Hello again! Today I come bearing dragons, shadow puppets, and our favorite scheming (and bickering) crime siblings.

12. Sparks and Tinder

"Okay... a little to the left. Little more..."

Fang stuck his head too far forward, and Yang winced and pulled her hands away from the fire in his mouth. Then, much more carefully, she stuck them out, twining her fingers together...

"See? Butterfly!" She flapped her hands, and the shadow on the ground fluttered. "Fox..." A twist, and the shadow had an eye and pointed ear. "Uh... Llama?" She stuck more of her arm in front of his mouth, and the shadow grew a long neck and bigger ears.

Awed, Fang tried to lean closer. Yang hissed and pulled away, and he closed his mouth with a snap. The fire he'd built up in his throat went out and he gave his rider's fingers an apologetic lick.

"Cool, right?"

"Gud," he agreed. He wanted to do it again, but he still wasn't very good at keeping the fire going.

It was evening, just dark enough for Yang to make the pretty shadows but not so dark that they couldn't see where they were going. His rider had come from dinner, and had told him that two of the dragons and riders from the Vytal Festival would be staying at Beacon from now on. Ozpin had announced it during the meal. Fang didn't see why it mattered—some of the dragons he'd met during the festival had been impressive, but he barely even remembered these two.

Still. Yang seemed to like them, so he supposed he'd give them a chance.

A rumble started deep in his chest as he built up another flame. He didn't know what most of the creatures Yang showed him were—he was pretty sure she'd made up the star-nosed mole and probably a lot of the others—but the shadows were fun to look at. But the moment he started to feel his throat heating up, there was a rustling from nearby. Two figures emerged from the bushes.

"Weiss?" Yang called out, and both she and Specter froze. "What are you—"

"I'm not here," she whispered, and ran past them. Specter sprinted after her, crouching as if he was trying to keep a low profile. His pale scales stood out starkly against the darkening field.

"Okay?" Yang glanced at Fang. He mimicked something he'd seen the riders doing, and jerked both his shoulders. She muffled a laugh in one hand.

A moment later another dragon and rider walked around the same clump of bushes. Fang recognized the muddy-looking water dragon Rudder, and sighed. He'd forgotten he was warming up his powers, and accidentally blew out a ring of smoke. Yang stared at it for a moment, then cracked up.

"I don't know how to tell you this," Mercury said wryly, "but I think your dragon's been smoking."

Fang snorted angrily, whacking Yang's leg with his tail. It took a while for her to stop laughing. Eventually she sobered up enough to ask, "What are you doing out here, anyway?"

He shrugged. "Wanted to take a walk with Rudder. Thought I saw someone I knew, but I guess not."

The two humans started talking about the Vytal Festival. Bored, Fang turned to Rudder and greeted him with a wary sniff. The water dragon sniffed back, staring at him with milky white eyes.

"Hello," Fang said.

Rudder blinked at him.

"Do you... like Beacon so far?"

"Yes."

...

"Are you staying in the water stables with Specter?"

"Yes."

...

Fang's tail twitched in agitation. "Are they... nice?"

Rudder nodded.

There was a long silence until, frustrated, Fang asked, "You were at Haven, right?"

At that, the water dragon curled his tail around himself and said, "Yes. Stayed with Jade. Others left."

"Why not go?"

Rudder glanced around, as if checking for other listeners. Then, "Thought message should spread."

At that, Fang sat up straight and stared. He'd been thinking these dragons and their riders had run away from Haven—he'd never thought they planned this. "What message?" he asked, suddenly much more interested. If he'd known the newcomers would be like this...

"Simple." Rudder's tail thumped against the ground. "Grimm. Council. Not so different. Both kill us."

Fang growled. "Yeah, we know that. They killed Tornado. But it's not the same, we can't just fight them like they were Grimm."

"Why?"

He did a double take. "Well, then they'd find out about—" he stopped himself. "They'd find out we wanted to hurt them and they'd cull us." His tail lashed back and forth. "They'd lock us all up and make our riders go away."

"Scared."

"I'm not scared," Fang snarled. "There's no point fighting them when they're stronger than all of us combined."

"Not strong." Beside them, the conversation between Yang and Mercury started to peter out. Rudder stared at Fang, into him, with those blank eyes. "No dragons. Just humans."

Fang tensed. "They have riders, and they run everything. They could hurt our riders, not just us."

"Yes," Rudder agreed. "Scared. Everyone scared... or no power."

