"EWW! It smells like fish! My nose can't take much more, Renny!"

"You'll be all right, Nora." Ren said soothingly. He reached into his bag and presented his friend-but-not-girlfriend with a jar of red sap. Nora frantically stuck her face into the opening, huffing the fumes in contentment. "Ahhh..."

"That was close." Ruby sighed in relief as Nora's body relaxed. Ren gingerly pulled Magnhild out of her grip, stowing it on her back. "Weiss, nobody's here. Can we go back now?"

"I have it on good authority that the students from Vacuo are supposed to arrive today." Weiss looked intently around the docks. "It would be quite remiss, if no one were here to welcome them to this fine kingdom on Beacon's behalf."

Her team's lack of enthusiasm was quite remiss as well. Hmph. No one appreciated the value of doing some scouting work, sorry, welcoming their guests from a distant land, before the Vytal Festival. Even Pyrrha Nikos, who was close to being an unofficial fifth team member at this point, had declined to come down to the docks with them, stammering some excuse about needing to clean her armor. It still felt surreal to see the legendary Invincible Girl following Ruby around like a lost puppy, as if she'd...well, never had any friends before. That was a sobering thought. Weiss knew quite well how lonely life could be for women of their stature, even if she couldn't imagine herself ever acting so desperate.

Right now, the dock didn't look like anything was arriving on it other than crates of dead fish, uncomfortably hairy sailors, and more bird droppings than she ever wanted to see. Nonetheless, Weiss persisted. It wasn't a given that the Vacuo students would be as colorful as their group was. Quite possibly they would arrive incognito and seek to avoid undue attention. The academy was named Shade, after all.

"Why are they coming so early?" Ren wondered. "The Festival's still months away. And aren't they still in the middle of their semester, too?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." Privately, Weiss suspected that Shade's staff were simply happy to offload their students onto Beacon's. It seemed like a very Vacuan thing to do. Out of all the kingdoms, Atlas had high tech, Mistral had high culture, Vale had its reputation for peace and security, and Vacuo...just kind of existed.

"Weiss!" Nora yelled excitedly.

"I'm right here, Nora. There's no need to shout—"

"Whoops! The other Weiss!" Sure enough, two black and two yellow figures were coming their way. For the life of her, she could not understand why Nora persistently got their names mixed up. She'd made the mistake of asking once; Nora had gone on a bizarre spiel about hereditary Semblances, skinchanging, and 'spinoff characters' that gave her nightmares for days.

"What are you doing here, Sable?" Behind him, Yang and Jaune looked about as bored as her own team did. Blake Belladonna, of all people, was the only one who seemed excited to be there. Though judging from the way she sniffed at the fishy air, it wasn't because of the Shade students.

"Same as you! We're spying on the students from Vacuo, of course!" Sable replied, without a hint of shame. "Seen anyone interesting yet?"

"Excuse me?" Weiss huffed. "I came here to show hospitality to our fellow Huntsmen-in-training, not to engage in such dishonorable behavior!" Ruby and Nora giggled skeptically. "Quiet, you two!" She turned away with a scowl. Was it so hard for them to believe that she was acting out of the goodness of her heart, darn it?

Down a side street, a flash of yellow caught her eye. In stark contrast to the brightly colored banners and balloons all around, there was an abandoned storefront with police tape criss-crossing its shattered windows. What could have happened there?

"Robbery. Second Dust shop to be hit this week." A bearded detective explained to the group. "This place is turning into a jungle." Dust-Have Necessities was the shop's name, as the sign on the door proudly declared. Did every Dust shop in Vale have a painful wordplay in its name, or what?

"They left all the money again."

"Doesn't make a lick of sense. Who needs that much Dust?"

"I don't know, an army?"

We're not here for the money. Grab the Dust. Roman Torchwick's words echoed in Ruby's head. Was this more of his work? But unless a few badly trained henchmen in red sunglasses counted as an army, why? The idea of the thief wearing a crisp military uniform, watching goose-stepping soldiers on parade, made her snort.

"An army?" Nora gasped. "Oh no! The Atlas Military is robbing Dust stores in Vale!"

