It was another beautiful day at Beacon Academy; the sun was up, the birds were calling, and team RWBY was rushing to class with team JNPR on their tail.

As was clear, both teams were late, really late. Ruby's every instinct told her to use her Semblance to speed up, but her conscience would not allow her to leave her teammates behind.

Weiss however, had no such compunctions, as she used a Glyph to speed herself up while waving at the friends that she blitzed past.

"Bye by-" her snide goodbye was cut off by her abrupt stop, which led to her being sprawled on the floor.

"You should really watch where you're going," said the tall man she had run into.

"Oh, it's just you Vulpes," she said as she shook her head, "Mind helping a lady up?"

The bull faunus obliged and gave her his hand and pulled her up.

"What are you doing here? I figured someone like you would be the first to arrive."

"I was actually," he said as the rest of team RWBY and team JNPR caught up to Weiss, "I'm now the class rep or something, so I'm here to get everyone who's late, and give you citations." The last part was said with a smile of pure schadenfreude as he pulled out and issued tickets to all present.

"Ten Lien for tardiness?" Weiss asked angrily. "This is outrageous officer."

"You were speeding too," he said with a small smile, "Okay, come along everyone, I'm supposed to make sure that everyone without a sufficient excuse attends today's class." This was followed by annoyed grumbles from the latecomers as they fell in line behind him.

Later that afternoon, team RWBY was attending, or in Ruby's case, sleeping through a Grimm Studies class by Peter Port. Hardly anyone was engaged or really taking the class seriously, because pretty much everyone had faced and taken down the Grimm Mr. Port was discussing.

It was so bad that Ruby rose from her nap, just to draw caricature of the aptly named Mr. Port. Although, instead of praise for her 'well-made' drawing, she got an eraser to the head from the class rep. Though that hardly deterred her from her antics; as she kept getting on Weiss' nerves throughout the class.

"The moral of this story?" Mr. Port's voice boomed with his rhetorical question.

"A true Huntsman must be dependable!"

"A true Huntsman must be strategic, well-educated, and wise!"

"So, who among you believes themselves to be the embodiment of these traits?"

"I do, sir!" shouted Weiss with all the annoyance that she had gathered in the course of the class.

"Well then, let's find out!" The portly teacher declared energetically, as he lifted a sheet that revealed a cage with a pair of red eyes. "Step forward, and face your opponent!"

Weiss takes her stance and readies Myrtenaster, leveling the blade at the viciously glowing pair of eyes.

"Gooo, Weiss!"

"Fight well!"

"Yeah, represent Team RWBY!" came the encouragements from her teammates, although the last one simply led to the team leader being rebuked.

"Let the match begin!" as he breaks the cage door and revealing the Boarbarusk inside, which immediately charged Weiss, her anger and frustration probably being irresistible to it. Weiss is able to deflect the boar-like Grimm's charge with her rapier while moving away from the creature. Weiss then charged at the Boarbatusk, trying to block out Mr. Port's observations and Ruby's encouragement, though they still annoyed her.

In the midst of all this, Adam was tapping his fingers on his desks, although no one noticed, seeing as there was a fight before them, at least no one other than his teammates.

The Grimm was smarter than it looked, as it locked Myrtenaster in its tusks, and Weiss' attempts to free her blade from the beast's grasp were unsuccessful.

"Come on, Weiss, show it who's boss!" These innocent words of encouragement by Ruby earned her a death glare from Weiss. The Boarbatusk took advantage, seeing that its prey was distracted and flung both the sword and the user in opposite directions.

Weiss had to suddenly dive out of the way of the beast's rolling attack, as she made her way to the fallen blade. "Aim it's belly, it doesn't have any armour there!"

"Stop telling me what to do!" Weiss shouted at her leader, although she proceeded to do exactly as she advised.

"Excellent work, Miss Schnee! It seems that you have all the qualifications of a hunter-in-training," Mr. Port praised after she had dispatched the Grimm.

"Uh, excuse me sir," a grey-haired boy with nice features and a wicked smile, "But 'Miss Schnee' took several minutes to take down a Grimm who is basically fodder. She managed to lose her weapon, take her eyes off her opponent and berate not only her teammate, but her team leader for offering her advice, advice she later took."

"Why y-," the Schnee heiress' rebuttal was cut off with Mr. Port's raised hand.

"What are you getting at Mister…?"

