I do not own RWBY.

New Ventures

Spending the day in Vale was exactly what Skye needed.

She'd mostly made up with her team since last week, but she was still walking on eggshells around them a bit. Not to mention, she wasn't sure about the source of their argument in the first place. Indie had been quick to point out that if Planis had been up to anything nefarious, she'd had plenty of time to act on it without them any the wiser, and hadn't. While Skye had to admit that Indie had a valid point, she still didn't think they should be so quick to trust somebody who had a history with their families and who had kept so much from them. So she would keep her opinions to herself and keep a careful watch on the professor in the meantime.

A soft breeze from ahead blew a loose strand of hair into her face, reminding her of her actual purpose behind coming into Vale today. Hanging a left at the corner, she found herself in front of Custom Combat. Grateful to see the big Open sign on the door (the hours were listed online, but she had no idea if Coco closed the store while out on missions), she made a beeline for the entrance.

The shop was pretty much dead. Skye didn't think there were any employees present, and was starting to panic, thinking she'd misread the sign, when a slight movement by the back counter caught her eye. She hadn't quite registered that it was a person when they spoke. "Schnee, you're back."

"Oh, hi Coco." Skye stared for a minute. The shop owner looked deliberately casual, with her booted feet on the counter as she worked with something on her lap.

"What can I do ya for?" Coco asked lazily.

This was it, then. "Do you do makeovers?"

A slow grin spread across Coco's face, as she set down the project she'd been working on and actually removed her shades. "Kid, you just said the magic words. What is it you're lookin' for?"

"Um…" Skye hedged. "A new hairstyle, and maybe a new dress and some makeup?"

Coco looked her over critically. "Well, let's start with the hair. The salon next door moved in just a few months ago, and they're doing great." She stood, striding over to where Skye was standing. "Well, don't just stand there. I thought you wanted a makeover?"

"Wha— You mean right now?" Skye hadn't thought it would be this easy.

Coco raised and lowered one shoulder, grinning as she flipped the Open sign on the door to Be back in ten! "No time like the present, am I right?"

"Uh… Right." Skye followed Coco out the door.

Coco yanked the door to the salon open without the slightest hesitation and strode right in. The single attendant on duty in the middle of a weekday startled at the sound of heels on the floor. "Ms. Adel! You decided to take me up on my offer?" Her nametag read Blossom.

"Not for me," Coco answered, winking. "But I got a mini Huntress here who wants a new do." She jabbed her thumb toward Skye. "You up for it?"

Blossom looked Skye over for a moment, tilting her head, then broke into a smile. "I have a couple styles that'll look great. Here…" She passed her scroll over to Skye, which was open to an album of various hairstyles. "See if you like any of those."

Skye flicked through the pictures, discarding a few immediately, before handing the scroll back. "I like this one."

The stylist gave the image a glance and nodded. "No problem. That'll look fantastic on you."

She disappeared into the back room for a moment, leaving Skye alone with the ever-confident Coco. The fashionable Huntress was still eyeing the heiress with a scheming look. "You sure I can't talk you into trying out some heels? I even have a pair of silver ones right now."

Skye shook her head emphatically. "No heels. I don't want to have to adjust my fighting style just to accommodate a new pair of shoes."

"Meh, I can't really argue with that." Coco pretended to be annoyed, but Skye could see her hiding a crooked smile.

The stylist had returned from the back room. "Miss, if you're ready, please come this way."

Coco grinned at Skye. "Just come on back over when you're ready and I'll see what I can do."

Skye nodded. "Thanks Coco." Pulling the pins from her braid, she let her long hair fall where it may. After a morning restricted into its usual style, it had several waves in it and appeared noticeably shorter than it actually was… though still longer than she'd decided she wanted it. Raking her fingers through it in an attempt to make it lie flat, she noted in the mirror that the blue streaks, the source of her name, had faded somewhat. The streaks on the left were still vibrant, but the ones on the right were nearly indistinguishable from the Schnee-white surrounding them. It wasn't the first time she'd noticed, but Skye still wasn't sure what to think about it. At any rate, she didn't have time to dwell on it as Blossom hovered behind her with a comb and a pair of scissors. "Whenever you're ready!"

xxxxx

Jade had finished her Dust reading for Professor Waters, and decided to take a break from academics. She still had an hour before she needed to leave to meet up with Scarletta; they'd only gotten to fight a couple times so far, since RUST were now fourth-years and were away on missions so frequently.

