"Wait up, Kitty!"

Natsu ran as fast as he could, but no matter how hard his little legs pushed he couldn't keep up with the little girl in front of him.

"You're too slow, Sally!" she giggled. "If you don't hurry you'll never catch me!"

"I would if you stopped jumping off of everything! I can't climb that fast!"

"You're just making excuses!"

The girl - named Kitty - ascended the ladder of the building and Natsu followed as fast as he could. Just as he reached the top rung, his foot slipped and he lost his grip. He cried out in fright, but just Kitty grabbed his hand.

"Got you!"

Natsu got back on the ladder and held his friend's hand as she helped him onto the roof of the building. The young boy sighed in relief.

"That was scary." He said.

Kitty started to giggle. Her cat ears twitching out from the top of her stark black hair.

"Hey! That's not funny!" Natsu shouted. "I almost fell!"

"I know, but you made a really funny face. It was like this." The girl made her eyes and mouth as wide as she could and flailed her arms around.

Natsu started to snicker.

"That is funny."

The two children – human and faunus - shared a laugh that seemed to drag on forever, completely oblivious to the world around them.

The streets of Vale were alive with various decorations and colors in preparation for the upcoming Vytal Festival. While most of the citizens were buzzing with excitement for the coming event, others were much less enthused.

"I'm so bored!"

Natsu's annoyed groans echoed in the ears of those around him in the Vale town square. After serving another Friday in detention – this time for accidentally setting Professor Port's mustache on fire when the man woke him up during class – Natsu found himself strolling the city streets on his own.

He asked his team to accompany him, but apparently they had other plans.

"I'm sorry, leader." Cinder apologized with an apologetic smile. "We have personal business to attend to elsewhere tonight. Rain check?"

"What are those guys always doing when I'm not around? I thought we were supposed to be a team."

As he rounded a corner into an alleyway, he bumped into someone.

"Oh crap! My bad! Are you ok?"

"Yes. I am doing very well. How are you?"

"Uh…good I guess?"

Natsu looked down at the person he had knocked over. It was a girl. She looked to be roughly around his age, if not slightly younger. Her curly orange hair was offset by her pale white skin – the latter of which nearly blinded Natsu when the light shined on her. She lay perfectly straight on the ground, her green eyes focused on the pinkette as if she were awaiting a command of some sort.

"You sure you're ok?"

The girl briefly looked along her body as if she were inspecting it. She then nodded.

"Yes. Everything is functioning properly."

"...Do you need some help getting up?"

The girl pondered this question for a moment.

"Yes please."

Natsu picked her up and placed her on her feet – she was bit heavier than he thought. He would never say that out loud though.

"There you go."

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it. I'm Natsu by the way. Sorry for knocking you over. I wasn't watching where I was going."

"Greetings, Natsu." The girl smiled. "My name is Penny. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Oh the Vytal Festival! This is wonderful!"

"I don't think I've ever seen you smile so much, Weiss…it's kind of freaking me out."

Team RWBY were in the thick of things when they reached downtown Vale. Here was where the decorations were at their peak, with nearly all of the shops having signs welcoming tourists from all over Remnant – as well as luring them in with promises of "low" prices and deals on products.

"How could I not be excited?" Weiss asked her team leader. "The Vytal Festival is dedicated to cultures from all over the world! Dances! Parades! Tournaments! The amount of planning that goes into an event such as this is simply divine."

"You sure know how to suck the fun out a festival." Yang commented.

"You hush."

The girls reached the harbor and watched a large passenger ship settle into the dock.

"Can someone explain to me again why we're wasting our Friday afternoon at the docks?" asked a bored Yang.

"It smells like fish." Ruby nasally retched as she held her nostrils closed.

"Students from Vacuo should be arriving today by boat." Weiss explained. "And as a representative of not only the Schnee family, but for Beacon as well I think it only appropriate that I welcome them to our illustrious kingdom with open arms. It's only right."

