A snap reaches Weiss' ears and she slowly awakens from her sleeping place, a space on a dirty floor of an old shack with a blanket over her body. When she sits up, having removed her blanket and her rabbit still hugging up against her, the girl's vision is quickly darkened as a large sack is thrown over her. Weiss fights to the best of her ability, but whoever has trapped the eight-year-old girl is far stronger than she is. She can make out four voices from her prison. Three males and a female, an adult, two teens, and a child. After a while, the man carrying the bag stops, tossing Weiss onto the ground. She can make out the sounds of laughter after she hits the hard surface and cries in pain.
"See kids?" the man questions. "This is how we treat them. It's just another whimpering puppy! They're animals! All of them! Nothing more and some even less!"
Soon after, Weiss feels an object crash against her body and screams at the burning feeling it leaves behind.
"That's the spirit, Tori! James, Clark, you boys pick up sticks as well and give this bad dog the punishment it deserves!"
The stick hits Weiss again before two more make themselves at home as they crash against her. All the while, taunts and insults are flung at the trapped wolf-girl. After a while, the beatings stop and the youngest of the group speaks up.
"What now, dad?"
"Now son, we drown it." the man replies.
As Weiss continues to shiver and cry as she tightly clutches to her stuffed rabbit, the young girl feels herself being lifted into the air. After a few seconds, she finds that she's being swung back and forth as the man counts down from three. Upon reaching one, the white-haired girl flies through the air and crashes into a body of water. The liquid quickly fills up the sack and Weiss finds herself struggling for air. In her panic, she spots the cut in the bag that allowed the water inside, having been torn by one of the sticks. With as much effort as she can muster, she tears the hole open wide enough for her to break out. After swimming to the surface, the eight-year-old gasps for air, breathing harder than she has ever done before. Weiss climbs on some stone underneath a bridge and curls into a ball, crying silently as she clings to her sopping wet stuffed rabbit.
Present Day...
Ruby walks out of the dorm bathroom in her pajamas, drying her hair with a towel. Yang is sitting on her bed, playing a video game, while Blake lays on her own, reading a book, having already taken her shower.
"Is Weiss still not here?" Ruby questions.
"Nope." her sister answers, hopping off her bed, holding a fresh change of clothes. "What do you think she does every night?"
"I don't think that's really any of our business." Blake states.
"It was just a question."
As Yang is just about to enter the bathroom for her shower, she looks back at Ruby. Her younger sister is just sitting on Weiss' bed, looking somewhat upset.
"What's wrong, Rubes?" Yang asks.
"It's nothing." the team leader replies.
Yang puts her trip to the shower on pause and walks over to the girl before sitting next to her. The two sisters sit in silence until Ruby finally speaks up.
"It's just... we've been a team for three days, I've been her partner for four. Weiss doesn't talk to any of us, won't even look our directions, sit with us at lunch, or even come into the room until after we've all gone to bed! I'm pretty sure that she doesn't even sleep in hers!" Ruby claims, moving her hand to gesture to said object, which doesn't look like it's even been touched until the sisters sat on it.
"Now that you mention it, each day she seems worse than the one before. I saw her starting to close her eyes in class, but she jerked herself up and knocked on her head." Yang announces.
"I watched her walk straight into the wall this morning!"
"I think someone needs to talk to her."
"Just let her be." Blake states, having never looked up from her book.
"Are you not even going to act slightly concerned?" Yang questions.
"Weiss knows her limits. It's not our place to try and tell her what to do, nor to talk about her behind her back."
"There's a difference between gossip and talking out of concern."
Blake remains quiet and the conversation dies out after about a minute more. The trio goes to bed at 10:00 due to breakfast being served at 7:30 and Port's class beginning at 8:00. At some point in the night, Blake picks up the sound of a *thump*. The cat-girl sleepily opens one of her eyes and spots Weiss entering the room, having bumped into something. However, she also hears a voice, Professor Goodwitch.
"You need to be more careful." the assistant headmistress states quietly. "You don't want to wake up your team." Then the blonde sighs. "Get some sleep, you obviously need it. Here's your uniform, the tailor just finished it this morning. And I'm letting you off with a warning this time. However, if I catch you out after hours again, I will not be so lenient. Now go to bed."