Pulling the string of beads out of her belt purse, she studied them again. She'd managed to confirm that they were just beads, no sort of electronics involved, which she'd half expected, but it still baffled her. Why had Raven given her this?

Maybe she would have worn the necklace to the dance if she'd had it then, but she'd decided what she was going to do with it now.

Retrieving her sewing kit from her travel gear (which she still hadn't unpacked from the break), Jade seated herself at her desk. The afternoon light streaming in the window would be ideal for this project. Unfolding the small kit and pulling her scissors out, she carefully cut the string and placed the end into the small glass jar sitting on her desk, letting the beads slide off and collect in a pile. Sewing them onto her purse and jacket would make for a slightly more iconic look than what she already had. Raven probably wouldn't be happy about it, but who cared what Raven thought. She'd given the necklace to Jade, so the beads were Jade's to do with as she pleased.

Jade threaded the needle and got to work. Sewing wasn't her favorite thing in the world, but she was actually a competent seamstress. At the very least, better than her mother. Yang knew how to sew, but hated it with a passion; Taiyang had taught Jade how to sew when she was only five or six in order to keep up with mending on the road, since there was nobody else to do it.

The pile of beads inside the jar slowly shrank as she worked, finally reaching just the last few. She was reaching to retrieve another bead when the door banged open, startling her into knocking the jar off the desk. It shattered with a loud smash.

Jade looked up into a pair of startled blue eyes. "Dammit, Skye! Now there's broken glass all over the floor! I hope you're planning to help me clean this up."

Skye sighed. "Yeah, sure." Pale blue washed over her as she activated her aura, before she reached for a large chunk of glass at her feet. Jade did the same, leaf-green flickering over her, and the two picked up most of the bigger shards. With those set neatly in a pile, Skye carefully set down a black glyph on the floor. Jade saw a number of tiny slivers of glass fly toward Skye's open hand as gravity pulled them in. Once finished, Skye padded into the bathroom to toss the smaller shards while Jade followed with the larger chunks.

"Well, that was a thing," Skye remarked. Jade hadn't been paying attention before, but now she got her first good look at her partner's appearance.

Skye had traded her high-low dress for a new one that was thigh length all around; her shorts could be seen peeking out. It had a shallow V-neck, a thick silver belt, and royal blue stitching on the hem that contrasted nicely with the pale blue of the dress itself.

An even bigger change than the dress… was her hair. Rather than the severe braided style Skye had worn for so many years, now the white strands fell loosely to about six inches past her shoulders, with two chin-length locks framing her face in the front. The new style emphasized the blue streaks, which Jade realized were mostly only visible on one side now. When did that happen?

"Ahh… how long have you been planning that?" Jade asked, nodding toward her partner's changed appearance.

Skye rolled her eyes. "A few months. I felt like trying something new, all right?" Her tone was strangely defensive.

Jade shrugged. "I'm not judging. It looks good." Good being the highest compliment she could pay to someone about their appearance, since she barely paid attention to styles or trends as long as they were comfortable. "Is that what you spent the day in Vale doing?"

"Not the whole day, but pretty much," Skye answered. "I got lucky—Coco was in and was able to help me out." She pulled at her hem. "It'll take some getting used to, though."

"Yeah, I bet it will." Jade looked over her own handiwork; compared to her partner's new look, it suddenly didn't seem that impressive.

xxxxx

Aurum had finished with her half of the flying Grimm project several days ago. She knew Indie was almost done with her part of the project too—it was due in less than a week, which was why she was so startled to stumble upon a study section in the library, with half of CROM and half of AZSR working on the same project.

"Are you sure that's what they look like?" Cerulea was asking her partner. "The ones we found in this book look completely different!" She pointed to an illustration in said book to underscore her point.

Esme shrugged. "How should I know?! You think I've ever seen one in person?"

"Hey guys," Aurum greeted them. "What's up?"

Cerulea scowled. "What's up is this stupid Grimm Studies assignment. I swear the whole thing's rigged—you got an easy topic 'cause Belladonna's your mom. But we were assigned marine Grimm. I'm from freaking Vacuo, and Esme grew up in the mountains; what the hell do we know about Grimm who live in the ocean?"

