Ascendancy

by Titanmaster 117

War never changes, merely the adversaries. Jaune Arc's dream was to be a hero, not a soldier. But now, as the Grimm rise up under a new master, he finds that he has little choice in the matter. Darkness will flood over Remnant as the Second Great War begins, and not everyone will live to see the light at the end of the tunnel... (Dark RWBY fic. Minor and major character deaths)

28. Jaunedice part 3: Non Cooperative

Main theme: Metro Exodus rap by Jt Music, featuring Andrea Storm Kaden
Arc Theme: Through The Valley by Shawn James (The Last Of Us 2 trailer edition)
Theme: Here Come A Thought cover by Anna Wheeler and Geoff Wheeler

---

Not too long ago, I learnt that, at the beginning of my career as a member of the military- Even when I had just started off my training as a Huntress and Specialist- I had been shortlisted as a possible member of Team STRQ.

Yes, that Team STRQ, but also not that Team STRQ at the same time.

Before its final dissolution, Team STRQ had not been a regular Hunter team, but a legacy team. Established in the first days of the Hunter system after the Great War, Team STRQ served as the metaphorical A-Bomb for the headmasters of the 4 main Hunter academies. They would pick out the best suited Huntsmen and Huntresses for their purposes- The best of the best- And send them out against the Grimm, bandits, or other threats that are now unknown to us. That the last members of the team before it was dissolved are- Were- Able to fit the acronym perfectly is purely coincidental.

To be shortlisted onto this team was a mixed blessing. On the one hand, it would be a privilege to be added to this team, as it would mean that all 4 headmasters of the highest Hunter academies recognised that you were unique amongst your peers- That you were special, that you were skilled, and just plain better than them- And awarded you a team of likeminded and equally skilled individuals to mesh and work with, in order to perform the greatest missions and tasks that the headmasters needed.

On the other hand, the... High mortality rates of this legacy team was well known. I would've joined the 27th iteration of the team had it not been dissolved. To join Team STRQ was to prove that you were not only willing to die for Remnant, but that you were willing to die spectacularly and horribly and violently for it on top of that.

From what I can tell, the last members of Team STRQ, Summer Rose, Taiyang Xiao Long, and Raven and Qrow Branwen (See what I mean about the coincidental names to the acronym?) Had been pulled from different teams early into their first year by Headmaster Ozpin, and had Summer Rose assigned as their leader. Wherever it was because of some inherent skillset for leadership within her or just because Ozpin was giddy about their names fitting the acronym and wanted it to properly work, I cannot be certain. But, nevertheless, Summer Rose was assigned as leader when she had previously been a support member, and the last version of Team STRQ would go on to serve faithfully against the Grimm and other threats to Remnant.

It still remains unclear as to what specific reasons Ozpin had to allow the team, in its final iteration. I, personally, suspect that it has to do with the fact that Team STRQ had gotten too noisy, and was too well known, to be of any further use, and had been disbanded accordingly. Of course, Ozpin would not say himself as to what those reasons were, and you would be hard pressed to find the true reasons for their fracturing from the original members, what with Raven Branwen leading the Bandit Confederation in Anima now, and the other 3 members of the team now all deceased.

Team STRQ was known for their high casualty rates for a reason.

Joke.

That was a joke.

Not funny.

Still though, to know that I was seen as a viable candidate for a place on Team STRQ- To know that I was good enough, so much more than good enough, to stand above my peers for such an honoured position- Fills me with pride.

If only that... Boy that I had been given had seen that.

Excerpt from the journal of Winter Schnee

---

She turned on her Sportify, and pressed the first song that she could find on her playlist. The playlist shuffled itself around into a random order, and she plugged her headphones into her ears.

As soon as the beat started, she started grooving.

Personal insanity, they gotta like the ally
Turn it up like it's a rally, you're runnin' in while they're countin'
Keepin' score, I got the tally
Knock 'em off with a finale, go!

Neon smiled wide as she swung her head and danced to the rapid fire beat of the song, shaking her tail and swinging her arms from side to side as her roller blades allowed her to swing and cartwheel across the floor.

They don't want it here
They don't want it here
They don't want it here
They don't want it here

Yeah, but they really do want it here, sweetheart, Neon thought to herself as she imagined an adoring crowd before her, watching her intently and cheering with every swing of her hips and every shake of her head.

Neon was hot, and she knew that she was hot, so what was wrong with wanting to flaunt it a little bit?

So, she swung her butt from side to side, showing off her curves and gyrating to the beat, whilst also moving herself as fast as lightning to the fast electronic beat, never missing a single one, because that was her motto, and she would be damned if she stopped now.

Yeah, now you know I bring the product
You talk about it, I got it
Got the world in, in a pocket, got it good, paralyzing

Aw, yeah, back to the beat, and here comes...

They don't want it here
They don't want it here
They don't want it here
They don't want it here

Yep, there's the hook.

Then, the drop. She fell down to her knees, and slowly began to build herself back up, swinging her upper body and gyrating her hips as she did, eventually getting back up onto her wheeled feet, before-

They don't want it here
They don't want it here
They don't want it here
They don't want it here

-Back to the beat, and she flipped herself around and did a summersault through the air, landing on her hand, and then flipping up and onto her roller bladed feet, arching herself back, and spreading her arms in the air to her adoring crowd.

Imaginary crescendo, applause, end of song.

She threw her arms down, and let the next song on her sportify play.

Oh, it's a setup, it's a setup, it's a setup, there's a
Oh, it's a setup, it's a setup, it's a setup, there's a

Oh yeah, she could work with this.

Oh, it's a setup, it's a setup, it's a setup, there's a
(No, no, we won't—won't fall)
Oh, it's a setup, it's a setup, it's a setup, there's a
(No, no, we won't—won't fall)
Oh, it's a setup, it's a setup, it's a setup, there's a
(No, no, we won't—won't fall)
Oh, it's a setup, it's a setup, it's a setup, there's a
(No, no, we won't—won't fall)

It was a much calmer and more relaxed beat when compared to the last song, which was hyperactive and full of energy. But that didn't mean that this one wasn't energetic itself in its own way, a more focused melody behind it, with almost a sort of symmetry behind its rhythm, if that was the best way to put it. Since it was a lot more grounded and slower paced than the previous song, then that allowed her to put more thought into her movements, making them slower, more methodical.

A sweep of her right leg, and she imagined it tripping up an opponent in a fight. A cartwheel onto her hand, her legs kicking out, and she daydreamed that she had planted it into the throats of her enemies.

And who said that dancing was a redundant skill? Fighting was a form of dancing, anyways.

Oh, it's a setup, it's a setup, it's a setup
(No, no, we won't—won't fall)
There's a traitor, there's a mole, it's a peacetime, overdose down
(No, no, we won't—won't fall)
Bound to break you, get you beat
(No, no, we won't)
Won't fall, we got to get-

"Hey, Neon!"

-underground

Neon stopped, and pressed pause on her sportify, looking to the door, to see her friends, Flynt Coal, Jolie Kobal, and the, from the looks of it, recently arrived DJ, judging from the look that Flynt was giving the Techion.

"Oh hey guys!" the resident Faunus waved to them, her tail waggling from side to side as she then asked, "How long were you guys there for?" she went to stroke one of her now recently thinned pigtails, a nervous tick that she had developed after the Initiation Massacre.

"Me and Flynt? About 2 minutes", Jolie said, her axe guitar in hand as she gestured a thumb over to DJ and said, "He's only just joined us though, as of 10 seconds ago."

"Hey, I said I was sorry", DJ through up his hands in defence, "I was working, alright."

"On that special project of yours?" Flynt asked, "You ever going to tell us about what that's all about?"

DJ didn't say anything, which was telling enough.

"Any who~!" Neon went as she twirled around in place, spreading her arms (And tail) Wide as she made a showy gesture to herself, and said, "What'd ya think?"

Jolie raised an eyebrow, "Of what?"

"My dancing! Since you've been here watching me for 2 minutes, you must've obviously been mesmerised by it!"

"...Did it need to be so... Sexually charged?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I'm beautiful. And I know that I'm beautiful. And I see no reason to not let everybody know that I'm beautiful."

"Yes, but... Why so sexually charged?"

"I just said."

"Yeah, but it wasn't really an answer."

Neon pouted, but then waved it off with a smile, "Whatevs", and then chirped, "So, what's on the agenda for today? We going to get a good song practice in before we head off to our lessons?" she looked at the clock on the wall quickly. 7:50AM. Plenty of time.

"Yeah, actually", Jolie nodded, "I was actually thinking about that. I was thinking about... Ballroom Blitz. Does that sound good to you?"

Neon's smile widened, "Ah, a classic! Me likes! Let's do this!"

Behind them, DJ nodded, and the 4 of them began to move into their positions in the music room, before Flynt tapped on Neon's shoulder, and said, "Hey."

"Yeah?"

"You know what today is, right?"

Neon shook her head. No, she didn't.

"It's our first team exercises."

Neon's smile wavered, and then fell. Oh yeah, their teams... Her team... Melanie's team.

"...Well", she began with, "I'm sure that our 'Illustrious' leader will have it all handled", the word 'Illustrious' was said with a form of mocking and anger behind it.

In truth, Neon didn't like Melanie. Not at all. She respected her for the powerful semblance that she had behind her, and for the fact that she had killed a freakin' Grimm god around the Grimm Tidings (Which was really fucking awesome!) Back during the Initiation Massacre.

But like her, as a person? As a team leader?

No, Neon couldn't do it. She was too haughty, too arrogant of herself, too demanding and uncompromising, too uncaring as to the wants and needs of her teammates, and unable to give a damn about anyone but herself. And she didn't even follow up on her orders as much as she did resign herself to failure whenever they weren't obeyed.

So yeah, Neon didn't like her.

"You really sure about that?" Flynt asked, to which Neon shook her head.

"It doesn't matter. She won't look out for us, so why should we look out for her?" Neon asked rhetorically as she adjusted a microphone on a stand in front of her.

Besides her, DJ looked down at her, and then looked away. She didn't notice.

"Once we get into the training rooms, it's just us, okay? It's only us", she sighed, remembering the Emerald Forest, the caves underneath, the Grimm Tidings, and everything that happened afterwards, all of the time that they had spent together, and all of the fun that they had had with their new friends.

And yet, her mind always went back to him and her.

"We can't look out for anyone but ourselves", she said, her grip on the microphone tightening as she then said, "It's just us, okay?... It's just us."

This was a promise that she had made to herself when he had found her after the Initiation Massacre, when they had both arrived back in Beacon. When he had sought her out and not demanded anything but her friendship. When he had promised her nothing and demanded from her nothing. When he had come to her for the sole reason of friendship and friendship alone.

It was then, that she knew that she would be with him, her first friend. She knew that she would protect him, as he would protect her. They would look out for each other, they would cling to each other, and they would survive.

(That familiar feeling in her chest nicked her, as it always did when she thought about stuff like this, but she pushed it away. He would be fine. He would always be fine.)

He would be better than the Wolves. He would be better than the Acolytes.

This she promised.

---

"Pancakes, or waffles? Pancakes... Or waffles... Hmmmmmmmmm..."

"Nora?"

"Yes, Renny?"

"Why not just pick both? We're holding up the queue."

"Oh, good idea! You are the best Renny! Hey, Mr. Cafeteria person, can I have all of the pancakes and waffles that you've got, please?"

Ren wanted to say that she couldn't have every pancake or waffle in the cafeteria, but then decided against it. He had seen Nora's gargantuan appetite before, and how much she could pack into herself. To try and deny her that would be to try and change the way in which the world spins on its axis: Damn near impossible.

So, he simply resigned himself to watching as Nora tried to haggle the head chef behind the cafeteria counter for all of the waffles and pancakes in the school, before having to settle, with a dejected sigh, for the 2 gargantuan mountains of the fluffy treats that she carried in her arms, both of them practically drowning in syrup, and then moving over to the new friend that she had made in recent memory.

"Voltage!"

"Hey, Nora!"

Voltage, one of the Vultures, a group of Techions that had been split into 2 teams and established themselves to be more soldiers than Hunters. Whilst most of the first year teams seemed to have major teething troubles and issues with cooperation, the Vultures had established themselves as one of the few teams in their first year that were able to function and work together, and not only that, but work well together.

Still, though, they were pretty individualistic for identically built Techions, all of them roughly sharing the same body shell, but covered in their own markings, colour schemes, and modifications, Voltage himself coloured in blue and grey with glowing blue details covering him, and with a pair of electrical pylons sticking out from his back and over his shoulders. The Techion in question had revealed himself to be-

"VOLTAGE!"

"NORA!"

They high-fived and shocked each other with so much electricity that they both collapsed to the floor in smoking piles, before immediately jumping up, somehow getting rid of all of the ash that covered them, and hugging each other (With Nora still holding her mountains of pancakes and waffles) So tightly that it would take a wrench to pry them apart.

-Yeah, that.

Voltage, as it turned out, was pretty much just as hyper as Nora was, and as such, was as much as a bad influence as Nora was, the 2 of them becoming fast friends as they got up to shenanigan after shenanigan.

"Voltage, Voltage, Voltage!"

"What what what what what?!"

"Guess what I got! Guess guess guess guess!"

"What what what what!"

Nora made a dramatic gesture to the mountains of pancakes and waffles that she slammed down onto the table, "BOOM! Pancakes! Waffles! Pancakes and waffles!"

Voltage slapped his hands to the side of his head, "My god, the holy union!"

"I know!" Nora went as she smiled widely, and then grabbed her knife and fork from the table as she licked her lips and went, "Now, let's eat!"

"YEAH!"

And then, after rearing their heads right back-

{SPLAT}

-They slammed their heads into their piles of goodies.

Before Ren could comment on how Voltage couldn't eat anything since he didn't have a mouth, the Techion lifted his head up, and comically began to sob.

"Oh god, I can't eat anything! I DON'T HAVE A MOUTH!"

Well... Took the words right out of Ren's mouth, he did.

"Ymm cmn'n mmt?!" Nora croaked out through a stuffed mouth of pancakes and waffles, before swallowing it all in one go, and then, also comically, bawling her eyes out as she then cried out at him, "That's so sad! How will you be able to enjoy the sweet delicious taste of syrup covered pancakes and waffles without a mouth!?"

"I don't know! Oh god this is a disaster!" Voltage cried out in distress, before flipping the hatch on his faceplate down and taking a sip, through a curly straw attached to a food processor, from his can of nutrient feed that was flavoured like syrup covered pancakes and waffles.

"Oh come here you poor creature!" Nora cried out as she threw her arms wide and-

Ren's eyes widened, "Nora, no, that's a bad idea-"

-Pulled Voltage into a hug.

{BBBBBBBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ}

A split second later, they were on the ground and recovering from the electric shock that they had both given themselves.

""Ow...""

Ren just looked down at what the student body referred to as 'Those 2 electric dunces', and sighed, "Why do you 2 do this to yourselves?"

""Training.""

"...Come again?"

Nora jumped up first, "We're training!"

Then was Voltage, "Yeah, our electrical endurance!"

"We need to be able to use as much electricity as we can!"

"For our semblances!"

"So we can use them as long as we want!"

"Without shocking ourselves!"

"High-five!"

"Yeah!"

The 2 of them then high-fived, and were instantly shocked and lying on the floor covered in steam and sot.

"...You 2 are unbelievable", Ren muttered to himself with a faint smile for one of them.

The side of Voltage's wrist began to flash green, and, as he got up immediately, he tapped the flashing indicator, and pressed his hand against the side of his head, "'Sup?... Yeah... Yeah, I'm in the cafeteria. I wanted to meet up with Nora... Oh do we? Crap, I totally forgot. Hey, I'll be down there as quick as I can, just a few minutes, okay?... Alright then, thanks. See you there."

Pulling his hand away from his head and quickly cutting off whomever was calling him with a tap of the same wrist, he looked at both Ren and Nora (Who had just picked herself off of the ground as well), And waved apologetically at them.

"Hey, sorry, but I've gotta go. Me and the rest of the Vultures are doing team drills with Skipjack's Constructors, and I can't miss out", Ren and Nora both blinked at that, but Voltage didn't notice this as he then turned around and looked back at them, "Talk to you after our team exercises with Miss Goodwitch, yeah?" and with that, he was off, running down and out of the cafeteria.

The 2 of them bit their lips at the mention of team exercises, but filed it away. Nora went into eating her assortment of treats, and Ren sat next to her with a small book pulled out of his pocket.

Back in the Valerian plains during the Initiation Massacre, he had once defended Jaune's leadership from Blake, meaning that he had confidence in him.

Now though, he wasn't so sure.

He wasn't so sure if Jaune was the best leader for them.

His eyes wandered over to Nora for a brief moment, and then back down to the book that he was pretending to read as he gathered his thoughts.

He knew how inexperienced Jaune was compared to everyone else, just from looking, and that made him worried for Nora. He had seen his combat capabilities and how lacking they were and that made him worried for Nora. He saw how he had had a mental breakdown in the middle of class against that AK-BX and that made him worry for Nora.

He had seen how weak he was, and that made him worry for Nora.

When he had first met her, back when Kuroyuri hadn't fallen, he had sworn to himself that he would help her, and then, when Kuroyuri did eventually fall, he had sworn that he would protect her.

That hadn't changed.

He had seen her almost die in the Emerald Forest, getting run through by the Daughter and having to watch as she barrelled through the Blind Worm and almost got herself killed for it, and had been on the same dropship as her when it had crashed into the airbus and almost killed them all-

(As well as what had happened to her in her past...)

-And now, with everything that had happened, and everything that was most likely going to happen in this new war, he knew that he had to protect her even more.

And he couldn't have her around weak teammates. Not even Eri. Not even Pyrrha. Not even Jaune.

Especially not Jaune.

In all honesty, there was another reason as to why he wasn't discouraging Nora's behaviour as well. Simply put, he liked her company. He liked it when she acted like this. He liked when she acted like herself, and he would be there to make sure that things didn't get too out of hand, and she would be there to remind him that not everything was so bad and miserable and there was still a reason to keep going no matter what.

Some might call all of this selfish, but he and her had been living on the streets for years, and had, not even 2 months ago, survived the bloody beginnings of a new Great War. At this point, he liked to think that he had earned the right to be a little bit selfish.

And so, he sat down with her, and enjoyed the time that he was sharing with her as she chomped away at her food.

And if the 2 of them shared a look that spoke of their need for the other, and the enjoyment of their companionship, neither of them were going to complain.

---

Perfection.

Weiss Schnee wasn't this. Not yet. But she would be damned if she wasn't some day.

"Come on, Ciel", she muttered to her bodyguard as they marched down the hallway, her patience very much thin at this point, thanks to her team leader's incompetence. At the end of the hallway, she spotted both Jaune and Melanie talking to each other, Melanie with that accursed book in her hands. The Myths and Fables of Old Remnant, it was called. Weiss Schnee mentally thanked Leadpipe for pointing it out to her and telling her about what he had found out, and what they had found out, but she would never say it to the snivelling coward.

The road to perfection for Weiss Schnee had begun the very same day that she was born, inducted into the Schnee family by right of the blood in her veins. From what she had gathered by her own estimates, the acts which had made her were not that of love between her parents, but of the production of a proper heir, and act that had only ceased when Whitely had been born.

Before, and even after her brother had been born, as the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company and all of its holdings, she had been taught and tutored by the finest teachers that money could buy. Well, actually, no, that wasn't true at all. Her father was rather obsessed with money, so much so that he would never go out of his way to hire the best tutors at all. So long as they got the job done and taught her everything that she should know, then that was fine by him.

But, as she grew older, the lessons got harsher. The tutors stopped coming in (Thankfully), And her father took a personal interest in furthering her education himself. If she was lucky, she could go a day with only a single slap or beating for getting something wrong and daring to not be absolutely perfect. Winter and their butler Klein (Whom was like the true father that she had never had) Had been a momentous help during this time for reminding her that there was still something worth living for (Her mother and brother had been of no help during this time), and the faint memories and recorded history of her grandfather, Nicholas Schnee, had been something that she had clung and clutched to as she grew up.

So, suffice to say, when she had told father that she was going to train as a Huntress in order to honour the legacy of her grandfather (After more than 2 months of sucking up the courage to do so), her father had been livid at her, for even daring to go against his wishes of staying in the Schnee manor and acting like the good little doll that she was, but she had been able to sell it to him in the end (After all, having a representative in the Hunters community to be able to promote Schnee products to was a good investment to make, no?), And she had been given permission to start training.

Of course, this didn't mean that she couldn't stop her tutoring on how to become a proper heiress and member of high society, and so what little free time that she had somehow scrapped up and acquired over the years was swiped out of her hands in order to make room for training and studying. The concept of friends was always entertained by herself, but also always frowned upon. Friends were a distraction from the road to perfection.

Something that Weiss, begrudgingly, but also eventually, agreed with.

Because she would be perfect.

And she would be damned if she wasn't.

Eventually, after years of work and no play, all of it paid off when she was able to defeat the Arma Gigas Geist Grimm that they had sent to challenge her in her final test, which, by now, was but a few months ago. General Ironwood and Winter had wanted her to go to Atlas Academy and study there, and so had her father.

If it had been just the first 2, she might've considered it.

But no, she had decided to go to Beacon. Of course, that had taken a long time to sell to her father as well, but in the end, her growing skills in diplomacy had won her the day, and she had been allowed to go to Beacon.

On the condition of a bodyguard in the form of Ciel Soleli, though. She loathed her father for thinking that she was, after all this time, too weak to be able to defend herself. She could take care of herself, and she didn't need a bodyguard to baby her.

But, in the end, the presence of Ciel was, at the time, but a mild setback, nothing too drastic, on the road to perfection.

A road that had been battered and cracked by the Initiation Massacre and the beginning of the Second Great War, punctuated by the loss of her treasured weapon, Myrtenaster, the departure of her temporary weapon, Flowers Bloom, and the construction of her brand new weapon, a rapier/bow and arrow mecha-shift weapon called the Edelweiss.

Also punctuated by all of the death that she had been surrounded by. The death of Jay and Ruby's brush with it, as well as the crashing of their dropship came to mind.

She supressed a shiver, and stroked her now shortened hair as she walked, almost reaching Jaune and Melanie as she spotted them talking to that hyperactive inventor from down in the Forge and her pet slapdash robot, catching the end of something that the Arc was saying as he went, "-Ow's that fighter project going anyways, Mei?"

"Ah, you mean Project: Titan?" the pink haired girl covered in dirt and grime and swinging a wrench in her hand asked with a smile on her face, "It's going great! I finally got Ozpin to ask Ironwood for the raw materials that I need to make this shindig happen! Me and the boys downstairs-"

"The boys and I", Melanie corrected.

"-Have got 3 down in the works right now, and I know for a fact that Ozpin's shown Ironwood the blueprints, so hopefully it'll all work out!" she slapped the chest of her pet robot, and didn't even blink or look away from the 2 failures of team leaders as the chest plate for the thing fell off and she bolted it back on, "I've been having Paul here and the Constructors working on overtime just to get it all done."

"~Oh, the movie never ends~It goes on and on and on and on~"

"Oh, hush you. You don't even do that much."

"Nice", Jaune muttered, none of them noticing Weiss as she cleared her throat in order to get their attention, "Do you think that we can see it soon?"

"Hey, hey, don't be so forward about it, guy!" Mei waved off Jaune's annoyingly flustered expression with a smile, "Relax, Arc boy, I'm kidding. But no, not yet! Not soon, at least. Give it a couple more months, and it'll be popped up and ready to go! At least, it would be if Professor Heliotrope didn't keep kicking me out due to 'Not getting enough sleep in the last 4 days' or something! Bah!" she scowled and crossed her arms, "S'ridiculous…"

"...You should really go get some sleep", Melanie said, "You know, before your brain melts into goo."

"Wha- Even you guys!" the dirty and poorly dressed inventor swung her arms from side to side in frustration, sending dirt and grime everywhere and accidently letting go of her wrench as it flew to the side and-

{CLANG}

-Embedded itself into the head of her pet robot in an almost comical fashion, "I swear, what is this, gang up on Mei Dei day-"

"Ahem!"

The 4 of them finally noticed Weiss standing near them impatiently, her hands at her side as Jaune looked at her with an awkward expression on his face, and Melanie with a confused, but far less pleased expression on hers.

"Er, I'll just... Let you guys talk or fight or whatever it is that you usually do", Mei muttered, before taking hold of the wrench that was now part of her pet robot's head and dragging it along with her by said wrench, "Come on, Paul, let's get you to the recharging pad."

"~I want to get back to my City by the bay~Ooh, ooh~", and with that, they were gone.

Weiss scowled at the retreating form of the filthy inventor and her personal droid, "Finally...", she muttered to herself, before turning to the 2 team leaders (If they could be called that), And, with her politest smile, said, "Good morning to you 2, I was just hoping-"

"What do you want, Weiss?"

Weiss blinked. It had been Melanie that had asked that with a less than favourable look on her face.

"I... Beg your pardon-"

"Cut it with the pleasantries", the green eyed and black haired girl said as she pointed a finger to Weiss, "You've never been pleasant with us before, and the fact that you're doing it now means that you want something from us, so spit it out", Jaune looked like he was about to tell Melanie off for her lack of tact, but the girl in question waved it off before he could.

Weiss grit her teeth ever so slightly, but still grit them, hiding it away behind her smile. She... Hadn't been wrong. Weiss had always shot down any attempts by anyone that shouldn't be bothering her with extreme force. These 2 included. Her sudden change in attitude and tone would've thrown those same people off, these 2 included.

Still though, for Melanie to have figured it out so quickly was.. Surprising for the heiress. There must be some manner of intelligence in the brute that stood before her after all.

Ciel took a step forward, protective of her charge, and Melanie shot her a look, "Ciel, don't", Ciel didn't stop though. At least, not until Weiss waved her down and out of the way. At least that was consistent with the Malachite girl: Being unable to control her own teammates. It was just another lapse in judgement that was shown on the part of the headmaster.

"Manners aside", Weiss sighed out as she rubbed her forehead, letting parts of her actual personality show this time, before she then continued on with, "That being said, there is a matter of importance that I would like to discuss with you. You see, there is a book that you have that I would like to borrow. I believe it is called the Myths and Fables of Old Remnant?"

Melanie had a bag to her side. She clutched it tightly in her grip, most likely subconsciously. Ah, so that's where it was.

"And why do you want it?" Melanie asked with a raised eyebrow, eyeing her with obvious suspicion.

Because that books contains knowledge and clues about Salem and you're not supposed to know about it, Weiss wanted to say, but didn't. There was no need to blabber her knowledge of the queen of the Grimm that she had been taught by Ozpin all for the sake of these 2 dolts.

The truth about Salem, the queen of the Grimm and as old as Remnant itself since the loss of the Brother Gods and the destruction of the moon... Well, it wasn't a truth that everybody needed to know. Ozpin had said that to them, and it was less of a reminder and more of an instruction. Ciel had been the only one that she had told about this- How was a bodyguard supposed to operate efficiently if they didn't know of the dangers that could harm their charge?- But no one else was to know. She had made sure to hammer that into her incompetent team leader's hollow head as much as often.

(S-L-B-R... Team SLBR... As in Slumber... That would've been such a better name, was the stray thought that entered her head. It was one of many.)

"I need it for a project", Weiss replied with.

"What project? We weren't assigned any projects."

"It's a personal project, much like your own."

Melanie narrowed her eyes, and Jaune took on a more cautious stance, the both of them looking at her warily.

"Why do you need a book about fairy tales?"

"Why do you?"

"How's Ruby doing?"

Weiss blinked again. It was a question that was designed to throw her off her balance. She knew this. She was surprised by the intelligence behind the move.

"Ruby is... Fine", she answered after a moment, knowing very well that it was a lie and that Ruby was not fine. She was not okay. She was not good.

She would never be good.

Never be good enough to be her partner.

Ruby was a child that did not deserve the gifts that had been given to her. The title of leadership alone should belong to Weiss herself. Had she not suffered enough over the course of her life to warrant such a position, not to mention the gifts that she had been gifted thanks to the mere shade of her eyes? She was sorry for what had happened to Ruby over the Initiation Massacre, but as she could tell, the girl was emotionally and mentally unfit to be a leader, and Ozpin had made a mistake in making her leader.

She was aware of how cruel she sounded, but she knew for a fact that there was a massive amount of evidence behind her to back up her claim. Ruby Rose, by all extensions, was a mere child compared to the rest of them, and it had nothing to do with her age. If she was wiser, then it wouldn't be a problem. But the matter of the fact was that she acted less like she was 15, and more like she was 7, or even less on top of that. She had no grasp of the responsibilities of leadership, no emotional stability to be able to make any important decisions with a veritable degree of certainty and confidence, was socially awkward and unable to communicate properly with others, and, not only that, had been kicked up into Beacon by 2 years, and had to catch up on so much research and training that she had missed out on, all because of her silver eyes, of which she still had no control or any idea on how to activate and use.

And, to top it all off, Ruby was... She was...

Unwell. Very mentally unwell.

(Weiss was fairly certain that Ruby had some form of autism, though she wasn't sure. That, and autism was more of a way of life than a serious mental illness, so it didn't really have anything in relation to the subject of her being mentally unwell.)

