Jaunedice

"Flash Sentry and Nora Valkyrie, please make your way up to the stage," Professor Goodwitch announced as the images of Flash and Nora appeared on the screens above her head, together with the green bars representing their aura levels.

Nora, along with the rest of Team YRDN, was sitting nearby. She looked enthusiastic and confident as she got up off the bench and made her way up onto the stage, which looked so pristine you would never guess that Sunset and Pyrrha had completely trashed it not too long ago. Yang whistled as Nora got up onto the stage, and even the imperturbable Lie Ren looked quietly confident in her chances.

They were all underestimating Flash and what he was capable of. Sunset felt an absurd surge of protective instinct towards him, a desire to defend him from those who didn't rate him at all. Though why she should care, she couldn't rationally say.

For his own part, Flash got up slowly, his expression unreadable. Weiss whispered something to him as he got up. Was she encouraging him, or something more? Sunset felt jealousy prick her soul as Flash nodded to acknowledge whatever it was she'd said. Look how close their faces were! Back off, leave him alone!

She breathed an inner sigh of relief as he turned away and climbed onto the stage. He looked resplendent in his gleaming armour, with the talk crest upon his helmet and the hoplon shield held before him, painted with the image of a shield and thunderbolt. He looked magnificent, like something out of the Australian war epics that Pyrrha knew and had supplied her name, when mighty warriors had clashed beneath the topless towers of Mistral to bring Vale's princess home. He also looked slightly odd, Sunset had to admit, facing thoroughly modern Nora in her short skirt and boob window.

"Begin," Professor Goodwitch said.

Flash advanced a few cautious steps, sword ready and shield held before him. Nora, on the other hand, charged with a great shout, hammer held high above her head. She was not the swifter, but she crossed the stage briskly enough and with a yelp she brought her hammer down on Flash.

Flash bent his knees; he almost knelt before her, and raised his shield above his head. The hammer struck the shield with a sound like the ringing of a young that echoed across the hall. Flash did not flinch, which seemed to surprise Nora in the split second before Flash turned his shield on and lightning rippled across the gleaming metal surface.

The thunderbolt on his shield wasn't just for show. Flash was quite adept at using lightning dust as well.

Lightning crackled across the shield, snapping like hungry dogs, and with a crackle it surged up Nora's hammer and consumed Nora herself, dancing up and down her body for a few seconds. Sunset leaned back a little in her seat...and then she noticed that Nora's aura hadn't dropped in the least bit.

And then she noticed that Nora was smiling.

"Thanks!"

"Wh-" Flash's question was cut off as Nora reversed the sting of her hammer and caught him with an upwards blow that struck him in the chest and punted him upwards and clean off the stage.

The buzzer sounded to end the match.

Sunset's were wide. Clearly she'd just seen Nora's semblance and it was...pretty impressive. Not particularly versatile, though, she had to say. And fairly easy to counter, too, simply by avoiding lightning dust or anything like it.

Up on the stage, Professor Goodwitch was giving out her notes.

"Miss Valkyrie, while your semblance ensured that you didn't suffer for it, you continue to leave yourself open when you attack. I urge you to door a degree of restraint against a prepared opponent. Mister Sentry; you were unfortunate."

Flash didn't look particularly reassured by the fact that Goodwitch couldn't find anything to actually criticise him on. He made his way back to the seat in silence. There, Weiss leaned close to him, whispering something in his ear. What did she have to say to him that required to be spoken in such confidence? And then she took his hand, why? Sunset glared at them, kissing palms there in the hall without a trace of shame. Get a room! Or better yet, don't! Just get away from him! Flash had his faults, and Sunset knew them all well, but he was too good for the likes of Weiss Schnee. He was not for her. With her wealth and looks she could surely have any man she wanted, so why did she have to take the one that…

Sunset scowled. But what did it matter to her, anyway? Flash was…Flash was just a big, dumb moron who hadn't appreciated what he'd got when he had it.

He was just…he was just the only person who had reached out a hand to her, when he didn't have to.

He was just the only one who had, for however brief a season, seen more in her than anyone else.

He was the only one who, for a little time, had seemed to see her worth.

And now to see him thus enchanted by a snowflake…it tore the scab from Sunset's aching wound.

It's nothing. It's nothing. She's just his team leader giving him notes on the fight.

It's nothing.

I hope it's nothing.

The screens brought up the next pair of randomised combatants: Jaune and Cardin.