"We'll trade if you want!" Rue yelled from the other table, sounding uncharacteristically annoyed. Zelty tried to shush his partner, but to no avail. "We drew desert Grimm out of that stupid hat, perfect topic for two people from Atlas!" The sarcasm in her voice was unmistakable.

"Whoa, hold up!" Aurum protested. "You seriously think the assignment's rigged? After the completely random topic selection? Seriously, we drew ours last; that'd be a real neat trick, to make everyone else not pick that specific one!"

"No, we don't actually think it's rigged," Esme grumbled.

"Speak for yourself." That was Cerulea.

Esme ignored her partner. "The topic assignment was completely random." Blake had placed six slips of paper in a hat and shaken them; she'd then had the students draw their topics in alphabetical order by team name, starting with the partner pair that included the team leader. Of course that meant SAIJ was dead last. Aubergine and Saphed had gone first, receiving venomous Grimm as their topic. If Aurum remembered correctly, Rhoda and Kage had gotten pack Grimm, creatures that tended to travel in groups. "She's just annoyed 'cause our team's already the lowest ranked in our year. We wanted to change that." She glanced over at Rue. "And didn't you live in Menagerie for three years?"

"Four," Rue corrected her. "And so?" She shrugged, more violently than was strictly necessary. "Most of the Grimm on the island avoided Kuo Kuana; it's not like I ever saw any of them. The only Grimm I really ever had run-ins with were the ones in the ocean. Besides, I was twelve we moved back to Atlas; that was almost seven years ago!"

Cerulea scowled down at her textbook again. "Wish we could trade. I'd take desert Grimm over ocean Grimm any day." With a sigh, she flipped to another page. "Have we talked about these yet?"

Aurum looked them over critically. "You know, there's no rule that says you can't assist your classmates with their projects. Where's everyone else? Maybe they can help."

Zelty shuddered. "Aubergine and Saphed are fooling around with papier-mâché in our room right now, that I think is supposed to be an Arachnopod. At least, last I saw, it had a bunch of legs. I'm not about to get involved in that."

"Papier-mâché?" Aurum was impressed; that was actually a really good project idea. Blake hadn't given the teams any real limitations on what their projects could be, other than pinning them all with a steely glare and ordering them to not make her watch a song and dance routine. Skye and Jade had gone for a slide show, and Indie liked writing, so she and Aurum had (rather unoriginally) decided to do a poster and report, but it looked like some of their classmates were getting more creative.

Cerulea shrugged. "Rhoda and Kage are done with theirs already. There's different types of pack Grimm in almost every kind of terrain in Remnant; I don't think they had too much trouble. They actually decided to try and compare different famous art pieces that feature pack Grimm."

Aurum couldn't help the incredulous expression that spread across her face. Cerulea caught it and, despite her irritation, actually cracked a smile. "Ro's idea."

That… well, it at least made more sense than it being Kage's idea. The wolf Faunus was a skilled combatant, arguably the most talented fighter on his team, but academics weren't his strong suit. Aurum was guessing Cerulea had had a chat with him, and let him know in no uncertain terms that he needed to buckle down and do his fair share. CROM had been getting some… negative attention after losing in the first round of the tournament; no wonder Cerulea wanted to do well on this project. If it bumped their grades up a bit, they wouldn't be so easily discredited.

"Well… good luck, I guess," Aurum offered. "And… one thing: Mom is definitely not making this any easier for our team than for anyone else. She doesn't do that." And, she added silently, she's already on thin ice with Goodwitch. She wouldn't do anything to jeopardize her job.

xxxxx

Indie stared at the mission boards, hoping for something interesting. Third-years and above were allowed to take partner missions, rather than being restricted to full-team missions, but Skye had adamantly vetoed the idea when Aurum had brought it up earlier.

"Hey, how about this?" Jade pointed to a listing labeled Escort. "There's been a lot of incursions at this point of the wall lately; the Council wants somebody to try and take care of the Grimm while they seal it up."

"Looks good to me." Aurum punctuated her agreement by flicking Aurora Blaze open in her hands.

Indie was dying to get out of Beacon—what with all the academic assignments they'd had to deal with the last couple weeks, plus the spillover from Skye's hostility toward the rest of her team earlier in the semester, the school was starting to feel a bit… stifling. If the rest of her team's more-restless-than-usual fidgeting was any indication, they felt the same way she did.

Skye looked over the specifics of the mission. "Sounds like a plan."