"NORA!" Weiss sounded scandalized. "The Atlesian Military are honorable soldiers! My sister is one of them! Not a...a bunch of Dust thieves!"

"Lower-case army, not uppercase!" Detective #2 (the clean-shaven one) said nervously. "In the sense of a bunch of people, with weapons! Like, um..." he nudged his companion.

"...the White Fang!" #1 exclaimed.

"Yeah. Whew. We don't get paid enough to deal with that..."

"You're useless!" Sable barked, making both detectives jump. "Are you telling me there might be a pack of murdering terrorists running amok in this city, and you don't get paid enough to deal with it?! The council ought to cut your budget if that's the kind of attitude you bring—"

"Dude, can you not try and fight the cops?" Yang and Weiss shared a look, and both moved to pull the irritable boy back. "I apologize for my brother's words, officers." Weiss said. "I'm afraid the White Fang is a rather sensitive topic with him, given our family's...history with those degenerates."

"Your family...oooohhh!" Realization sank in for #2. "Good gracious, Burnie, look at the time! Gotta take our union-mandated doughnut break, eh?" Both policemen power-walked away from the crime scene.

"Those bastards are here, Weiss!" Sable glared suspiciously at the passerby on the street, as if expecting any one of them to suddenly sprout horns and attack.

"It was only his theory. But a concerning one nonetheless." Weiss peered into the broken windows, not even commenting on her brother's language. "I suppose it was too much to hope that we'd leave them back in Atlas as well." The twins leaned in towards each other; even standing next to them, Ruby only heard snatches of their whispered conversation.

"...one of ours?...how long..."

"...have to check...probably classified..."

"...wouldn't they take the Lien..."

"...so the shop stays in business?...bolster security..."

"...that train they lost...shit..."

"Um, guys?" Ruby interrupted their grim mutterings. She'd rarely seen the siblings exchange so many words without bickering, and it was honestly weirding her out. "It might not be them at all, the Torchwick guy I fought did the same thing—"

"Hey, stop that faunus!" Deciding the great Dust robbery responsibility debate could wait, the teams rushed back towards the docks. The faunus in need of stopping was a blond boy with a monkey tail, running down the pier with two sailors in pursuit. "Thanks for the ride, guys!" he laughed.

"You no-good stowaway!"

"Hey, a no-good stowaway would've been caught!" The faunus perched on a lamp post, clearly enjoying himself. "I'm a great—HOLY CRAP!" He dropped down, hanging onto the post with only his tail, and avoided the fireball that passed through his previous spot.

"Geez! Chill out, you edgelord!" The monkey boy glared at Sable, who had, as was par for the course, been the first to shoot. "You made me drop my banana! OH SHIT!" He quickly bailed from the lamp post. A moment later, the whole thing went up in a pink explosion.

"Aww, I missed!" said Nora brightly. Magnhild sat on her shoulder, smoking slightly. The sailors screamed in terror, and ran desperately back to their ship.

"Sorry guys, we ran out of sap." Ren sighed. "I tried my best." Ruby stared in dismay at the molten remains of the lamp post, still flickering with pink fire.

"Never mind that! After him!" Weiss cried.

"WOO! CHASE SCENE!" Nora ran after the faunus boy, giggling like a lunatic. "STOP RIGHT THERE, CRIMINAL SCUM!"

Their chase after the faunus stowaway, or alternatively their escape from possible property destruction charges, only lasted a couple blocks.

"Damn it, he's getting away!" Sable cursed, as they turned a corner to see the faunus climbing up the wall of a building.

"HALT! IN THE NAME OF THE LAW!" Nora bellowed. Neither fired their weapons again, however. Thank gods, they weren't quite crazy enough to bombard a civilian building with Huntsman-grade ordinance.

"Worry not, I shall handle it! I'm combat ready!" An unfamiliar voice shouted. Ruby's jaw dropped when what looked like a dozen swords on strings shot at the faunus, glowing green. The boy tried to block them with some kind of staff, but there were just too many. The strings wrapped around his body and limbs, pulling him off the building. With a scream and an almighty crash that made the trash cans rattle, he landed flat on his back in the alley.