"I'm not—" But Mercury was already walking away, and Rudder followed him without another word. Fang hissed, frustrated, but stopped when Yang shot him a concerned look.

"You really don't like him, do you?"

Fang grumbled and said, "Rudd... Kay."

"He's... okay?"

He nodded. Yang shot him a skeptical look, then shrugged and turned around. "Okay," she said quietly, "Coast is clear."

Behind them, there was a squat topiary in the shape of a dragon. Specter's tail was poking out from behind one of its paws, and the moment Yang spoke he collapsed onto his stomach. He must have been standing on his tiptoes, trying to match the shape of the bush.

Fang started laughing. Specter hissed and flared his wings, then slunk out from behind the bush and sat on his haunches, his tail flicking with irritation. Weiss followed, looking everywhere but at Yang, who stood with her arms folded and an amused smirk on her face.

"So. What was that about?"

Weiss turned slightly pink. "Nothing! I just... didn't feel like talking to him."

"Because...?"

"I may have flirted with him a few times at the Vytal Festival."

Yang snorted, then clapped a hand over her mouth to smother it. "S-sorry, sorry! It's just... okay, look... do you like him?"

"Well... he's funny. And looks... nice?"

Yang raised an eyebrow. Weiss' shoulders slumped in defeat. "I thought I'd never see him again and now he lives here. Happy?"

"Ouch. Okay, that's pretty awkward, but..."

"You think?"

Yang rolled her eyes. "Look, just say something if you aren't interested. He doesn't seem like the type to refuse to take a hint. And if it turns out he is, I can just feed him to Fang."

Fang barked agreement and showed off his teeth. Joking aside, though, he really wouldn't want to eat Mercury. He smelled too much like metal.

The next morning dawned sunny and warm, and Storm spent it wrestling playfully with Jade while their riders walked together.

She had a hard time remembering now what the trees had looked like with all their leaves on, before they had changed color and fallen away, and eyed their brightly colored buds excitedly. Jade talked about Mistral, where there had been a whole street lined with cherry trees. They were supposed to be beautiful when they bloomed in spring, but she hadn't gotten the chance to see them before Haven closed.

When she wasn't watching the trees or pouncing on Jade's tail, Storm watched her rider. Ruby was acting strange. There was a lot of flailing and stammering, which Storm sometimes had to cut off by gently nudging Ruby with her snout. It happened even more often when she made Emerald laugh.

"Don't worry about it too much," Jade said, when Storm asked her. "They're getting along, right?"

They met up with the rest of their team in the afternoon, while Jade and Emerald had to go with Nautilus and Professor Goodwitch to talk about what they'd been learning at Haven. Storm greeted them enthusiastically, still buzzing with the energy of the season—and maybe Ruby's excitement had rubbed off on her a little. Specter whistled back, bouncing on his toes and then catching her tail in his paws.

Fang just snorted grumpily. Storm crouched low, wiggled back and forth, and pounced. He twitched his tail out of the way, then whacked her head with it. "Hey!"

Pit pinned Fang down with one paw. "What's with you today?"

"Let me up!"

"Fine." He stepped back, but kept staring at Fang. "Now spill."

"I've just been thinking, that's all." Fang kneaded the ground with his claws. "People keep telling us not to worry. They say we can help with the council when we're older. But they're older and they obviously can't protect us. And why's the council in charge anyway? They're just a bunch of squishy humans, none of them are strong."

"They're not strong," Pit said. "But they have people who work for them that are strong."

"So?" Fang blew out a puff of smoke. "The only reason there are people working for them is that people like Ozpin are too scared to tell them no."

Storm whined in distress. "Ozpin is trying to protect us."

"Yeah, and he's doing such a great job."

"He protected Pit," Specter said, curling his tail around his legs and hunching his shoulders. "And Twiggy, and Guang and—"

"He's trying," Pit agreed, "but he can't always do it. He didn't protect Blake."

"Forget about Ozpin!" Fang roared, exasperated. "My point is that he keeps saying how we can't fight the council, they're too big and we're not old enough. But he's old, and Ragnar's old, and all the teachers and their dragons have been grown up for years and they haven't done anything! Are we supposed to wait until they find out about everyone and start killing us?"

"We won't wait," Pit said firmly. "If that happens, our riders will protect us."

"So why are we waiting now?" Fang's tail lashed behind him. "Would anyone really miss these jerks if we stopped them?"