"You can do it, Jaune!" Ruby cried as Jaune got up with the air of a condemned man going to his execution.

"Just do your best," Pyrrha said. "Good luck."

Jaune laughed nervously. "Yeah, thanks." He walked on to the stage with more resignation the confidence. Cardin, by contrast, looked positively eager. It had been a couple of weeks since Sunset and Weiss had made their agreement, and so far their bargain appeared to be holding. Cardin had moved on to a second year student named Velvet Scarlettina, while Jaune hadn't pressed his suit on Weiss since being told to knock it off. But their deal didn't apply in the arena; there Cardin could do exactly as he like to Weiss and probably would; Sunset didn't have any confidence to stop his ogreish opponent. That was one of the reasons she hadn't bothered to encourage him: it would have felt like a waste of breath.

That, and cheering wasn't really her style anyway.

The fight went exactly as Sunset thought it would go, reality justifying her bleak analysis over the optimism of Ruby and Pyrrha as Cardin kicked his ass and served it up with all the trimmings. By the end of the battle Jaune's aura was in the red, while that of Cardin had barely been chipped away.

Sunset had say, Professor Goodwitch's advice to Jaune was not particularly helpful: yes, charging like a maniac when your aura was almost gone wasn't that smart, but without any kind of ace in the hole then a defensive posture was only going to prolong the agony to no purpose. It wasn't as if Pyrrha was going to come and rescue him if he could only hold out for long enough.

For Cardin the professor had no advice at all and he stood there looking smug as Jaune sat down dejectedly on the edge of the stage.

Sunset would have been lying if she had claimed to have, well, any sympathy for him at all. If he had some spectacular light that, like her magical skill, he was hiding under a bushel then now was the time to show it. And if he didn't then what was he doing here? He was a millstone around the necks of the rest of them.

"Remember," Professor Goodwitch said. "The Vytal Festival is not far away now. Any teams wishing to compete in the tournament will be defending the honour 9f Beacon Academy and the Kingdom of Vale."

Sunset wasn't entirely sure how the Kingdom of Vale we going to be defended by a class ever the best students were mostly from Mistral or Atlas (or Equestria) but she was more concerned about her own glory than about the prestige of the kingdom or the school. It also made her point about the millstone of SAPR seem all the more acute. While she could, and would, dump Jaune when it came to the doubles round, that didn't change the fact that SAPR would essentially be fighting three against four in the opening round of the tournament. And while, between Ruby's speed, Sunset's magic and Pyrrha's Pyrrha-ness they could hand would overcome those odds that didn't alter the fact that they shouldn't have.

Nor did it change the fact that Team SAPR ought to have established itself as the most gifted team in the year by leagues and had not; that wasn't entirely Jaune's fault - Ruby's grades were lagging behind, and Sunset bore a measure of responsibility that she would never confess to out loud - but he was certainly a part of the problem.

Sunset had to do something about him, not only because she was the team leader but also because Pyrrha and Ruby both mollycoddled him far too much - case in point, the way that Pyrrha was gazing at the stricken Nah e with melancholy moon eyes as though he was a blameless victim in all this; Sunset briefly distracted and amused herself by imagining how they would react if he wasn't a good looking guy with a line in adorably dejected expressions - to be of any use in getting him to shape it.

It was he responsibility, but the necessity of it irritated her. She had better things to do than play nursemaid to Jaune Arc.

But if she didn't do it then they would all suffer.

Sunset glanced at Pyrrha out of the corner of her eye. She was still downcast, her eyes still fixed on Jaune, her mood mirroring his own as though she were a mirror of his emotions.

Pyrrha…Pyrrha hadn't liked the way that she'd spoken to Jaune about Weiss. Ruby hadn't much cared for it either. They both treated him less like a comrade in a war against evil and more like the goofy brother that they never had. But she didn't want to fight with them, not after she only just made up with Pyrrha.

She snapped her fingers in Pyrrha's face – Ruby was busy geeking out at the thought of the upcoming Vytal Festival, and didn't notice Jaune, Sunset or Pyrrha – until she got the other girl's attention.

"Sunset?" Pyrrha murmured.

Sunset leaned in, to speak softly to Pyrrha without being overheard.

"Listen, I know that he's your partner and I know that you like – though I can't think why – but he really needs to shape up; I'm going to give you a chance to get that across to him nicely, or else I'm going to let him have it with both barrels, understand?"

Pyrrha was silent for a moment, and then she nodded. "I'll talk to him. I'll help him. I'm sure that with my assistance he can improve."