"Ooh, that's gotta hurt!" Yang winced. "Hope he had Aura."

"Oh, that was so much fun! I've never arrested someone before!" The strange voice said cheerfully. A girl in a green-white dress, a pink bow atop her orange hair, was walking towards the fallen faunus. The strings were coming...out of her back? No, there was a small backpack strapped there. She knelt down to untangle the boy. "You have the right to remain silent! Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law—"

"Oww..." the faunus groaned. "Whoa, why do your hands feel like that...it's like they're made of—mmph!" The girl clapped a hand over his mouth, shaking her head frantically.

"My thanks, for helping us apprehend that rapscallion." Weiss was the first to recover, bowing her head politely to the girl. "I don't believe we've met. My name is Weiss Schnee, student at Beacon Academy and member of Team RRWN."

"My name is Penny Polendina! A pleasure to meet you!" the girl chirped. Between the chipper attitude, hair color, and seeming trigger-happiness, Ruby was starting to think they had a second Nora on their hands. "Schnee? Are your perchance kin of Specialist Winter Schnee? Based on your physical similarities I estimate a 91.25% chance of close genetic relationship!"

"How do you know our sister?" Sable stepped forwards. "Are you with the Atlesian Military? Honestly, you don't really look or act the part." Weiss elbowed him. "No offense." he added grudgingly.

"How grand! So you must be the siblings she spoke of! Forgive me, but I am ignorant as to your name, other than that it is not Spring, Summer or Autumn." Sable looked nonplussed. "And I'm a *hic* student, here to represent Atlas in the Vytal Festival! I met Specialist Schnee when she performed a *hic* guest lecture for us."

"Hey! I have a name too!" the faunus on the ground protested. "You've got it all wrong, I swear! I'm Sun Wukong, student at Haven Academy, leader of Team SSSN!" His arms were still wrapped up, but he fished his Scroll out with his tail and tapped some buttons. A student identification popped up on screen. Penny examined it closely. "It's legitimate." she confirmed. "Oh dear! It appears I must apologize!"

"Wait, Haven?" Ren questioned. "You guys aren't supposed to arrive until the start of next semester."

"Oh my gosh, you ditched school to go on a grand adventure to another continent!" Nora gushed. "What a rebel!"

"Nora! Stop romanticizing delinquency!" Weiss snapped. "And you! You're spitting on the hard work of the Haven staff, so you can go gallivanting off in Vale? You're the worst!"

"No! It's not like that!" Sun said nervously. "I...uh, I'm here on a special mission from Headmaster Lionheart, all right? I was supposed to...uh, covertly enter the kingdom and send back some advance reports on Beacon. But, looks like you got me! Guess I'm a pretty crappy spy, haha..." he jerked his head towards Penny. "Hey, Atlas isn't supposed to be here either! Why aren't you on her case?"

"I have special permission from General Ironwood to be here!" Penny said evasively.

"Regardless of that!" Sable glared at Sun. "You still didn't pay your boat fare! Unless there was some other reason they called you a no-good stowaway?"

"Well you see...aw, nuts." Sun drew a blank. "Uh, Penny, help me out here, would you? Us out-of-towners got to stick together! I can't go to jail! I'm too good-looking! Favor for a friend, pretty please?"

"A friend?" Penny gasped. "Sun Wukong, are you really my friend?"

"Yes! Yes! Yes! Let's be friends! Best friends!" Sun prostrated himself before Penny, actually kissing her shoes. Yang muttered something about a brown nose, though Ruby thought he didn't look that tanned. "We can eat bananas, and, uh, go shop for clothes, and talk about cute...swords?"

"I'll be your friend too!" Nora shouted. "Redheads stick together! And that thing you did with your swords was so cool!" She suddenly pushed Ruby towards their new 'friend'. "Heck, all of Team RRWN will be your friends! And Ruby's the leader, so she's the best at friendship of us all!"