"Black, and what I'm saying is that I'm sure that a little one on one, is more of a test of a true hunter's mettle than fighting some random Grimm. That's if, Ice Queen is up to it." The wink that punctuated his last sentence was the last straw for the Schnee Company heiress, as she pointed her blade at Mercury and invited him to the front of the class.

Mercury nonchalantly made his way to the front of the class and stretched his limbs as a warmup. "Go easy on me Princess," he said with a smirk as he took his stance.

The incensed Atlesian charged at him, ready to make him pay for his insolence. Too bad he wasn't particularly interested in that, as he effortlessly dodged to the side.

This was followed a low kick, causing Weiss to lose her balance and stumble backwards, swinging wildly to try and keep the grey-haired assassin away from her. Mercury simply swatted the blade away and delivered a ferocious palm strike to her gut, flinging her across the room.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asked with a genuinely concerned voice, although anyone could see the insincerity in his inquiry.

Weiss was so angry that she wanted to put her blade through his head, but instead, she raised Myrtenaster, and took a deep breath; she had to be calm to beat him, she couldn't let her anger get in the way of her proving that she had what it takes to be a Huntress.

"Come at me," she said as she pointed the well-crafted blade at her opponent. Mercury's curiosity was piqued by her suddenly calm temperament, so he decided to humour the white-haired Huntress-in-training as he sprinted towards her.

"Gotcha," she whispered to herself, as she activated a gravity-affecting glyph underneath Mercury's feet, effectively sticking him to the floor. Weiss smirked on seeing Mercury's surprised face, since she had him trapped, the only thing left for her was to wear down his aura from continued attacks from a distance.

All of a sudden though, the glyph deactivated, it was only for a second, but it was more than enough for Mercury who had been waiting for an opening. He sped towards the heiress, who was still confused as to why her glyph had faltered, but she aimed her MADR at him, attacking with ice dust to slow her opponent down, although Mercury simply dodged past it and closed in on the heiress.

Fortunately, the time taken for his detour was enough for Weiss to set up several Glyphs above their heads. She ascended unto one of the Glyphs, as it held her in place midair, and prepared for a strike. Surprisingly, her glyph faltered once more, except this time there was no chance to remedy it. Fortunately, Mercury caught her… with a kick midair.

Weiss wasn't done yet, as she stood up to face Mercury once more.

"That's enough students! Shake hands and congratulate each other on a match well-fought." These words were unacceptable to Weiss, she wasn't done, she had to return each insult, she needed to make him pay for his insolence, she-.

"Good job, you really had me on my toes," Mercury said genuinely as he stretched his hand out, "You really do have what it takes to be a Huntress." Weiss stared at his hand for a few seconds; she knew he was mocking her, his eyes showed no evidence of deceit, not an iota of insincerity, but she knew, she felt it. He thought of her as a joke, she could hear him laugh and she wanted to make him shut up, but she couldn't do so.

She may not have been able to stop him from mocking her, but she wouldn't swallow his insult by agreeing to shake his hand. She walked past him with her held head high, she was a Schnee, and she wasn't going to be mocked. She went straight out of the class, because the period was over several minutes ago, the students only stayed to watch the fight.

"Weiss!" came a voice from behind her, it was Ruby, "What was that? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

"It didn't look that way to me. Snapping at me, refusing to shake Mercury's hand even though he praised you as a fighter... What's wrong?"

"I said I'm fine Ruby, just leave it at that."

"No! We're a team and I'm kind of the leader, you have to talk to me, Weiss." She said, almost imploringly.

"Leader?!" Weiss laughed, "In what world are you a leader? Is it because you had us get bunk beds? Or because you shout 'banzai'? Oh, maybe it's because, you are such a great leader that you managed to get us late on the very first day!"

"I-I…" the silver-eyed team leader stuttered and hugged her arm, recoiling from her teammate's reproach.

"Just tell me this," Weiss lowered her voice finally, knotting her eyebrows, "Give me a single reason, a small one, why I, an Atlesian elite, someone who has trained all her life to be here, would follow a fifteen-year-old who… likes weapons."

"I-I do…"

"What was that?"

"I don't know."

"As I thought," she said as she placed her hand on her 'team leader's' shoulder, with patronizing smile.

"Listen, honey you're really cute, so maybe you can be the mascot, but I'll make one thing clear," she said, suddenly frowning, "You aren't my leader."

"Hundred percent savagery," said Principal Ozpin, as he suddenly appeared behind her with his faithful cane and even more faithful coffee mug, "I'm surprised that you didn't cry."