Sunset didn't comment on that. Pyrrha was certainly that good, although whether she was a good teacher remained to be seen.

"Okay," she said. "Don't take too long."

"I'll do it tonight," Pyrrha replied. She looked back at Jaune, and sighed at his dejectedness.

Sunset shook her head in disbelief.

One of the disadvantages that Blake was only now discovering with her choice of attire was that it had somehow given Russell Thrush the idea that they moved in adjacent subcultures.

They didn't. They really, really didn't.

But it meant that he put himself down on the edge of her table and was at this very moment carrying on a one-sided conversation about music that Blake had never listened to, in a genre that she had no desire to hear, and night life hotspots that she had no desire to visit.

"You know, I've even laid down a couple of tracks myself," Russell said. "I figure it might be a cool side-line from the hunting."

"I'm not sure that you'll have a lot of time for a music career in between defending the kingdom from the creatures of grimm," Blake remarked dryly. She wasn't looking at him, concentrating wholly upon her lunch. He didn't seem to be taking the hint.

He wanted to go out with her. Blake was fairly sure of that just as she was absolutely sure that she had no desire to go out with him, not only because she'd seen how he behaved towards faunus who weren't hiding behind a little black bow, but also because they had absolutely nothing in common and, frankly, she wasn't really looking for that sort of thing. She hadn't come to Beacon to find romance.

But this kind of propositioning, carried out though it was with a modicum of subtlety, wasn't something that she'd had to deal with until now. She had been Adam's girl, which meant that nobody had so much as looked at her twice because Adam would probably have reacted to jealousy as badly as he'd reacted to everything else that didn't go exactly how he wanted it to. But that lack of experience meant that she wasn't sure how to tell him no, or rather how to tell him no in such a way as didn't leave him resentful. Not that she cared greatly for his feelings, but she didn't want to damage her anonymity too much.

She glanced at her team-mates, but Sky seemed completely oblivious, and Lyra and Bon-Bon were talking. Blake noticed that their eyes flickered in her direction every so often, but neither of them said or did anything. She guessed that they weren't sure how she felt about Russell and didn't want to react the wrong way.

Or perhaps they simply didn't see it as any of their business.

"We can't be out in the field all the time," Russell replied, oblivious to her sarcasm. "Hey, why don't you swing by my dorm-room and I'll play you some of my sound?"

The suggestion was not tempting in the least, not least because it might involve being in the same room as Cardin Winchester, which would not happen. Blake took a deep breath. "Russell, you seem like a nice guy," it galled at her to say that to someone like him, but it had to be said no matter how untrue it was. Gentle was the way, right? Hopefully her excuse - her true excuse, in many ways - wouldn't draw too much attention to her.

Russell's face fell a little. "Here comes the but, doesn't it?"

Blake nodded slightly. "I just got out of a really bad relationship," she said. She shuddered at a few of the memories that rose like sea-monsters to the forefront of her mind. "And I'm just not ready to think about any of that stuff again."

Russell shrugged. "I always say that it's never too soon to move on from a breakup. It'd be a real shame if you let one bad experience with some jerk ruin your life."

That was your cue to exit gracefully, Blake thought. "I'm sorry, I just...can't."

Lyra and Bon Bon had stopped talking. Bon Bon, seated to Blake's right, leaned back so that she could look at Russell from past Blake's head. Lyra's attention was on Blake herself.

Russell smirked, even as he raised his hands in surrender. "There's no need to glare at me like that, I can take a hint." He got up, stealing a handful of fries off Sky's plate as he did so. "When you get over your ex I might be waiting. Or not, so don't wait too long, okay?" He grinned, and started eating the stolen chips as he turned and walked away.

Bon Bon shook her head. "He doesn't lack confidence, but you could do so much better. You know, if you weren't sworn off dating."

Lyra smiled sympathetically. "You know...he's got a point. You can't let a bad break-up make you sour. You deserve to be happy."

"It's...it's a lot more than just a bad break-up," Blake murmured.

Lyra's mint-green eyes widened just a little. She shared a glance with Bon Bon.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Lyra asked.

Blake shook her head. "No, I really don't."

Lyra nodded. "Well, if you do, we're all here for you."

"Right," Bon Bon agreed.

Lyra elbowed Sky.

"Uh, yeah, sure, we're all ears," Sky said. "Or you could tell us who the guy is and we'll kick his ass."

