Chapter 12) Trust Issues

A/N: Thanks to the numerous tweaks that I have made to certain events and characters, what took a mere two episodes to cover in the main series shall now take five entire chapters to cover in fanfic form.

I choose to view this as a net positive. So, without further delay, let's begin!

[This one is dark]

"Are you kidding me!?" exclaimed Yang in disbelief. "Ninety Lien!? Since when does it cost that much!?"

The man behind the counter gave Yang a deadpan stare. "Since wholesale prices went up after all the miners' strikes up in Mantle. Hate to break it to ya, lil'-lady, but Dust is gettin' pretty pricy these days, and it ain't gonna get any better anytime soon."

Yang huffed in annoyance, slapping what remained of her money down on the counter and swiping the small vials of Dust, stuffing them into her pockets.

"Ain't you kids from Beacon anyway?" the shopkeeper asked. "Don't they give you your Dust for your weapons?"

"They do," Weiss chimed in from behind Yang. "But not very much. Sometimes we need a little extra."

As Weiss placed her much larger selection of Dust vials upon the counter, the shopkeeper raised an eyebrow. "That's a big 'little extra' there, lil'-lady. Ya sure you can afford all that?"

Weiss withdrew a card from her pocket and handed it to the shopkeeper, who took it and swiped it without a word. Both his eyebrows raised as his checkout beeped and accepted the card. "Well, never mind, looks like you got it covered."

Unlike Yang, Weiss bagged up all her vials properly rather than just shoving them into her pockets.

"For now, at least," Yang heard her mumble under her breath.

Yet another detail that caused Yang to question her decision to leave Weiss alone.

I can't force her to talk to me, but jeez, this is starting to get really unsettling.

"Are we done here?" Weiss asked, aiming her question at the rest of the team.

Yang nodded. She didn't have as much as she would have liked, but at least she had managed to get something.

"I don't need anything from here," Blake said. "Gambol Shroud uses standard ammo, and I can get that anywhere."

"H-hold on a m-moment!" Ruby quickly made her own way to the counter, a half-dozen small vials of Fire and Gravity Dust in her hands, and one vial of Lightning Dust…

"What's that one for, Rubes?" Yang asked, pointing to the out-of-place vial that Ruby handed to the shopkeeper.

Ruby shot Yang a look that was somewhere between excited and guilty. "W-well, I'm gonna try s-something a bit… different, but I don't w-w-wanna jinx it."

As often happened whenever her younger sister got one of her more outlandish ideas, Yang was torn between being concerned for Ruby's safety, and amused at just how out-of-the-box she could be at times.

"Just try not to blow yourself up this time, alright?" Yang remarked with a smirk.

"That w-was only one time…" Ruby mumbled under her breath.

"You're thirty Lien short, kid."

Ruby turned back to the shopkeeper. "I'll just h-have two of th-the Gravity Dust, then."

With all their purchases in hand (or pocket, in Yang's case), the four girls exited the Dust shop and made their way back towards the pick-up point for the airship back to Beacon.

"Thirty Lien for one vial," Yang fumed. "What a rip-off."

"It could have been worse," Blake said. "At least we were able to buy Dust at all today."

Yang hummed. "I guess. Still a rip-off, though."

"Well, what did you expect?" quipped Weiss. "With all the robberies happening lately, it's a wonder they haven't started to limit how much people can buy at once."

Yang glanced at the dilapidated, burnt-out remains of yet another Dust shop that they walked past as they continued on their way.

That makes it, what, five in two weeks?

"Good point."

Weiss huffed, and muttered something under her breath that Yang couldn't quite hear, but she did make out the words 'Faunus' and 'criminals.'

Judging by the way Blake noticeably tensed up, she had also heard what Weiss said.

Oh, dear…

This was a recipe for disaster. She needed some sort of distraction, fast-

"Look out!"

Yang turned, just in time to see a grey blur hurtling towards her.

Sidestepping quickly, Yang was just able to avoid being bowled over by the boy who had apparently not yet figured out how to actually use the rollerblades he was wearing. With a yell and much flailing of arms, his feet collided with the curb and sent him flying across the sidewalk, slamming into a lamppost.

Yang winced. That had looked incredibly painful…

"Ow…" the boy groaned, slowly pushing himself into a sitting position and wincing as he clutched his side.

"H-hey, are y-you OK?" Ruby asked.

"No," said a voice from behind them all. "He isn't, and it's his own stupid fault."

The boy shot a glare at the new arrival. "I'll figure it out eventually. Just give me a little time, Em."

'Em' shook her head. "Mercury, seriously, get rid of those things. I refuse to take you to the hospital because you can't listen to common sense."

