When Ruby barged into the foyer, all that she could see was a scene of utter devastation. Exhibits had been broken and lay inert, useless in flurries of static. A dusting of glass covered the floor, twinkling shards of crystal reflecting the dying sunlight. And, perhaps most gruesome – a long snake of blood from one of the exhibits, trailing beyond a diorama. Whatever had gone down here hadn't been easy. And if they were the White Fang – Ruby's stomach churned – there were almost certainly going to be human casualties. "Yang!" Ruby called. "Get in here! NOW!"

There was a flurry of rapid footsteps, and Yang kicked open the door and took position, looking frantically around the room. After a brief pause, she relaxed, and only then realized what kind of situation this was. Injured White Fang members, destroyed exhibits… yeah, suffice it to say this was not the kind of mission she was aiming for.

"Oh my Oum..." she whispered. "Blake, Weiss. We've got…." She paused, wondering exactly what kind of words were needed to describe exactly how much of a fiasco this situation was. After considering disaster, fuckup, conflict, and, most recently, Noodle Incident, she decided to use the "universal signal for problem". "Blake, Weiss. Get in here. There's a…. situation."

A fiasco and a half is more like it. Is that an SDC banner? Weiss is going to have a fit. Blake won't be happy about the White Fang. Then there's the whole blood thing. Gross. And if it's the White Fang, of all people, Oum, someone was really unlucky to be in the same room as them. My guess is there will be bodies to clean up. Poor Ruby, this won't be easy for her.

Just as the door had swung shut, it burst open again, revealing Blake and Weiss standing in the entryway, weapons drawn. Weiss was the first to speak, stomping her foot angrily. "Those animals! When my father finds out about this..."

I feel sorry for whoever gets caught in the crossfire. If my father finds out about this… she shuddered.

Blake calmly held up her left hand, though she continued to sweep the area with the Gambol Shroud pistol in her palm. "Pointing fingers does nothing, Weiss. It's the White Fang. They were here. Deal with it." Finally satisfied that the area was clear, she stowed the pistol in her holster, though her expression betrayed a hint of revulsion as she spotted the trail of blood. "Standing around does nothing. We need to go in, weapons drawn. Clear the area."

"We are not police, Blake!" Weiss interrupted, exasperated at her. "We are Huntresses! Our job is to kill Grimm. It is not to kill terrorists!"

"The White Fang are not terrorists!" Blake objected, shooting Weiss a glowering look.

"Well, we wouldn't even be here if it wasn't for our amazing leader!" Weiss retorted, putting as much effort as she could to sound sarcastic in those last two words. Ruby shrank back. It was true, they wouldn't be here if it wasn't for her.

Team RWBY were just enjoying a night out on the streets of Vale, when Ruby heard gunshots and screaming. The team quickly made a decision whether to respond or to run away. Weiss, of course, opined to run away. Blake was more split, but decided to respond and fight. Yang voted to fight (she could never turn down one). It was down to Ruby to make the decision, but she decided to fight. So the team grabbed their weapons and dragged a protesting Weiss all the way down to the Vale Museum.

"Enough!" Yang intervened, placing herself between Weiss and Blake. "We have weapons. We are armed. We can get any remaining White Fang members to surrender. And we figure out if anyone innocent died in this."

Weiss nodded reluctantly. "Fine. Ruby, take charge. We'll follow you."

Ruby nodded, suddenly more confident then when she had first seen the carnage. "Everyone, weapons out. Make sure they're ready to fire."

Everyone nodded, and Ruby pulled Crescent Rose from her holster. In seconds, the mechanical whirring of the red-and-white metal cube turned to a sinister, lethal-looking scythe.

Ruby nodded at Yang. "Your turn."

"Aw, thanks!" Yang beamed, before two barrels rose from Ember Celica. Yang tapped the gauntlets a few times before nodding in approval. "Yep, locked and loaded."

"Weiss?"

"Ugh." Weiss reached for her holster and pulled out a white crystal sword emblazoned with runes. "Myrtenaster's ready."

"Blake?"

Blake nodded, whipping Gambol Shroud out of her holster. "Ready."

"Okay, everyone," Ruby said, taking a quick breath. "This is how it's going to work. We all clear the corners, starting one exhibit at a time. We find anyone unconscious, we see if they're breathing. If they are, we don't do anything. If they're armed, don't collect the guns. Leave that to the police."

The group decided that the easiest thing to do would be to start at the location of the blood trail and search in a square pattern, moving in concentric circles inward. Ruby stifled a gasp as she saw the long blood trail, which had turned dark blue due to the absence of oxygen. What could have caused this?

She didn't have to wonder long, as the rest of Team RWBY gathered around the unconscious body of a White Fang member, pupils dilated, a black shirt stained with blood, two dog ears poking out of his skull. The rest of his body didn't look too bad – save for a giant pink-and-white smear where his hand should have been. His cutlass-pistol was lying a few feet away from him.