"No!" Blake said, more loudly than she had intended. The idea of Sky - or Lyra, or Bon Bon or pretty much anyone in their - going up against Adam was laughable and terrifying in equal measure. Terrifying twice over, because not only would he cut down any one of her team without breaking a sweat, but because if he did that would mean that he had found her. "I-I mean," she stammered, looking away from them. "It's fine. He's...a long way away from here. He doesn't know where I am. It's better that way."

"Right," Lyra said softly. She glanced away, and cleared her throat loudly before adroitly changing the subject onto safer ground.

Or at least, she did so for a moment before a commotion amongst team WSTW drew their attention.

When Weiss was a girl, Klein had taken her to a fairground; she had loved it, so many colours, so many sounds, so many scents and sensations all coming together in one heady mixture. And then she had done the one thing that Klein had told her not to do, and run off by herself, away from him. The moment that he found her again he had taken her straight back home, which she had found unbearably cruel at the time but now she understood not as cruelty but as him teaching her that actions had consequences.

Now, as she watched Cardin tugging on the ears of some rabbit faunus, Weiss knew how her faithful butler must have felt.

She didn't care about the girl, although Flash - who had brought the scene to her attention, seemed to - but she had told Cardin not to do this. She had ordered him not to do this and here he was flaunting his disobedience in her face and in front of the entire school. If she let him get away with it then where was her authority?

Leadership was a trick, that was the lesson that Weiss had learned from watching her father, and Winter. Father's money, Winter's insignia of rank, they no more conveyed power upon them than Weiss' appointment as team leader did because power did not exist. Father's employees, Winter's soldiers, could easily have defied them if they wished. The trick was to convince or coerce those beneath you into accepting the lie, the lie that Cardin threatened to expose by his actions.

And so, as the rabbit faunus winced in pain and pleaded with Cardin to let her go, Weiss rose from her seat, her meal half-eaten before her. Her wedge-heels clicked on the dining hall floor as she stalked around the table - Flash got up to follow her, a silent shadow in resplendent armour - and walked briskly, but not so hastily that she sacrificed her dignity for speed, towards the table.

Fortunately there was no one else there. No one else, it seemed, wanted to be a part of this display.

Good. It would be easier that way.

"Cardin!" Weiss snapped, in a voice as chill as the high mountains of Solitas. "Let her go."

Cardin stared up at her as though she were half-mad. "Now why would I do that?"

"Because I told you to," Weiss declared.

Weiss had been eleven years old, old enough to understand everything that was going on, the last time that her father's workers had attempted to unionise for better conditions. It hadn't worked. It never worked. There were always enough unemployed faunus in Atlas willing to work even for the pitiful wages of the mines or the processing plants that strikes were broken almost before they started, and in the last resort father would speak to his friends on the council and have the military sent in to break up strikes and nascent unions both. She remembered the way her father had looked at the union representative, when he had had the nerve to call on their house: the way he'd stared at the grubby-handed miner in front of him as though he were a louse, as though he were worse than a louse, as though he were utterly insignificant. Weiss stared down at Cardin in just the same way, with just the same ice in her eyes, until he wilted in the face of her stare and released the ears of the faunus.

Weiss turned her gaze upon her; the girl's rabbit ears made her seem tall and gangly even if she was not, but in any case she too flinched away from Weiss' gaze. How someone so lacking in assertiveness hoped to become a successful huntress was beyond her. Nevertheless, after a moment in which her desire to appear to be a leader - and, in so appearing, to transcend the deception and become a leader - warred with her disdain for faunus, Weiss said, "Please accept my apologies for the behaviour of my subordinate."

Please accept my apologies for the behaviour of my children. That was how father had phrased it, when she or Whitley had embarrassed him in front of his guests. He had apologised on their behalf while at the same time distancing himself from any social misstep, to say nothing of any wrongdoing. It was also a phrase which, they had soon learned, heralded punishment to come when the house was empty. Cardin might not know that.

"Uh, right," the faunus said, before making her escape from the whole situation.

Weiss was about to round on Cardin once again when Russell wandered over.

"What's going on?" he asked.

Cardin's face was transfigured by a sneer of contempt. "Our team leader has decided to become a faunus lover."

"That's enough, Cardin," Flash growled.

Weiss held up one hand to silence him. She had no need of others to fight her battles for her. Her authority would not survive the impression that she was hiding behind Flash Sentry. "I made my expectations quite clear last night," she declared. "Was any part of what I said unclear?"