Nora why?! "Um, yeah?" Ruby stammered. "You know what they say, strangers are just friends you haven't met yet...at least that's what Jaune says—"

"A net gain of three friends! What a sensational day this is!" Penny appeared to be vibrating with excitement. A faint whirring of fans was coming from somewhere. "Who is this Jaune you speak of, friend Ruby?"

Several fingers instantly pointed to the Arc in question. Jaune's shoulders slumped in resignation. "How fortuitous! I must say, I find your philosophy quite novel! Tell me, do you truly believe we have been friends since I was *hic* born, only now to meet?"

"Um...sure..." Jaune said dully. Only now did Ruby realize he hadn't said a word the whole time. She'd thought he was doing better lately, even though they didn't spend as much time together as before, now that the teams (or hers, at least) were growing closer-knit. That made her feel rather guilty, come to think. He was her first friend, the one who'd befriended her out of free will rather than eye contact and chess pieces.

"I'm sorry! I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that, it was the first thing I thought of..." she whispered. Jaune gave her a thumbs-up and a tight smile. Nevertheless Ruby resolved to invite him for cookies and cartoons again that weekend, to make it up.

"PLUS FOUR!" Penny shouted, jumping up and down. The sound of fans running got louder. "You! Specialist Schnee's relative! Will you also be my friend?" Ruby gulped when she saw who Penny was trying to befriend next.

"No." Sable said bluntly.

"Oh...that is unfortunate..." Penny deflated. The fans stopped, and there was a sound like a computer powering down. Weiss and Yang gave each other another look, and both smacked the boy at the same time.

"That was rude, Sable!"

"Yeah, kind of a dick move, giving her the cold shoulder like that."

"Eh." Sable grunted, but still turned back to talk to Penny. "What I mean to say, is that people have different criteria for friendship. I'm simply not prepared to declare us friends on the basis of a few minutes. We could be...er...acquaintances?"

"I see, so an intermediate relationship status! I suppose that is rational, Acquaintance Sable!" Penny nodded along, looking much happier. "Four friends and one acquaintance is acceptable, yes, quite acceptable...though it does raise the question of how many possible states there are, between strangers who may or not be unmet friends, acquaintances, friends and—"

"Hey, guys? This is a lovely conversation and all, but I'm still here!" Sun interrupted. "And these stupid strings are cutting off my circulation!"

"Ah!" Penny started. "Oh dear. Well, it was splendid to meet all of you, but I fear I must go and *hic* administer justice to Best Friend Sun!" With ease, she hefted the much larger boy into her arms, and vanished around the corner.

"Did that really just happen?" Yang stared after them. "Or did they use the wrong kind of mushrooms at lunch again?" None of the seven Beacon students seemed to be sure. Wait, seven?

"Hey! Where did Blake go?"

Blake leaned against the alley wall. Deep breaths, deep breaths. She had been far too close to losing control back at that ransacked storefront. Something had burned in her chest, hearing her former comrades dismissed as murderers and degenerates and bastards, and she'd caught herself opening her mouth to object. Even if none of those were technically false. The murder part was pretty well known by now, there were plenty of illegitimate children in the Fang, and as for degeneracy, well, it wasn't her parents who had introduced her to adult literature.

Gods, would that have been the mother of all bad ideas. Maybe the grandmother, or an even more distant ancestor. After all, it was totally normal and not suspicious for a human girl to spout off pro-White Fang sentiments in front of two Schnees, one of them the heiress to the company and the other being her own commanding officer. She'd ended up simply escaping the scene, not that it had been hard to slip away. Heh, running away from uncomfortable situations was becoming a trend for her. Maybe it would feel less lame if she thought of a cool name for it, something out of her books. The Belladonna Secret Technique?

Her Scroll buzzed. Well, it took her teammates long enough to notice her absence. Time to face the music.

Thread: (strawberry emoji)

Sable: what the hell Blake? this is supposed to be a team outing you can't just leave like that.

Yang: lol chill out dude

Yang: Blake just let us know you're OK. no questions

Sable: I reserve the right to ask questions.

Blake sighed in relief. The cat was still in the bag. She could take a few hours to de-stress, and then everything would be. Just. Fine.

Blake: yeah I'm fine. Sorry guys, remembered I had some errands to run. Be back tonight.

