dropped into a cliff overlooking the Emerald Forest, where their time at Beacon Academy for Powered Youth had begun. The sun was setting, and the wind lifted the edges of Ruby's cape, a fluttering like rose petals in a breeze. Weiss flushed looking at Ruby, just ahead of her at the edge of the cliff. Ruby had the cut of a hero, right in the way she set her jaw against the setting sun.

"Hey, Ruby?"

"Yeah?" Ruby turned back to face Weiss, and felt soft lips press against hers. For a split second, the kiss held—and then Weiss pulled away and ran, Haste glyphs speeding her departure back toward Beacon.