Notes: RWBY is such a rule of cool show it might as well be written into the universe's laws. "Is this practical? No. But is it cool? Aye. Then so it shall be!"

A little heavy here at the end. Oof.

Enjoy, everyone!


Qrow didn't like crowds. He liked people well enough—certain people—but he didn't like crowds. There was a very good reason for that.

So when they entered the large entrance hall set up to welcome the incoming and rising classes, he chafed silently at the size of the crowd. Raven noted his discomfort and elbowed him gently in the side. "Stop looking so nervous."

"I'm not nervous, I'm just…surprised."

"Try not to be." She sighed, sympathizing with his real concern. "Remember Armon's training."

Qrow nodded but the reminder was a small comfort. They'd hardly ever ventured into a city before, and the Academy was very much like a city. The forest camp had been their home for years. And even there, the biggest gatherings held a fraction of the people present now. Their raids usually consisted of small traveling caravans, ships the'd downed, small towns after or during Grimm attacks—nothing too populous. He could always wander into the forest if he ever felt too uncomfortable, which was often enough.

It took a few minutes for them to find a spot before the empty stage, and an even longer time spent waiting for more students to pour in. They had both straggled on purpose. Qrow checked the time on his scroll, growing bored. When the lights began to dim the twins glanced around as the voices of their fellow students grew hushed and muddled. The stage ahead gained a sharp luminescence. The man who walked onto it sent a chill up Raven's spine.

Headmaster Ozpin.

Youngest headmaster of any of the Academies. Maybe two decades older than either of them, at most, and yet still holding a cane as if he were of a more distinguishable age. She'd heard talk that he'd been injured during a battle and had never fully recovered. It was a truth she didn't regard as such. She studied him closely as the room grew into an even greater silence. He was the strange singularity in this whole plan. Perceptive, hard to read, and somewhat…distant. And not in a way that reassured Raven he'd leave them alone, but in a way that made her think he was almost too focused on the particularities of things. Qrow stiffened at her side when Ozpin scanned the room. His gaze held onto the two of them for a moment longer than it did the other students. Raven met it.

There was nothing to give them away. They'd aced the entrance exams, perhaps a bit too well, but she'd read about students who'd done that often enough. Their lies were thorough. The trail the Elders had laid out had been carefully planned albeit a bit fantastical. She elbowed Qrow as the man began to speak, his look falling away from them, and her brother leaned down wordlessly so she could whisper in his ear.

"He's got us pegged."

"Well, yeah." Qrow's shoulders shifted with a silent laugh. "We blew the entire entering class's exam scores out of the water."

"I did, at least."

"On paper, maybe. But I made the practical exam look like—"

"Hey!" A hand reached out to Qrow's shoulder and he turned slightly, almost affronted at the hand on him. The man behind him was broad-shouldered, clean cut, and tall. Almost as tall a Qrow. He held a finger before his lips.

Qrow shrugged and turned back to the stage. The man's hand fell away and Qrow had the strong urge to wipe at the spot it had been. He offered a small glare to Raven, who ignored it, as the Headmaster droned on. They both fixed onto the tail end of the short speech with well concealed boredom.

"—And so we will teach you, here at Beacon Academy, that you can reach the heights of your greatest potential if you're willing to let go of all you know about heroes, about victory, and about strength." Raven resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "If you can do that, you can perhaps become something greater than the sum of your parts. A true huntsmen or huntress, not a hero or one worthy of glory but a person to protect, above all else, those around you." He smiled at the crowd. "I wish you all the best of luck."

The lights came on but there was a small spark as one failed to light. Headmaster Ozpin looked up at it, head cocked, and the students murmured as it flickered and went out. Raven glanced at Qrow as the crowds began to dissolve into muttered conversations and disperse. Her brother only offered a half-hearted smile.

"Typical." Qrow said as he and Raven strolled through the halls to reach the temporary room for the freshman, in which they'd already deposited their meager possessions, with his hands in his pockets. "Stupid speech to inspire stupid kids."

"I thought you liked them."

"I pretend to like them." Qrow gestured. "There's an operational difference."

Raven smirked but did not respond. The wide windows at their side welcomed in a great amount of sunlight. It was almost peaceful. And not for the first time, Raven wondered on the students of this school and the worlds that had raised them. Most of her first observations had been that they'd been all rather well-off. Parents probably paying tuition, their old academies likely just as well-regarded as this one. Beautiful gardens and soft, quiet towns. She thought of shadows gathered by fire and the Elders, of the men and women who'd raised them with fists and steel and blood. Her hand fell to her sword's hilt. Crafted particularly for this occasion almost two years ago. Her brothers too.

She knew their first night would offer them no privacy to discuss their plan of action. They'd have to keep their conversation reasonably coded and inconspicuous. When they entered the large room that would house them that night some of the other students were gathered in groups near their sleeping mats, which had once been lined up neatly in rows. Raven and Qrow had dragged theirs quietly away from the rest, to a corner of the room, and noted with some relief that plenty of students grouped up as well.

When they were set in their corner, each of them sitting cross-legged on a rolled out sleeping bag, Qrow looked down at the slim metal of his scroll and spoke. "Lips are largely sealed on how initiation works. Classes are general the first year, but we obviously specialize later. If the Headmaster's taken an interest in us, we're going to have to either warrant that or deflect it."