"Uh, could you let me down? This is sorta embarrassing." Normally, Sun wouldn't mind a cute girl cradling him to her chest, but it was a bit humiliating to be carried bridal style as if he weighed no more than a feather. Also, her hands still felt weird. And he admittedly didn't have much experience with girls' chests, but he was pretty sure they weren't supposed to feel like lumps of solid steel.

"Best Friend Sun? What *hic* was wrong with my hands?" Penny said nervously.

"Um, not wrong, just unexpected. It feels like...like there's something hard under your skin. They prosthetic or something? Not that there's anything wrong with that!" Penny's hands trembled, and Sun gripped her shoulder for support. "Whoa, your shoulder's the same! It's like you're, like, some sort of robot person—"

"No!" Penny dropped him. "You're *hic* mistaken! I have *hic* carbon-based musculature, and bones of *hic* calcium, and...um...*hic* no transistors whatsoever!"

"Oh my gods, you actually are a robot." Sun whispered. "That's...wow..." Penny tried to continue her denials, but broke into uncontrollable hiccuping. She looked to be on the verge of tears. Wait, could robots cry?

"...that's SO COOL! HOLY SHIT!" Sun shrieked. "I mean, I thought robots were all like—" he made some jerky motions with his arms. "Shit, that wasn't racist was it? But I mean, I didn't know someone like you even existed!"

"Shh!" Penny recovered her composure a bit. "That's supposed to be a state secret! No one was supposed to find out! Oh dear, one day and I've blown my cover, the General is not going to be pleased!"

"Okay, ix-nay on the obot-ray, got it!" Sun made a lip-zipping gesture. "I won't tell anyone, pinky promise. Friends don't snitch on friends!" Not even to Neptune, not if Penny's secret was some kind of military top secret. It wouldn't do for them to spend the Festival in a prison cell.

"Are we still friends, then? Best friends?" Penny asked hopefully. "Even though...I'm not a real girl?"

"Yes!" Sun said. His second declaration of friendship felt more sincere than his first, oddly enough. He ruffled the girl's hair reassuringly. Whatever it was made from, it felt just like the real thing, nice and soft. "Like I'm gonna care if you've got some, uh, different parts from other people!" He waved his monkey tail for emphasis.

"My different parts go beyond a mere animal trait, Best Friend Sun." Penny stared at her hands. "This body is made from metal, not flesh and blood..."

"Whatever! Humans, faunus...robots...we're all born...uh, I guess you weren't born, huh? Sorry, this is gonna take some getting used to. We're all created with souls!" Sun amended. "Can't use Aura without it, and you sure kicked my ass back there. Long story short, I don't care what parts you've got. It's what's on the inside that counts! Uh, in a spiritual sense, not literally what your insides are made of—"

"Thank you." Penny wrapped him in a rib-crushing hug. "You really are Best Friend." She probably could actually crush his ribs, being a robot and all. It was a slightly uncomfortable thought, but Sun hugged back anyways. Penny's little smile of contentment was just too wholesome to resist. The feeling of metal under skin was still there...but it didn't feel so weird anymore.

Finally, she pulled away. "Ah, it's getting late. I ought to return home. I suppose I will see you at the Vytal Festival, Best Friend Sun?"

"See you around. Best Friend Penny." Sun waved goodbye. He was tempted to go for the finger guns, but she might take that the wrong way.

Damn. Vale was nuts, and he'd been here less than an hour. At least he got to ride the boat for free.

The atmosphere in the dorm was tense that evening.

Sable was clearly in a foul mood (fouler than usual, that was) after the various incidents by the docks. He scowled something fierce, scribbling out their history essay. Yang was surprised he hadn't torn a hole in the paper. Jaune had an open book in front of him, but seemed to be staring right through it. What was eating at Vomit Boy now? He'd been unusually withdrawn and quiet ever since that ill-fated Forever Fall trip earlier that week, not that he was a social butterfly to begin with. At their training session the other day he'd just blocked and dodged in total silence, a flat expression on his face. Was it sadistic of her to miss his oh-crap faces and screams of terror?