After accepting the mission and heading toward the airship landing pads, Indie settled in to familiarize herself with the task. There was evidently a Creep-made tunnel burrowing through the city wall at ground level, which had allowed a number of Grimm to enter the kingdom recently. Most of the incursions had ended with no casualties, but in the last week a couple had killed some civilians before being overpowered.

The Vale Council had immediately and unanimously agreed that it couldn't ignore such a threat, and ordered a team of workers to seal the tunnel, but the workers had refused unless they were granted Huntsmen to watch their backs. Since they would be working outside the protection of the city walls and had little to no training in defending against Grimm, the Council had honored the request and passed it along to Beacon to add to the mission boards.

The team of workers had obviously been informed beforehand that a team had accepted their mission; they were ready and waiting when SAIJ arrived at the city gates. The foreman—forewoman, Indie corrected herself; the person wearing the white hard hat was clearly female—had a strict no-nonsense attitude. She gave her name as Clover before turning and quickly performing basic introductions for the rest of her crew.

Skye responded in kind, naming each of her teammates. Indie saw clear recognition on the faces of the crew members at Skye's name, and again at Aurum's. She wondered why for a minute before remembering that, duh, her partner was the Tournament Champion.

The crew had only been waiting for their mission to be accepted; their machines were ready to move, and Clover offered the team a ride to the site. It must have been farther from the gate than Indie had originally thought, since Skye had said they'd be able to walk it with no problem.

Skye and Jade swung themselves inside the cab of one of the trucks, while Aurum hopped into the flatbed. With no room left, Indie ended up in the cab of the other truck, with Clover at the wheel. She sized Indie up as they waited for the gate to open. "Hey, your leader said your last name is Amitola-Rose, yeah? You any relation to Ruby Rose, the Grimm Reaper?"

"Red Reaper," Indie corrected her. Ruby had despised being saddled with the title of Grimm Reaper; she'd protested that there were nearly a dozen Huntsmen in recorded history who'd been given that particular honorific. Red Reaper had been the compromise. "She hates being called Grimm Reaper. And yeah, she's my mom."

"I've heard both. Pretty impressive, that; not all Huntsmen have titles, must be pretty damn good if she has more than one." Clover eyed her shrewdly. "Some pretty big shoes to fill there."

Indie shrugged noncommittally. The gate began grinding open before the conversation could continue, and the crew of machines began to crank up their motors to exit the city as she considered the topic that Clover had brought up.

It was true that not all Huntsmen had titles. Weiss and Blake didn't have any official titles, being better known for their affiliations with the Schnee Dust Company and the White Fang respectively. Some Huntsmen only had regional titles—Yang was most widely known as the Golden Flame, but in her travels had acquired half a dozen other titles as well, none of which were very recognizable outside of the region that had given her that title in the first place.

Will I ever have my own title?

Indie couldn't help considering various potential titles for herself as the crew took the better part of an hour to reach the construction site. The place didn't look like much, just a hole in the wall that was just big enough for a single Grimm to enter at a time. There were some lumber scraps lying around, presumably the temporary solution to the intrusions, and a number of freshly cut tree stumps creating something of a clearing.

The dozen or so crew members proceeded to set up caution cones around the site, which Indie found ridiculous. They were outside the wall, surrounded by trees; it wasn't like they had to worry about traffic. But the cones were evidently standard procedure, even for something like this.

Indie tuned out most of the crew's chatter going on as she focused on the wall. She'd never climbed something as high as the kingdom border wall without a harness before… the idea of free-climbing something like that was extremely tempting.

A swat on her shoulder brought her back to reality. Aurum snapped Aurora Blaze closed. "Hey, come on. Pay attention. We're here to kill things and keep the workers safe, not climb the wall."

"I think I can do both," Indie retorted, grinning. "Especially if I just climb up to there." She pointed to one of the lookout platforms, about a third of the way up. These weren't all that common, since the border walls were meant to be accessed from inside, but it hadn't always been that way. The walls had been built up gradually, every decade adding another ten or twenty feet, and not all of the old watch platforms had been removed.

Aurum eyed it critically. "There's no way that thing is still safe."

"Ugh, fine," Indie grumbled. "I'll just climb a tree instead."

"No you will not."

That was Skye, who had joined them a little ways away from the construction zone. "Please, we all need to be on our best behavior. There are people counting on us to keep them safe out here; we need to be professional. That means no tree climbing—" accompanied with a severe look at Indie, "—no goofing off—" another severe look, this time aimed at Aurum, "—and seriously, no pranks." That last was directed at Jade, who had joined them without Indie noticing. "I still haven't gotten all the glitter out of our carpet from last week."

