Mercury was completely and utterly lost.

Once he arrived at Beacon with Cinder and Emerald, Cinder had strode off with Emerald lugging all their luggage behind her, trailing after the seductress like a lost puppy. Mercury personally wasn't looking forward to sharing a room with three girls that would find no remorse in ending his life if he pissed them off for the next couple of weeks, so he decided to wander around the academy before submitting to his fate and finding their room.

If only Beacon wasn't a maze of twists and turns, he could actually find said room.

It became apparent after passing the same doors for the fifth time that he wasn't going to find his room anytime soon. Deciding to just wander some more, he opened the doors to find a library. He just about turned face and immediately went in the other direction, but a voice that echoed from off to the right stopped him. He knew who that was…

He began walking off to the side, shoving his hands into his pockets and spotted a table with four girls sitting in chairs by it, as well as another group of kids on the long table behind it, and two boys talking to the girls at the table. He spotted Ruby immediately, and he walked forward a bit before announcing himself.

Once his clunking boots could be heard, Ruby blinked before glancing over, silver eyes widening before she smiled widely and waved, "Hey! I didn't think I'd see you again this soon."

Mercury shrugged as he walked up to the table, all eyes now on him as he stopped right by Ruby's chair, "Eh, I was wandering and I heard you talking, so here I am," His eyes moved to the others at the table, noting that the busty blonde right across from her was darting her gaze between Ruby and himself, "Who are your friends?"

"Oh, right! Guys, this is Mercury. I met him yesterday when I was in the city. The other three girls are on my team. This is Weiss, that's my sister Yang, and that's Blake," Ruby pointed to each girl as she introduced them.

"Hello Mercury. Nice to meet you," Weiss bobbed her head once before returning her gaze to the blue haired boy beside her.

"You're here for the Vytal Festival?" Yang questioned.

"Yeah, me and my team. We're competing," Mercury answered, eyes turning to Blake then. The bow on top of her head twitched a little and he hid his surprise. Faunus.

"So, how'd you like the book Ruby got you, Blake?"

"How'd you know Ruby got her anything?" Yang cut in abruptly.

"Yang," Ruby growled suddenly, eyes narrowing at the blonde. Yang merely smirked and winked at the younger girl, clasping her hands together.

"Sup man," The monkey faunus greeted with a grin, "I'm Sun. And the nerd over there is Neptune."

"Intellectual," the blue haired boy, Neptune, interjected before greeting Mercury, "Hey. So where's the rest of your team?"

"At our dorm," Mercury leaned a little to spy a blonde haired boy with blue eyes, "And you are…?"

"Jaune Arc," He replied before gesturing to his friends, "And this is my partner Pyrrha. That's Ren, and the girl sleeping is Nora."

"PANCAKES!" The sleeping girl awoke from her slumber at her name being called, blinking a few times before flopping heavily on the table yet again, and Ren sighed as he pat her head affectionately.

Although amusing, Mercury would rather not meet and greet with half of Beacon altogether, and turned his attention back to the little redhead next to him. It would seem that Ruby and Yang have gotten into this staring contest while he had been distracted, and the longer the staring progressed, the redder Ruby's face became. After a moment, Mercury risked waving his hand in front of the two, wondering just how odd this group could get.

Like being snapped from a trance, Ruby's eyes fluttered and she looked up at him, a blush dusting her cheeks, "Oh, uh. So did you find your dorm without much trouble?"

Mercury shrugged, not really wanting to admit that he's been lost in Beacon's hallways for the past half hour, "For the most part."

Blake, who had been roped into her own one sided conversation with Sun, stood from her chair and left then, which drew everyone's attention to her retreating form. Sun raised his hands as if to say, I don't know what I did wrong, and after a moment's silence, Nora grumbled, "Women."

"Should we go after her?" Ruby asked after a moment.

"Let's just give her some time to sort her thoughts. Besides, we have a game to complete," Weiss turned back to her deck of cards.

"Well… we don't have four players now."

"Hmm… how about you, Mercury?" Yang asked the silver haired teen, "You in?"

