Years ago.

Pencil rapidly scratched against paper, leaving marks on the table and quickly burning off the lead. Huffing in exasperation, Draksis crumpled the sheet and tossed it to the growing pile of scrapped paper. As another idea sprouted in his mind, he grabbed another fresh sheet and worked away.

The door suddenly opened as a young man entered the bedroom. His pale skin seemed to contrast with his short and bristly black hair and his whole set of black clothing. "Hey man, I'm back." He greeted with a flat tone in his voice.

"Hey, kid." Draksis replied without diverting his attention from his work.

The boy in black deadpanned as he stashed his sniper rifle next to his bed and removed his leather jacket, revealing a plain black T-shirt. "You need to stop calling me that. I'm older than you by a few months."

"Nah, I'm good."

Sighing frustratedly, he decided to move on to a different subject. "Whatcha working on there?"

"Schematics. For my Hell's Angel suit."

The young man raised an eyebrow. "Why would you need that?"

Draksis scoffed and smiled at his roommate. "Draco, even us mercenaries need a wardrobe change."

Draco Midas, Draksis' roommate and brother-in-all-but-blood, rolled his eyes, which landed on the stack of paper balls. "It's not going well, is it?"

"I've got most of it done. I just need an interface in the mask that could sync to my scroll."

Draco picked up and examined a few sheets with complete sketches and diagram. "These are pretty good. And I know someone who could get you that interface." He smiled and exposed a pair of wolf fangs as he returned the schematics, revealing his Faunus heritage.

"Cool. Thanks, bro!" Draksis exclaimed with a toothy grin. "Kinda strange how you conveniently know someone who can pull it off, though."

"He's the same guy who installed Detection mode on my sniper. Or have you forgotten already?"

"Oh... Whoops..."

"Speaking of strange..." Draco began as he placed a small box of clear dust crystals, which somehow managed to fit in the pockets of his black khakis. "Look at what I found."

"They're clear dust crystals."

"Right. And?"

Draksis examines the crystal a little closer. "They're clear and empty dust crystals!"

"'Eeeeeyyyyyyy..." The wolf mercenary celebrated blandly and flatly.

Draksis picked up a crystal and held it against the desk lamp. "As weird and cool this is, I don't see how it could be helpful."

"I guess we could... Infuse it with... Something." Draco theorised as he caught the thrown crystal from Draksis.

"Probably. How about aura?" The younger soldier suggested. "Then again, I already drain others' aura. Won't be much use to me."

"True. Same goes for me. I manipulate shadows... So I can't exactly put shadows into those crystals."

"What if we sell them to someone?"

"Then, they'll come to the same conclusion as we did. And they'll want their money back."

The door suddenly burst open and introduced a slightly older woman, dressed in a lilac top and dark blue jeans. "Draco! Sissy! Elias is almost done cooking dinner." She greeted energetically.

"Be down soon, Sera."

"Yeah, in a sec, SJ."

Draco and Draksis responded respectively, while Sera Jeyne's attention was drawn to the box of dust.

"Ooh." She cooed curiously. "Is it empty? Can I have it?" She asked in an innocent, childish voice with a higher pitch than her usual vocal tone.

Draksis and Draco glanced at each other and shared the same thought. "Well, we're not really using it, so-"

Sera Jeyne's waist-length brown hair whipped behind her as she immediately vanished with the box in a silver stream, cutting off the former mercenary mid-sentence.

Both boys staring at the slightly ajar door, Draco raised an eyebrow. "And you're sure she's older than you?"

"Last time I checked." Draksis nodded slowly.

And as a show of shared opinion, they both, simultaneously, at the same time, in sync, in unison, as if their minds commonly agreed on that one thought; sighed, rolled their eyes, and then muttered out one word.

"Women..."

And, back to the present.

Yang giggled as she held on to the black-haired soldier's arm. "And I thought only I had the power to eat the much steak!"

"Well, you've met your match." Draksis quipped.

The pair were on their way back to their dorms after their date at the steakhouse. Safe to say they had a great time, seeing as the amount of steak they ate easily summed up to 8000 Lien. And Draksis especially enjoyed the look on Yang's face when he paid the entire bill.

The blonde sighed blissfully as they stopped at the doors to their rooms. "Thank you for this, Draksis. We should really do it again sometime."

"Yeah, it was a lot of fun." The young soldier agreed. "And I've heard of this resort that lets you do archery while jet-skiing on the beach, maybe we can go there for our next date."

"Oh, that sounds amazing! How come I've never heard of these kinds of things?"

"Well, late-night customers in the dust shop tend to talk about their plans for the next day. You can learn about this place without venturing too far."

"Ah, that makes sense."

"Anyway, I'm gonna go to bed now. I need to sleep off all that meat." Draksis stated as he opened the door to his room.

"Um... W-wait! Draksis!"

He stopped. "Hm?"

"I uh..." Yang stuttered for a moment to collect herself. "I like you... I like-like you." She confessed.