Maybe they'd gone too far with Cardin? Yang didn't regret what they'd done to the bully. She was no stranger to threatening someone's manhood, as Junior could tell you, but Jaune had clearly not enjoyed watching it. Kind of like Ruby...back at Signal, Yang had socked more than one jerk who'd thought the short, shy girl would make an easy target. Ruby appreciated the backup, she was sure, but her little sister never seemed happy about it. Rubes was just too much of a cinnamon roll to ever enjoy seeing someone get hurt, and Yang liked her that way. It was kind of weird to think that the tall blond and her cute sister might be the same, deep down.

Or maybe he'd just been imagining his own crotch on fire. That was distinctly possible.

"And done!" Sable threw down his pen. "Ugh, it was supposed to be Blake's turn today. I'll take over. Yang, tell her she owes me one when she gets back." Jaune didn't budge, and their leader noticed. "What, you want a holiday or something?" he huffed.

"Something wrong, Vomit Boy?" Yang asked gently. Best to head this off before Sable got the wrong idea and went off on him for being lazy. "You've been acting all weird since Forever Fall. Are you mad at us? About Cardin?"

"No! I mean, you guys were kind of scary back there, but I'm not mad." Jaune shook his head. "So..." he said after a long moment. "Pyrrha Nikos..."

Yang had no idea where he was going with this...wait, yes she did! "Aww, does Vomit Boy have a crush? That's adorable." she teased. "Have you two ever even talked to each other?"

"For gods' sake!" Sable palmed his forehead. "I'm all for being ambitious, but you're aiming a bit too high, aren't you? It'd be more reasonable to start with someone else! Like..." he trailed off. Either not wanting to insult some other girl, or more likely, failing to think of a girl who was in Jaune's league. "Anyways, you should be training harder if anything! Huntsmen and Huntresses respect strength!" Strength, really? Yang was convinced that Sable had never had a girlfriend...or boyfriend...in his life. Sure, the guy might be a 9 for looks (nine-and-a-half?), but that 1/10 personality was a real turn-off.

"No! That's not it...I mean, she's pretty incredible and all, and not just for being on a cereal box..." Jaune chuckled humorlessly. "She could have been your partner, you know? If I hadn't been in the forest."

Sable's eye twitched. "The thought's crossed my mind. Once or twice." he admitted. "What's the point? Initiation was months ago, you were there, and she's not here." It was an interesting hypothetical, Yang thought. They'd all have a lot to learn from the Invincible Girl, she was sure. Maybe she'd have trained them, the opposite of what was going on with Jaune. What would their team name have been, anyways...PSBY? That just sounded gross.

Well, the picture was getting clearer. Jaune had finally got around to reading the Mistral champ's biography, and now he felt inadequate, compared to what might have been. "Jaune, don't compare yourself to her." she said. "Sure, you don't measure up to Cereal Girl over there. None of us do. But I know you've been trying your best! And I'm glad you're our teammate." She prayed that Sable wouldn't immediately say 'I'm not!'.

"What she said." Thanks gods, their leader actually had a sliver of tact in him. "Look, the partners were pretty much random. I could've gotten someone worse." Not that much tact. "And that's how it is! I'm over it! So I don't need pity from you, you hear me?"

Jaune still avoided their gaze. "You don't understand..." he whispered, barely audible.

"Enlighten us, then! What don't we understand?" Sable sounded increasingly irritated. "That you're years behind the rest of the class? How hard we've worked to get you up to speed? Because I understand that perfectly, and we've made our peace with it. So what you have to complain about, I have absolutely no—"

"Sable!" Yang cut off the boy's rant. Miraculously, he actually shut up, no doubt stunned by her using his actual name for once. "Jaune...you might not be the strongest here, but you'll get better. You're getting better." There. That was a nicer way to put things. "Look, you made it into Beacon like everyone else, and as your teammates, it's our job to—"

"No I didn't!" Jaune rose from his chair. Yang got a clear look at his face, and barely recognized meek, mild-mannered Vomit Boy. Between the trembling, the clenched fists, the heavy breathing, and the wild look in his normally gentle blue eyes, Jaune looked ready to either pass out or go on a rampage. She deployed one of Ember Celica's gauntlets, just in case.