"Emerald's right, Mercury," a third voice added. "At the very least, take them off while we're in town."

The boy, Mercury, huffed, but nonetheless removed the rollerblade wheels from the bottom of his boots. "Ruin my fun," he grumbled.

Accepting an offered hand, Mercury rose to his feet and joined his companions.

They were an… odd bunch. Mercury was very skinny, dressed in grey and black, with slicked-back hair that had gotten a bit messed up by his fall. The one called Em had green hair and red eyes, and was dressed in an odd leather outfit that bared her midriff. The taller third one, the girl who had told Mercury to take off his rollerblades, was wearing bandages of all things, underneath an open beige jacket, and her long ashen hair covered one eye. There was also a fourth member of this little group. A very short girl, even shorter than Ruby, with long black hair tied into massive twin tails that came down to her waist. Her attire was all black and white, with frills around the neck.

"My apologies for my teammate's recklessness," intoned the taller girl. "He can be little… excitable at times."

Yang just nodded, a little at a loss for what to say. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, but there was something about this girl that threw her off a little. Perhaps it was her strangely refined voice, or the way she seemed to carry herself…

"If you don't mind me asking," the girl continued. "Would you four happen to be students at Beacon, by any chance?"

"We are," Weiss replied, apparently taking the initiative. "And am I right in assuming that you are here for the Vytal Festival?"

"You assume correct." The girl offered a hand towards Weiss. "We are Team Carmine, C-M-N-E, from Haven Academy."

"Team Ruby, R-W-B-Y, of Beacon Academy. A pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Yang watched as Weiss and this new arrival shook hands and exchanged pleasantries. If she didn't know any better, she would have sworn that these two were related in some way. They seemed to be on exactly the same page.

"I suppose more proper introductions are in order. My name is Cinder Fall." Cinder gestured to each of her teammates. "This is Mercury Black, Emerald Sustrai, and Nyx."

"Sup?" said Mercury, giving them a lazy wave.

"Hey." Emerald nodded at them with a smirk.

Nyx said nothing, just stood and stared at the four of them with an oddly disarming smile on her face.

"Well, my name is Weiss, and my teammates here are-"

"I can introduce myself, thank-you." Blake cut Weiss off, sounding more than a little irritated. "I'm Blake."

"Uh, R-Ruby R-Rose." Yang frowned. Ruby rarely tripped over her own name like that, but given the odd vibes she was getting from these four, Yang could hardly blame her for feeling a bit nervous.

"I'm Yang. And if we don't hurry up, we're gonna miss the airship, so we'd better go." Yang offered Team CMNE a curt nod. "See you around."

"I look forward to meeting you again in the near future," intoned Cinder.

The two teams went their separate ways, Yang in particular feeling uncharacteristically eager to get away from these strange new arrivals as quickly as possible.

They were kinda creepy. Especially that Nyx girl. Did she even blink once that whole time?

"The H-Haven students w-weren't s-supposed to arrive f-for another month, r-right?" asked Ruby.

Yang was a little confused by this as well. "I guess since the Atlas guys got here early, the rest of the schools just decided to send theirs early as well?"

"Most likely," mused Weiss. "Although I don't recall there being an announcement on that front. Either we missed something, or Professor Ozpin is about to get a bit of a surprise."

Yang personally doubted anyone could catch the Headmaster by surprise. If even half of the stories people told about Ozpin's exploits were true, that man was almost impossible to outwit. Yang half-suspected that he could predict the future somehow-

"Hey, stop that Faunus!"

The sound of footsteps approached from the left. Rounding the corner at speed, a boy in an open white shirt with a long yellow tail emerged, weaving through the crowds and grinning from ear-to-ear.

"Wasn't me this time, guys! Sorry!"

Hot on his heels were a pair of police officers. "Stop him!" one cried. "Thief!"

"Not a thief!" the boy retorted. "Just a simple case of wrong-place, wrong-time!"

The boy was approaching the four of them, so Yang moved to step out of the way. No need to get involved in this. He might have been a thief, or he might have been innocent. Either way, Yang was not eager to get embroiled in anything like this today…

"URK!"

Weiss, however, was apparently not feeling as apathetic as Yang was. Rather than moving aside, she had placed herself in the way of the fleeing boy and clotheslined him.

As the boy dropped to the floor, winded, the pursuing police officers finally caught up, panting from their exertion.

"Thank-you for your assistance, young lady. We'll take it from here."

In short order, the police officers had the boy up on his feet, hands cuffed behind him, and began to roughly march him away.

"Hey, I'm telling you, I didn't rob that guy! Seriously, check my pockets, I don't have his-"

"Shut it, hairball!" snapped one of the officers, before delivering a blow to the back of the boy's head with his baton. "I don't wanna hear it!"