Blake then hears the door close and spots Weiss lazily toss the uniform onto her bed, remove her weapon from her side, and sit against the wall. The wolf-girl takes a stuffed rabbit from her only bag, putting it in her lap. The girl plugs the scroll into the wall and turns it on. Blake rolls her eyes at herself for eavesdropping. Weiss knows what she's doing. Hours later, at six-thirty A.M., Ruby, Blake, and Yang are awoken by the alarm, much to each of their disappointment. Well, at least it's Friday. Tomorrow, they can all sleep in. Blake sits up and stretches, her eyes happening upon Weiss. The girl is sitting in the same place she had sat down in, looking completely exhausted. The rabbit had been put up, her scroll placed on the floor, and Weiss now has a book in her hands with her eyes squinted; as if she's trying to understand it.
"Auuugh... why does morning have to come so early?" Ruby complains.
"What happed to your enthusiasm about being at Beacon?" Yang asks sleepily.
"I can be excited about being here, but that doesn't mean I have to like waking up so early."
"Fair enough."
After a few moments, as Ruby, Yang, and Blake are getting into their uniforms, the team leader notices something.
"Where's Weiss?" she asks no one in particular.
As if on cue, the wolf faunus walks out of the bathroom, yawning. Weiss is wearing the school's uniform with a pair of black leggings. However, the jacket and vest are unbuttoned, the ribbon untied and hanging loosely around her neck, half of her shirt collar sticking up, and not every button on the shirt is done with a few others having been attached in the wrong places. Weiss fidgets nervously. She hasn't worn nice clothes since her father made her to in order to look presentable. She also has to leave Myrtenaster behind, something she never goes anywhere without. But Glynda had gotten so annoyed with repeatedly saying that the faunus can't carry it around the school that she yelled last night, making Weiss cry a little.
"So, is Professor Ozpin making you wear a uniform now?" Yang questions.
Weiss looks to the floor on her left. "W-wasn' done yet." she replies quietly, only getting more nervous as her teammates look at her.
"Well, you should finish getting it together, otherwise Goodwitch will have a fit."
"I-Ice Wolf... no can..."
"Why haven't you been sleeping? It's obviously hurting you. I mean look, you're so tired that you can even get dressed properly!" Ruby announces.
"N... none y-yer business." Weiss states before starting to walk away with her hand against her head.
"Can you finish on your own, or do you need help?" Yang questions, annoyed at the wolf-girl for continuing to be rude to her sister.
"Ju-just tell how to tie bow."
When Weiss is dressed correctly, RBY having to help her finish by telling her what she was doing wrong, the four girls go to the cafeteria where Weiss once again sits alone. Yang looks to her sister as she sulks and the brawler narrows her eyes at Weiss. Yang stands up, grabs her tray, and walks over to the girl, much to Ruby, Blake, and JNPR's surprise. Yang sits across from the faunus and Weiss moves her eyes towards the blonde before looking back to her food.
"You don't look too good ya'know." Yang states.
"Never has." responds Weiss, tiredly.
"You want to tell me what's wrong?"
Silence comes across the table for several seconds.
"Alright, fine. Can you tell me why you avoid us then?"
Weiss just looks to her again, seeing a blonde child with her fist reared back. Ever since she made the discovery that Ruby and Yang were the same children as all those years ago, it only made her more uncomfortable around them.
"Hey, if this is about me poking fun at you on the first day of classes, I'm sorry. I never meant to hurt your feelings."
"I'm sorry I ever had you as a daughter!" bellows Jacques.
"You sorry excuse of a lifeform!" Jacques shouts before slapping Weiss.
Weiss just looks at her, hurt. "What?"
"I'm sorry, Weiss."
After Yang repeats her apology, Weiss sadly looks back towards her food. She didn't trust her team anyway, but now that Yang's saying sorry, it just proves that they don't like her.
"Weiss?" Yang asks, confused.
The faunus' eyes look back up to the blonde.
"You look like no one's ever apologized to you before."
After a few short moments of silence, the white-haired girl speaks again. "Ozpin say he apologize for ceremony day... same thing?"
"Yeah?"
"Oh..."
The two sit in silence again for a minute, then Yang notices the wolf-girl shaking a little. "Hey, are you okay?"