Mercury took a second to take in the board game laid out on the table, before taking Blake's now unoccupied seat, "Conquering Remnant?"

"Yup. You'll be playing as Vale, since that was what Blake was. I'm Mistral, Weiss is Vacuo, and Ruby is Atlas," Yang listed, "Do you know how to play?"

Picking up the cards for Vale, Mercury said, "I'll figure it out as I go."

"Alright," Yang cracked her knuckles, "Prepare to be crushed."

Seeing Mercury's doubtful look, Ruby added, "Yang has crazy luck when she plays this game. And I'm not quite convinced enough to say she doesn't cheat…"

Yang gasped, "How dare you insinuate that I am not a genuine master at this game!"

"Oh I'll dare all I want Xiao Long."

"Oh yeah? Well bring it on, Rose!" Yang bellowed, "Hit me with the meager remnants of your army!"

Mercury cast an odd look between the two sisters, and Weiss went to explain, "Yang and Ruby have different last names."

"Why's that?"

"Technically we're half sisters since we have different mothers, and I just kept my mother's maiden name," Ruby shrugged as she picked up her cards, Yang drumming her fingers on the table.

"Alright, your move, Mercury!" Yang shouted, much to the rest of the library residents chagrin.

Mercury found himself cracking a smirk that was a little more genuine than before, and a small part of him admitted that it was almost… fun, talking with these kids. But he shook that thought away.

He had Remnant to conquer after all.

…

…

…

"I can't believe it!" Yang moaned as she trailed after her younger sister, "He must've cheated."

"Yang, you're being a sore loser," Ruby tisked, chuckling a little as the blonde fumed.

"We should have never let him play!"

"You're the one that invited him to play in the first place, you do realize that right?" Weiss raised a brow as she checked something on her scroll, keeping stride with Ruby.

"I know, I just don't get how he predicted my every move!"

"Maybe he's the leader of his team?" Ruby proposed, hands balled on her hips, "All I know is that he definitely didn't cheat. He beat you fair and square."

Yang groaned in annoyance and brought her long hair in front of her to play with idly as they walked. Not long after Mercury's total annihilation of all opposing fleets, Team JNPR retreated to their dorm and Sun and Neptune went off… somewhere. Ruby, Weiss and Yang stayed for a little while with Mercury to talk a little, and after Mercury quietly admitted that he still didn't know where his dorm was to Ruby, she gave him directions before heading off to her own dorm. As evidently shown, Yang still had not recovered from the defeat and was still insisting that Mercury withheld a few cards to ensure his victory.

However, once Yang adopted a sly look instead of her 'sore loser face' as Ruby dubbed it, the young team leader began to feel a little nervous.

"So, sis… what do you think of Mercury?"

A little thrown off by the abruptness of the question, Ruby responded hesitantly, "He's pretty nice. I mean, we met by me literally running into him at full speed and he still helped me find a gift for Blake. I think he'll turn out to be a pretty good friend."

"Good… friend," Yang made an exaggerated thinking face, and Ruby heard Weiss snicker quietly to herself. That caused alarm bells to start ringing. Weiss never laughed.

"Why are you snickering?"

Weiss adopted a look of innocence, "I did what?"

"You snickered! You never snicker!"

"I can't possibly imagine what you are saying Ruby. I did no such thing."

"Now you're playing coy!"

"I have to agree with the Ice Queen sis. I heard no such snicker," Yang said with a full blown smile.

"Okay, you're not even trying to hide your smile! What is going on? What am I not getting?!" Ruby questioned animatedly, darting her gaze between Weiss and Yang.

"Oh, Ruby Ruby Ruby, what will I ever do with your introverted brain?" Yang slung an arm around Ruby's shoulders, waiting patiently by their dorm's door as Weiss took out her passkey, "I just need to spell every last thing out to you!"

"Yang just tell me!"

"I'm just suggesting that you might possibly probably have a tiny little crush on the new resident hunter in training, that's all!" Yang threw up her arms as if it wasn't a big deal and sauntered into the room, Ruby close on her heels.

"I-It's not like that! Besides, I just met Mercury yesterday! No one can develop a crush that quick!" Ruby stuttered, her face automatically going beet red at the mere suggestion.