Yang winced. That had looked like a hard hit. That guy was probably seeing stars after that…

"Serves him right."

Yang winced again, but for an entirely different reason.

Dammit, Weiss. Let's just hope Blake didn't-

"What did you say?"

Yang sighed. "I'm sure she didn't mean it like that, Blake."

Blake folded her arms. "Then how did she mean it? Enlighten me."

Yang cursed inwardly. The tension between Blake and Weiss had been building for some time now, and given what Yang had learnt about them both recently, she had been hoping against hope that they would be able to avoid a full-blown confrontation.

Silently, Yang pleaded for Weiss to recognise that this was not the time or place, and to keep her mouth shut.

"I meant that if he's going to run around acting like a criminal, he should expect to be punished for it. Quite frankly, those officers had every right to be angry with him."

Yang paled. She looked from Weiss to Blake, then from Blake to Weiss. Both were staring intently at one another.

Crap.

"You don't know anything about him. All you know is what you saw. You can't just assume that he's guilty like that."

"I saw enough. He was fleeing the authorities. What possible reason could he have to run if he hadn't done anything wrong?"

"So even if he was innocent, he should have just let himself be arrested? Is that what you're saying?"

"Now who's making assumptions? Do you think the police just go around arresting people without good reason? If he were as innocent as you seem to believe, as soon as they were done questioning him, he would have been free to go."

Neither girl had yet raised their voice, but it was clear that they were close to reaching that point. Several passers-by were beginning to stare as Blake and Weiss remained stood opposite each other.

"Uh, guys?" Ruby tentatively took a step forwards, attempting to get their attention. "M-maybe w-we should-"

"Are you seriously that naïve?" Blake spat, ignoring Ruby as she stared daggers at Weiss.

Weiss scowled. "Excuse me?"

"OK, let's get going! We gotta get that airship on time, or we're gonna miss dinner!" Yang spoke with forced cheer as she grabbed Ruby with one hand and Blake with another and began to guide them along, shooting a glance back at Weiss as she did so.

Blake yanked her arm free from Yang's grip, but nonetheless followed in silence.

A moment later, Weiss began to trudge along with the group.

"Yang?" Ruby spoke in a whisper. "Wh-what just h-happened?"

"Don't worry about it," Yang whispered back. "I got this."

No way was Yang letting Ruby get involved in… whatever this was going to turn into.

Dinner had been supremely uncomfortable. All four ate in stony silence, not saying a word to each other or to anyone else at their table. Pyrrha and company had evidently picked up on the atmosphere around their group, and had elected to leave them alone.

As they made their way back up to the dorm, Yang hung back with Ruby.

"Sis?" Yang kept her voice low. "Let me handle this. You go to the library for now, and I'll-"

Ruby shook her head firmly. "I'm th-the leader of Team RWBY, Yang. If th-things aren't r-right, I n-need to be h-here, to help."

Yang wanted desperately to insist that no, Ruby didn't need to be here, that she should just listen to her big sister and leave this to her…

"Yang, please."

Yang looked her little sister in the eye.

Ruby stared back. Nervous, maybe even a little afraid, but resolute, nonetheless.

As different as Ruby and Yang were in so many ways, they also had a lot in common.

A mutual stubbornness was one of those ways.

Yang nodded. "Alright."

The four girls entered the dorm room.

As soon as the door closed behind them, Weiss rounded on Blake. "Now you listen here, Blake. I am not some brainless little girl, so don't you dare accuse me of being ignorant!"

Blake glared at Weiss. "Everything you've said suggests either that, or that you have something against Faunus."

Yang's eyes widened in alarm. This was going in a direction that would end in disaster. "Blake, come on, that's not-"

"Are you really going to defend her?" Blake snapped, turning her glare upon Yang. "You heard what she said!"

Yang raised her hands in front of her. "Hey, let's not jump to conclusions or start making accusations we'll regret later." She kept her voice level, despite slightly panicking a little on the inside. "Why don't we all just calm down, before this gets ugly…"

"If you're going to accuse me of something Blake, just do it. Don't skirt around it, just speak your mind right now."

Yang turned towards Weiss. "Weiss, seriously, that's not helping-"

"Yang, stay out of this," said Blake firmly. "This is between me and Schnee."

"Weiss! My name is Weiss!"

Weiss had yelled loud enough that Yang was pretty sure the other rooms had heard her as well.

"I am not Schnee." Weiss spoke lower, her voice shaking ever so slightly. "Don't tar me with the same brush as him."