Weiss Schnee wasn't a psychiatrist by any means, but even she could tell that there was something wrong with the young girl, that she was mentally struggling. With what, she didn't know. Was it PTSD? Was it something else? The heiress didn't know. All she knew was that Ruby was very mentally unwell, and as such, unfit to be a leader, if not by pragmatic measures, than surely by moral ones.

(In all honesty, Ozpin's decision to make her the leader reeked of nepotism, but above all else, it reminded her of the manipulation tactics that her father would employ when working. He would always put younger employees in charge of important decisions, and because they were young and inexperienced, they would come to him for advice, and he would be able to influence them and get them to do his bidding through subtle manipulation tactics...

No, no, that was just horrid thinking. Ozpin was a good man. He wouldn't do something as horrid as that...

Right?)

The correct course of action, in Weiss' mind of course, was to replace Ruby with someone that was mentally and emotionally equipped to be able to lead their team, and let Ruby handle the surely already daunting burdens of having skipped over 2 whole years and having the only powers that could put a dent in whatever Salem was planning, without forcing any more responsibilities onto the girl. Now, obviously Blake and Leadpipe were out as options, seeing as Blake's evident maliciousness towards the Schnee heiress was already apparent enough to block that decision from being made, and Leadpipe was already too emotionally frail and in constant need of guidance, so the only real option for the leadership position was Weiss herself. After all, did she not already have the fine intelligence and integrity, not to mention the best style of combat and leadership, out of her whole team? Was she not already superior to them?

Better than Ruby, that was for sure.

In the past, she had been patient with her, sure.

But now?

Now, inside, she was positively fuming at it all. The stupid girl hadn't been removed from her position as team leader yet, and she was refusing to learn anything and was acting like a spoilt, stupid, selfish little brat because of it, and Weiss was positively beginning to see red because of it.

"You sure?" Melanie said Weiss, "Because last time I saw her, she wasn't doing so hot", Weiss was unsure of what that manner of saying meant, but Melanie continued on, "Looked like she was in tears... You know anything about that?" next to her, Jaune took a protective step forwards.

Weiss had seen the look in their eyes before. It was the look that Winter would get when she came into any sort of danger, be it from Grimm or Wolves or Acolytes. Internally, she rolled her eyes. They needed to stop babying Ruby and treat her like an adult. She was a Huntress-in-training, not a defenceless child.

"She's fine, don't worry", Weiss ended the conversation with, before going, "Now, about that book-"

"You can't have it", Melanie hugged her bag tighter.

"Why not?"

"I'm still using it."

"Well I need it", the heiress said indignantly, growing more and more annoyed at every passing moment. How could this girl just deny her what she wanted, just like that? Did she not know who she was? She was Weiss Schnee of the Schnee Dust Company! She would not do with this indignation.

"And we're still using it", Jaune finally added in. Weiss Schnee glared up at him, but was surprised once more to find that he didn't look away.

"Find another book", Melanie said as she turned to walk away, tugging Jaune on the arm as she went.

Weiss gritted her teeth, still trying to keep her cool, "There aren't any other books like that!"

"Sure there are. A lot of them actually", neither of them bothered to look back as Melanie said, "We've got team exercises in a minute, Ciel, so don't be late", she didn't get a response from the bodyguard, "You hear me, Ciel?"

Still no response. Ciel stood to the side impassively.

"...Whatever", and with that, the 2 team leaders were gone, Jaune sparing a glance back, as if to ask something to one of them, but was pulled along by Melanie as they rounded a corner, and were gone from their sight.

Weiss growled, and then dryly said, "Well, that could've gone better", and then looked to her bodyguard, "Ciel."

"Yes ma'am?"

"Get me that book. I don't care how, just get me that book. They can't know the truth about Salem."

"Of course, ma'am."

Weiss nodded in turn, a graceful smile coming over her as she turned and began to walk down the hallway, Ciel in turn. For all of her qualms about having one, sometimes a bodyguard was very useful indeed. Especially when they were on an opposing team and had more loyalty to their charges than to their teams.

She didn't spare a second thought to what she had just said.

Overhead, the voice of Miss Glynda Goodwitch spoke out over the school speaker system, "Would all first year students please make their way towards the auditorium? The first team exercises will begin shortly."

---

The Vytal Festival.

Originating as a festival that was celebrated every 2 years, the Vytal Festival was created after the Great War 80 years ago, as a celebration for the unity of Remnant and continuation of peace. Every 2 years, a different kingdom would hold the Vytal Festival, and would be responsible for showing off the crown jewel of Remnant for all to see, and reminding everyone of the continuation of safety and security on the planet, and the hope that their arts and culture and prosperity would be enough to make sure that they all continue on, regardless of the Grimm that were knocking at their door.

Or so the propaganda artists may say.

In truth, all that the Vytal Festival could be summed up as was a giant pissing contest between all 4 kingdoms, a way of flexing their own egos and massaging themselves as if they were somehow better than the others. Whenever one of the festivals was held, the kingdom selected to be in charge would go completely extra in their presentations, showing off everything unique about their kingdoms and exaggerating even the smallest things about them so that they might appear somewhat less terrible than they actually are.

Atlas had its military parades, held in a vain and vein attempt to make the people of Remnant remember how 'Great' and 'Glorious' they were, all the while trying to make people forget about Mantle and to remind said kingdom, whom they considered the lower class, that they lived under the barrel of a gun.

Vacuo had its death metal music and survivalist mantras, showing off its hardened warriors and preaching their doctrine of survival of the fittest, reminding everyone that if you could survive in Vacuo, then you were welcome in Vacuo, disregarding the amount of people who lived in the kingdom that hated and resented the other kingdoms for their ways and wished for all of the newcomers to just forget the past and move on, whilst also forgetting their own hypocrisy in wanting to go back to the old ways of Vacuo, and by that was meant the old old ways.

Mistral had its many arts and crafts and cultural delicacies, showing off its theatres and productions, all the while trying to forget that they had the biggest criminal underworld on Remnant, and if they weren't too careful, then their neighbours on Anima, the Bandit Confederation, would just knock on their doors and tear it all down, just for the sake of it.

And Vale...

Existed.

Not much else to add onto that.

Hell, back in the day, before the Faunus Rights Revolution, most people couldn't celebrate the Vytal Festival. Only the highest classes of Remnant would be allowed that luxury, as they forced their Faunus and human slaves to recite poems and act and dance and run and pleasure them throughout the day, and recite their thanks and sayings of gratitude to their captors, and be rewarded with trinkets and work tools for their efforts. The rest of Remnant would be forced to do nothing throughout the entirety of the day, as to not attract and incite the wrath of the Grimm, as was said, whereas in truth the higher classes got greedy, and wanted all of the arts and culture of Remnant to themselves. It was only after the Colour Revolution and the Faunus Rights Revolution that the Vytal Festival was proclaimed as a widely known holiday, and celebrated by all of Remnant.

However, it wasn't the stands or the parades or the parties of the Vytal Festival that attracted so many people to it like moths to a flame, no.

It was the Hunters' tournament.

A Hunters' tournament that, in light of the recent events of the world, should've been cancelled, along with the rest of the Vytal Festival.

So when, in the middle of the auditorium, Miss Goodwitch announced to the assembled throng of first years, around 200 strong, sitting up in the stands above that the Vytal Festival and tournament would still be taking place, suffice to say there were many people questioning this move.

Next to Leadpipe, Skipjack raised an iron claw in question, "Is that wise, Miss? I mean, isn't the Vytal Festival a huge drain on resources and time? We should be focusing our efforts on fighting the Grimm and the Ascendant Court, not throwing showy parades and performing spectacles", nearby, many of their peers nodded their heads in agreement.

"I am aware", Miss Goodwitch said, and many students blinked in surprise at this, but cooled themselves and allowed her to continue on, "But, in times like these, when we are now at war with an enemy that we don't fully understand, symbols of hope, just like the Vytal Festival, are more important now than ever."

Up in his seat, Leadpipe watched the professor adjust her glasses, and looked around to see many students- Mostly team leaders- Peering thoughtfully down at her, most likely running their own calculations in their heads.

"It is both an inspirational concern and a moral one", Miss Goodwitch continued with, "The Vytal Festival is a symbol of unity between the kingdoms. It is a symbol of shared strength and cooperation. And in these trying times, a symbol of comradery between the people, between man and woman between all 4 kingdoms, is needed now more than ever. The people of Remnant need something to draw inspiration from, to draw hope from, and the Vytal Festival is that."

Leadpipe looked around, gauging everyone else's reactions. There were still many who were sceptical of it all, and those whom were unable to accept Miss Goodwitch's explanation. Luckily, she continued on.

"As for the moral reason, it is also a symbol of familiarity. The world has been thrown into uncertainty thanks to the declaration of the Second Great War by the councils-"

A purely political move, Leadpipe thought to himself. He didn't follow politics that much, but he knew that the announcement of the Second Great War against the Grimm was mostly politically based. He wasn't sure about why the councils had decided to make such a move, but he imagined that it gave the people of Remnant a proper target to aim their hatred towards, and helped to stir up patriotic fervour of something, as if they were implying that mankind was never at war to begin with for some reason.

"-And the people of Remnant- Those that we protect- Need something familiar to be able to grasp onto. The Vytal Festival is that as well. They need something to help uplift their spirits and remind themselves that not all is lost, for if they feel that it is, then the Grimm have already won."

In both a figurative sense and a literal. Grimm thrived on negativity after all. Leadpipe was starting to see the reasoning behind it, but that still didn't mean that he had to agree with it, and by the looks of it, so did a lot of other people.

Down below, their teacher sighed, "It is not a move that I agree with", that did little to assure the students above, "But it is the council's wishes."

Ah, so it is a political move after all.

Leadpipe hated politics.

"But in order to attend the Vytal Festival, and survive out in the wild against the Grimm, you must be able to work together with your teams", Miss Goodwitch said as she pulled out a scroll, a list of team names appearing on the holographic board above, "Teams are the backbone of a good Hunter. They are the people that you must learn to rely upon and trust in order to live and thrice outside the walls and against the Grimm. This is a more important lesson than ever against the new Grimm that we face."

At the mention of teams, Leadpipe began to rub the metal scar on his arm.

"So now, we must begin our first team exercises", Miss Goodwitch said, "You have all had more than a month to practice and train with each other, so I expect you all to be able to work together properly-"

Most of the people in the room began to look away, rub their arms, or shake their heads in disappointment.

"-That being said", she scanned the room, looking at how almost no one was sitting with their teammates, Leadpipe noticed, "Let us move onto our first match of the day."

The holographic screen flickered, and the first 2 teams to be matched up against each other was shown.

"Team VAKY-"

"Woohoo!" Nora Valkyrie cheered from up in the stands.

"-And Team RXOR", Miss Goodwitch noted on her scroll and on the screen, "Please make your way down here."

From different corners of the room, 8 people began to move down to the entranceway in the corner. Leadpipe looked down and noted how displeased Miss Goodwitch looked about it.

He was not looking forward to this at all. With all of the sudden noises and flashes and bangs and woops and all sorts of stuff, he really wasn't looking forward to this at all. Oh how he would love to be at Beacon's chicken coop right now, letting the chickens eat their feed out of his metal hand, but no, here he was, having to worry about loud noises that might shock him and-

He felt something tap against his shoulder, not too hard but not too softly. He looked to the upper left, where Scrapster was sitting and looking down at him, and would've glared if his visor had allowed him too, "Sorry", Scrapster said, "I forgot how much you didn't like being touched", he crossed his arms together and leaned forward, "Seriously, though, are you going to be alright, dude? You're rocking in your seat."

Leadpipe stopped, and realised that he had been. He gripped the sides of his chair as a response.

"If you need to leave, Leadpipe, then it's fine", next to him, Skipjack nodded in consideration, whilst next to the Constructor leader, Steam nodded as well as he patted his pet robot bird, Hammer, on the head, "I can tell Miss Goodwitch that you need a moment outside, and-"

"It's fine, it's fine", Leadpipe waved away his concerns, "I'll be fine", I think, was left in his head.

"Do your, er... Do your teammates know?" Skipjack began with, "You know, about your autism?"

Leadpipe shook his head quickly as he went back to rocking on his seat, and then looked up in thought, and commented, "I think Blake knows. She's definitely figured it out. The others, I'm not so sure. I haven't told Ruby or Weiss about it. I don't...", he stopped, and looked down to his feet, "Yeah..."

"You know that you've got to tell them one day", Skipjack said, "I mean, whenever you're ready to, of course, but still, you need to tell them one day."

"I know", Leadpipe said as the first 2 teams appeared down below, readying their weapons and moving into battle positions against each other. His response to Skipjack was a lie in that he didn't actually know. At least, he didn't actually know what to say to his teammates. Suffice to say, he trusted Blake more than the others, and even then, Blake wasn't exactly the nicest person out there, what with her refusal to work or trust others in any way, so that kind of hampered things.

Leadpipe resolved to, as always, shove that subject into the back of her mind and promise himself to cross that bridge when he got there. Looking down, he finally noticed that Miss Goodwitch was calling for the match to begin. Who knows, maybe this won't turn into a mindless scrum.

---

The fight had turned into a mindless scrum.

On Team RXOR's side, their team leader, Razor Azure, had gone ahead without them, not even bothering to talk to his teammates as he pulled out his rifle and fired on the opposite team, whilst behind them, Yang Xiao Long was too distracted by Weiss harshly reprimanding Ruby in the stands above to notice the bulky armoured bodies of Omega Galahad and Rancor Sierra moving in front of her to shield her from harm, which eventually got her attention and made her angry as she then summersaulted over them and tried to get into the fight, which only got her into an argument with her overprotective teammates as she dodged a wild swing from one of her opponents.

Team VAKY was hardly any better, though. At least their leader, a girl in a pink dress with an umbrella by the name of Vi Maru, was making an effort into trying to get her team organised and working together, but no one else was willing to listen to her. The mute girl dressed in black and red called Akuma Nile had drawn out her red and black sword and gone for an attack against Razor, launching the 2 of them into a chaotic duel, whilst nearby, the lion Faunus, dressed in a black bra and shorts and with lion claws as her Faunus attribute, known as Leo Keith tried to rush Yang, but was blocked by Omega as their argument continued on, and the small Faunus girl with mouse ears called Mini Yukari was reduced to taking pot shots at the Team RXOR's resident juggernauts with her energy daggers.

Miss Goodwitch called off the match before a clear winner could be found.

"Unacceptable", she said as the 2 teams picked themselves up and clumped into a group together, "I expected you all to act like a team. You are in teams, let me remind you, and yet I see you all acting like incompetent children!"

Leadpipe wanted to remind her that they technically were still children, but bit it down.

