~Ozpin's Office~

"This plan is pure lunacy, sir. How can you put those girls directly in harm's way like this?"

"Glynda, I won't lie; she is the best lead we've ever had, but I truly believe she can be saved."

"She's a cold blooded killer. Are you really ready to throw away our students' lives on this belief?"

"I have faith in her and in Team RWBY that it won't come to that."

"Well, you know the old saying; you put hope in one hand and-"

"Glynda, please...We got a new report in from one of our teams out on a mission. Team RVNT (Revenant) never made it back from their mission to clean out an Ursa's den near Pyxis."

"What? No…Vienna...Naama...wait, they are just missing then, right? We could send a search party to track-"

"We just got the report now because the local guard waited until they searched for any survivors before sending word. They found the remains deep in the woods. Apparently their bodies were riddled with deep gouges and dust enhanced bullet wounds. The consensus was that they were jumped, presumably by White Fang, while fighting the pack of Ursas."

"Oh god..."

"That makes the fourth team we've lost in the last six weeks. They're picking us apart. We cannot win the battle of attrition at this rate. Not until we can actually strike back at them. This girl is the closest thing we've had to intelligence on their whereabouts, their plans, their identities. Anything."

"I understand the potential value of what she knows, but still, these girls have barely any combat experience. Miss Xiao Long almost died fighting her the first time. If her memory comes back and things go sideways, at best the teachers we have on watch will be able to put her down and save most of them. At worst...it could be a complete disaster. We need to call James."

"I'm not handing her over to James. There's no chance she'd ever talk if we send her to a super max. She needs to build emotional connections here if we want her to talk to us. She needs to make friends."

"She needs to be locked up!"

"Ok then, Glynda. Can you contact team RVNT's families and let them know what has happened to them? Then, can you look them in the eyes and tell them we are doing everything we can to avenge their deaths and to make sure this won't happen to anyone else? Can you tell them that with a straight face when you know we aren't? I can't. Not anymore. I'm tired of contacting families to let them know the huntsman in their family died ingloriously, and we still have no leads on their killers. We're not one step closer to finding the people behind this than we were months ago when we first heard our huntsmen were being targeted. I'm not ready to tell them we have our best lead, but we're going to let her walk. Honestly Glynda, sometimes the only choices you have are bad ones, but you still have to choose. This is my choice."

"Well, I pray that Qrow or Tai Yang don't hear about this plan. At least not until after it succeeds."

~Team RWBY Dormitory~

"YOU TOLD CARDIN?!" Blake wheeled around with a look of incredulity plastered on her face. Yang took a step back as she recognized she has little stable ground to stand on in this argument.

"Hey, I didn't tell Cardin, ok?" Yang replied with a hint of petulance in her voice.

"But Cardin knows about Neo?" Blake said in an almost condescending tone as she was trying to walk Yang through the story she needed to hear.

"...yes." She was not cooperating.

"Because of you?" Blake started slowly moving towards Yang as she continued her conversation that felt more like she was trying to pull teeth.

"...technically, yes."

"Sounds like you told him to me!" She threw her arms in the air in exasperation as she finally made some progress in this interrogation.

"That's not what happened…exactly." Yang defended as she thought she was getting a bum rap in this.

"So what happened then?"

"After we came back after running into her, I was left feeling...unsatisfied. I really needed to hit things, so I went down to the gym to blow off some more steam. I ran into Yahtzee down there."

"You do know he hates that name, right?" Blake interjected. Yatsuhashi has never enjoyed the pet names Yang gives to him or his teammates.

"Oh he loves it, trust me. Anyway, I started working out with him, spotting each other and such, and I started talking to him about the evening. Well, I was rather...animated-"

"Loud, you mean."

"Yes, fine, loud. Anyway, I started talking about the evening and how we ran into that little pipsqueak, and I didn't really check who else was in the gym when I started ranting. By the time I was done, I saw a couple CRDL guys in the back corner. They high tailed it as soon as I caught their eyes." Yang finished with a slightly dejected look and slumped shoulders, realizing how much fault actually rested with her after hearing herself explain it out loud.

Blake let out an audible sigh after hearing the conclusion of Yang's explanation. "Ok, so bottom line, Cardin and his merry band of troublemakers know Neo's actual identity and knowing him, he's not keeping his mouth shut."

"Yea, that's about the long and short of it."

"Ok, I gotta go find her. Now." Blake said with an air of finality and did a quick about-face towards the door.

"But-"Yang got one word out before she was gone into the hallway. "-why…?"

~Beacon Dormitory Hallways~

Blake stormed through the hallways with her head on a swivel; trying to find any clue as to where her distraught teammate could've gone. Unfortunately, she found it to be an extremely difficult task as not only did she have no clue where Neo could've gone, but now the break from external arguments has given way to an internal one.

Why am I trying so hard to defend her? I was on that train, too. I fought against Roman, her partner. He would've killed me if would've lost that fight. Neo almost did when Yang lost. Why the hell is Ozpin putting her in this school? Roman got hauled off to Atlas, why isn't she? She isn't a good person. But still…it hurts to see her abused like that when she has no idea why they're treating her like that…but that still isn't a reason to forgive what she's done…UGH.

"Back off, Cardin!"

"What's she to you, Arc?"

A familiar name called out down the hall broke Blake out of her self-induced stupor. With the focus on her internal squabble snapped, she rushed towards the commotion as a congregation of students was quickly growing around the verbal combatants in the middle of the hall. She pushed through the throng as the view of the backs of students gave way to the sight of Cardin squaring off with Jaune and Pyrrha with a crumpled mess of a girl collapsed against the wall behind them.

"She's working with those White Fang mongrels, Arc. She was responsible for that Grimm attack last month. All I was doing was knocking her around a little bit. She deserves worse than that."