"Yeah, I know. You've told me already." He smiled.

The blonde blinked. "I-I did?"

"Yeah."

Yang blushed in realisation and buried her head in her hands. "You heard me in the hospital?"

"How could I not? You wouldn't leave me in peace." Draksis complained jokingly.

"Y-you didn't give me any signs that you could hear me! I-I mean, Y-you were just lying there and-"

Draksis pulled her towards him and shut her up with a kiss. Yang's eyes widened at the sudden lip-lock. Soon, she felt a wave of warmth erode her frozen state and allowed her to relax, setting more of her weight on Draksis to deepen the kiss. With her mind and body shrouded with affectionate emotions, Yang's eyelids grew heavy as she loosely wrapped her arms around the young soldier's neck, who responded by resting his hands on her cheek and on her waist. Relishing in this wonderful moment, the blonde lost herself to the kiss as if nothing else mattered. It's just like the kiss in her dream, but it was better, much much better.

But, all passionate moments like this had to end. They slowly pulled away from each other's lips and rested their foreheads together.

"Tha... That was amazing..." Yang breathed out.

"Damn right, it was." Draksis whispered.

"I want to sleep with you..." Yang muttered after a moment of comfortable silence.

Draksis pulled back just a little and looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "We just had our first kiss on our first date. And now you want to do the do?"

The blonde blushed heavily and slapped his shoulder embarrassingly. "S-shut up! I-I didn't mean it like that!"

"I know you didn't." Draksis smirked. "I'm just screwing with ya."

"Oh, s-stop it!" Yang's face grew beet red. "God, you really know how to ruin a good moment."

"Nah, if anything, I'm just turning you on. Slowly." The snarky bastard chuckled as he opened his door.

Yang responded by beating her fists against his arm because he's kinda right... Just a little. Who could blame her, after her mind was bursting with images?

"Ahem." Before either of them could get into Draksis' room, their attention was drawn to the cat Faunus standing just a little bit further behind them. "Lovely to see that you've enjoyed your date, and it looks like your going to continue your time together. But before you do, may I have a word with Draksis?"

The couple nodded.

"You go on ahead. I'll be back before you know it."

"Okay. Let me just grab my pyjamas from my room."

"That won't be necessary." Seemingly out of nowhere, Blake tossed the pyjamas to the blonde.

"Thank you, Blakey!" Yang smiled at her as she caught her clothes. "Would you mind if I used your shower, Draksis?"

"Go for it."

"Thank you! I'll see you in a while." Yang pecked her boyfriend's cheek before entering his room.

Draksis chuckled as his fingers brushed his kissed cheek, before he turned his attention to Blake. "So, what's this all about?"

"Your past." She began.

The young soldier's brows furrowed. "What about it?"

"You have to tell her what you've done. She deserves to know. In fact, they all do."

"I know. I know. It's just... Now's not the best time." Draksis sighed.

"Just tell them soon. It's gonna get worse if you leave it for too long."

"Are they onto me because of that guy I killed?"

"Not really. They know you did it to save Weiss, so they're letting it go."

"Alright."

"... Did you mean to kill him?"

"Yes... And no."

Blake frowned a little in confusion. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, I intended to kill him, but I never wanted the intent to kill him in the first place."

"So it was instinctive?"

"In a way, yes."

The cat Faunus nodded understandingly. "So why'd you save Weiss? I thought you weren't the hero type."

"I'm not." Draksis asked himself that same question since he was revived. "I don't really know why I did. I don't normally care much for others, especially for people like Weiss. Other than she's a friend, I don't see a reason why I took a bullet for her."

"Maybe, you're coming back from the path you grew up in. You're changing into a better person."

"You're probably right. I never really noticed that. Ugh, it's weird thinking about it." Draksis shuddered a little. "Anyway, Yang's probably done with the shower, so I should head back in now."

"Alright. Good night."

"Good night."

"Hey, Phoenix."

"Draksis. I heard what happened. Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Good. Has she made any movements while you were out?"

"Nope. She was too busy worrying over me, according to the others."

"Right. Just be sure she doesn't know."

"We're a couple now. She's going to open up about her 'expeditions'. And when she does, I'm gonna be invited to join her."

"And you're sure that will work?"

"Listen, you worry about your payment, I'll worry about my methods."

"I'm just saying, you're playing with fire."

"You're one to talk." Draksis scoffed. "She's done with the shower, I gotta go."

The mercenary hung up and kicked his green box under the bed and out of sight.

Author's note: After a slight delay, I finally got this chapter out.

So there is an introduction of a new OC: Draco Midas, a wolf Faunus who is a mercenary with a shadow manipulation Semblance. When he's not busy being a prick, he's a pretty chill guy :P

And then you've got the step-up to Draksis' and Yang's relationship. As some of you have waited for, Draksis and Yang are now a couple... or are they?

So as per usual, please Follow, Fave and leave a Review of your thoughts on this slightly eventful chapter. Thank you, guys :P