All Yang does is put down her spoon, but that's enough for Weiss to jump up and walk off. As Weiss moves down the halls of Beacon, she attempts to wipe the tears welling up in her eyes away. Ozpin acted like he was nice, that he might actually care about her... but he lied. He hid the fact that he was sorry for her existence behind a fake smile and some words that she doesn't understand. The one time someone didn't think she's trash, wound up to be a lie. As Weiss cries silent tears, her vision starts to become blurred. This is her sixth day since she's slept, the longest she's ever gone. At this point, she can hardly eat without vomiting. She can't keep going on like this, but the schedules are so close together that it's impossible to find a time to nap. The after hours rule is so strict that it's idiotic. Maybe tomorrow she can finally rest. She's tried on several occasions to do it at lunch, but there's always groups of people wandering around outside being as loud as Nevermores. Weiss shakes her head to clear her vision. However, after she does so, she runs into something big, causing her to fall on her butt and hears chuckling.
"Look what we have here, boys, a smelly mutt." speaks a male voice and taunting laughs follow.
The wolf faunus looks up to see a boy who's made a little bit of a reputation for himself in this first week, Cardin Winchester. A muscular boy who's the leader of his team, wields a heavy weapon, and has made himself known as a faunus hater.
"What's a pathetic creature like you doing here?" Cardin questions in a harsh tone. "Awww, are you crying? What? Master didn't like the squirrel you brought him?"
As Weiss has her focus on the brute, a sharp pain erupts in her tail, causing her to yip. She looks behind her to see another member of CRDL, Sky Lark, stepping on her tail with a smirk on his face.
"Oops." the boy says sarcastically as he removes his foot.
Weiss whimpers as a strong hand grasps the hair on her head and pulls her off the floor and onto her knees. She looks up into the eyes of Cardin, who has a wicked smirk plastered across his face. The boy places his other hand on her hair as well, tightening the grip before throwing her against the other wall, removing some of her hair in the process. After Weiss hits the ground on her side, she curls up into a ball and grips her head in a great amount of pain as she cries again.
CRDL walks into the cafeteria, still laughing. RBY and JNPR were already skeptical when they heard a faint commotion from the halls, but their eyes widen when the team of bullies walks into the room, chuckling to themselves. Cardin starts pulling something from his hands and saying that he needs to wash them after "handling that mutt." Ruby is the first to rise from her seat and runs to the hall, followed by the others. However, when they get there, they find it empty. As everyone else looks around worriedly, Ren stops where Cardin picked at his hands. Kneeling down and running his hand on the floor, the black-haired boy finds several strands of white hair. Ren looks back towards CRDL, his eyes narrowed.
With a hand on her head, Weiss lightly sniffles as she walks outside, a cut on her forehead sends a small amount of blood dangerously close to slipping into her eye. The tormented girl continues to walk until she finally collapses on the side of a building near the airship docks. Her vision is blurry and her eyes heavy as her head roars from both internal and external pain. She hates it here! Everyone is an asshole and Ozpin is the worst of them all! After a few minutes of sobbing, she clenches her fists. She's getting out of here. Tonight.
A bit later, Ruby sits in the auditorium, waiting for combat class to begin. As she waits, the red reaper can't help but sigh while she looks at the head of white hair sitting to her left past Blake. After she had left the cafeteria, no one had seen her until now where she showed up late with red eyes, having completely missed the first two classes for the day. Both her team and JNPR tried asking if she was okay, but Weiss wouldn't respond to any of them, even when Yang started getting fed up. Ruby's just really worried about her partner. The team leader's attention is brought to the center of the arena when Professor Goodwitch speaks up.
"Good morning, students. Let's see who's up first for today."
Ruby doesn't pay much attention as the fights go on, not even when Yang punches some poor guy across the room. Then, Weiss' face appears on the screen... along with Nora's. Now Beacon's youngest student isn't just worried. She's scared.
"Weiss and Ms. Valkarie, please come down to the combat zone." Goodwitch announces.
The redhead pops up with a huge grin on her face then looks back to Ren when he tugs on her jacket.
"Don't go all out." he says as the wolf-girl walks down the stairs.
"I know, don't worry your pretty little head, Renny Boy." Nora replies with a grin.
Then both RBY and JNPR watch as Weiss stumbles on one of the last few stairs before catching herself.
"It's not you we're worried about." Ruby states.