"She wants to spy on them so she has the advantage in the tournament." Blake translated.

"Those words did not leave my mouth."

"Didn't have to."

"Whoa. What's happening over there?"

Ruby turned her team's attention to a police crime scene not too far from them. A shop with all of its windows and doors broken was blocked off by yellow police tape. Not one to let curiosity be ignored, the four made their way over.

"What happened?" Ruby asked one of the detectives on the scene.

"Robbery." He answered. "This is the second dust shop to be hit this week. Got a regular crime wave going on. This city is turning into a mad house."

"That's awful." Said Yang.

"They left all the money again." The detective's partner said. Their conversation caught Ruby's attention.

"Just doesn't add up." The first cop said. "Why break in and not take the money? Who needs that much dust?"

"Beats me." His partner shrugged.

"You thinking the White Fang did it?"

"I think we don't get pad enough to ask those kind of questions. Come on. Let's go back to the station and write the report."

"I hate filling out those things."

"The White Fang." Weiss scoffed. "What a bunch of degenerates."

Blake raised a brow. "What's your problem?"

"Me? Nothing. I simply don't fancy the criminally insane."

"The White Fang aren't malicious psychopaths. They're just misguided."

"Misguided? They want to exterminate humanity."

"So they're very misguided. Either way that doesn't mean they would rob a random dust shop in the middle of downtown."

"Blake's got a point." Ruby said. "They never caught that Torchwick guy that Natsu and I ran into a couple of months ago. Maybe he's behind it."

"Even so that doesn't erase the fact that the White Fang are a bunch of anarchist scum. The only thing those Faunus are good for is lies, deceit, and theft."

"That's not entirely true." Yang chimed in.

"Stop that Faunus!"

The girls turned around. The shout had come from the boat in the docks. Team RWBY ran over to the harbor railings, seeing two of the boat's crew chasing after a Faunus boy. He jumped onto the starboard edge of the ship, cockily grinning at his pursuers.

"Thanks for the ride, boys." He leapt from the boat to the dock, then jumped to the nearest lamppost. Using his tail – which resembled that of a monkey's – to suspend himself upside down.

"You no-good stowaway!" one of the men shouted.

The boy proceeded to peel the banana he kept in his shirt pocket.

"A no-good stowaway would have been caught." He corrected. "I'm a great stowaway." He saw a rock flying his way and quickly evaded. When he searched for who threw it he saw two detectives standing below him.

"You. Get down from there right now." One of them ordered.

The boy answered by throwing his banana peel at them. This was probably not the best move seeing as the detectives gave chase as soon as the boy jumped back down to the dock. He ran up the stairs and into town. As he sped past Team RWBY, he gave a brief wink and smile to a surprised - and very confused - Blake.

"Lucky for you, Weiss." Yang joked as the detectives chased the boy away. "You wanted to see the competition, and there it goes."

"Hurry! We have to observe him!"

Weiss led the charge as Team RWBY followed after the faunus being chased by the police. When they rounded the corner, the heiress ran into her brother.

"Whoa hold on, sis. What's the hurry?"

"Natsu?" Weiss looked behind her brother just in time to see the fugitive jump to a building and out of sight. "No! He got away!"

"Who got away?"

"We were chasing this guy that stowed away one of the passenger ships. We think he's going to be a participant in the tournament." Yang answered.

"Really? Dang. If I knew that I would have caught him and challenged him to a fight." Natsu lamented.

"You serve your sentence?" Ruby joked.

"Yeah. Professor Port can be a real pain sometimes."

"It's entirely your fault for sleeping in class. I told you to stop staying up so late at night." Weiss chided.

"I can't help it. It's much easier to train at night since no one else is awake."

Weiss sighed. "What am I going to do with you?"

"Salutations!"

Weiss - as well as her team - nearly jumped out of her skin when a pale girl with orange hair poked her head from behind Natsu.

"Uh…hello." Ruby awkwardly retruned.

"Natsu, who is this?" his sister asked.