"Warrant it until it's convenient. Then we'll plateau." Raven smirked, her own scroll at her side. "I hope that doesn't prove too difficult for you."

"Boring." Qrow said without looking up at her. "Not difficult. We also don't know how teams are formed. But…"

"I know the plan." Raven said softly.

"Right. So tomorrow I guess the real fun starts." He set his scroll aside and laid back against the wall with a sigh, hands curled behind his head. Raven fixed her gaze on the window and a black bird that fluttered past the glare of the sun. They had the rest of the day to freely roam the school, grab lunch, and set up their lockers. They'd both attend to that schedule at a leisurely pace.

"We need to start trying to understand our peers. Find the best of them..." She said.

"I'm starting to think we might be the best."

Raven snorted. "Pathetic if that's true."

"Hm." Qrow sat up. He grabbed at his scroll. "Have you noticed any so far?"

"That'll take some time. We don't know anyone's abilities yet."

Qrow pinned her with a focus red gaze. "I think we should be more focused on our…", he extended a hand out, "compatibility with them."

"That's largely irrelevant."

"It's not. Rae, these teams are for keeps. We're going to have to deal with these mooks for four years."

Raven glanced down at the sleeping pad, away from her brother and the sun and her scroll. Four years. Four years of pretending to have the backs of their classmates. Four years pretending to be here to kill Grimm. As if they weren't already well versed in that. "Then we better choose carefully."

Years of training. Almost a year of knowing the truth of that training. And now, playing nice with the rest of her class was going to prove to be the hardest part of that charge. She was grateful Qrow at least retained some charisma. She could defer to him in social situations that exhausted her until she built up enough of a read on the person to interact…accordingly.

There was a soft thud as her small, unzipped bag rolled off its perch on the table beside them and spilled out across the floor. She glared at her brother. "I don't know if I can resist not killing you for four years."

Qrow laughed. "You've managed to not kill me for seventeen, right? What's four more?"


Before Beacon

The fire was bright.

Raven sat on her heels before the small metal hearth, staring into the flames as if they could take her focus off of this meeting. Qrow was at her side, cross-legged and leaning back with palms on the rug. He was looking down at the designs whirled into it, worn from years of sitting and stepping. A bruise bloomed under his left eye.

"We need to make sure they're ready." Hale was a big man. He spoke with a deep baritone and his Grimm mask covered his face and the scars that lined his pit of a nose. The other four Elders wore similar masks; all were composed to look like Grimm. It was supposed to instill fear in the hearts of those they captured or attacked. An idea they'd held for years. Raven glanced up at them, sucking in a breath to grant her strength.

"With all due respect, Elder Hale, we've been training for years." She said.

"And you've both gotten better, no argument there. But this is a…delicate operation."

"Who are our other options?" Elder Ivory made herself know with a slow drawl. "There aren't any children in this tribe more fit to be huntresses than these two."

"Huntsmen." Elder Rai corrected and Ivory's Nevermore mask turned to him.

"And why?"

"Tell me, Raven, do you feel prepared?" Hale diffused the tension with a question aimed at the eldest Branwen. Raven looked down at her gloved hands. She was shaking slightly. She curled her fingers in to hide the tremors and met Hale's pitiless gaze.

"I do."

Hale turned. "And you, Qrow?"

"Whatever you need, Elders." It sounded tired.

Ivory made a "hmph" and it shook her shoulders slightly. Affronted. Raven bristled with the urge to shove her brother out the tent's fabric opening. They didn't need anger directed at them, they needed to prove that they were ready. She felt her nails dig into her palm.

"We're ready."

Hale made a small sound that was neither a disagreement nor an approval. He looked around at the Elders gathered. "Does anyone dissent to the allowance of their training?" No one said anything and so Hale fixed them both under his Ursa mask, the eyes dark and empty. "You'll leave at the month's end."

The crickets were loud this time of year. Qrow stood outside by the edge of the tree line, nursing a small cup of tea. His shoulders were hunched. Raven stood on the threshold of the tent, her hand parting the fabric from the doorway. She stepped down quietly and came to his side.

"Do you want to lose your other eye?"

Qrow gave a single soft chuckle. "I didn't lose an eye."

"Well you're going to if you keep acting like that in front of them."

Qrow was quiet a moment. He looked down at his tea. The steam was still curling from it. Fall was looming over them with a quickly departing summer. The air was crisp and the winds that pushed through the thick foliage of the trees were harsher. "I'm just tired."

Raven lowered her voice. She placed a hand on his shoulder. "We have a month left. When we prove ourselves at Beacon we can come back and they'll have to respect us. We can come back and wear the masks ourselves. Us, together, running the tribe. We'll change things, Qrow, for the better."

Her brother was silent again. The bruise under his eye brought up a well of rage in her that she tried to keep from spilling over. Qrow was an idiot, but he was her idiot. And sometimes he was right. She drew her hand back, weary. "We'll have each other, right?" It's what they'd always truly had. Even if leaving the tribe would hurt some, as it was the only home they'd had, it would mean learning enough to come back with an essentiality that would guarantee both of them protection. It would keep them both safe. More powerful.

"Right." Qrow took a sip.

"And that's what matters."