"My dad's a huntsman, you know?" Jaune said softly, his voice quivering. "All the Arc men have been warriors, going back to the War. And all I ever wanted was to be just like them." No one said anything in reply. Even Sable seemed transfixed by his partner's sudden personality change. "Except he didn't want me to be! Every time I asked about learning the sword or going to combat school, he'd say it was too dangerous for me! That I was better off not knowing!"

Yang grimaced. That sounded messed up. Dad hadn't been exactly pleased at her and Ruby's career choices, knowing the dangers of the profession all too well, but he'd still made sure they were as prepared as they could be. What would they have done, if he'd chosen to simply deny them? Uncle Qrow would have helped them out, but did Jaune have a Qrow to turn to? Sable stared at his partner in shock, something akin to sympathy in his eyes. "Vom—Jaune." Yang croaked. "What are you getting at?"

"I lied my way here!" Jaune shouted. "That's what I'm getting at! No combat school! No training! Just some fake transcripts I bought off the street! Thought if I could just get in, the Arc thing would come naturally. What an idiot!" He picked up Crocea Mors and slung it over his back. "I'm tired of this. Tired of holding the team back. Tired of needing to be rescued. Tired of being Vomit Boy!"

Jaune stumbled towards the door. "Now do you understand, Sable?" he muttered. "You'll be better off without me." His hand was on the knob. "Sorry for wasting your time." He was gone. Yang and Sable remained frozen in place for what seemed like hours, staring at the door.

"AAAAAAAHHH!" Sable screamed in frustration, slamming a fist into the wall. The wall was harder than it looked. "Ow! Dammit!" He rubbed his hand sheepishly.

Blake walked through the halls of Beacon, preparing herself for the inevitable interrogation. A few hours browsing Tukson's and one fish dinner later, she felt as ready as she'd ever be. Just stick to the story, Blake. Tukson got a shipment of the new Ninjas of Love volume and you had to run over before they sold out. Bit embarrassing, but who'd lie about something like that?

As she neared Team SJBY's door, she heard muffled voices within. On a whim, she perked up her extra set of ears, straining to make out the conversation.

"...should have obvious, Yang! How did we miss it? Our own teammate, hiding that under our noses!" Sable sounded far from happy, voice tinged with rage and betrayal.

"Yeah..." Yang seemed less angry, more confused and hurt. "Kind of feel like an idiot, not figuring it out sooner."

What? What?! WHAT! Blake recoiled from the door as if it were a red-hot blade. Where had she gone wrong? Oh shit, was it her name? Maybe it was a mistake enrolling with her real name, considering that her surname matched the former High Leader of the White Fang. But she couldn't bear to throw away the name her parents had given her, not after everything...damn it all. She should've figured the Schnee would be paranoid enough to run background checks on his teammates. Whatever it had been, it looked like Blake's Beacon career was at a premature end.

Welp. Time to break out Belladonna Secret Technique. Again.

Oh snap, semi-serious drama! Not to worry, we are still flying half a strawberry.

Jaune's little breakdown has been a long time coming. Compared to Pyrrha (or really anyone), Sable is awful at giving any sort of emotional validation. And with a stray Invincible Girl floating around, he rather reasonably concludes that he's the one who doesn't belong (if only you knew, Vomit Boy). Yang stealing his Forever Fall Ursa kill didn't help either. As for that backstory, I always thought it was weird someone from a Huntsman family who wanted to be a Huntsman didn't even know about Aura. Hence my theory of Papa Arc intentionally withholding the goods, in a highly misguided attempt to keep him safe.

That Sun and Penny scene was a lot of fun to write. All on board the S.S. Banana Nut Muffin, or whatever it's called! (disclaimer: this is not to confirm Sun/Penny, as weird/hilarious as that would be. S.S. Banana Nut Muffin remains purely hypothetical.)

delekmaster: "Violence is the question and the answer is yes" indeed. Always a good sign when the former terrorist is only the third most violent team member.