"This is Penny." The pinkette introduced.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." The girl smiled.

"Penny, this is Ruby, Blake, Yang, and my little sister Weiss."

"Hi." Ruby greeted.

"Hello." Weiss said.

"Nice meeting you." Blake nodded.

"Yo." Yang waved.

"Are these girls your friends, too?" Penny asked Natsu.

"Yep. You could say that."

"Oh that's wonderful!" Penny chirped.

"Yes…well it was nice meeting you, but we should really be on our way." Weiss quickly said. "Are you coming, Natsu?"

"Yeah. See you later, Penny."

"So long, friend." Ruby waved.

The group left the peculiar girl behind and walked back onto the city's main street.

"She was…weird." Yang said.

"Where did you meet her anyway?" Blake asked Natsu.

"I ran into her when I was wandering around town. I didn't have anything else to do so I hung out with her until we ran into you guys."

"How come all the crazy is always attracted to you?" Yang questioned. For some reason she took offense to her own comment.

"Enough of the idle chit-chat." Weiss said. "Now that Natsu is with us, we have a much better chance of finding that faunus riff-raff. All we need to do is get his scent and-"

The group stopped abruptly when their path was blocked…by Penny.

"What did you call me?" the girl asked.

"M-me?" Yang stammered, thinking she heard their conversation. Meanwhile Weiss was having a fit trying to figure out how she suddenly appeared in front of them.

"I-I didn't think you heard me. I swear I didn't mean anything by-"

"Not you." Penny walked past Yang to Ruby. "You."

"Me?" the young girl pointed at herself. "I- I don't know I-"

"You called me friend. Didn't she?" Penny pointed to Ruby and looked at Natsu.

"That's what I heard."

"Am I really your friend?"

"Um…I uh…" Ruby looked past Penny to her team. Each of them were telling her to deny it. When she looked to Natsu for an answer he simply shrugged his shoulders as if to say: "Do what you want." In a panic Ruby answered truthfully.

"Sure! Why not."

Her team fell over in disbelief. While Natsu gave an approving nod.

"Sensational!" Penny exclaimed. "I've made two friends in one day! We can paint our nails, try on clothes, and talk about cute boys!"

"Was this what it was like when we met?" Ruby asked Weiss.

"No. She is much more coordinated."

"Yeah, but only a little bit." Natsu added.

"So…what are you doing in Vale?" Yang asked Penny, trying to ease the awkward mood as best she could.

"I am here to fight in the tournament." she answered.

"Wait…you're fighting in the tournament?" Weiss inquired.

"That's awesome!" her brother shouted.

"You didn't know this beforehand?" Blake asked.

"I didn't think to ask."

"I'm combat ready." Penny saluted.

"Forgive my candor, but you hardly look the part." Said Weiss.

"Says the girl wearing a dress." Blake retorted.

"Excuse you. I'll have you know that this is a combat skirt."

"Yeah." Ruby chimed in. The two exchanged a low-five.

"Hold on." Said Weiss. "If you're a participant in the tournament, does that mean you know that monkey-tailed…rapscallion?"

Penny cocked her head to the side. "The what?"

Weiss held up a crudely drawn picture of the fugitive from earlier. "The filthy faunus from the boat!" she elaborated.

Blake had finally had enough.

"Why do you keeping saying that?!" she shouted.

"I beg your pardon?" Weiss implored.

"Stop calling him a rapscallion, and stop calling him a degenerate! He's a person!"

"Oh, my apologies." Weiss said facetiously. "Would like me to stop referring to the trash can as a trash can, or a lamppost as a lamppost, or my brother as a glutton?"

"Hey!" Natsu shouted through a mouth full of hot dogs.

"Where did you even get those?" Ruby asked.

"There's a stand over there." Natsu pointed his thumb behind him to a vendor near the corner of the street. Sure enough he was selling hot dogs.

"Stop it! That is not the same thing and you know it!" Blake shouted to Weiss.

"Explain how it isn't."