Nora makes her way onto the arena floor and stands across from Weiss, her hammer in her hands.
"Hey," says the redhead. "you sure you're up for this?"
The white-haired girl gives no reply aside from a slight nod when Goodwitch asks if they are ready. When the timer starts, Weiss immediately charges Nora. The latter jumps back from a jab aimed at her gut and sidesteps another one taken at her collarbone. Needing to put some distance between herself and the faunus, Nora transforms Magnhild into its grenade launcher form and swings it against Weiss' rapier knocking it out of the way and giving her room to shoot at the ground in between them, sending the redhead skidding back while the white-haired girl is sent flying, landing with a thud on her back. The whole auditorium aside from Weiss looks at the aura bars with shock. After just one attack, Weiss is barely hanging on in the yellow.
Yang rises from her seat. "Professor Goodwitch, stop the fight!"
Just as the blonde is about to comply, Weiss slowly pushes herself up, and with an angered look in her eyes, summons gravity glyphs both underneath and above Nora, who's aura slowly begins to deplete as weight continuously presses into her. Just as Weiss thinks she's won, her eyes expand as Nora begins to walk out from under the pressure zone with strained steps. The faunus summons another glyph in front of Nora's face, then looks on in horror as the redhead rams her head into it, pushing her face through.
"W-what?" Blake questions in shock.
"How?" asks Jaune.
"It was a solid plan." Ren announces with his arms crossed, causing RBY, Jaune, and Pyrrha to turn towards him. "Most wouldn't be able to stand that kind of pressure... however, that won't work against Nora."
Almost immediately after he finishes his statement, his partner has completely cleared the glyphs, looking at Weiss with a smirk on her face. Nora spins her hammer in her hands and runs towards the faunus. In desperation, the wolf-girl rotates the chamber in her weapon and slashes diagonally, sending lightning at the redhead, knocking her on her back. However, the hammer weilder simply stands back up after a couple seconds, lightning sparking around her body and her aura having moved from 1/4 of the way in the yellow back to low green. This time, Ren stands up, worry evident on his face, but before he can say anything, Nora releases a yell and smashes her hammer into the ground. A small crater forms from the impact and lighting rushes towards Weiss. She's too tired to react quickly enough, even summoning those glyphs had put a strain on her body. Time seems to slow down as she watches the inevitable racing towards her. Electricity rains down on her head and the faunus screams as her aura drops rapidly. No one can even see it shatter with all the lighting surrounding her. The pain only subsides when Goodwitch intervenes, creating a shield around Weiss until the lightning stops raining down. When the professor drops the shield, Weiss stands still for a few moments... before falling face first into the floor.
*Craack!* sounds a whip as it collides with Weiss' skin. She looks behind her and up to her father as tears run down her cheeks. The man's face is halfway covered by a shadow and what's visible is a disgusted scowl for a mouth and eyes so scrunched they look as though they could pop at any moment.
*Craack!*
"You think you can steal from me?!" bellows a largely round, bald man as his arm twists the skin on Weiss' arm. "I'll kill you, you little brat!"
*Craack!*
"Look at her." a woman says as Weiss walks down a street on a rainy night while clutching her bleeding arm as more blood washes down her face with the mud on her clothes.
"So disgusting." her friend remarks.
*Craack!*
Weiss walks along a sidewalk, a teenage couple passes her by. The boy smiles wickedly and quickly pushes the white-haired child in front of an incoming car.
*Craack!*
Each of the next images becomes a fast-paced jumbled mess as Weiss goes from cutting her wrist over a bathroom sink with a knife to the girl being shoved face-first into a puddle of mud. A metal pipe cracks against the child's knee. A boot digs into her stomach. She screams as a man puts a cigarette out on her skin. The white-haired girl tears into her own arm with a piece of glass, her hand bleeding from gripping the object tightly as well. Weiss crouches down with her arms covering her head to the best of her ability as she cries, a group of kids throwing rocks at her all the while.
"I HATE YOU!"