"Not funny," she said, using her signature pout against her principal.

"I suppose not," he said mildly, handing her another mug of coffee, that he had removed from Monty knows where, "Walk with me Miss Rose." The two walked through the halls and made their way to a balcony.

"So Miss Rose," he said as he took a seat on the balcony, "What do you plan on doing?"

"Well, I was going to go to your office and asked to be removed from my position as team leader. But you saved me the trip and gave me coffee… Thank you for that."

"Quit? You can't do that."

"Why not?" she asked in frustration, "Why can't I quit?"

"Well for one; what will they call you?"

"Excuse me?"

"What will they call you? Do you have any idea how hard it is to form a name with only consonants? I think that Monty just couldn't find a colour that started with the letter 'u' and decided to manage with 'w', but that's just my opinion anyway."1

"W-what? You're saying you only chose me because it was convenient for the naming?"

"What other reason would I have for choosing you? I mean, it's not like you bravely charged into battle to help another, and even lead your friends to defeat a Grimm. It's not as if you've shown characteristics that every team leader should have in battle."

Ruby was angry, then she was flattered, then she decided that she was confused, "If I'm truly so qualified, then why doesn't Weiss think so?"

"To be fair, Miss Rose, you have showed your natural potential for leadership, but its far from enough to justify your being leader. What reason do you give Weiss Schnee, someone of high birth and standing, or Blake Dellarobia, or even your sister, Yang who has taken care of you to follow you?"

"Is it because you are smart? Wise? Strong?" Ozpin paused and tried taking a sip of his coffee, just to discover that it was empty, since he now had nothing to do with his hands, he placed one of them on Ruby's shoulder. "To be a leader, you need to be all these things, and more. You need to be everything your team needs of you and more, and whatever you can't be, you need to give your subordinates the courage and support to be that."

"S-subordinates?" Ruby's eyes quivered as she muttered this word, she already knew that she was going to be the leader, but 'subordinates?' The word was too scary for her, she couldn't imagine Yang, someone who had basically been a mother to her being her 'subordinate.'

"Yes, Miss Rose, they are your subordinates. You can be their friends, but you are different, that's the sacrifice of a leader, you are always alone in some way, you will always bear the responsibilities, you will always bear the consequences. This is the price of leadership, it is the heaviest responsibility ever."

"What's wrong with you?" she whisper, her voice on the edge of breaking, as it picks up in volume with every sentence "First, you try to stop me from quitting. Then you dump all these… things on me. Why?!"

"Did it seem as though I was supposed to be reassuring you? I'm sorry about that," he said as he started sipping another cup of coffee, "I'm simply telling you the requirements of being a leader should you choose to accept it. You had doubts, that's why you wanted to pass on the responsibility of being team leader. You wanted reassurance that you could be leader, but I have none. If you lack faith in yourself so much that you need my reassurance, then why should the rest of your team have any faith in you? What reason do you give them to follow you?"

"I-I'm sorry," said Ruby, ashamed that she had raised her voice at her principal, who was just trying to instruct her.

The white-haired principal had gone through his last cup of coffee, and so his hands were free once more to touch the young, silver-eyed girl's shoulder in reassurance once more. But he decided not to, because it would be weird after the author of this fanfiction had just worded it like this.

"Doubt can be a good thing," he declared, "So long as you learn something from it, empty reassurances and reinforcements will not help you grow. There is a choice before you. I've done my job by presenting you with the pros and cons, now your job is to decide."

"Did you have to scare the poor girl so much?" asked Glynda Goodwitch, who appeared at Ozpin's side immediately Ruby Rose left.

"Leadership is full of far scarier things than the ravings of an old man, if she was scared off by just that, then she's certainly not ready... not yet."

The cup of coffee that was approaching his lips as he spoke, managed to slip through his fingers, and broke on the floor below him.

Glynda rolled her eyes at the childish pout that Ozpin threw at her, as she used her semblance to put the cup back together, but then snatched it from Ozpin and took a sip herself.

Ruby felt terrible, she wandered about till she arrived back in class; she couldn't go back to the dorm room, not right now.

"You're still here?" came a voice from within the classroom, it was Adam who was still arranging books and cleaning up.

"Oh, Adam, sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you. I'll, I'll go now."

"Wait, don't," the redhead, called to her as she tried to leave, "Help me clean up."

"Why is there so much trash on the first day?" Ruby asked as she tried to clean up copious amounts of some sort of slime from the floor.