She glanced at Russell, who let out almost a yelp as he recoiled from her gaze. "Hey, don't look at me like that, I was over with Bluebell."

"Yes, you were," Weiss said. "This time."

Cardin climbed ponderously to his feet, like a mountain rising up out of the sea. "Maybe I missed the part where I have to listen to everything you say."

Weiss managed to continue looking down at him, in spite of his superior size. It was a trick that had a little do with how you held you chin, a little to do with back posture, and a lot to do with attitude. She showed no anger, she showed no fear, she acknowledged of no doubt. Like her father confronting that union rabble-rouser, the only thing that Weiss conveyed was unassailable superiority. She was as firm as the mountain and as cold as the wind. "Maybe you also missed the fact that I was appointed your team leader."

Cardin, for all his size, was a child. A spoiled child who didn't hear the word 'no' often enough. And when his sheer physical bulk failed to move her, when he failed to intimidate her in any way, he crumbled before her.

Weiss noticed that people were staring at her, their behaviour had attracted attention from all around the hall. It was not ideal, but at least they were seeing her stamp her authority upon her recalcitrant team-mate. There were worse things which they could have seen.

"Come," she said, as though they were hounds not men, and turned to sweep magisterially from the hall.

For a moment, a mere moment, she doubted that they would follow. But follow they did, trailing in her wake.

Weiss permitted herself a smile that the three of them could not see.

Winter, she was certain, would be very proud.

Flash scuffed his foot on the ground, and reached up to scratch the back of his neck.

He stole a glance at Weiss. Gods, she was gorgeous. A perfect angel sculpted out of ice. The shape of her features, the shade of her eyes, the way that she bore herself...and the good heart that he could sense beneath the thorns that surrounded this winter rose.

Flash Sentry had never had a lot of luck with women. He just didn't know what to say around them, and now was no exception. But he had to say something; he, after all, was the one who had asked Weiss if they could talk alone, out here in the corridor where Cardin and Russell couldn't disturb them. She was waiting, expectant, silent. Couldn't she guess what he was going to ask? Was she deliberately making this difficult?

"You know, you're...you're pretty amazing," he stammered. Oh, great. Just great, Flash. Real smooth. Next time, why don't you stick to bumping into her and laughing about it?

"Thank you," Weiss said courteously, but it was no more than courtesy. His praise did not suffuse her with joy. Either she was surfeited with praise from others, or she simply didn't consider him to be the sort of person whose praise would carry weight with her.

Come on. Come on, you can do this. Whatever she says, at least you've tried. Flash took a deep breath. "Would you like to go out some time?"

Weiss blinked. "I see. So that was what this was about."

That wasn't good. Flash could already feel his shoulders starting to slump. "Yeah. Yeah, that was it. I just...you're really gorgeous, and talented and kind-"

"Kind?" Weiss repeated. She smiled, or was she smirking. No, it was a smile; a smile tinged with frost as she turned away and walked to the window through which moonlight descended on the corridor. "Not many people would be so generous to me."

"Most people..." Flash trailed off. "I think you have a good heart. I can...feel it."

"Is that your semblance?"

"No," Flash said. He dared to smile. "I'm just good at reading people."

Weiss let out a single chuckle. Her head bowed a fraction. "Flash...you're a good person, a good huntsman and I'm glad to have you on my team. I appreciate the support that you've given me." She glanced at him. "And I think your hair really suits you. But I'm also your team leader and for that reason..."

"It's not you, it's me," Flash murmured.

"Just because you've heard it before doesn't mean that it isn't true."

"It's not what I heard, it's what I said," Flash replied. It had seemed...better, at the time. It had seemed less cruel than to tell Sunset that he was breaking up with her because she had grown too monstrous to be around, that he could barely stand her presence any more. It had seemed better, kinder, more gentlemanly to let her think that he was dumping her because she was a faunus than because the cruelty of the world had made her cruel in turn. It's not you, it's me. Better that she should hate him than...

"I can't let this team be divided between you and me on one side and Cardin and Russell on the other," Weiss said. "It won't work. Maybe if we were on different teams, but...I'm sorry. Nothing is more important to me than success here."

That surprised him, honestly, although he tried not to show it in case he gave her offence. Flash found it hard to imagine why the Schnee heiress would care that much about whether she succeeded at Beacon or not. If things didn't work out here then surely she could just go back home and take a job in her father's company while she waited for him to die or retire and leave her his company and his fortune? Although by that line of logic there was no reason for her to risk herself at Beacon at all.