"You have shown no coordination, no teamwork, not even an attempt to try and work together to defeat your opponents!" she looked down to Razor, "Mr Azure, you showed no attempts to even try and work with your team or even lead them, and you have shown a want to recklessly charge in head first! You were taught better in our leadership classes than that!" Razor, for his part, didn't flinch one iota. She then turned to Vi, "Miss Maru, while I must commend you for your attempts to at least try and coordinate the rest of your team, you showed little confidence in yourself, nor any ability to be able to back up your orders. You are a team leader, now, and you must be able to manage your team, less everyone is lost", she didn't need to add on that part, but she did anyways, and Vi, for her own part, just looked down at the floor and winced.

Miss Goodwitch had a reputation for not mincing her words.

"Let this serve as a lesson for the rest of you", Miss Goodwitch said to the rest of the first years gathered above, the professor not noticing how stereotypically evil what she said just sounded as she continued on with, "As Hunters, you are expected to work as a team, and I do not wish to see such poor conduct on my ring again", she turned to the 2 teams below, "Teams RXOR and VAKY are to serve with me in detention on how to function as a unit", she turned back to the crowds, "Any other team that does not show any sense of unity between them, such as the 2 down here with me, will be joining me as well."

Leadpipe sighed and rubbed his ruby red visor. He didn't have any other plans tonight anyways.

From the sounds of it, neither did everybody else.

"Now then, Teams RXOR and VAKY, go change and sit back upstairs, and see me after class", Miss Goodwitch said, and as the 2 lots of people, shuffling into separates and pairs, moved out of the room, the holographic screen above flickered and changed once again, and she called out, "Next up, Team JNPR and Team TEAL."

On their side of the room, the 4 members of Team TEAL- Lavender Nera, Sora Auburn, Esper Fyre, and their leader, Matera Teale, or Tusks, as was his nickname, all got up, and made their way through the exit on their side of the auditorium stands and towards the changing rooms, Esper throwing fiery glances all around. TEAL hadn't exactly been very stable as a team, finding hard common ground to be able to work together (Mostly because of Esper, though. The girl had a temper the size of the Heaven's Reach before it toppled over during the Great War).

From the looks of it, the same could be said about Team JNPR- Or JNPER, as Nora liked to put it, accommodating for their little drone by the name of Eri- As they slinked their way through the crowds in singles and a pair, and through the door on the opposite side.

Everyone around him was whispering. The one who had led them through the Initiation Massacre was about to show off their prowess. They were all excited to see how he would all surprise them now.

(Somewhere near him, someone had started to furiously scribble down notes. He didn't know who, but he could only hear it.)

leadpipe was less excited.

He was still feeling guilty about telling his team about the book that Jaune and Melanie had the night before.

Had he done the right thing? Could the 2 of them really not know anything about Salem? Would it really hurt for them not too? Would it really be a danger to just let a few more people know about the world ending threat that they faced?

These were questions that Leadpipe had been wondering over ever since he had snitched on them, and even if he truly was in the right about it, he doubted that it would make him feel any less guilty about it.

He leaned forwards in his chair, and like before, he pushed those thoughts out of his head. Down below, he could see the empty aura counts for both teams, and wondered how they would do.

Hopefully better than he could ever hope for.

(Nearby, DJ, now late, finally stumbled into the room, and the 2 Vulture twins, Toil and Trouble, looked at him, with Toil asking, "Where the hell have you been? The lesson's already started."

"I've been working."

"Working on what?" Trouble asked.

"Just- Just working.")

---

"Okay guys, we need a plan", Jaune said as he assembled by the exit along with the rest of his team, noticing how Ren, dressed in his new battle gear, had extra armour covering his legs with what looked like micro-thrusters in them, and then continued on, "I've studied alongside Tusks, and I know that he always favours the direct approach to a problem. If we lure him away from his team, we can-"

"Ah, relax, Jaune-Jaune!" to his side, he saw Nora, and...

Holy baloney those were some big stonking cannons on her back.

Indeed, past the glowing pink and blue of her outfit, past all of the metal armour and Viking fur jacket, 2 massive cannons, glowing pink along the side and blue at the tips of the barrels, were attached to her back, rising up above her head and looming over her. She looked more like a walking tank than a Huntress. It was only then that he noticed the arm guns strapped to her lower arms as well, connected right into the armour.

"I alone have got enough firepower to make a horde of Beowolves look like they're made of butter!" Nora continued on as her helmet formed in place, the tiny metal arms around her neck connecting the sides of her faceplate and visor to her face as her helmet formed around her, antenna sticking out from both sides of her head and poking upwards, "Trust me, I'll unload on all of them, and blow them all away!" she threw up her arms up in the air for show, and almost thwacked him in the head with her Magnhild hammer.

"What, no, Nora, he has a- Tusks has a bubble shield semblance, remember? We saw it in action in the Emerald Forest bunker!" Jaune called out to her as she began to walk off ahead of him, Ren in tow, "Guys, he'll just tank everything that you've-"

"Relax, Jaune-Jaune, your Weirdo Club president ain't yet met thing I can't break!" Nora called back, as Ren followed her along, sparing him one last glance before standing by the entrance, and going, "Get up here already! We here to put on a show, and I'd hate to disappoint our audience!"

"Dammit, you guys, we need an actual plan!" Jaune said as he finished hooking on the last of his guns to his armour and sheathed one of the knives into his shoulder plate, "We can't just-", he paused to pick up his sword and shield, folding the latter out and clasping the former in a steady grip, "We can't just rush in and-"

"I'll take them out."

Jaune looked to Pyrrha, "What, on a date or with a sniper rifle?" he deadpanned.

"I'm a tournament fighter. Fights like this are where I'm in my element. I've taken on the equivalent of fourth years and come out on top", she said, Eri floating nearby and shaking her glowing green optic at Pyrrha, but this was ignored by her master as she continued on, "I'll cut them all down. Just stay behind me and I'll keep you safe."

"What?" Jaune said, annoyed at the blatant displays of mutiny from his teammates, before he then shook his head and asked, "Pyrrha, how much sleep have you gotten?"

Pyrrha looked to him and tilted her head in confusion.

"Okay, allow me to rephrase: How much rest have you gotten?"

She blinked, and then shook her head, "I don't need rest."

"Yeah you do."

"I need to get stronger. I need to-"

"Is this about what happened in the Emerald Forest?"

"...No... Yes... Part of it."

"Then what's the rest of it?"

"Stay behind me, Jaune", Pyrrha ended their short conversation with, "I'll keep you safe."

Jaune wasn't done, though, "Pyrrha, you are running yourself ragged", he gestured to the harsh black bags under her eyes, and the paling of her skin, "I can tell that you're skipping meals and cutting sleep just from looking at you, and it's perfectly clear that you're not thinking straight because of it!"

"I don't need rest, Jaune. I'm fine."

"No you're not."

"Jaune, I'm-"

"Pyrrha, will you please just-"

"Enough."

Jaune stopped, surprised at the growl that came out of Pyrrha's mouth, as was everybody else.

Pyrrha held a cold look at him, before softening, "I'm sorry", she muttered, before allowing her shield to spiral out and form on her arm, and putting on her helmet, the T shaped visor flickering to green life as she then folded out her double bladed spear, and said to him, "Just stick behind me, Jaune. I won't let anything get to you."

He paused. When he had met Pyrrha, before and after the Initiation Massacre, she had been polite and cordial, and just a nice person all around. But now... Now she was, well, this.

What had changed between then and now, and why?

Jaune's eyebrow twitched, but then he just sighed, and, sword still in hand, put his helmet on, "Can we please try and figure out a plan? Tusks and his team are as, well, as disorganised as we are, and we can use that to our advantage. So can we please-", Pyrrha had already walked off towards the entrance, leaving him and Eri behind, "...Fine... We'll figure it out on the go."

Next to him, Eri gently tapped the side of his helmet with one of her 4 manipulator arms. Under his helmet, he smiled. At least someone was willing to listen.

"Thanks, Eri", he nodded to her, earning a respecting beep from the red and bronze drone, as he then said to her, "I need you in the air and out of the way, Eri. Sora Auburn has that electricity semblance, remember. It might short-circuit you if you get too close, so I need you to keep your distance. Can you please do that?"

Eri then tilted in place, and then gave a glance from him to his master, Pyrrha, and the others, before turning her attention back to him.

He sighed again, "Pyrrha can look after herself, I'm sure. Can you?" it was a genuine question, not meant with any malice or mocking behind it. Thankfully, Eri understood that, and nodded her head after a hesitant moment, "If things get too intense for you, get to a safe range and start peppering them. I'd rather not loose you in any way."

Eri nodded again, and then gave a comical salute to him in return, beeping 2 times as if to say 'Yes sir'.

Jaune laughed again, his spirits raised, "Thanks, Eri", he repeated to her.

And with that, he and Eri made his way to the entrance, and out into the auditorium, spotting Team TEAL on the other side of the wide ring in the middle of the massive room as Jaune returned a friendly wave that the hulking form of Tusks had given him. He saw the raised stage up above, and noted that that would be where Miss Goodwitch would be observing them.

His mind drifted back to when he had first arrived in Beacon and been led towards this place by Neon, with Ruby in tow, and then forwards to when he had been selected as leader of officially Team JNPR and unofficially Team JNPER. It had been only more than a month ago, but considering how their team was then, and what it was now, it was a strange, and honestly saddening change.

He looked up at the screen, and saw all of their faces, both his team and Tusks', right next to once empty bars, now filled up with the count of their aura, in a colour gradient from red to yellow to green.

(Like everybody else, he dismissed the brief flicker of the screen, where it had shown him with 2 aura bars instead of one, as a glitch.)

He looked at the pictures of their faces on the screen, and noticed that they were using their pre-Initiation Massacre photos that they had added onto the transcripts that they had sent in, and not their pictures afterwards. He could tell because Pyrrha's picture didn't have the scar on her face, still had her longer hair tied up in a ponytail, and was much healthier and happier looking.

He scanned his eyes over his own picture, and noticed how less worn he looked. How much more childishly nervous and timid and naïve he looked. It was a disturbing contrast.

His eyes drifted over to Miss Goodwitch on the stage above, as she spoke into the microphone, and said, "Now then, you all know the rules, but for clarity's sake, allow me to reiterate: This sparring session is following tournament rules only, so no foul play, and no serious harm is to be done to your opponent. Once your aura count drops to the yellow, then you are out. And please, remember to work together as a team, or you will be joining me afterwards for extra lessons on teamwork, understood?"

There were nods from the gathered students down below, and up above, Jaune could see almost all of the other first years looking down intently (He couldn't see where Blake was, though. Hm...). He gave them a hesitant wave of his own, and many of them waved back. He didn't know what he'd done to deserve this kind of attention from them, but he knew damn well that he was going to disappoint them.

"Everyone into positions", Miss Goodwitch said. Ahead of him, he could see blue light shining from Esper Fyre's mouth, and a feral grin grew on her face. He instinctively took a step back. Miss Goofwitch continued, "Now, begi-"

From Team TEAL's side, the dragon Faunus known as Esper charged forward, blue fire belching from her mouth in a blinding torrent, sucking up all of the oxygen around it.

From Team JNPR's side, Pyrrha shot forward as well, as the cannons on Nora's back arched down and charged up.

Pyrrha weaved under the blue stream of fire, and behind them, Tusks activated his bubble shield semblance just as the cannons on Nora's back roared, and twin blue blasts slammed into the middle of the ring and-

{BOOM}

-Kicked off a giant explosion that almost launched everyone out of the ring, and kicked up a giant dust cloud that flooded the entire room, almost blinding everyone. Up in the stands, Jaune could hear other peers coughing and wheezing from the smoke and dirt.

Jaune had a feeling that there was a strategy behind Nora's move. Create a cloud of dirt and smoke and blind her opponents, and then move in for the kill whilst they were blinded. Of course, Nora could've just created that explosion because she wanted to, and he was just thinking a little too much into it, but he liked to think that there was a method behind the madness.

The entire ring fell into pandemonium afterwards. Esper began to grapple with Ren and Nora at the same time, belching out a fireball at him that almost hit the crowd above had it not been a few feet higher (It hit the wall below instead), All the while laughing and throwing fireballs around with reckless abandon.

Meanwhile, Pyrrha had moved onto fighting Lavender and Sora at the same time as well. From what Jaune had heard many times from Weiss Schnee before, Pyrrha had been one of the best tournament fighters in the business, and possibly even on the planet from what he had been told (Though since he had been told this by a condescending Weiss Schnee many a times, he was inclined to take it all with a grain of salt).

And yet, from what he could see, she seemed to be sluggish. Her moves weren't as fluid and controlled as when he had seen her during the Initiation Massacre. She was slowing down, and her breathing was becoming more and more laboured, so much so that her 2 opponents could keep up with her and keep her on her guard. She was tired, drained, and it showed.

However, all of this meant that he was left with the lumbering power suit wearing Tusks, and after dropping his bubble shield, charged him and slammed his axe into the ground as Jaune quickly jumped backwards, dodging another swing from Tusks as the walrus Faunus opened up the sides of his shoulders, and a series of pure blue streaks of energy in the forms of hard light missiles shot out and impacted with the world around him, forcing him to tank it with his aura, armour, and shield, and also barrel roll and dodge as much of it as he could, before himself charging forwards, sheathing his sword into his shield and pulling out the folded up shotgun from the back of his waist, unfolding it and-

An invisible force grabbed the back of his armour, and then a hand pushed him behind someone. Pyrrha. She took a defensive stance that was slightly wobbly in front of her, and said, "Stay back, Jaune! I'll handle this!" nearby, Sora had moved on to trying to help Esper fight Ren and Nora, only for one of his tentacle limbs to be burnt by a stray fireball, and nearby, Lavender was reduced to trying to take pot shots at Eri from below, aiming her black staff up above and letting a green stream of lightning flood out into the roof as she weaved it around to try and hit the drone.

"Wait, Pyrrha, we need to work together on this!" Jaune began to protest, "If we both try to-"

"I said stay back!"

"Pyrrha, why won't you just-"

That was the last straw for Pyrrha, it seemed.

A black force covered his armour, and an invisible force threw him to the side, the boy in question grunting at the sudden impact as he slid across the training room floor.

That was the last straw for Miss Goodwitch as well, it seemed.

The bell near them rang, and the screen above them called for the match for end. Jaune, as he picked himself up, realised that the 7 others around him were looking around confused, and a few of them even looked a bit miffed at the match being called off.

Up above, he could see everyone looking down with varying looks of surprise and sympathy. One of the students, a girl with blue skin and a water apparatus attached to her by the name of Aqua, rubbed the back of her head awkwardly, and looked away. Ruby and Melanie looked down with worried looks on their faces, and the latter took a moment to glare at his teammates.