"Well, you can still find someone cute right off the bat. So, do you think he's cute?"

"What?!"

"Oooh, so you think he's hot! I don't blame you, he's quite the looker."

"Yaaaaaang!"

Yang sent Ruby a knowing look when Ruby didn't deny her accusations, and Ruby flipped the hood of her cloak up to hide her face, turning away with a huff.

Whatever pestering Yang was going to commence was quickly interrupted when Weiss turned on her heel and pointed directly to the cat faunus that was attempting to leave the room, "Stop. Lately you have been quiet, antisocial, and moody."

"Uh… have you met Blake?" Yang commented with a slight grin. Ruby would normally agree, but she had to admit that Blake has been acting more morose than normal. The incident involving Blake leaving the table shortly after Mercury arrived was not an isolated incident, and wherever fun and lightheartedness lingered, save for the epic food fight earlier, Blake would find a reason to flee. Blake hadn't even picked up the book she had gifted to her, which was quite a surprise to Ruby, but she decided not to push it since she did only give the gift to her yesterday.

Ruby supposed this was the time to directly confront Blake about her behavior.

"Which I get is kind of 'your thing'," Weiss continued, not faltered by Yang's interjection, "But you've been doing it more often lately, which is quite frankly unacceptable. You made a promise to me, to all of us, that you would let us know that something was wrong."

Then, with a change in her calm tone, Weiss gained a determined look in her eye, "So, Blake Belladonna," She jumped into the air, flipping as she readied to strike, "What," She began her pursuit toward her target, "is," and then, with an uncanny accuracy, landed her leap and jabbed a pointer finger to Blake's chest, "wrong?"

A stunned silence enveloped the group as Weiss balanced precariously on the wooden chair, wobbling from left to right while not taking her eyes off of her target. And then, with a speed that made Ruby proud, jumped to the ground and moved the chair to its proper place and darted back to her original spot on the floor, all the while keeping her natural grace with all three pairs of eyes staring dumbly at her.

Well. That was a thing.

"I…I just don't get how everyone can be so calm."

Ruby deflated. The White Fang. She should have seen this coming, since Blake was always so involved in their activities or their location, and it seemed that this problem has been festering for some time, "You're still thinking about Torchwick and the White Fang?"

"Something big is happening and nobody is doing anything about it!"

"Ozpin told us not to worry," Yang tried to calm her partner, "Between the police and the huntsman I'm sure they can handle it—"

"Well I'm not!" Blake exclaimed, "They don't know the White Fang like I do!"

"Okay," Weiss put out her hands, stopping any further comments for a moment, "Between blowing up nightclubs," A glance directed at Yang, "Stopping thieves," Ruby, "And fighting for freedom," A look at Blake, "I'm sure that all three of you think you're ready to go out and apprehend these nardules."

Yeah, Ruby had no clue what that was, but she was just going to assume Weiss meant criminal.

Everything aside, Blake had a point. Ruby hated to admit it, but whoever was calling the shots had to be clever to get this far along, and Ruby wasn't oblivious to what exactly Torchwick was causing to the dust market. It was getting more and more expensive to ensure that she had enough dust rounds for her baby Crescent Rose, that's for sure, and the longer they wait, the more time Torchwick has to build up his defense and solidify his plans. With that, and keeping half an ear in the group discussion, Ruby made a decision.

"Okay," Ruby began on a calm note, but then began to talk rapidly, "All in favor of becoming the youngest Huntresses to single-handedly bringing down a corrupt organization conspiring against the Kingdom of Vale, say aye."

"Yes! I love it when you're feisty!"

"Well… I suppose it could be fun."

After a huge gasp of air, Ruby registered her teammates responses. She pouted a little, "None of you said aye."

"Alright. Then we're all in this together," Blake announced, a genuine smile lighting up her face.

Ruby nodded, "Then let's hatch a plan."

"Yeah!"

Ruby grinned widely at her team before remembering something. She made a horrified gasp, her hands making fists, "I left my board game in the library!"

Weiss sighed, "We're doomed."