"The trash can and the lamppost aren't alive. That guy is. And you making judgements about him like that is exactly why the White Fang and all Faunus feel the way they do about humans."

"So I should just give him a pass because he is a 'person'? In case you've forgotten he clearly broke the law by stowing away on that ship and evading police capture. Given enough time he will probably join up with the rest of those low lives in the White Fang."

"You ignorant brat!"

Blake stormed off.

"How dare you talk to me that way?!" Weiss shouted. She followed after Blake. "I am your teammate!"

"You are nothing but a judgmental little girl."

"What gives you the right to say things like that to me?"

Yang and Ruby worriedly watched from the sidelines as their teammates argued.

"Do you think we should stop them?" Yang asked. "Weiss is your sister, Natsu. Can't you calm her down?"

"Nope. I learned a long time ago tostay out of her way when she's mad. I'm going to walk around town more. You guys wanna come with?"

"No. I think we should stay here." Ruby politely declined.

Natsu shrugged. "Suit yourselves. What about you, Penny? Wanna see more of the city?"

"Yes please! I would love too!" Penny happily accepted.

"Cool then we'll head out. See you guys later."

"Goodbye." Penny said.

"Bye." The sisters said in unison, their eyes still on Blake and Weiss.

"The fact that you associate that faunus boy with a terrorist group based solely on his species makes you just as callous and malicious as you claim him to be." Blake offered to the heiress.

"So you admit that the White Fang is an extremist group of terrorists.'

"That is not what I am saying and you know it!"

"I don't understand why this is such a sensitive issue."

"And that right there is the problem!"

Blake and Weiss's argument had continued long after Team RWBY returned to their room. The sun had set some few hours ago, but neither Weiss nor Blake showed signs of conceding to each other any time soon.

"You do realize that you are defending a group whose sole purpose is the extinction of humanity, right?" Weiss asked. "You must know how crazy that sounds. The Faunus of the White Fang are pure evil."

"There is no such thing as pure evil!" Blake shouted, shooting up from her bed. "Why do you think they despise humanity the way they do? It's because of people like Cardin…people like you who force the White Fang to use such drastic methods!"

"People like me?"

"You're prejudiced!"

"I'm a victim!"

The room suddenly fell silent in wake of Weiss' revelation.

"Do you wish to know why I hate the White Fang? Why I don't particularly align myself with the Faunus?"

Weiss walked to the open window.

"It's simple really. It's because they've been at war with my family for years. Literal war, as in blood spilled and lives ended. For as long as I can remember my grandfather's company has been the target of numerous attacks both big and amall. Ever since I was a child, I've seen and experienced things that most people never dream of. Family friends disappearing. Board members executed. An entire train full of dust…stolen. My brother was nearly killed during one of their attacks.

With each new tragedy my father would come home furious. As you can imagine that made for a very rough childhood."

Ruby moved to console her teammate. "Weiss…" she placed her hand on her shoulder, but the heiress violently shook it off.

"No! Do you want know why I hate the White Fang?!" she yelled at Blake. "It's because they are a group of liars, thieves, and murderers!"

"Well maybe we just tired of being pushed around!" Blake snapped.

Once again the room fell silent. Weiss slowly backed away from her teammate. All shocked eyes were on Blake, who finally realized what she had just said.

"I…"

The black-haired girl took a tentative step back before speeding out of the room.

"Blake, wait!" Ruby yelled. "Come back!"

Yang looked to Weiss, but the heiress simply looked at her feet in anger and betrayal.

"You ate the entire buffet?" Pyrrha asked Natsu in disbelief. The two were currently walking through the dormitory halls after another training session with Jaune.

"Kind of. Penny helped." The pinkette smiled.

"That must have cost quite a bit of money."

"Not really. It was all you can eat. You should come with me some time. Not to that place though, they banned me, but there are lots of other restaurants in town with good food. So it shouldn't be hard to find one. What do ya say?"

Pyrrha blushed with a smile. "O-ok.: she nodded. "That sounds fun."