Underneath his helmet, he winced. This was not going like he wanted at all.

Nearby, he could hear the clacking of feet. Miss Goodwitch, it seemed, was finally making herself known once again, "Teamwork, I said. I expected you all to display teamwork, and yet I find this", almost all of the students in the ring winced. Esper was the only one that didn't. Miss Goodwitch continued, "The match is over", Pyrrha looked like she was about to protest, "The match is over, Miss Nikos. All of you will joining me after class, understood?"

They all nodded silently. Pyrrha looked down to Jaune, and then her shoulders slumped down. He couldn't make out what expression was on her face underneath that, but he didn't have long to think about it as Miss Goodwitch dismissed them, allowing Pyrrha to walk off-

(Jaune thought he heard her mutter something about a debt.)

-Nora and Ren following shortly after in a pair behind her, and Eri looking between them, before, with a shudder of her frame, choosing to follow her master. Jaune didn't blame her.

He picked himself off of the ground, and gave another wave- This time one of goodbye- To Tusks, who gave him one in return as his team walked off in the opposite direction, divided into singles. With one last sigh, he turned back to where he had come from, and began to walk off.

Behind him, Miss Goodwitch called out, "Next up, Teams RSBL and MNCC."

He stopped in place, and watched as Weiss dragged Ruby away to their side of the auditorium up above, followed by their other 2 teammates, and Melanie throwing a glare Weiss' way before marching after her now departed teammates as well.

He looked to the side of the main entrance, and decided to lean against the wall and wait for whoever was coming out of the changing rooms on his side. Whomever it was, he could have a quick talk with them when they were marching out and back.

No one from his team came back for him.

---

"Alright guys, this is our first outing as a team, official or not, so I need you all to listen", Melanie said as she finished moving her hair to hide the scar on her forehead, and moved to putting her finger talons and knuckleduster bracelets. She tapped the floor with her bladed heel boots to catch their attention, "Look, their team is mangled and divided, and they don't listen to Ruby. We can use this. I'll take out Blake, Neon, you're a speedster like Ruby, so you focus on her, Flynt, you're a heavy hitter so you take on Leadpipe, and Ciel, you deal with Weiss. Understood?"

The rest of her team looked on in silence.

"I said, understood?"

"Flynt can wipe their entire team by cloning himself and blowing on his trumpet", Neon said to her, gesturing to a nodding Flynt as she then said, "Why not just have him take them all out with a single note?"

"That won't work", at least, it probably wouldn't. They had had spars before, and people had seen Flynt's semblance and move sets. Learnt of them and learnt from them. Without a doubt, they would move to incapacitate Flynt first and knock out his semblance, so she needed to use it sparingly, and since he had a cross between a Targetmaster and a Powermaster semblance, he would most likely be the biggest threat. And also the best weapon to take on a Techion, whom were renown for their ability to tank a lot of damage, like the one on Ruby's team indeed.

Melanie herself would be the next biggest threat, despite her being so low on the fighting skill tree, thanks to her semblance's- Classified recently as a Powermaster type- self-destructive nature. She was the team leader, and as such the driving force behind their team's success, considering that she was the one making all of the decisions for them. She would naturally be the next target to hit. But, even with her handicap, she could naturally power through anything that that Blake girl on Ruby's team could deal to her, and take out the ninja-like girl.

Then, would be Neon, who, with her Targetmaster semblance, could run circles around them all, the same as Ruby, so assigning her to take on their foe's team leader would be beneficial to them because Neon would be the only one on their team who could keep pace with her and possibly outrun her.

Ciel was... Unpredictable. She didn't know what her semblance was, or any of her capabilities, but she knew that her unofficial partnership with Weiss was hampering and handicapping her. If she was forced to fight against Weiss in a spar, then she would lose because of any self-imposed limitations that she had forced onto herself. So, she needed to get used to fighting against Weiss in spars, and get it into that head of hers that she was on a team now and not on a mission for somebody else. Sending her off to fight her boss in a spar would do just that, regardless of wherever she won or lost.

"And how do you know?"

"Because I do, okay?" Melanie said to her. She didn't see the need to explain her reasoning to her, "Just follow your orders, alright?"

"You haven't given us a good reason to do so", and there was Ciel, with them for once, finally saying something after gods' know how long.

"Here's a good reason, Ciel: I'm the team leader, you're not. Understand?"

Again, silence. And then, they walked off towards the entrance.

"Hey, at least answer me!" but they didn't, and left Melanie all to herself, "If you've got a problem, then just fucking say it! Don't just ignore me!"

But they did, and Melanie growled in annoyance, before marching up through to the entrance-

(Miss Goodwitch frowned at Melanie's treatment of her team, and their subsequent treatment of her as she peered down into the entranceway that they were coming through, and the loud words that were being thrown around. She was running them like a drill sergeant, always expecting them to listen to her without question, and they were refusing to talk to her, so much so that they weren't even explaining what was wrong with her leadership.

She sighed, already knowing that they had found something in a book not too long ago, from what Weiss had told her and Ozpin, meaning that she and Jaune knew something about Salem. And now, they were going up against Ozpin's team of chosen champions, who definitely knew about Salem. At least, as much as Ozpin had told them.

The selection of these 2 teams had been random. A computer generated selection set to randomly choose teams to fight against each other.

This was going to be a disaster. She already knew it.)

-Where Jaune was waiting for her.

She smiled. At least she had something going for her today.

(In front of her, the rest of her team exchanged hellos with Jaune. Neon's smile wavered for some reason as she waved at him. Flynt gave a respectful nod. Ciel walked right past him.)

"Have you talked to Ruby?" she asked him as she leant on the wall next to him.

"Not yet. I didn't know which entryway you guys were going to go though, so I just decided to wait here for one of you. I'll talk to her afterwards. Don't want to distract her, after all."

She nodded in turn, "Good man", she said, before going, "I'm not sure if I'm alright with this."

"What?" she could tell that Jaune was quirking an eyebrow underneath his helmet, "Fighting against Ruby?" Melanie nodded, "Hey, don't disrespect her like that. She can handle herself, I know it. And you should know it too. Saying otherwise is just a disservice to her."

"...Is it though?" Melanie asked. It was a genuine question, "I mean, I know she's a Huntress, and all, but... But is she? Mentally, I mean."

Jaune looked at her, and tilted his head, and then looked up in thoughtfulness, and then looked down at his feet, "I... I don't know if I can answer that... I don't know if I want to answer that."

"...Yeah, me too", she said, before taking in a deep breath, and going, "Right then, wish me-"

"Will you just move, you dolt!"

Jaune and Melanie looked at each other, and to the entrance. Melanie was the first one to move. She pushed past her team and the entrance, and saw Weiss dragging Ruby out by the upper arm, pulling so hard that despite wearing arm armour, it was causing the red and black themed girl discomfort, almost pain, probably around the shoulder.

They were close. so close now, and Melanie was beginning to see red at the sight.

"Weiss, we can't- We need a plan!" Ruby whined as Weiss finally let go of her, and allowed her to rub her shoulder to ease the discomfort, "We can't just-"

"I've already told you the plan, Ruby, so just go along with it already, and stop whining like a little brat!"

Nearby, Miss Goodwitch called out something about usurping control from a team leader. If Weiss even noticed it, she didn't give any indication.

Melanie pulled out the taser that she kept on her and pressed it against her arm, allowing her semblance, energy absorption, so take it all in and allow it to connect to the metal wings on her back, allowing them to build up and spread out in bright blue fire. On her, the white and red feathers on her combat dress began to extend out and curl around her like before.

"W-Weiss, w-we can't just- Can't just charge in and expect to defeat them! We're not that good!" Ruby called out to her, her other 2 teammates joining her, Blake giving an apathetic stare, and Leadpipe showing more sympathy- Or pity- In his body language, "We need a proper plan, not just-"

"Don't tell me what to do, Ruby!" it was clear that Weiss' patience was finally reaching its breaking point with her, "I have had it with you thinking that you're better than me just because of the colour of your eyes!"

Melanie's mind flashbacked to when Miltia was still alive, when they were so very young, the day which she grew up, and the day that she lost her little sister all at the same time. She didn't want that to happen again.

"I-I've never thought that!" Ruby clutched her Crescent Rose 2.0 close to her chest as she cried this to Weiss, "I've never thought that! I've been too busy worrying about Salem to care about that!"

Melanie and Jaune's eyes widened. Ciel looked like she was about to panic for a second, and Melanie noticed, because, She knew, she knew, they all knew this whole fucking time and they said nothing about it!

In the corner, Miss Goodwitch paled. Melanie and Jaune noticed that as well, and glared for just the briefest of moments.

"But I was made team leader, wasn't I? Not you, so-"

That kicked it off.

Weiss' eyes, once closed, then opened, and she saw red.

She wheeled the butt of her rapier weapon back like a flail, and slammed it into Ruby's face, breaking her nose. The girl twisted around and fell flat on the ground.

Melanie drew out her knuckledusters and talons and saw red.

---

Ruby pressed a finger against her nose, drew it back and saw red.

She was bleeding. Her nose was broken. She could feel her aura repairing it, but still it hurt. She hated the fact that tears were welling in her eyes, but they were.

Dammit, she was meant to be a Huntress, for god's sake, not a pathetic little cry baby, but here she was, on the ground and crying, and she hated it.

She moved to pick herself back up, but felt a sudden heat against her back, and the sudden blowing of wind between her locks of hair despite there being no wind indoors. There was a second's long sound of a scuffle, and then-

"GET AWAY FROM MY SISTER YOU BITCH!"

-Looked upwards, to see Melanie wrapping a metal talon covered hand around Weiss' throat, digging so deep into the skin that she was drawing blood, the other fist raised back, knuckleduster with a clear glowing blue line down the middle of it, with what looked like licks of blue flame coming out of them, and wild blue fiery wings accented with silver metal flowing hot off of her back, hot enough to match the explosive look of venom on her face, teeth grinding together and snarling.

Weiss had retaliated in hand, pressing the blade of her rapier weapon, Edelweiss, against Melanie's throat, and responding with, "Oh for god's sake, she's not your sister you ignorant oaf! She's not Miltia! She is a Huntress in training! Maybe if you stopped babying her, you would understand this!"

"And maybe if you started treating her like a normal human fucking being, you would see how-"

"What? How fragile she is!? Give me a break! Just because you lost your sister doesn't mean that you can project her onto someone else and just pretend that she never left at all!"

The grip around Weiss' throat tightened, Melanie snarled, and Ruby finally noticed that the latter girl had very sharp looking canine teeth.

"You know how sharp these talons are? They can cut the skin of a Grimm open and cut it apart. Imagine how easy it would be right now, for me to slit your throat, even with your aura up, and dig out your jugular? It would be super easy, and that's just the first part."

She pulled Weiss closer to her face, and forced her to stare into her unblinking, shrunken eyes, seemingly ignorant or just uncaring as to the blade at her throat.

"Because from there, I am going to skin you alive, and wear your skin like a fucking coat."

The barrel of a gun pressed against Melanie's head. It was Ciel.

"I wouldn't."

The barrel of a gun pressed against Ciel's head.

"I might."

It was Jaune, holding a pistol to Ciel's head, and another to Weiss. Next to them, Leadpipe pulled out his wrist guns and aimed them both at Jaune and Melanie. Nearby, Neon, Flynt, and Blake stood to the side, the last one of the 3 pulling at Leadpipe to leave.

Ruby tried to say something, but with the blood running from her broken nose, as well as the sudden aching pain from it, this left her only able to barely blubber something unintelligible. She didn't know why she was acting like this because of a simple nosebleed . Perhaps it was simply the shock of it all that was messing with her ability to communicate.

Up above, there were gasps and calls for help from the audience. Miss Goodwitch was saying something, but no one was paying any attention to her.

"Ciel", Melanie slowly began, not taking her eyes off of Weiss as she then asked, "What are you doing?"

"Protecting my charge", Ciel insisted, not caring about the gun that was being pressed against her head in turn, "I'm her bodyguard. It's my job."

"I'm your team leader, Soleli", Melanie growled out, "You're my teammate. Teammates don't point guns at each other."

"You are a tyrant, Malachite, not a leader", was the emotionless reply of Ciel, "You have given me no reason to follow you", Ruby was sure that, across Ciel's hand, she could see the faint blue flicker of... An arrow? A smooth ended arrow, or what is a sharp ended one? She couldn't tell.

"And you have given me no reason to trust you!" Melanie shot back, "Especially now, when it turns out that you know about that Salem bitch! And don't lie about it, I saw your reaction."

Ciel paused, and then, "Miss Schnee told me about it."

This finally got Ruby to speak up, "Weiss, you told her! But Ozpin told us not to tell anyone else!"

"Ozpin?" Jaune asked.

"Traitor!" Blake cried out as she pulled out her Gambol Shroud and aimed it at Weiss' head, only for Leadpipe to wince in surprise and aim one of his wrist guns at her in response.

"What the hell- Does Ozpin know who Salem is?"

"What does it matter to you?!" Weiss harshly reprimanded, "It doesn't concern you!"

"Doesn't concern me! Of course it fucking concerns me!" Melanie growled, "Miltia died in the Emerald Forest, saying something about Salem, and the Cataclysm, and Ozma, and you are going to-", the gun at the back of her head pressed deeper into her, but it was ignored, "-Tell me why!"

"How did she...", Weiss began in genuine confusion, "How did she know about that? What's this about the Cataclysm?"

"Don't play retard, Schnee!"

"Hey, hey, hey, guys! Guys and girls!" Leadpipe began, "Let's just... Let's just cool off for a minute, yeah? Let's just be chill about this."

Leadpipe was ignored, however, as Ruby then, with a genuinely confused tone of voice, asked, "Who... Who's Ozma?"

Melaine blinked, and then, she slowly looked down to Ruby.

"You... You really don't know, do you?"

"Oh, so you trust a child's word over mine!" Weiss called out, earning a wince from Ruby as she said this, "I am the heiress of the Schnee Dust Company! My words should be taken as the truth as a matter of-"

The talons in her neck dug down deeper into her skin. Blood began to dribble out from each cut. Weiss stopped and whimpered in pain. Ciel's pistol was pressed even further into Melanie's head, and her finger began to itch on the trigger.

Around them, other first years- The Vultures and such- Began to flood down and around the ring from above and through the entrances, and train their own guns on the tense standoff in the centre. Ruby swore that she could see Yang moving about somewhere in the growing crowd.

"Truth...", Melanie let out a humourless chuckle that sounded as empty as she probably was, "I can't think of a word more below by the common rabble... It does have a nice ring to it, I will admit, but... It's also the tool of liars."

"Melanie, stop it!" Leadpipe called out. He was once again ignored.