"Somebody played a prank and let's say the victim's semblance wasn't keeping his lunch down."

"I preferred it when you didn't tell me," she said as she pinched her nose in disgust.

She turned around to see that Adam was cleaning up a similar mess, but on the ceiling, she feared to ask how it got there, for he might actually tell her.

At the end of everything, Adam cleaned up most of it, Ruby actually added to the mess when she thought she saw something move in the slime.

"Here," he said, passing a small chocolate box to her as he sat down next to the exhausted brunette. Ruby's eyes glowed in happiness, as she picked a small, dark circle and placed one on her tongue, Adam doubted his heightened hearing for a second, because he thought he heard her purr.

"So, what's got you down?"

"Oh, you noticed," Ruby said meekly, although she still popped another chocolate into her mouth.

"The only way you could have seemed more depressed was if Zach Boucher was playing in the background," he waited a few seconds for her to laugh at his joke, although he waited futilely.

"Terrible joke, I know but I had to try," he said with a playful shrug.

His attempt elicited a small smile from her this time, a smile that quickly went away.

"It's nothing that serious, it's just… It's just that I don't have anybody I think that I can talk about this stuff with."

"What about your sister?" Adam suddenly had a feeling that he shouldn't have asked that question, as Ruby dropped the chocolate that she was about to eat, as if the question made her too depressed to stress eat.

"I'm sorry," he said gently, "You don't need to talk about it if you don't want to."

"No, it's okay. Yang is… well, to be frank, Yang is tired of me." With every word of that that she spoke, Ruby's entire body gravitated towards the chocolate box on her lap, as though that was the only source of warmth in a blizzard, as though it would slip away from her if she didn't smother it.

"You see, I don't remember my mom, but up until I was about seven or so, whenever I thought 'mom,' I thought 'Yang'. Yang was always there, she taught me so much; like how to braid my hair, something I never do, how to put on makeup, how to flirt… boy, what a disaster that one was. I'm pretty sure there's still a guy who thinks I want to kill him. Everything I ended up not using, I did it with Yang."

"I think part of the reason I never do those stuff is because... I didn't think that braiding without Yang singing The Achieve Men, in my ear, or putting on makeup without her telling me that I didn't apply enough lipstick or flirting without her trying to coach me from a bush nearby, while facepalming through the whole thing. I didn't think… I didn't think that I could do them without her, I always thought those were 'Yang stuff'."

"This put stress on our relationship, because I always wanted her around for something, but she had her own life, her own friends, that she never got to got enough time with because she was taking care of me."

"Sorry for going on, and on, I'm done with my pity-party now."

"I certainly don't know what to say about this," Adam stated as he could not relate to Ruby's type of mother figure.

"I'm sorry, you asked me about what was bothering me, and I just dove into another topic entirely. How did I even get there? I don't know, I'm just really… ditzy."

"Not at all," he said as he ruffled her hair, mostly on instinct, "I enjoy a challenge, let's see what I can do for you."

"Not to sound offensive, but you screwed up your joke, you couldn't give me advice about my sister. I think I'd be more comfortable consulting a magic eight-ball." The words stung Adam's pride deeply, but he was a proud White Fang leader, he would not cry.

"Yes, but haven't you heard that 'third time's a charm'?"

"I hope so," she muttered under her breath.

"So, what did you want to ask me?"

"How… how are you able to do it? All of this?" she said gesturing at the now glistening classroom. "I mean, doesn't it get difficult at times?"

"Well," he said stroking his chin, "I've had responsibilities for a while now, so I guess that I'm used to it. Rather, I'll say; everyone has responsibilities, some decide not to take any that's all. I could easily have turned down the class rep duties or my duties as leader of team AMEN, or simply not done anything I was supposed to do. But responsibility is always there, if you don't take it now, you'll probably take responsibility for it down the line... I know I did."

He whispered that last part, although Ruby heard him and decided not to ask him about it. But the two kept talking, mostly her though, she talked about everything that came to mind, she told him how she made her weapon, about her uncle who had trained her, how she liked her coffee, she talked about everything, everything except her frustration with Weiss, how she had asked to be removed from her position as team leader, in other words, everything she wanted to get off her chest.

"Thank you so much," Ruby said, as the two stood before her dorm room.

"It was nothing," Adam stated, waving off her thanks, "Don't hesitate to come over and talk with me anytime. Although I'll probably have nothing useful to say, and just give you chocolate to cover it up."

"Chocolate anytime I'm down?" she asked, as she headed into her room, "I can live with that."