"I get it," he said, even though there was a lot he didn't get, because he didn't want her to think that he was a sore loser. "We're here to learn how to be huntsmen and huntresses, not to find romance." He paused. "Thank you for helping that faunus in the cafeteria earlier today."

Weiss was silent for a moment. "I didn't do it for her," she whispered.

Flash walked slowly over to the window. The shattered moon shone down upon them both, bathing them in silvery light. "You don't like them, do you?"

In the moonlight, the scar upon her eye seemed more noticeable than normal. "I feel as though they've been hunting me my entire life," she said. "My parents, their friends, associates, business partners; they've been attacked, even killed."

"By the White Fang," Flash said.

Weiss sniffed. "You say that as though the White Fang aren't really faunus. As though they can't become completely invisible the moment they take off their masks."

"The White Fang killed my father," Flash said softly.

A small, soft gasp escaped from Weiss' mouth before she stifled it. She turned, looking up at him. "When?"

"The Mantle bombing, four years ago," Flash replied.

"I'm sorry," Weiss said.

"It's okay," Flash said. "It was bad, but...do you what really made me angry? Do you know what I hated more than anything?"

Weiss shook her head.

"I hated the way that the moment my father was dead all the bigots and the racists started using his name like he was one of their candidates, talking about how we needed to do something about the faunus even though he never...we can't let hate win, Weiss. Even if they hate us, the moment we become like them is the moment we lose."

"But how do we win?" Weiss asked.

"I...I don't know," Flash admitted. "But I know that giving in to hate isn't it."

Ruby groaned.

Sunset looked up. Ruby was holding her head in one hand, while with the other she was using her pencil to beat a tattoo on her history textbook.

As Sunset watched, Ruby groaned again.

Sunset twisted round in her seat, resting one arm upon the back of the chair. "You're not getting sick, are you?"

"Sick of this homework," Ruby muttered.

Sunset was silent for a moment. It was just the two of them, Pyrrha having taken Jaune off somewhere so that they could talk. It just Sunset, who had already completed the essay, and a clearly struggling Ruby.

"History?"

Ruby moaned wordlessly.

Sunset sighed, and picked up her chair and carried it across the room to Ruby's desk.

"So," she said. "What's the problem?"

Ruby looked up at her. "Huh?"

"Clearly there is a problem or you wouldn't be acting as though your dinner disagreed with you," Sunset said. "What's up?"

Ruby stared at Sunset as though she'd suddenly grown an extra head. "Uh…Sunset, are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine," Sunset said. "Look, I know that I'm a lot of things but I am an actual genius and I'm your team leader and your partner and we're on a grade average, so why don't you tell me what it is that you find so difficult about this and see if I can't help you out."

"Really?"

"Yes!" Sunset cried. "Yes, I am me and I am doing this. Now can we please not make a big deal of it and get to the actual problem?"

Ruby deflated like a popped balloon. "I…I have no idea how to handle this essay for Doctor Oobleck."

"The one about the repercussions of the Faunus Rights Revolution?"

"Yeah, I mean, I know that we have to talk about faunus rights, but-"

"No, you don't," Sunset said. "Everyone is going to talk about faunus rights because it's obvious, but if you want to impress Doctor Oobleck and get a top grade you should do what I did and write about depopulation and grimm incursions."

Ruby blinked. "Come again?"

Sunset rocked back in her hair, resting it upon its back legs as she folded her arms. "Right, so you know about the Great War, right?"

"Uh…kinda?"

It occurred to Sunset Shimmer that one of the disadvantages of being admitted to Beacon two years early on the basis of your enviable combat prowess might be that you missed out on two years of academic study.

It also occurred to her that this might explain Ruby's bad grades.

"How many classes have you felt as though you didn't know the basics that the course started out with?"

"Um…most of them? Not Professor Port's class, but-"

"You should-" Sunset said, and stopped, because what was she going to say, that Ruby should have said something? To who, Sunset Shimmer? Not much chance of that, the way that she'd been acting. Pyrrha, maybe, except Pyrrha had her own problems – most of them caused by Sunset – to deal with. It wasn't as though she could ask Jaune for help, his grades were just as bad as Ruby's. She could have talked to her sister about it, but then Sunset wasn't sure how academically inclined Yang was.

And perhaps she just didn't want to admit that she had a problem. Sunset knew the taste of that dish well enough; pride could drive you to do any number of things no matter how foolish or…unhelpful.