"You know, there's an old Mistralian proverb."

"Melanie!"

"'There are 3 truths. There's your truth, there's my truth, and then there's the truth'."

Leadpipe growled, "Goddammit..."

Melanie's free hand, knuckleduster covering it, inched itself back even slower than before, as if winding back for the killing blow, "Well, the truth shit that you're spewing is rotten to the core, riddled with lies. Foul smelling and disease ridden. Kind of like you."

"What was that?!" Weiss snarled out. Ruby didn't doubt that she would back down from her point, even with her own life at risk. She was strong-willed like that. Well, stubborn like that at least.

"You're a delusional idiot, Weiss", Melanie began, "You think that just because your daddy is so high up in the food chain back in Atlas, that gives you the right to do whatever the fuck you want... Let me tell you something: You're not in Atlas anymore. We're in Vale, and people here have suffered more than you ever could."

Blake smiled at this. This only got Melanie's attention drawn on her.

"And you, Belladonna, hiding your ears underneath that bow like a damn coward", Blake stopped and froze. Melanie continued, "Don't bother hiding it, it was obvious from the start. What, you think that just because you hide your ears in a place where people our age wear their ears and their tails with pride, that you're better than them? That your 'Aloof and mysterious nature' allows you to hide that disgusting side to you, that part of you that smiles and laughs with glee every time a human is harmed in some way? Don't be so pathetic, Blake... If that is even your real name."

"Okay, goddammit, you've made your point, now let her go!" Leadpipe called out to her, one of his wrist guns still trained on Melanie's head, "Please, just- For god's sake, just let her go!"

"...And Leadpipe, I have something to say to you. If you think that trying to be the resident cutie of the team just because of your autism is working, it's not. It's downright pathetic how much of a pushover you are. Your autism is not a fucking excuse for your idiocy. If you want to actually be a Huntsman, then for the fucking love of god, put some actual effort into it, instead of just coasting by and expecting everyone to bend over just to accommodate you."

She never raised her voice during her tirades. Not once.

"Shut up, shut up goddammit, I know what you're trying to say, so please, just let her go!" Leadpipe called back.

"...No, I don't think I will", Melanie said matter-of-factly, "You see, there's a few things that you know, and I'd very much like to be filled in as well."

She turned her attention back to Weiss, and began to pull her thumbs against her flesh to the side, ripping just a little bit more skin.

Even Jaune was looking sickened at this, if only though his body language alone, "Melanie..."

"What?"

"I think that's-"

"No it's not", Melanie growled, causing Ruby to scoot away and try and clamber onto her feet, "It's not enough. Not now, at least."

Ruby got up, and began to breath in, sucking up all of the frustration and stress that she had been feeling for the last hour-

"Now then", Melanie snarled at Weiss, "You are going to tell me- Us- Everything that you know about Salem. Right. Fucking. Now."

-And let it all burst out.

"ENOUGH!"

Her scream was enough to draw the attention of everyone within the auditorium, an echoing silence overtaking them as everyone looked at her in sudden shock and confusion. Melanie almost dropped Weiss as she jumped, and it was then that she herself realised just how close to her Yang was, and how many people were holding back Miss Goodwitch.

She let out a shaky breath, and then, just whispered out, "Can we just stop, please?... Can we just stop all of this, please?"

There was a long silence...

And then, Jaune's voice echoed out through the auditorium with, "Just- Just do as she says."

And with that, slowly, but surely, everybody began to lower their guns, taking their hands off of the triggers and clipping away their weapons.

"I think...", Jaune's voice stopped, and then started again, "I think that's enough for today."

"Boss", Shadestep muttered nearby, "We can take them."

"I just- No... No...", he lowered his guns, "I think that's enough. Enough for today, okay?"

There was a long, awkward silence afterwards, but soon, with his word, everyone just nodded, and began to leave, taking their time to congregate to their different groups and sonder out of the auditorium. Miss Goodwitch tried to... Well, it looked like she was going to call them back at first, but then relented, and just sighed to herself in resignation at it all.

Melanie, with a guilty expression cast all over her face, just let go of Weiss, and let her crumple to the floor as her aura finally began to heal the bloody marks on her neck. Yang got to her first before Ciel, only to apply a harsh kick to Weiss' face, breaking her nose in turn, and spitting on her.

Ruby shuddered, and looked away, blotted tears forming in her eyes once again. She looked over to the side, to see Melanie looking at her with so much concern and love that belonged to a sister that wasn't with them anymore that it was making Ruby feel ill.

"Ruby", she began, holding out her hand, with finger talons that were covered in blood.

Ruby wanted to vomit. She needed to go.

Melanie looked at her with such genuine sadness in her eyes, "M-Ruby-"

That stutter was too much.

She burst away in flutter of rose petals, and b-lined it out of the auditorium.

She jetted all the way towards the dorms, and into her room. Shutting herself in the bathroom, she opened up the toilet, and vomited violently into it.

Sobbing to herself for this entire mess, she slumped against the wall, still feeling nauseous, and pulled her legs closer to herself.

She just... She needed to be alone for a while.

Just... Just for a while.

A long while.

---

"How are you, Mr Arc?"

Jaune didn't look up at her. He didn't want to. He couldn't even look her in the eye. Not after everything that had happened today.

Their team exercises had been a disaster, to say the least. The confrontation between him, RSBL, and MNCC had ended with everyone in their first year leaving the hall to go think and discuss between themselves, and their own teams more fractured and dysfunctional than ever.

More than that, their loud argument had revealed the names of Ozma and Salem to the entirety of the first year, as well as their fascination with the Cataclysm, and the apparent reveal that Ozpin had been the one to inform RSBL of what was going on and to keep it a secret from everyone else, so now everyone was asking questions, and spreading them to the rest of the school.

He figured that Ozpin might be doing some sort of damage control at this point, possibly right at this moment, but as he had been walking around Beacon in his own (Ruby and Melanie hadn't joined him, leaving him more alone than ever), Desperately trying to find something to do-

(He eventually settled for drafting a thesis on Faunus and human rights, having been intrigued by the area thanks to what had happened with the Harriet Bree case that he and Winter had solved together a month ago. For All Mankind, that's what he had called it.

Hey, if it distracted him from everything that was going on around it, then why not?)

-He overheard many first years talking about Ozpin. About how they always knew that he was hiding something, or how he couldn't be trusted, or how they couldn't rely on him for anything, so he very much doubted that many people would be trusting him with anything anytime soon.

This whole... Thing, was a mess. Everything was just a goddamn mess. Hardly any of their teams were able to function together at all, and everyone was just going about their own ways and tending to themselves and those that they deemed worthy of their attention. There were hardly any working teams, and there was too much stopping there from being any.

There was too much trauma. Too much poison in the minds of everyone in the first year. The Daughter and the Ascendant Court had seen to that.

"Mr Arc, please."

The room around him was stale and lifeless, and the dimming sunlight was barely able to pierce through the blinds and deliver something natural into the room against the white lights in the ceiling above.

He didn't look up at Miss Goodwitch, so he couldn't tell what expression was on her face, but he imagined it to be... Was sad the right word? He didn't know. He respected her, enough... He thought he did, at least, but... But she wasn't the right person to act as a psychiatrist. Everyone knew this.

Actually, that brought up a good question: Did Miss Goodwitch know about what was going on with Salem? Did she know more than them as well? Was she just hiding the truth like Ozpin, and keeping important information about what had happened in the Emerald Forest and the Grimm Tidings away from the people who deserved to know?

Like him?

Maybe he was being selfish, sure, but his first partner had allowed herself to die right in front of him, and had been all cryptic and shit about it, so he figured that if anyone was hiding something about this, then he damn well deserved to know.

Nearby, he could hear Zwei- Beacon's mascot and therapy dog- Giving off a little bark. What it meant, he didn't know. In front of him, he could hear Miss Goodwitch get up from her seat, and step closer to him. He hadn't responded to anything she had been saying. Not even a flinch or anything. She must've thought that he'd shut down. Maybe he had.

No matter what, at every place that his mind tried to go to, it would always send him back to the Emerald Forest, to the grinning Blind Worm, to the Grimm Tidings, to the belly of the beast, to the Dropship, and now, to the alleyway where he had watched Yuma die in his arms, and the other one where he had seen the bodies of Flash and Connie and Tyler, and the back of the Lightbright where he had watched Primal's head cave in, to a burning warehouse where he had been stabbed by the Neopolitan Butcher, to the police station where he had seen Carmine and Bertilak's corpses.

At once, everyone who had ever died right in front of him flashed before his eyes. Emerald Sustrai, Flashback, Curia Query, Boombox, Yuma Landis, Primal, and even more. All of them flashing before his mind, replaying the memories of their deaths over and over and over again, until it all ended on a girl in a red dress that looked like newspapers, with red and white feathers in her short black hair and green eyes and a smile that hid so many truths and secrets that it terrified him to even imagine.

Next to him, Miss Goodwitch called out his name. He didn't respond to it in any way, as tears began to develop in his eyes.

He didn't want this. Not anymore. Oh god, why was he still here? Why hadn't he already gone home and slit his own throat to make up for all of the things that he had seen and done, all of the people that had died because of him? To hell with his promise to Viola, maybe it was time to-

A hand clasped onto his shoulder.

-And suddenly he was back in the Emerald Forest, where the water and the soil and the trees and the sky and the blood were black and the grass and tree leaves were red, walking alone in a hellscape with his family home and his parents all dissolving into nothingness as he was pulled into the inky black pools below him by many bloody and gored hands as a ruined Miltia stood before him and asked him why he had let her die over and over and over and over and-

Please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop please stop

-Suddenly, reality came back to him. His eyes shrank, and then widened.

He was on the ground, Miss Goodwitch below him, hands around her neck, like he was trying to strangle her to death. In one hand, she had her crop raised, as if she was just about to call forth her semblance.

His eyes and cheeks were red and wet with tears.

he finally realised what he was doing, and tumbled to the side, onto his hands and knees as he scooted away in fright. He began to mutter something to himself and to her as his hands began to move to his face to hide away the tears, but stopped when he saw Zwei near him, looking at him and whining, his legs shivering in fear.

Instinctively, he went to stroke the dog, if only to remind himself that he was still a good person and that there were things out there still worth living for and please just remind me why I'm still alive and let me remember that I can still be okay in the end and-

The dog yelped and hid behind Miss Goodwitch in fright.

…

He couldn't stay here.

He- He couldn't stay here.

His breath began to pick up rapidly, and his heart felt like it was twisting into a knot in his chest. Everything was growing louder and louder, blending together into an ugly orchestra of verbal madness. All of the dull whites in the room and the sparse few colours in sight began to blend together into a slush of greys and whites. His skin became super sensitive. It was like he could feel every single microbe of dust and tiny blow of air hitting his skin with the force of a sledgehammer, or a steamroller, tearing through his body and ripping him apart down to the bare atoms.

He needed to leave.

He couldn't remember if he screamed. He probably did. What he did remember, though, is how he had suddenly shot up and slammed his back into the wall, skirting across the side in a blind panic as he reached for the door. Miss Goodwitch said something that he couldn't hear amidst the loud cacophony of noise in his head, but it sounded like she understood what was going on, like she cared, and he hated it because it would just be so much easier if she hated him and it would've been more understanding and-

The door finally opened in his grip.

-He was off, slamming the door behind him (He just remembered how late at night it was), And just booked it back to his dorm room, sprinting down the hallways as his breathing grew more shallow and his chest tightened and his eyes streamed tears and everything grew louder and brighter and the feeling of nausea grew bigger and bigger. Occasionally, he stopped for breaths, and one time, a group of girls came near him to see if he was alright- Gretchen Rainart, a frog Faunus by the name of Tessa, and a girl who's semblance controlled the gravity of everything that she touched by the name of Uma- But he ran off before they could do anything.

Finally, he got to his dorm room, and he slammed the door behind him. He realised that for once, his teammates were in there with him, but he didn't care as he grabbed his scroll off of the side- He could hear Pyrrha say something about a panic attack- And locked himself in their bathroom, opening up the toilet, dry heaving one time, and then vomiting violently the second time, emptying out his whole stomach before, still in a panic, he slumped to the side, pressed a familiar contact into his phone, and placed it against his ear as he pulled his legs closer to him and shook in place, drowning out the sounds of his worried teammates as he did.

Eventually, the person on the other end picked up.

"Urrr... Jaune?" Viola went as she presumably woke up from her sleep, "Is that you? It's the middle of the night over-"

His elder sister cut herself off when she could hear his rapid breathing, as Jaune quickly stammered out in a panic, "Vi-Vi-Viola, is that- Is that you? That's you, that's you, right, I just- I just need- Oh god, I just- I just need to speak or talk or something because- Oh god, Viola, I think I just- I think I need to-"

"Woah woah woah, Jaune, Jaune, sweetie, just breathe, just breath, okay?" Viola was readily awake, now, the sounds of her shooting out of her bed evident as she got herself up to speed on the other side, "Look, you- Fuck, I- Jaune, you're just having a panic attack, okay? Just listen to me, okay? Just breathe. Breathe. Can you do that for me, sweetie?"

Jaune nodded to himself, but his breathing remained rapid and confused as he just stuttered out, "O-O-Okay. Okay."

"Okay, okay, now just breathe, little bro, breathe. Breathe once-"

He did as he was told, sucking in a current of air-

"-Hold it for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5-

-Before holding it in for as long as his sister said-

"-And release."

-And then releasing it in a quickened puff.

"And again, in-"

He breathed in-

"-Hold it-"

-Held it-

"-And release."

-And then breathed out.

"In-"

He breathed in-

"-Hold it-"

-Held it-

"-And release."

-And then breathed out.

His breathing was calming down now, finally. He was becoming less shaky, and his eyes were just getting a little bit drier on their own, though they still stung. Everything around him was becoming less and less blurry and confusing, and more visible and easy to process. The loud noises screaming into his ears lessened, and he slowly pulled himself back into the real world.

"Just listen to the sound of my voice", Viola was whispering to him now, trying to sooth him, which was working, by the way, "Just listen... Go to your happy place... Let your mind slink back to a happier time, to a pleasant memory, to something that filled you with joy. Find that happy place- That happy memory- And cling and clutch to it."

His mind wondered back to when he and Viola had played together, when he had gone to Saphron and Terra's wedding as a wee child, to just recently, when he, Ruby, and Melanie sat down together to watch and mock a bunch of terrible Spruce Willis films together, all in perfect order, all with perfect clarity.

His breathing returned to normal, and so did everything else around him, as he wiped his wet eyes and cheeks dry, and took a few moments longer to collect himself. It took him a few moments more to finally craft a response to his sister, "T-Thanks, Viola. I... I, um... Yeah..."