"Hey, Ruby. Where've you been?" Yang asked as soon as her silver-eyed sister stepped into the room.

"I was just talking to…"

"What?"

"I just realized that I spent hours talking to someone, and I somehow never ended up saying what I had wanted to," she held her head in her hand as she was too drained for a full-on facepalm.

"Where've you been?" asked Mercury, impatient as they were supposed to have a briefing hours ago.

"I'll explain later," he said simply, "Neo if you would."

The black-haired girl rolled her eyes, but she still activated her Overactive Imagination. After she did so, the four began to make gestures at each other they were using sign language.

Although all four members had checked and ascertained that there were no surveillance devices of any kind in their dorms, they decided to err on the side of caution and Neo activated her semblance to subtly conceal their hands while they communicated. This is what they were saying:

Mercury: What was the point of making me fight the Schnee girl?

Emerald: We already agreed that you would be the one to face other students, since there's a chance one of us would reveal our semblances while gauging their abilities.

Mercury: We already watched them against the Nevermore and Deathstalker, we saw how they fight. What's the pointing fighting them again so soon?

Adam: We can gauge everything from their strength, to their fighting techniques and their rate of improvement. Not to mention that you were able to get a mental hold on the Schnee girl.

Mercury: I did enjoy that part.

"Either way," Adam said, seeing that was nothing else to discuss, "I was with Ruby Rose, and I was cleaning up the classroom too."

"Aand, I've suddenly lost interest," Mercury said as he lay down with a comic.

"The team RWBY leader?" Emerald inquired, apparently interested.

"Yeah."

"I have to ask though; Why were you talking to her?"

"She happened to walk in on me while I was working, she decided to help me out and we end up talking."
"Aren't you supposed to hate humans or something?"

"And I'm interested again," Mercury said, "You were also okay about talking to several of them casually, not to mention you agreed to be part of a group of humans." Even Neo seemed to be interested, although she simply cocked her head slightly in the direction of the conversation.

"Well?"

"If you must know," he said as he pulled out a small metallic case, about four finger wide, "I use this."
"Is that…?" Emerald asked surprised, and Neo made a whistling movement with her mouth to express her surprise. "What? What is it?" asked Mercury as it all went past him.

"Oh, I forgot, you were raised outside the kingdoms, so you wouldn't be familiar with it," Emerald responded smugly.

"It's called apathy," Adam answered as he leaned back in his chair.

"As in the Grimm?"

"Yes, it's a drug that's synthesized from a Grimm of the same name," Emerald interjected, "It serves as a sedative of sorts and calms the user down. It's very common on the streets."

"And very important as well, as negative emotions attract Grimm and apathy masks these emotions effectively and is convenient to produce for Huntsmen."

"This container looks strange," Emerald said as she held it up to the light, " not to mention that there isn't any company logo on it."

"I actually made that myself, the doses, not the container, that was a gift."

"You know how to make apathy?"

"Yeah, it was commonly used on faunus who worked in the mines. Since the mines were usually away from well-guarded cities and slaves don't tend to have many positive emotions, it was a proper countermeasure as it reduced the events of Grimm attacks as well as reduced the propensity of rebellion by the slaves. Long story short, I was able to pick up the trick as a kid and it has saved me quite a number of times."

"You were force-fed apathy?"

"In every meal until I was nine," he said with a sardonic smile that set the entire group into a strange silence.

"I can't believe our leader is actually some kind of pimp," Mercury said, breaking the silence.

"Not really, I actually only use a variation of the drug that can be bought at any pharmacy, I even have a prescription."

"Well he somehow just got a lot less cool," Mercury said, his loss of interest apparent in his voice.

Later that night, Weiss, who had finally returned from her excursion with Cardin into the city, walked into the dorm room. She looked up at the bed that was tied precariously above hers, she didn't believe that she agreed to this, still, she always wanted bunk beds.

Notes:

[1] Since the last chapter, many of you have been asking: "MrDoutei, what's your semblance?" (No one asked me this, I just though it'd be fun to do.)
Well, if you go back up to the text with 1 at the end of it, you will see it… My semblance: Ethereal Fourth Wall. What does it do you ask? Well, I'm able to make characters break the fourth wall, this ability is great, because the characters in the scene have no memory of breaking the fourth wall, and it makes for good jokes.
[2] Seriously, where does he get all that coffee from?

*Thanks for reading this chapter, please, any corrections or tips to make my writing a little less cringey will be appreciated.