"I'll be right back!" Ruby hurried out the door, looking back as she told her teammates to wait. Alas, she turned too late and ran face first into a solid body, flying backwards to the ground for the second time in two days.

"Ugh, I'm sorry! Are you okay?" Ruby asked as she rubbed the back of her head, and a gloved hand came into view.

"We really have to stop running into each other like this."

Ruby flinched a little and she darted her gaze up to meet Mercury's. She made an awkward little chuckle and took his hand, noticing that he had the board game tucked under his arm, "Sorry about that Mercury. Me and my team, uh—"

"It's fine, Ruby," Mercury smirked as he handed the board game to the short girl, "I noticed you forgot this on the way out."

"Oh. Thanks!" Ruby began to back towards her dorm, "Well, I guess I'll—"

"Hey, by the way…" Mercury sauntered forward yet again, "Aye."

Ruby blinked, mind slowly processing the word and connecting the dots. In the end, she could only muster one word quick enough, "…oh."

…

…

…

Moments earlier…

Mercury strolled the halls with the board game Conquering Remnant tucked under his arm as he followed after a flowing red cape that would vanish just as he turned every corner. While it was amusing to interact with the rambunctious trio (well, Ruby and Yang were rambunctious while Weiss was just snooty and uptight), he worked much better when merely eavesdropping. He didn't hear anything of real interest as he trailed after them. Yang seemed dead set on thinking Mercury had cheated in the game while Ruby was trying to defend that he most definitely was not. He tuned out most of the conversation, hearing his name mentioned a few times, and entertained the thought that his charm made him become the star topic of Team RWBY's conversations.

Once he heard their footsteps cease, he stopped just around the corner and peeked around, seeing Yang sling an arm around the young team leader.

"…suggesting that you might possibly probably have a tiny little crush on the new resident hunter in training, that's all!" He heard the end of Yang's sentence, his eyebrows rising once Ruby began stuttering and her cheeks slowly became redder and redder. Huh.

The stuttering continued when the girls ventured inside their dorm, and Mercury moved toward the door before leaning against the wall, pretending to study the contents of the box as he overheard the group conversation.

As he listened in, Cinder contacted him via his scroll (not the school scroll provided to provide their cover but his own personal scroll).

Queen: {Butcher, report}

Butcher: {Outside Red Riding Hood's quarters. They are discussing the Candle}

Queen: {Should we be concerned?}

Mercury listened for a moment, hearing the cat faunus rant about their enemy, and he responded promptly.

Butcher: {It would seem that the Kitty Cat is rallying to search for the Candle}

Cinder didn't respond for a moment, more than likely concocting a plan in her devious mind, and Mercury waited patiently, listening to Ruby say the most words he had ever heard in a single breath. It would seem that Ruby jumped on board Blake's thought process and wanted to look for Torchwick and the White Fang as well. Not good.

Butcher: {Red Riding Hood is ready to start searching. Goldilocks, Snow White and Kitty Cat are all on board}

Queen: {Assist Little Red on her small journey. Report back anything interesting you uncover to the Thief.}

Butcher: {What about the Candle? They might attempt to fight}

Queen: {Then fight alongside them as if you were one of them. Ice Cream is with the Candle}

Ah. That explained Cinder's uncaring response. He pocketed his scroll and backed up a few paces once he heard Ruby mention her board game, waiting for the young girl to rocket out of her dorm and more than likely run right into him yet again. Sure enough, Little Red ran out a moment later, calling something back to her teammates before running face first into his torso. He of course didn't move an inch, while the smaller girl bounced off and to the ground just as before, rubbing her head and squeaking out an apology.

Mercury couldn't withhold his smirk. If anything, Ruby made things a lot more amusing than they were before.

…

…

…

Greetings! Well well well, it looks like Mercury is going along with Ruby and co for a little expedition! I wonder who he will be paired up with... ;)

Next chapter may be a while, but I'll post it as soon as possible! And thanks toe everyone that has followed and favorited this story!

Eris: I wish more people shipped QuickSilver honestly. It's so hard to find stories about them!

Madgirl2424: But of course I will!

Happy writing to all!

Lonessa out! :)