"Don't worry about it, little brother, there's no need", 'For thanks' went unsaid, "Are you okay now?"

"Y-Yeah... Yeah, I-I think so", Jaune said to her as he began to uncurl himself from his fetal position, and then said, "H-Hey, l-listen, I know that we don't... Don't agree on much, nowadays, you know, but... But I... I love you, Viola."

He could practically hear the smile on the other end of the line, "I love you too, Jaune."

He smiled in turn.

"Do you want to come back home?"

He had forgotten about her want for him to return back to Jewel. She hadn't brought it up on any of the phone calls that they had had since their argument on Beacon's landing pad the day after he woke up from his coma, but the tension of it still lingered. It was clear that she had been waiting a long time to pop this question.

"I mean, I know that you don't want to, but...", there was a deep breath- In, hold, out- On the other side of the line, and then, "Jaune, you sound like you're hurting. You really do sound like you're hurting. I won't ask why, but... Please, Jaune. I mean, Apollo's opening up spots in both Jewel's militia and the House of the Golden Sun. You can always- You can always join them, if you really do want to be a hero."

It was a damn well tempting offer. One that, guilty as it was to admit, he had been thinking over a lot more recently in the last few days, "I... I don't know... I mean, I told you why I wanted stay here, and I damn well want to honour it, but now... Now, I'm not so sure."

"Well, you know, our door is still open for you any time", Viola said on the phone, "You and any friends that you make over there. We've always got room for you back in Jewel."

His smile widened just a little bit more, but then wobbled from hesitation, "T-Thanks, Viola, really, I mean it, but... I don't know. I really don't know. I mean, Ozpin made me team leader for a reason, you know. I just... I don't know", considering Ozpin's current reputational status in the halls of Beacon Academy right now, and the current status of all of the teams, as well as all of the recent revelations that had come out as a result, it was hard to say that the headmaster had made the right decision.

Maybe he hadn't at all. Maybe he was just meandering through all of this? Maybe he had selected the teams at random? Maybe he had done guesswork? Maybe there had been some grand point to these teams and they had failed? Maybe Ozpin didn't understand the level of trauma that the new first years had? Maybe Ozpin was just wrong? Maybe there was some other point to all of this that he was sincerely missing?

Maybe the current state of the teams was for the best? Maybe they just needed to be reshuffled and reorganised. Have a proper initiation for the students instead of the bloody battle that had been the last one. It was clear that the teams weren't operating as they should, so maybe it was best that they be reorganised into new teams. Better teams. At least, something that was better than the crap show that was being thrown at them right now.

"Yeah, only after that Nikos girl's talk to him", he could hear her rolling her eyes on the other side, "I swear, some people just want to-"

Jaune paused, and then stopped her in confusion, "You mean Pyrrha?" His eyebrow was raised in confusion. Pyrrha talked to Ozpin? About his leadership? What? "What... What did Pyrrha talk to Ozpin about? My leadership?"

Outside, the banging on the door to the bathroom- That he only just realised had stopped- Started anew, more rushed and violently this time, now accompanied by the sounds of a scuffle.

"...She didn't tell you?"

"What?"

"She said she'd tell you..."

"Tell me what?" there was a pause, "Viola, what was Pyrrha supposed to tell me?"

---

"Jaune! Jaune, please, just let me-"

"Pyrrha, back off!"

"Just let me-"

"Pyrrha, enough!"

Ren and Nora were only just able to push her away from the door, considering how strong she was, but also how fatigued she was as well, and stop her for breaking the door down from just hammering on it. Pyrrha suspected that they didn't know why she was panicking, or at least they were coming to a different conclusion than the actual truth, but she didn't care. She just needed to tell him the truth so that he didn't report her to her father and-

"For god's sake, Pyrrha, calm down! You've give him another panic attack at this rate!" Nora scolded her as she pulled out her Magnhild from nowhere at all, something that she was apparently good at, and said, "And if you hit the door any harder, you'll break it down!"

"We understand that you're worried for your partner", Ren calmly said with a hand held outwards towards her, "But whatever you are trying to do and say to him will only serve to exacerbate the issue. We have to let him calm down in his own time. And besides, from what can be heard, his sister is helping him to calm down over the phone, so all that we will do by interfering is potentially triggering him all over again", Nora looked at him like she wanted to say something, but then decided against it.

"I-It's not that", Pyrrha began with, beginning her first real talk to the other members of her team that she regularly forgot even existed nowadays due to all of her training and practicing, "It's... It's just...", It's just who's he's talking to, Pyrrha kept that thought to herself, And what she'll about to reveal to him that I need to interfere with.

Ren and Nora weren't mind readers, though, "What, Pyrrha?" Nora began with, "What is so important that you need to break the damned door down over, if not him having a panic attack?" it did appear that at least one of them was a keen reader of the mood, though.

Pyrrha wanted to say it out loud, but didn't.

Thankfully, nobody would get the chance to ask or respond anymore, as the door to the bathroom loudly slammed over, and a hunched over Jaune appeared in the doorframe, his cheeks and eyes still red, his hair messy and dishevelled, and a powered down scroll in one of his hands.

There was a long pause, before Jaune finally looked Pyrrha in the eye, and asked in a croaky voice, "Is it true?" there was a longer pause still, before he flashed his turned off scroll at her, as if it held all of the answers in the world, and continued on, "Viola told me that you had pawned off leadership to me. That you had forced me into the role, despite even knowing that I would never want or be able to handle it. Is. This. True?"

Another long pause, and then, from Pyrrha, a shameful, "...Yes..."

...

Pyrrha hated loosing.

This was a fact that she had kept hidden from everyone- Even her father- But she absolutely despised loosing. The thrill of a fight, yes, oh gods how she relished that, but loosing a fight? No, never, not in a million years. It was one of the reasons at to why she had been training so much: To make up for her humiliating defeat around the Grimm Tidings.

She had hated loosing so much that she had told Ozpin to give it to Jaune because of that.

Sure, like she had said before to Jaune whilst he was in his coma, she couldn't handle the responsibilities of being a leader, and she was incredibly aware of how much of a poor leader she would be, but there was also another deeper reason to it all: The fear of loosing. Taking leadership over a bunch of people would potentially open up an entire chasm of mistakes and possible failures that she would have to compensate for, and she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she somehow made a mistake and ruined everything and got someone killed because of it, and she would have to deal with her father berating her for even daring to make a mistake and lose for once and so on, so forth, an endless wave of guilt.

And so, she had pawned it off to Jaune.

And there was the nature of her debt. The reasoning as to why she needed to protect Jaune. To make sure that he wouldn't perish due to her own damnable mistakes and selfish desires. She knew for a fact that he wouldn't be able to handle it (The poor boy had already been swimming in an ocean of guilt over what had happened during the Initiation Massacre), But at the time, she hadn't given a single damn about it. As long as she wasn't presented with any way to lose at all, she would be fine with it, and, at the GVMC, she had promised Viola that she would eventually tell Jaune about what she had done and said, and now...

Now, 5 weeks later, with not a peep out of her, and her own inaction was bringing everything down around her.

She had lost.

Again.

Jaune's eyes had widened, and his now dull eyes, so worn and tired and veterans of sights that were too filled with horror in such a short amount of time, were flooded with emotion: Grief, rage, sadness, depression, anger, more grief, so on, so forth.

And then, he moved.

"I need to- I need to go", Jaune muttered as he began to walk to the door, "I can't... I can't stay here, I just- I just need to-"

Pyrrha grabbed his arm and stopped him, "Jaune-"

"Let me go, Pyrrha."

"Just let me-"

"Let me go!"

"No! Just let me-"

"ENOUGH!"

Pyrrha let go of him in recoil, and Jaune just looked her in the eyes all over again.

"Just stop it, Pyrrha."

The girl in question looked down at her feet with a wavy frown, but Nora then quickly stepped up and said, "Jaune, come on, it's just leadership and stuff. It's not that big of a deal!"

Jaune froze, going completely still, and the room fell into a horrible silence.

"...'Not a big'... Nora", the coldness in his voice stilled the girl completely, something that, in the short periods that Pyrrha had seen her, she had thought was impossible, "Do you think that I go to those team leader lessons for fun?"

"Wha... What?"

"Every saturday morning, me and the other team leaders have lessons together. Of course, you never bother to notice that, but... Do you think that it's all fun and games? That it's all a big laugh?"

He wheeled around to her, and the sheer venom on his face was enough to make her step back in fear.

"Do you think that we're not reminded every day that if we ever fuck up in any way, shape, or form, that it'll lead to the deaths of those that follow us? That if we make even the smallest of mistakes, then that's it: Everyone dies? Do you not think that we are hammered that fact about our own fuckups over and over and over again every single time we're in that room, and every single day outside of it, so much so that we don't have nightmares about it?!"

"N-No, I-"

"This isn't a fucking game, Nora! This is life and death! Leadership is the constant fucking reminder that no matter what you do, when someone dies because of you, you're going to have to be the ones to tell their loved one that they died because of you! Because you couldn't keep them safe! And you have to live with that guilt! You have to live with that knowledge that you couldn't save your own teammates!"

"J-Jau-"

"But that only works if you actually have good teammates! And you aren't! None of you are!"

Before anyone could respond, he pointed his finger and shoved it into Nora's shaking chest-

"You continously fuck off and just go do whatever the fuck you want, without any consideration for anyone but yourself, all so you can have a quick happy moment like you're not fucking over anyone else!"

-Then to Ren-

"You do nothing to stop her! You're a goddamn enabler, just letting her do whatever the hell she wants without any thought for the consequences at all!"

-And finally to Pyrrha.

"And you, threw me into a position that you knew that I would never be able to handle, and you don't even try to do anything about it! You just fuck off like her and pretend that you're a perfect warrior without any thought for anyone else! I mean, how fucking selfish can you be!?"

He threw down his arm, and angrily marched towards the door.

"I never wanted to be a leader, and I never wanted to be stuck with you people!"

He wildly swung the door open-

"You had the leadership position before, Pyrrha. Now you can fucking have it back!"

-And slammed it behind him.

The room was deathly quiet, save for the quiet bee-like buzzing that Eri gave off as she finally floated up from behind the bed that she had been hiding behind. Pyrrha and Ren and Nora just stayed quiet, staring at the door, unsure of what to do or say or-

Nora's legs gave out and she collapsed to the ground, shaking and crying as she hiccupped, "W-Why does this... Happen to... Every family... That I have?"

Ren took to her side to console her, whilst Eri moved to the other side of her mother, whining in sadness as Pyrrha just continued to look towards the door, as still and as cold as a statue.

What had she done?

---

"YOU DID WHAT?!"

Ciel wasn't deterred by Melanie's explosion of anger. Instead, she simply remained cool and stoic and said, "I delivered the book to Miss Schnee."

"Why the- WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU DO THAT?!" Melanie screeched out as she gesticulated her arms violently at the stoic Schnee bodyguard, teeth grinding together as small licks of flame floated off of her, her semblance flaring up as she growled angrily at her 'Teammate'.

"I was under orders to do so."

"Orders!? From her?! From Weiss?! She's not your team leader! I am! Me!" Melanie jabbed a finger into her chest for emphasis as the 4 members of Team MNCC stood and sat gathered in their dorm room for once, Neon and Flynt sitting on their beds to the side as Ciel and Melanie stared off, "You're supposed to be following my orders for god's sake! That's why you were put in the same team as me, and that's why I was made the leader! Goddammit, you were there in the auditorium! You were right there pressing a gun to my head! That's blatant mutiny!"

"You were threatening my charge!"

"Goddammit Ciel, you heard my reasoning in there! You know why I needed that book!"

"You're weren't privy to that information."

"NEITHER WERE YOU!"

"Miss Schnee told me I was."

"When she was blatantly told that she wasn't meant to! When she betrayed the entire trust of her own team in order to do so!"

"She never cared for her team."

"And neither do you!"

"I only care for the safety of Miss Schnee-"

"Oh fuck off with that spoilt brat for just one fucking moment, won't you!?" Melanie harsly jabbed her finger into Ciel's chest, and snarled out, "My god, can you just fuck off about her for just one minute?! I would like to pass the Lesbian Bechdel Test, you know?"

"I do not know what that means."

"Nor do I care."

"Ain't that the truth", muttered Neon on her bed as she played with her tail.

This earned her the ire of Melanie as she wheeled her head over to her and, in a gravely tone, growled out, "What was that?"

"You don't care about us", Neon didn't back down as she looked up at Melanie, pointing her own finger accusingly as she then said, "You've never given anything resembling a single damn about us."

"What the- What the fuck does that mean?!" she cried out to her, shaking her fists momentarily as she then said, "Of course I care about you! You're my teammates and I'm your team leader! It's in the job description to care about you-"

"Because that's what it is, isn't it? An obligation, and not an actual imperative! Not an actual common decency!" Neon shot out of her seat so fast that a rainbow flash could be seen behind her, facing Melanie head on as she herself prodded her in the chest and said, "Even when we were put together as a team, you've never liked us. It's clear even in our group chat that you think you're better than all of us, despite-", the cat Faunus let out a bitter laugh, "-Despite, being the second worst fighter in the year! Fuck, ever since we've been put in a team together, you've lorded that position over us-"

"'Lorded'?! Is that the shit that you're pulling out right now, Neon?! Is that where we're going with this!?" Melanie fired back, "I'm not lording over anything or anyone: I'm being a leader! I'm trying to take charge! I'm trying to be responsible for you idiots!"

"You've never asked us about how we feel!"

Melanie moved her head back and blinked. Neon pressed on.

"You've never asked us about our opinions of your orders, or how we were doing, or how we could improve, or any of that shit! You've never taken into consideration how any of us feel, and you've expected us to follow your orders without question, as if we're somehow able to understand exactly why you want us to do whatever it is you say, like we're somehow able to immediately guess what the hell you're doing", there was a long pause, and then Neon capped it off with, "And you're rude, too."

"...You fucking hypocritical piece of shit...", Melanie hissed out, before going, "You've never done the same either! All of you are just as guilty as you say I am of that shit! Over a month we've known each other, and not one of you- Not one!- Has ever come up to me to voice their complaints, or ask me what was going on, or talk about whatever the fuck it is that you were feeling sad about or some shit! Not one of you has ever voiced your problems to me, or even asked me about how I was feeling, or anything! All you've ever done is ignore me, and keep all of your problems to yourselves as if I should somehow be able to figure it all out for myself! For fuck's sake, I am not a mind reader! I can't know your problems if you don't tell me them!"

"Would you have even helped us!? You're a sink-or-swim kind of girl, aren't you?"