"What do you mean stopped," Storm asked nervously.

"Stopped. Like we're supposed to do with monsters."

"They're not Grimm," Specter hissed, indignant. "Fang—"

"Well yeah, they look different." Fang arched his neck and made a show out of examining his claws. "I'm just saying... they don't act that different from where I'm sitting."

"We can't just kill people, Fang!" Storm insisted, flaring her wings. "They're different."

"I wasn't saying that!" Fang hunched his shoulders. "I just want them to stop. And nobody seems to care if they kill us."

"That's not true. A lot of people care!"

"Yeah." He hissed, smoke curling between his teeth. "And how many of them are actually changing things?"

No one had an answer to that.

Ao Guang barked and ran an excited circle around Ren and Nora, yelping when he tripped over Freya and sprawled face-first in the dirt. Nora giggled and jumped on him while he was down, wrestling playfully, while Ren stood nearby with a hand over his face that didn't quite hide his smile.

He squirmed, managed to find his feet with Nora still hanging off his neck, and prodded Freya again to see if he could get her to get up and play. She blinked at him, then licked his snout and put her head down.

That was okay. He chased Nora in circles while Ren lay down with Freya, occasionally pouncing on his partner and his sister long enough to sniff them and get Ren to scratch under his chin. Even better, soon Storm and the rest of the RWBY dragons walked by. He barked at her, hopping from one foot to another, until she lunged and pinned his tail under her paws.

"We're going to grab lunch," Yang called out. "You guys want to come?"

"Sure!" Jaune hopped to his feet, giving Twiggy a last scratch behind her ears. "What about SSSN?"

"Already there." Blake held up her scroll. "I just got a text from Sun."

It was a little disappointing when Ren and Nora left, but Guang cheered up when he realized that now he could play with Storm instead. They had to be careful with the humans and faunus—they were so small now that it would be easy to hurt them by mistake.

Before long, though, he noticed Storm was distracted. Her head-fins kept drooping, and when she wasn't pulling her tail out of his reach it flopped dejectedly in the dirt. Guang paused, cocking his head to one side. "What's wrong?"

Several feet away, Fang snorted.

"Well..." Storm glanced at Pit and Specter.

"We've been talking about everything that's going on," explained Pit. "The council, mostly."

"And whether or not we should ignore the adults and just fight them already," Fang added.

Twiggy curled her tail around her feet. "I don't know," she said. "Don't they have a lot of dragons? Ones that are way older and bigger than us?"

Pit nodded. "That's what I said, but at the same time... the only reason they have power is that everyone is scared of them, right?"

"Of course," Specter agreed. "No rider would work for those murderers if they could help it."

"So if everyone stopped doing what the council told them, they wouldn't be able to hurt anyone anymore."

Freya cracked an eye open. "Wait. If that's true, then why did all those riders start following them in the first place?"

"Who cares?" Fang asked, thumping his tail against the ground. "The way I see it, they're like the Grimm. They want to kill us, so we need to fight them."

"Fang," Specter groaned.

"Don't look at me like that! They're Grimm we're not supposed to kill, happy?"

"They're not Grimm, it's different!"

"How?!"

"Grimm just attack us," Twiggy said. "But the council can make the professors let them do whatever they want."

"That sounds like a problem with our professors."

"They're trying!" Storm said, indignant. "Ozpin's protecting almost all of us from the council right now!"

"Yeah, but he's still afraid of them! Everyone's afraid of them, so they have power, so they can cull dragons like Tornado. If we all just turned around and attacked them at the same time, they couldn't do anything!"

"I'd rather take a risk and fight them than hope they don't find out about any of us," Titan said. "And if they did find out..." He growled. "They're not like Grimm because they won't hurt us if they think we're healthy and working for them. The second they don't think that... they'd be pretty much the same, except harder to fight."

"It's still different!" Storm insisted.

"You keep saying that," said Fang, "but—"

"They're people! I can't believe you want to attack people!"

"I don't want to!" he roared. "I want to learn to fly and fight monsters, but look around! At least half of us would get culled if the council knew about us!"

Guang whined and put a paw over his useless gills. Storm glanced at him, then sighed, her headfins going flat against her neck. "Let's stop talking about this," she suggested. "We're going to have flying lessons in a few minutes."

Talk finally turned to their new lessons, though Guang didn't really feel like participating. He sat, feeling dejected, until Storm bounded over and pinned his tail under one paw. He looked up at her and let out a low purr of thanks.