Blake unsheathed her katana, a glimmer of light reflected in the blade, and swiped the tip across the man's face. A miniscule dot of blood emerged from the cut. "No Aura." Ruby noticed.

"Alive, at least," Blake pronounced. "That's one of the Dog Brothers. I never knew them personally. They typically attacked under the cover of darkness. They were ruthless with their operations. If they found a human, they'd… kill him."

A very harsh silence fell over the group for thirty seconds. Yang was the first member to break the silence.

"Have they ever left survivors, in any case?"

Blake shook her head. No.

"Well..." Yang paused, awkwardly, "let's just finish this and wrap it up."

Team RWBY had to move about fifty meters to find the unconscious body of Canis, his eyes closed, a small smear of blood on the upper half of his shirt.

Blake swiped the tip of the blade across Canis's face, and a tiny drop of blood jumped onto the katana. "No Aura as well. Also alive. We have to worry about any victims they might have claimed – look." Blake pointed to an exhibit that was shredded, bullet holes and scar marks seared into the wood. Ruby gasped. Anyone behind that thing would have been killed. Nothing would have been able to withstand those bullets.

"Wait, I think I see something!" Yang pointed at a spot of white, and Team RWBY rushed over to where she was pointing. There, they found another unconscious form. It was the form of a teenager wearing a white shirt and denim jeans, a large bloodstain surrounding the thigh area. A bloody wad of gauze was wrapped around his leg.

"Human, for sure. What do we do now? He's been injured." Blake said expressionlessly.

"Does he have any Aura left?" Yang asked.

"I mean, I could test it, but it doesn't look like he'd react to that too well."

"Check his pulse." Weiss suggested.
Blake knelt down, pressing two fingers gently on his carotid artery. She was reassured to feel the gentle throbbing through her fingers. Alive, at least.

"He's alive," Blake explained, standing back up to face her team members. "But that wound can't be good." She pointed to the crimson-stained wad of bandage covering the injury.

"So, what do we do?" Ruby said.

"Well, we could..." Blake began, but then tailed off – none of the answers were good. We could leave him. We could take him to Beacon. We could take him to a doctor. We could take him to the police.

Of course, there were problems with each of those solutions. Leaving him would almost certainly doom him to death by blood loss. Taking him to Beacon, while not hard initially, would necessitate an incredible amount of work. Taking him to a doctor would also incite awkward questions, such as identification. Taking him to the police would require someone strong to drag him or carry him. In short, there was only one real answer to the problem: help him for the time being, then see if he could be admitted to Beacon.

"We could… what?" Weiss interrupted. "What exactly are we doing?"
"We're healing him, showing him around, and taking him to Beacon."

"We're-what?" Weiss interrupted, shocked.

"Weiss, listen to me. If we leave him, he'll die. If we take him to the police, we need some form of ID, and we need someone to carry him. Same if we take him to a doctor. We need to help him. Here, now."

"But-what-that-you...ugh. Fine."

Normally, since Ruby was the leader, she would be the one in charge of assigning roles, but Blake had taken control of the role assignment. She had now delegated four roles – Ruby and Blake would help change the bandages and take care of him, while Weiss and Yang would search his backpack for documentation.

"Well, let's get started," Ruby said. "Time's a-wasting."

Ten minutes had passed since the role delegation, and Weiss and Yang now sat cross-legged on the floor surrounded by a rapidly ascending-height pile of items. Since they were looking for documentation, they needed to search everythingin his backpack and take it out, even if they needed to strip the entire backpack. The search quickly deteriorated into Weiss pulling out items and Yang judging them with terse, one-word responses.

"Laptop."

"Toss."

"Photos."

"Toss."

"Neat looking Scroll thing."

"Weiss..."

"Sorry."

"Carry on."

"Passport?"
"Keep."

"Here, he's got some paperwork."

"Keep."

"Oh, here's a first-aid kit."

"Definitely keep this one."

The search lasted twenty minutes, by which Weiss and Yang had quickly become bored with their role at hand. When Weiss finally pulled the last item out of the backpack ("Wallet?" "Keep."), they finally had the items they needed – passports, paperwork, and the first-aid kit. Everything else lay in scattered piles around the floor.

Ruby and Blake, however, were not just sitting around doing nothing. (Or at least, that was their intention.) Ruby's job was to peel off the old bandage, while Blake's job was to wind a new set of bandages around the wound. Before any of them could do their job, the boy groaned and jerked his feet.

"He's waking up!" Ruby said, and scrambled for Crescent Rose—but the boy paused and then relaxed. Ruby heaved a sigh of relief, taking her hand from Crescent Rose's hilt.

"Okay, guys, that was a false alarm. I think we're okay to-"

With no warning, there was a shout, and a pair of blue eyes shot open.