She lifted up her legs and her chair flopped forwards with her in it. "I'm afraid it might be too late for midterms, but we'll see if we can't get you up to speed by the end of semester."

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I'm going to tutor you up to level, obviously," Sunset said. She was, after all, a genius and a genius with consistently high grades what was more. How hard could it be to teach Ruby, so long as she wanted to learn?

"Really?"

"Yes, why are you acting so surprised? Wait, don't answer that," Sunset said quickly. "Now, to start with this essay, and why it is a colossally stupid idea to fight two colossal wars back to back."

It was Sunset's opinion that, as important as it might have been for the faunus themselves, the more important consequence of the Faunus Rights Revolution was to cement the territorial losses of the Great War and make it impossible for humanity to retake the lands lost to the grimm during that conflict. Rather than focus on rebuilding after the war, Mantle had decided to pander to the worst elements amongst its population instead, and Mistral – eager to prove that it was still a military great power after the debacle of the Vacuo campaign – had thrown in its lot with them. To the losses of the Great War – estimated at between one and two million dead – had been added the casualties inflicted by wily faunus, whose troops had been seasoned in the Great War while many of the human forces were untested conscripts.

"General Lagune's army was four times the size of the faunus forces at Fort Castle," Sunset explained. "But what those numbers conceal is that the faunus army was made of experienced veterans, while Lagune was leading kids your age given pikes and muskets and marched off to war because by that point they were the only ones left. In the Faunus War you were an old soldier if you were my age. And then Lagune's army was destroyed out and, well, there was no one left to march to war. So you see, that's why we're in the state we're in right now. That's why the kingdoms are so small, that's why huntsmen are always on the back foot against the grimm that are absolutely every where and that's why expansion efforts have always failed: because mankind nearly tore itself to pieces over twenty years and the population still hasn't fully recovered yet." She paused, and she couldn't help but think of Pyrrha's hopes, her own ambitions beside which Sunset's were cast into shadow. Thus placed in their historical context they seemed quixotic in the extreme, hopeless fantasies besides which the dream of ascension or a crown seemed grounded. Humanity could retake the world? Defeat the grimm for good and all? They hadn't managed it yet and Pyrrha, while good, wasn't good enough to make up for all the unborn shadows who should have fought by her side but never would.

"The point is," she said. "That this is why we have to fight, because y-" she stopped herself from saying 'your ancestors'. "Because our ancestors fought too much. Actually, no, the point is that if you put that in your essay Doctor Oobleck will think you're really clever. Do you understand?"

"Sort of."

Sunset picked up a pen from off Ruby's desk. "I'll write your introduction for you, and then you can make a go of the rest."

Russell's foot twitched as he sat on his bed, writing lyrics - or trying to - to his latest track. His arms are sweaty...something, something, Mom's spaghetti? You know, I think that could actually work.

His arms are sweaty...knees weak, arms are heavy. Is that an arm too many?

Russell considered the matter, as well as how to get from arms are heavy to Mom's spaghetti. He scratched at his nearly-shaven head as he looked around the half-empty dorm room.

"Where do you suppose pretty-boy took the ice princess?"

Cardin grunted. He looked like he was trying to work, bent over his desk but not really writing much. "He's asking her out."

"He doesn't have the balls to ask," Russell replied. "He'll just moon over her without making a move."

Cardin grunted again. "If he isn't asking then where is he?"

Russell was silent for a moment. "Do you think she'll say yes?"

"Nothing would surprise me about our team leader any more," Cardin growled.

Russell smirked. "You're just sour cause she turned you down." Russell wasn't particularly fond of Flash Sentry, who was a bit of a kiss-ass apart from anything else and as wet as a damp rag too, and he wouldn't deny that if Weiss decided to date him instead of Russell himself he would take it as a mark against her judgement...but he wasn't going to lose any sleep over the rejection. After all, this school was full of supermodels and at least one of them would turn out to be receptive to his bad boy, down-town guy charms. They had to be, because it would be a monstrously cruel world if they weren't. Maybe Nikos, she was probably gagging for a bit of rough.

Mistral Princess, looking fly,

Looking for a down-town guy,

Looking for a guy like me,

Cause I know all the place to be

Nah, that's awful. I was better off with Mom's spaghetti.

Russell put the idea of a track about Nikos to one side. Her, Weiss, Blake, by the time he was done laying it down about them the world would swear they'd all gone out with him. No one wanted to hear from a rapper who struck out.