"I expect you to be able to handle your own problems! If they're too much to handle and you really do think that you need to talk to me, then talk to me about them, but I can't hold your hand for every small thing that you have! You have to be able to do them yourselves! But, again, if you do have problems that you really do think that you need to share with me, then fucking share them with me! Don't just keep them to yourselves and do nothing about it!"

"You wouldn't have helped at all!"

"Yes I would've!"

"No you wouldn't have! You can say that you'll help out, and you'll do your part, but in the end, each promise will be just as empty as the threats that you make! Like all of the threats and violent words that you say!"

"You think I like being mean to you guys! You think I like making threats to you! None of you will listen to me at all! You and Flynt always fuck off to go fuck in a corner or whatever the hell it is that you guys do when you're together, and Ciel always goes off to follow around the Schnee girl like a fucking house pet! There's no other way that you'll even remember that I exist, much less even listen to me! How the hell am I supposed to act nicely to a bunch of people that make it their mission to ignore me every step of the way!?"

"Act better! Be better! Oh wait, that's not what people like you do, is it?! It's always angry angry fucking angry!"

"'People like me'!? I'm trying to help you people if you would just-"

"That's always what you say! That's all that people like you say! The racists, the elitists, the tin pot tyrants, and every other person who's blood get's pumping at the slightest hint of power over everybody else! People like you lord yourselves over us, like we're nothing more than trash and waste that can be thrown out onto the wayside- That can be scratched and burnt and beaten- Until it's no longer of use! It's people like you that make Remnant the shithole that it is today, you elitist, discriminatory, FUCK!"

…

…

…

There was a long pause. An ocean of silence flooded into the room and drowned any trace of noise in its reach. Ciel had retreated to the other side of the room. Flynt hadn't said a word, and had gone still on his bed. Neon breaths were heavy, yet somehow still silent. Her cheeks were red and wet, and her tail had fallen limp. Was what she had said all about Melanie, or was it something that had been building up inside of her for so long, that it had finally grown too big to be ignored any longer.

In front of her, Melanie's arms had gone limp, her face tilted down, and her bangs covering her eyes. Her expression and body language was that of pure neutrality, showing no emotion at all.

...

...

...

"Alright then."

Melanie tilted her head up. Her eyes were tired, but there was still a faint blue glow to her pale green eyes. The way she spoke... It was so calm, yet it felt like it had the anger of an entire sun behind it.

"If that's how you feel... Then I'll take my leave."

And with that, she wheeled around, walked through the door to the dorm, and slammed it behind her in barely hidden rage.

The room returned to life. Flynt slumped down into his bed. Ciel let out an uncharacteristic sigh of relief. All Neon did was slump down to her knees, onto the floor, and lean against her bed frame.

She had done it. She had aired out everything to Melanie.

She should feel happy.

So why did she feel so empty inside?

---

"You stole their book?"

Ruby had been sitting in their dorm room for the rest of the day, with her door locked. At least, for anyone that didn't have the code to the door on their scroll. She had heard many people- More than 2 dozen, in fact- Knocking on their dorm door, asking if she was there, and if she was okay. Ruby had muffled out the noises so much that she couldn't tell who almost any of those people were. The only 2 that she could make out were Jaune and Melanie, and she had almost completely blocked out the second one entirely.

She couldn't face her. Not after the auditorium. Not after what she had said- What had been revealed.

She just... She just couldn't...

She just couldn't...

Not yet, at least.

She hadn't realised the time until the rest of her team had walked back in, Weiss in the lead, as always, with a particularly smug expression on her face, which was odd considering what had happened earlier in the day as she noted the bandage over the Schnee heiress' nose. However, that was soon answered by the large book in her hands, simply titled The Myths and Fables of Old Remnant.

"I didn't steal their book", Weiss answered smugly as she plopped it onto their desk and sat elegantly on their bed, "I was given it from them. Obviously, they saw that I was in the right, and-"

"Soleli gave it to her", Blake cut in with, "Not Arc or Malachite or the others."

Weiss' eye twitched, annoyed at the interruption, but then continued on with, "Yes, thank you for that, Blake. Yes, Ciel did give it to me, but I'm sure that it was under the orders of you-"

"You, not them."

"Don't start with me already Blake, I've had a bad day", her smug smile was fading now, but Weiss relented anyways as she then said, "Anyways, it doesn't matter. Now that we have the book with the knowledge of Salem in it, we can deliver it to Ozpin, and be rid of it, thus putting this whole mess to-"

"They deserve to know."

Weiss stared at Ruby intently, "What?" there was a barely hidden tone of anger in her voice. Her thin patience was waning. If Ruby was a crueller person, she would joke that her patience was always waning.

"J-Jaune, and Melanie, a- And everybody else", Ruby said out loud to the rest of the room, "They deserve to know what we're fighting- Who we're fighting", she took a quick glance to the book on the desk, and back to Weiss, "They deserve to know what we're up against."

"Ruby", Weiss began curtly, "Ozpin has been explicitly clear about the security of our kingdom and this information. We cannot just spread it to whoever we like just because-"

"But you told Ciel."

This got Weiss to pause for a moment, but only for that as she said, "Ruby, I trust Ciel. She is a trustworthy person, and also my bodyguard, so-"

"You don't know that", Ruby was surprised at the edge in her own voice, but continued on regardless, "You don't know that she can be trusted. You couldn't have known."

"And you don't know that Arc and Malachite", she said that last word with an angry hiss, "Can be trusted."

"Does it even matter now?" Ruby asked, "Everybody already knows about Salem, or at least just her name, and now, they're going to start making connections and coming to conclusions, both right and wrong. There's really no point in secrecy anymore."

"There is every single point in secrecy, Ruby", Weiss scolded, "Ozpin said-"

"I know what Ozpin said", Ruby interrupted with, "He said that if the truth get's out then there'll be a mass panic. But the truth is already out in Beacon, and people are, presumably, panicking because they won't know anything about the people that they're fighting. About the person that they're fighting. But now that people know that we're hiding stuff about it- That we know more than we're letting on about the monsters that killed so many people back in initiation, they're not going to trust us, and any previous trust that they had in us will only continue to slip away if we keep all of these secrets to-"

"Enough, Ruby", Weiss shut her up with this as she rose up from her bed and bore down on the other girl as she sat on her own bed, "I have made up my mind on the situation, and I shall not be lectured about it by a mere child with no understanding of the world around her."

Too far.

"'No understanding'", Ruby muttered out, before finally jumping up and going, "I'm this team's leader! I'm the team leader, remember? I'm the one who has the final say in these decisions!"

"No, Ruby, you don't!" Weiss cawed back with, "And you aren't! You have not made any decisions at all in regards to this team or anything else at all!"

"Because you keep taking away the option for me to do so! You keep forcing me out of the leadership position and making every decision for me or anyone else, without ever consulting any of us about what we think! I was the one who was made leader! I should be the one to-"

"Ozpin made a mistake!"

Ruby took a step back.

"That's all that you are, Ruby Rose! A mistake! You've been nothing but a blithering mistake every step of the way! The first time we met, you made a mistake! And then afterwards you made the mistake of preventing me from picking the right partner! And then you made the mistake of trying to pick a fight with the Brother of Light and needing me to rescue you! And then, in the end, thanks to some grand new level of a mistake on the part of Ozpin, all thanks to the colour of your eyes and nothing else, you were made team leader! You, over me! You, placed into a position that should belong to myself! Again and again, you have screwed up, and again and again and again, you have learnt nothing from it, leaving me to have to be the one to continuously compensate for your screwups! And all of this- Every single bit of this- Comes back down to you, Ruby Rose, and the walking disaster of a mistake that you continue to be!"

There was a long pause that overcame the room- A long moment of silence, as if time itself had been put on pause. Ruby was left glowering at the floor for a long time, whilst nearby, Leadpipe shivered next to his unused bed, and Blake just sat on hers, hiding her face behind her book, making it impossible to see what expression was on her face.

Then, after so long without even the sound of a fly buzzing around the room, there was a break in the silence.

A humourless laugh.

From Ruby.

"You... You want to know something, Weiss?"

The girl in question, now finished with her rant, looked at her in silence, prepared for any accusation or complaint that she might throw her way, and carefully reflect it with-

"Maybe you're right?"

Weiss blinked, "...What?"

"I said maybe you're right", Ruby said, her dull left eye peeking through the bangs that covered it as she looked at Weiss with a dull smile and a shrug, "I mean, that has to be why, hasn't it? It has to be the reason why so much of my life has been one big screwup, doesn't it? I mean, first my mum walked out of us and probably died, probably due to a mistake, then Patch fell and all of my friends died- Probably a mistake as well, probably on my part, if what you're saying is true! And then Iris... Did things, probably a mistake on my part for being a 14 year old girl, obviously! And then I was made leader of a team, with no choice of my own- Probably a mistake on my part all over again- And then it turns out, I'm suddenly the most important person on the planet and somehow the 'Chosen one' or something all because I have silver eyes, and not blue or olive or whatever! Yeah, yeah that has to be it..."

Leadpipe got up from where he was sitting, "Ruby..."

"...I never asked for any of this, you know."

Suddenly, she was right up in Weiss' face in a flash, and glaring down the white themed girl.

"I never asked to be made team leader, Weiss! I was never given a choice! And I never asked to be made an orphan! I never asked to be the most important person on the planet, just because of the shade of my eyes! And I never asked to be the one who would have to save the world, all to protect people like you!"

"R-Ruby...", Weiss began, almost fearfully.

"I never asked for my mother to walk out on me and die! I never asked for my dad to die! I never asked my home to fall! I never asked for Iris to do all of those things to me, or for the Initiation Massacre to happen, or to be your partner, or to be team leader, or to be manipulated by Carmine and Bertilak, or to fight Neopolitan, or to be hunted for the rest of my life, BECAUSE OF SOMETHING THAT I HAVE NO CONTROL OVER! BECAUSE OF THE COLOUR OF MY EYES!"

In a flash of rose petals, she was at the door, book from the desk now in hand.

"If you want the position so badly, just to sooth your own ego-"

She pulled the door open-

"-THEN YOU CAN HAVE IT!"

-And then slammed it shut behind her, leaving the rest of Team RSBL in utter silence.

Leadpipe collapsed onto the side of the bed that he didn't use with a shaking body, nervous and frightened, while Blake kept her cool behind her book, not moving a muscle and revealing her thoughts or intentions to anyone in the room.

All Weiss did, in the end, was fall back onto her bed, and sigh.

Did Ruby just give her the leadership position?

It seemed like it.

So why wasn't she happy about it?

---

All around the watchtower, The Valley of Giants, accompanied by the ruins of New Fortressa and the Sleeping City, were punctuated against the moonlight by their pitch black shapes and outlines, though it was impossible to see the finer, or even rougher, details in the moonlight.

Even so, the 2 Atlesian soldiers that stood guard in the watchtower could make out where buildings were slumping over like rotten fruit, and where canyons and valleys had been made in the architecture of all of these urban lands.

Behind them, the all clear signal- Telling Beacon and Vale that the ancient landmark was moderately free of Grimm- Hummed in transmission, feeding intel and fresh reports to Vale, and letting them know that everything was okay for the students to arrive the next day.

One of the soldiers tried to radio in with their report. There was no response on the other side.

Huh, weird.

The same soldier tried to contact another person. No response. Another person. Nothing.

Several more tries later, the 2 soldiers looked at each other in worry.

No one had answered.

The 2 of them turned to the all clear signal, and prepared to change the frequency- To tell their superiors to cancel the trip for the students tomorrow, and to send backup over to their position, when suddenly-

{THUNK}

-A loud noise broke their concentration, and they looked up. What was that noise? Was that a Grimm, or a-

The roof above them caved in, and a giant Techion coloured in red, white, blue, and yellow jumped to the ground next to them. With just a single onehanded swipe of his sword, he beheaded the 2 soldiers, and let their bodies and heads crumple to the floor in a shower of blood.

Sheathing his blade, the lumbering Techion looked to the all clear signal, and was thankful that it hadn't been tampered with. It was still sending the same signal, telling the world that everything was fine.

If he could smile, he would've.

He stepped to an almost broken balcony, and looked over the old, ruined city.

His city.

A few moments later, he walked over the computer transmitting the all clear signal, and looked over the student roster. He gazed over the pictures, and when he saw one picture in particular, he ran his cold metal finger down it, leaving a mark on the screen.

The object of his worship would be here, tomorrow.

Templar clamped his hands behind his back, and chuckled.

They had work to do.

---

Fun tidbit: Somebody called Sefeia has blocked me on this site.

Huh.

Here's what happened: There's this fic that they have, called Pancakes (Which, as of writing this, has been reuploaded for the 3rd time), Which is like one line and 30 words or so long. Of course, because of this, I assumed it to be a sort of joke fic, so of course, I left a joking review on it. You know, I talked about it as if it was a full feature length story on par with ImSoAwesome and Coeur Al'Aran and such, and how it had a lot of themes and characters and stuff. It was about 5 lines long, though, so I guess that I went a little too far with it, but I still thought that it was enjoyable, so I posted it, and figured that it would get a good chuckle out of the person, or something.

The next morning, I see a message on my account from Sefeia (Now, because of different time zones, he sent it to me in the middle of the night, and I didn't see it until the morning. So, I went to go and open it, but it wouldn't let me, because apparently they had blocked me, so I don't know what it was that they said. And now, not too long ago, I went to leave a review on their reupload to ask why they had reuploaded the same thing 3 times, and also what the message that they sent said, but I couldn't leave a review on their story because I was, again, blocked.

Again, huh.

I looked at their profile page, and it turns out that they had pretty strong negative feelings about somebody called SapphireAsashi, whom had been using proxy accounts themed after Irani Ookami to harass and bully people, according to their words, so they must've thought that I was one of this SapphireAsashi's proxy accounts, so I can understand that, but still...

Huh.

I'm not mad about it or anything. That'd be a silly thing to get mad about. But still, I don't think I've ever been blocked by someone on this site before. Or anyone at all, for that matter.

It's a strange experience.

Anyways, moving on, I did say that this arc was going to be about trauma, didn't I?

I hope that I did it justice.

And in the meantime, we've now been introduced to the main villain of this arc in particular: Templar, a Techion based off of James Robert's version of Star Saber, whom was a religious Knight Templar in the comic More Than Meets The Eye and Lost Light, hence the name that I gave him, being Templar.

Oh, playing on words is tight!

Anyways, what are our heroes going to do now? They're traumatised, broken, and even more fractured than ever before...

And they've got one hell of a field trip waiting for them the next day.

One thing's for sure: Things are going to change for some more than others.

(On a side note, if any of you guys want to draw any fanart for this fic, then feel free to do so. I would really like to see how the new outfits for all of these guys look like.)

And in the meantime, leave a review, favourite and follow, and I shall see you all next time!

Titanmaster117 out!