He stepped towards Jaune, bumping into him and knocking him backwards. He caught his balance though, and with a glance back towards Pyrrha, he stood back up; toe to toe with Cardin.

"I know you're dim, Cardin, but do you really expect me to believe that? She's responsible for the Grimm Invasion, yet she's walking around her like nothing happened? Please, you're just trying to justify abusing her. What's wrong with her; do you not like her hair? Next you'll tell me Velvet is in the White Fang and that's why you ridicule her, too."

"I'm not lying! Go talk to blondie bitch if you want proof. She fought her during the attack."

The crowd started turning on Cardin and audible sneers could be heard from around him after the insult towards an otherwise absent Yang.

"Just stop Cardin. No one's buying it." Bolstered by his partner and the growing support of the surrounding students, Jaune continued to push back against Cardin and his cronies.

"Tchh, you wouldn't be speaking like a man if you didn't have your protector right here with ya. Whatever, let's go. Let these two deal with the freak." Cardin spit out the response before shoving through the crowd along with Sky and Dove.

"Jaune, maybe we should talk to Yang just to see what's really going on. Oh hold on, there's Blake over there." Pyrrha said cautiously to Jaune just as she spotted Blake shoving her way to the front. Pyrrha waved Blake over who quickly started to join the pair, but shoved past as she knelt down to tend to Neo. She was shivering and recoiled whenever Blake tried to touch her.

"What the hell happened to her? Did you guys see?" Blake asked as she finally acknowledged the JNPR pair standing nearby.

"We just got her not too long ago. We saw CRDL crowding around her on the ground. It seemed like they were up to their old bad habits, like with Velvet. Who is she by the way? We didn't recognize her. They were claiming she was a White Fang member, which sounds utterly ridiculous when you think about it." Pyrrha explained what had happened as far as they had seen.

"She isn't, right? Ozpin would've never let trash like that into our school." Jaune followed up the questioning towards Blake, then turned for reassurance from Pyrrha, who quickly shook her head in agreement.

"Uh, Yang and I found her beaten half to death in an alleyway in downtown Vale. We brought her back here for medical care. After that, Ozpin wanted to meet with her, and after they conversed, he offered her a spot in the school. She's been added to our team for the time being."

"Huh, you didn't think to just take her to a hospital nearby?" Jaune asked, not fully convinced by Blake's story.

"She looked to be in real bad shape. We didn't think she'd make it at a civilian hospital." Blake hurriedly spit out a new lie to compound on top of her makeshift story. Thankfully, it looked like Jaune accepted the reasoning well enough.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of her from here." Blake said as she lifted the petite girl up, and started heading back towards the dorm. By this point, the excitement of the confrontation had died down and the crowd along with it, so the trek back wasn't terribly impeded.

"Jaune, I don't think she was being completely truthful." Pyrrha and Jaune continued their conversation in the hall after Blake made her retreat.

"I don't think so, either. I think we should pay a visit to Yang and find out her view on this."

~Team RWBY Dormitory~

"Yang! I found her! Cardin was terror…izing…her." Blake called out as she entered into the dorm room, but only halfway through she realized the room was currently empty. After a shrug of her shoulders and a jaunt over to her bed, she laid the trembling teen down on her bed to try to help her rest and relax.

"Here, just trying to rest. I'm sorry that you had to go through that. Cardin is such a piece of-"Blake was cut off her mini rant as a notepad was shoved into her stomach. Neo was staring up at her with a pained expression on her face; tears welling up but she was doing her best to hold them back.

Do you really even care?

Blake was taken aback at the accusation. Of course I care about her...right? "Neo, of course I do. Why would you say that?"

Neo lunged her arm out to grab back her notepad and rolled away to pen her response. Blake could hear a flip of the page as she poured her thoughts out onto the pieces of paper.

A minute later, she flung the notepad at Blake and quickly returned to her semi fetal position on the bed, staring at the wall.

STOP LYING! I know they don't hate me just because I'm new! That asshole in the hallway called me a criminal. Said I was the enemy. Am I? What aren't you telling me?

A swift kick came from the edge of the bed as Blake was contemplating her answer that caught her in the shin. There was no real power in it, but she got the message loud and clear. "Neo…" Blake hesitated, but broke down and started spilling the truth about her. Her involvement in the White Fang, her relationship with Roman and Cinder, the fight on the train with Yang, everything Blake knew about her anyway. Honestly, there wasn't even much in the way of specifics. They didn't really know much about her, other than she was the enemy.

Neo laid there, staring up at Blake as she unleashed this torrent of information that she steadfastly wanted to refuse to believe. She didn't do those things; she wasn't that kind of person! She just wanted to be accepted; she wanted friends. She didn't want to listen, but she could tell that Blake wasn't lying or telling half-truths anymore. The reactions from the other people here solidified that. She wasn't welcome here. The dam couldn't hold back the rising waters any longer as tears flowed from Neo's eyes.

The sadness was quickly replaced with pain and agony as a blinding flash overtook her vision and wracking headaches tore through her mind. She whimpered as she was tossing and turning violently before taking a fall off the bed and spilling out onto the feet of Blake.

"Neo?! What's wrong? Neo!" Blake reached down to try to comfort the obviously distressed girl through her suffering. The worst seemed to be over as her shaking and tossing seemed to be subsiding and Blake was slowly able to help her to her knees. However, just a moment later, she uttered a bloodcurdling scream before falling face first onto the floor; a sickening thud reverberated out from her body.

"Neo! Please, get up. Neo!" Blake rolled her over and tried to gently shake her awake to no avail. Paralyzed by indecision, all she could do was sit there sobbing while holding the otherwise deathly still pint-sized girl.