A beeping sound fills Weiss' ears and she opens her eyes groggily, the light blinding. Weiss blinks a few times to get them to adjust and when she can finally see clearly, she finds herself in a white room, lying in a bed. How did she get here? When the faunus sits up, she feels something pull with her arm. Upon looking to her right, she finds some kind of wire in her arm connected to a bag of fluids. Her ice-blue eyes expand and she quickly rips the needle out, wincing at the pain. She does this with all the remaining wires and straps on her body and rolls off of the bed and onto the floor. She picks herself up and pauses as she's about to dust off her knees. Her clothes have been replaced with a hospital gown, leaving all of the scars on her arms and back exposed. The faunus blushes in embarrassment and anger as she frantically looks for her clothes. When she doesn't find them, she turns to the window.
Weiss rushes over and pulls up the blinds, revealing that she's still at Beacon. However, it's dark outside. That means that she missed the rest of the day's classes. Goodwitch is going to be angry, but it's not like it matters anyway. Weiss isn't going to stick around. She fell for Ozpin's game, but she won't continue to play it. He lied to her, so he can't be trusted. Weiss opens the window and slips outside. The wolf faunus then closes the blinds and shuts the window as to cover her tracks.
'Go to room. Grab bag. Figure out from there.' she tells herself as she walks to the dorms.
Finding the time to be 11:30, the faunus gathers that everyone should be asleep by now. That will make things a whole lot easier. However, when she opens the door, she finds that Ruby and Yang aren't around and Blake is still up. As per usual, the girl is reading, but that changes when Weiss walks in. Amber eyes look into her blue ones in surprise.
"Weiss?" Blake asks. "What are you doing here?"
Blake was content with just letting her teammate be, but after what happened in combat class, she realizes that maybe she should have been paying more attention to the girl. And that feeling only grew when she stared at the wolf's unconscious form, IV's inserted into her arm and a heart monitor connected to her chest. Then... there were the scars.
"You should be resting." continues Blake.
Ignoring what she said, Weiss asks "Why still up?"
"It's Friday, there's no classes tomorrow, but you still haven't answered my question. Why aren't you in the medical wing?"
"No want to be. Where others?"
"They went to try and visit you again, I told them the nurse would say that the have to wait until tomorrow, but they'll hear it for themselves soon."
Weiss closes the door behind her and walks over to Ruby's dresser, silently swearing at herself for not buying more than the one pair of clothes. She grabs a t-shirt and shorts and is about to go to the restroom to change when she sees Blake standing in the middle of the room, looking nervous.
"W-Weiss... where... how did you get those scars?" the ravenette asks.
The wolf-girl doesn't reply, instead going to the restroom, changing, and slinging her only bag over her shoulder when she walks out, also picking up Myrtenaster from the corner of the room. As she turns to walk out the door, she finds Blake still in the same place she left her. She's about to tell her to move out of the way when their other two teammates swing the door open.
"Weiss is gone!" Ruby exclaims. "Nobody knows where she is and I'm really worr..." her words die out when she sees her partner looking at them in annoyance with her rapier on her hip and her bag over her shoulder. "Weiss?! Are you okay?! We were so worried and...!"
Before she can finish, Yang takes a step forward and cuts her off. "Are you going somewhere?"
The white-haired girl just looks at her blankly.
"Weiss..." Blake speaks up, causing her blue eyes to turn to her. "Who is it that hurt you?"
After a bit more silence, Yang speaks again. "Weiss, did Ozpin...?"
"No." Weiss finally responds. "Not in that way. Now can you move?"
"Weiss... please." Ruby asks. "Please tell us what's wrong."
"Why you care? Why any of you care?"
"We're your team, of course we care about you." Yang tells her.
"You taunt Ice Wolf! Blake never pay any attention to anyone and act like nothin' is her problem! Ruby blew Ice Wolf up, no will leave her alone, and is the whole reason Ice Wolf is stuck in this stupid school with a man who destroyed her trust! Ice Wolf was stupid to believe that anyone would actually give a shit about her! So no bother wasting your time playing pretend 'cause it no work anymore!"
Then, as Weiss is about to storm past the girls, the door opens again, this time revealing Ozpin.
"May I come in?" he asks calmly.
"O-of course." Ruby tells him, causing the old man to chuckle lightly.
"While I appreciate that, Ms. Rose, I was actually speaking to Weiss."
All eyes turn to the faunus, who has a pissed off look adorning her face.
"Make quick." she says.
"Thank you." replies the Headmaster, closing the door behind him. After looking over the girls for a few moments, he speaks up again. "Now, I'm sure you three have some questions..."