He was glad that conversation was finally over.

"Huo!"

Zircon whined quietly at the volume of Nymph's roar. Nimbus padded over and nuzzled at his side, wishing they were back at their flying lessons. They'd ended a few minutes ago, and he'd only mentioned the conversation he'd had with Freya and Storm once, but...

"Come on, Fang's totally right! They're murderers, why do they get away with it just because they walk on two legs and speak the same stupid language as our partners?"

"Huo, we can't just kill people."

Another whimper from Zircon. Nimbus couldn't see him very well at the moment, everything had gone blurry and confused, but he managed to drape a wing over his back.

"Well yeah, but it's like what happened with Pit, right?" Zircon shivered under Nimbus' wing. "We're protecting each other and our riders, just because they don't get their hands dirty doesn't mean it's different."

"It is different, because we're still in our right minds. We can choose to do the right thing."

"The right thing is letting them do whatever they—"

Nymph hissed. "No! But it's not going around setting them on fire, either."

"Better than sitting around," Huo grumbled.

"If you attack them, they'll hurt you! And then they'll look into everyone else at Beacon, especially our sibling group!"

Nimbus blinked a few times, wincing when his misbehaving eye drifted even farther out of line.

"So we just do nothing?!"

"Of course not!" Nymph huffed, her tail twitching in agitation. "I'm saying that diving into a head-on fight isn't a good idea. We need to trust our riders, they understand more about how this stuff works than we do."

"Yeah, because only people have systems this dumb and complicated."

Nymph arched her neck primly. "Exactly."

Huo sighed and dropped onto his hindquarters. "So we should trust our riders to figure it out."

"Yes."

He snorted. There was no smoke—he was still angry that Fang had started using his powers first, so Nimbus figured he'd manage to make something catch fire before very long. "I'd feel better about that if we could ask them what their plan is."

"Well," Nymph said smugly, "to do that you'd need to speak so that they understand."

Huo growled. "You set me up for that, didn't you?"

"It's a useful skill. It was bound to come up eventually."

"Fine. I'll try to make their stupid noises," Huo said. Then, out loud, "Fuck."

Sun, who had been in the middle of a conversation with his teammates, jumped and turned around. "Okay," he said, narrowing his eyes at Huo. "Now you're just messing with me."

Emerald crossed the length of their dorm room and spun on her heel. Back and forth. Back and forth. Back and—

"Will you stop that?" Mercury drawled. "You're making me dizzy." She'd been strung tighter than a violin since they'd gotten to Beacon. He still hadn't decided if it was more funny or annoying.

"Are you sure it'll spread?"

He rolled his eyes. "Doing it like this was your idea in the first place. And yeah, I'm pretty sure. Look." Mercury gestured at the window. Outside, team RWBY's dragons could be seen huddled up together, all of them tensed, their tails twitching.

Emerald pinched the bridge of her nose. "Right. It worked."

"Yeah..." He squinted at her. She looked even less relaxed than a minute ago, which he hadn't thought was possible. "Chill. This'll be way easier than last time."

"I know that."

"Do you? You look like you just realized you're colorblind halfway through defusing a bomb."

Emerald glared at him. "Last time didn't exactly go off without a hitch."

"It worked out." Mercury shrugged and leaned back against the wall. "Hell, the only thing we missed out on was Rivers, and he's doesn't even have a dragon. He's useless."

"Well, yeah..."

"Plus, the plan went off the rails at Haven because we needed to turn one specific person. This time, it's all about volume. And there's even more dragons here with defects than at Haven. We could probably hit fifty-fifty without even trying."

"That doesn't mean there aren't people who are important," Emerald snapped. Then she winced. "Like... like the teachers."

Mercury raised an eyebrow. "Uh-huh."

"Shut up."

"No... I think I get it now." He smirked as Emerald turned to face the window and muttered darkly under her breath. "You actually like her, don't you?"

"Fuck you, Mercury."

"Aw, that's so sweet..."

She shot him a murderous look. He rolled his eyes and put both hands up. "Look, whatever. Maybe they've grown on me a bit too, but it doesn't matter. We're not hurting them. We're not even lying."

Emerald sat down heavily on her bed. "I guess not."

"We're not. We're probably the first people they've ever heard tell this shit like it is, so stop looking so damn guilty, alright?" Mercury glanced out the window again, but the dragons had vanished.

"We're not lying," he repeated. "It's just time for them to grow up."