Aurum and Indie both cringed. Skye had barely managed to toss Jade's little glitter bomb away from her in time, which ended up covering the rug in glitter instead of the heiress. While that was certainly better than the alternative—Skye might have actually killed her partner if the thing had gone off in her face—having that mess all over the floor meant that the team had been tracking the sparkly bits everywhere for the last week. Indie was now very certain that she could happily go the rest of her life without seeing another flake of glitter.

Jade's mouth twitched, but she thankfully didn't give any more indication of finding the situation amusing than that. Skye, distracted by a shout from the burly explosives expert, didn't notice.

xxxxx

Indie sighted down the arrow and loosed. Her projectile embedded itself in the Beowolf's eye.

Off to her left, Skye neatly bisected another Beowolf, while Jade smashed her gravity-enhanced tonfa onto the skull of a third one. This was the last of the latest wave of Grimm that had tried to attack the construction workers.

Aurum dusted off her weapons and reattached them to her wrists. Indie reached underneath her cloak and placed Crescent Ranger in its holster, next to her quiver, before going to retrieve her arrows.

"Nice work!" called the crew's forklift driver. Indie had learned all of their names by now; he was called Dusty, although she was still unsure whether that was his real name or a nickname. His skills weren't needed at the moment, and instead of cowering behind the line and letting SAIJ take care of the Grimm, he'd snatched up a pitchfork and used it to keep one of the Beowolves at bay until Indie had the chance to shoot it. "Almost makes me wish I'd gone to Beacon!"

Indie tried not to giggle. Dusty was the friendliest of the crew, and the youngest as well; she hadn't asked, but he couldn't have been older than twenty-five. She'd be lying if she tried to deny that he was very good-looking, between his messy brown hair, wide grin, and green eyes that she had yet to see less than cheerful. The fact that he had his aura unlocked and at least a little bit of combat training certainly didn't hurt either.

She wasn't going to try to make it go anywhere. Indie was trying to keep her interactions with him professional; the last thing she needed was for the casual relationship her team had formed with Dusty to become awkward because she'd tried to make a move on him.

Dusty held out his hand to high-five the team as they regrouped, but anything he'd been about to say was cut off by a shout from his boss.

"All right!" Clover was yelling. "We're done here! Let's pack it up and get our butts back to the city!" A number of cheers rang out at the news, but quieted as she continued. "Xiao Long, no need for you to help out with the cooking tonight. You just got done fighting a Grimm herd; if you can hold out 'til we get back to Vale, dinner's on us."

"Oh, we couldn't—" Skye started to protest. Clover cut her off with a raised hand.

"Sure you can. Consider it thanks for a job well done!" Clover was clearly not going to take no for an answer. Indie wasn't surprised when Skye's attempts at further protest were ignored.

Jade shrugged, clearly a little disappointed that she wouldn't get the chance to do some more cooking. She'd helped with all of the meals while they'd been out her the last few days, simply because she had done so much cooking on the road that it was second nature to her, and she enjoyed it.

Skye kept one eye on the tree line as the construction site was packed up. Clover, after making sure all the machinery was powered down, strode over to the team leader. Indie wasn't trying to eavesdrop, but the two weren't making any attempt to keep their voices down, and the sound was carrying.

"So yeah, we're done out here," Clover was saying. "Impressive, really. I thought it'd take at least a week, but you kids really don't mess around. Usually jobs out here take twice as long as inside the kingdom 'cause we gotta deal with Grimm wrecking the place or messing with our equipment, but I'd be surprised if we got so much as a scratch this time. You really earned your dinner tonight." She shook her head as Skye opened her mouth again. "Nope. Don't bother trying to weasel out of it. After everything you've done? It's my treat. Really, it's the least I can do."

I finished drafting this chapter literally the day before I watched the episode where the Ace Ops were introduced. Went back and forth on whether or not I could still get away with naming the forewoman Clover. Obviously, I decided to go for it in the end.

Also wanted to give a big thank-you to echo4191, who gave me my fiftieth follow last chapter! Seriously, I never imagined that I'd even get close to fifty followers when I started writing this.

Happy holidays, whatever you may celebrate! And please review, I love getting feedback!