"Awesome." Natsu smiled.

The two turned the corner to the hall with the rooms when a speeding object collided with Natsu and knocked him to the ground.

"Are you ok?"

Pyrrha helped Natsu to his feet.

"Yeah. Why is everyone bumping into me today?"

Natsu looked down to see who had run into him this time. He was surprised to see Blake on the ground.

"Geez, Blake. Where's the fire?"

When the black-haired girl looked up to Natsu she couldn't help but hear Weiss' words echo in her head.

My brother was nearly killed during a White Fang attack.

"What's wrong, Blake? You're crying." Natsu pointed out.

"Huh?" Blake reached to her right eye, feeling the wetness of tears.

"Did something happen?" Pyrrha worriedly asked. "You can tell us. We're your friends."

Friends? Blake bit her lip in frustration at the word. She thought of her teammate's reaction to her words in the room. They were shocked, but at the same time...frightened. Without uttering a word, Blake sped off again.

"Blake!" Natsu shouted after her. "Wait!"

"Go after her." Pyrrha said. "I'll go tell the others."

"Right. Thanks, Pyrrha."

Natsu chased after Blake.

Blake ran as fast as she could through the lamp lit courtyard of the school. With nowhere else to go, she stopped in front of the statue in the middle of the grounds. The statue was that of a hunter and huntress standing triumphantly on a cliff. A roaring Beowolf beneath them.

Her heart tugging in all directions out of guilt, Blake slowly undid her bow. She looked down at the ribbon in her hand in shame as a voice called out to her.

"Blake!"

She whipped around, her heart racing in fear when she saw Natsu approaching.

"Stay back!" she shouted.

Natsu complied and stopped just a few meters away. "What's going on, Blake? Why were you crying?"

"Just go away!"

"I will when you talk to me. What happened to-"

As Natsu's eyes trailed upward, they slowly widened. At the top of Blake's head – right where her bow normally sat – were two cat ears.

"Blake…you're a-"

"I said leave me alone!" she shouted again, stepping back to the statue.

The wind blew, and a familiar scent wafted into Natsu's nostrils. It was the same scent that he smelled on Blake the day they met, the same smell that appeared whenever she was around him. Sweet, but bitter all at the same time. Unconsciously he stepped forward, the smell growing stronger and bringing memories to the surface. A girl with a scarf, black hair, and cat ears.

Frightened by Natsu's approach. Blake pointed Gambol Shroud at him.

"T-this is lat time I'm going to tell you to stay away!"

"Kitty?"

Blake's eyes widened and she slowly lowered her weapon. "How...how do you know that name?"

"It is you isn't it? You're Kitty."

Blake offered no response. She was clearly still afraid.

"I guess it makes sense that you don't remember me. Maybe this will help." Natsu reached for his scarf and unwrapped it from his neck.

"What are you doing?" Blake demanded, holding Gambol Shroud up again.

Natsu held his scarf in his hand and titled his head to the left, revealing a scar on the right side of his neck. "Remember? I showed this to you a long time ago."

Blake looked at the scar, and suddenly a flood of memories came rushing back to her. A smiling boy with a scaly scarf that hid a scar on his neck. A hat that hid the color and appearance of his hair from view. When she looked at Natsu, all of these memories long thought buried erupted to the surface.

"…Sally?" she uttered, fully lowering her guard.

Natsu rewrapped his scarf and smiled wide at Blake.

"It's been a while, huh?"

New Chapter! A bit shorter than last time, but Volume 1 is almost done folks! Thanks so much for the support so far!

I promised way back in chapter 7 that Natsu would have a connection one of the main characters in RWBY aside from Weiss, and here I revealed that that person is indeed Blake. Next chapter will be the end of Volume 1, as well as an expansion on the connection between the two (don't worry I'll also explain where the "Sally" nickname came from for those put off by it).

Until next time tell me what you think by posting a comment/review and as always thanks fo reading! :)