"What's a rhyme for spaghetti?" Russell asked.

Cardin shook his head. "I can't believe you even like that faunus garbage, let alone perform it."

"Oh, so the music that I like is faunus garbage but the music you like is what?" Russell demanded.

"What are you talking about?" Cardin asked, looking up at Russell in confusion. "Rock and roll is-"

"Is derived from the faunus blues tradition from Solitas after the Faunus War, a tradition which itself came out of old slave songs," Russell said. "Seriously, it's a crying shame that the Mossy Rocks never won any of those Music of Faunus Origin awards. So if you don't want to listen any faunus garbage then I suggest you borrow some of the princess' violin and piano stuff." Russell had borrowed them himself more than once, they were a great cure for insomnia.

Cardin looked as though he was torn between horror and scepticism. "Are you serious?"

"You didn't know that?" Russell replied.

"How do you know that?"

"Just because I'm cool doesn't mean I never read a book before," Russell said. As a matter of fact, for his essay for Oobleck's class on the legacy of the Faunus War he had written all about the dissemination of Rythmn and Blues into the cultural mainstream and the rise of rock and roll. It couldn't be any worse than talking about civil rights like everyone else was sure too. Not that he was going tell Cardin that in case the other guy stole his idea. "So are you going to burn those vintage LPs under your bed or what?"

Cardin's face twitched. "I guess even animals come up with something good every now and again."

"Yep, they sure do," Russell said. "It's like they're not even really faunus any more when you see them on stage." Maybe the fact that so many of them wore hoodies had something to do with that. You couldn't see the weird ears.

"No, Jaune, don't!"

The startled cry attracted Russel's attention. It had come from out the window and above, from the flat rooftop that sat over their dorm room. People seemed to use it as a hang-out, no matter how late it was. It was kind of a drag.

"That was Nikos, right?" he asked softly, trying to listen to what she and Jaune were saying to each other. But they were being quieter now, and it was hard to make out.

Cardin nodded. He got up from his desk and walked to the window.

"You think I need help?" Jaune asked.

You don't think you need help? Russell thought. Seriously, that guy was the biggest loser in the year and yet he sounded like someone had just run over his puppy at having that pointed out to him.

Come to think of it, he also sounded pretty unenthusiastic about getting alone time with a perfect ten honest to god superstar. What was up with that guy?

Cardin had stuck his head out of the window by now.

Some more murmurs passed between Jaune and Pyrrha, before Jaune's voice rose again. This time he didn't sound hurt so much as he sounded frantic. "I didn't go to a combat school, I didn't earn my place here! I got my hands on some fake transcripts and I lied!"

Russell's eyebrows climbed up his forehead. That...I guess he's got balls, I'll give him that.

No brains at all, but he's got balls.

A cruel smirk was fixed on Cardin's face.

"I'm tired of being the loveable idiot stuck in the tree while his friends fight for their lives, I'm tired of being ignored, I'm tired of being the lump who doesn't even get a role in the plan when everyone else is risking everything! I don't want help, I want to be the hero!"

Well it ain't going to happen with technique like yours, Russell thought.

"Just...just go!" Jaune shouted. "Leave me alone."

Cardin started to climb out of the window.

"Where are you-" Russell began, but stopped once it became clear that he wasn't going to stop and answer.

He must have climbed up onto the roof, because Russell could hear his voice saying something, even if he wasn't being loud enough to make out any actual words.

"Cardin! Please, you can't tell-"

He was cut off. Presumably Cardin had cut him off. Russell couldn't hear anything else until Cardin climbed, somewhat ponderously, back down off the roof and in through the open window.

"What happened up there?"

Cardin's step was positively jaunty as he swaggered across to his desk and began to pack up his step. "Well, I don't have to worry about doing this essay. Or any other essay for that matter."

"Because..."

"Because my new buddy Jaune is going to take care of everything for me," Cardin replied. "Or else he's on the first airship out of Beacon."

"Blackmail?" Russell asked. "What about Weiss?"

"What about her?"

"She told us to stay away from Sapphire," Russell said.

"What our team leader doesn't know won't hurt her," Cardin said. "Besides, if she knew she'd just have little Jauney expelled, and what a waste that would be." He sat down. "I can tell him to do your essays too?"

"Thanks, but I don't want my grades to drop," Russell said. "Wonder why he did it."

"Don't know and don't care," Cardin replied. "But he's going to do exactly as I say from now on, if he knows what's good for him."