This was getting out of hand. Yang needed to stop this, now, before someone got hurt. She didn't know exactly what was going on with Weiss and her family, but it was clearly nothing good.

"Weiss?"

Ruby approached her partner slowly. "M-maybe w-we should go f-for a walk, m-me and you?"

Were the situation not so dire, Yang would have felt so proud of her sister.

Good call. I'll talk with Blake, and Ruby can talk with Weiss.

After all, Ruby had done it before, now that Yang thought about it. Weeks ago, when Weiss had stormed off that one time, Ruby had been the one to speak with her. She hadn't told Yang exactly what they had talked about, but ever since then the two had been on much friendlier terms.

Whatever Ruby had done that day, it had worked wonders. Maybe she could-

"Well, how do you think Faunus feel, whenever people like you keep lumping them in with criminals?"

Yang stared at Blake, eyes wide and mouth agape, shocked by what her partner had just said.

"Blake, what the hell!?" she exclaimed.

Blake just gave Yang a cold look. "It always happens, Yang. People like her, who've never had to live in the real world, have no idea what life is like for the rest."

Out of the corner of her eye, Yang saw a look of genuine hurt flash across Weiss' face, only to be replaced a moment later by one of white-hot fury.

"You don't know anything about me!" she screamed. "You're the one who has no idea! The Faunus, those White Fang monsters, they've done awful, sick things!"

"And why is that, Schnee!?" Blake yelled, finally raising her own voice. She took a step forwards, closing the gap between her and Weiss. "Have you ever stopped to think about why the White Fang exists? Why so many Faunus feel the need to go so far?"

"Nothing justifies what they do, Blake!" Weiss snapped back. "How can you even think of defending them?"

"Because I've seen just how bad things can be!" Blake took another step towards Weiss, narrowing the gap between them even more. "I've seen things that would make you sick to your stomach. And it happens all the time, all over the world. Yet everyone just ignores it, pretends it isn't their problem and sweeps it all under the rug."

Blake drew herself up tall, looking down on Weiss with contempt clear on her face. "I don't agree with everything they do, of course I don't. But I cannot and will not ignore the fact that the world, and people like your family, pushed them to those extremes."

Weiss did not look cowed. She stared up at Blake, stared her straight in the eye.

Yang was at a complete loss as to what she should do.

This was beyond her.

She could be the shoulder to cry on, the ear to listen. She could offer a hug, words of comfort, a few pieces of advice. She could help her sister calm down, and assure her partner that she would always be welcome and accepted, and she could tell Weiss time and again that she was here if she needed her.

She could even let her own father lean on her when he fell apart.

But this? This was not something she knew how to fix.

Yang felt helpless as she watched her two teammates argue.

What do I do?

"My family?" Weiss said, barely more than a whisper.

Blake's scowl curled into a sneer. "Oh, don't even pretend you don't know what your family have done. Even you can't be that ignorant."

"My family?" Weiss said again, louder this time. "My whole family? You think we all deserve to be condemned, because of one man?"

Blake frowned once again. "I don't believe that anyone deserves to be held responsible for the actions of others. But since that is the world we live in, is it any wonder why your whole family is so hated?"

"So if someone were to attack my family, to get revenge for the actions of my father, you would say that they were justified?"

Blake seemed taken aback by that statement. "I didn't say that."

"Well someone else did," said Weiss, pointing at her eye.

Her scarred eye.

The room went silent and still. No-one said a word.

"Huh?"

Weiss smiled, but it was a smile that was devoid of any joy.

"Father used to insist that my brother and I accompany him on business trips, you see. He said we had to show everyone that we were united, especially after my sister left rather publicly to join the military. 'Our reputation is everything' he would say, time and time again. He made very sure Whitley and I knew that as well."

Yang felt a mounting sense of foreboding as Weiss spoke.

"One trip took us a bit further than usual," Weiss continued. "A mine on the border territories. Something to do with a pay dispute, apparently. But we didn't really care about that sort of thing, Whitley and I. We were just a pair of bored ten-year-olds, and we had never been so far away from home. And I wanted to go exploring…"

Weiss took a few steps back and sank onto Ruby's bed. She looked tired, but her gaze never wavered from Blake.

"Whitley wasn't so sure, but I persuaded him that it would be fine. 'We'll be back before anyone even notices we're gone' I said. So while Father was in his meeting, we snuck away and went looking for something fun to do."

Yang couldn't be sure, since Weiss was in the shadow of her own bunk, but it looked like tears were beginning to well up in her eyes.

"I still don't really know what happened. One moment we were wandering around the mine, looking for fossils of all things, because we'd overheard one of the workers mention that they'd dug up some old bones. But the next thing I knew, I had a bag over my head, and I was being thrown into the back of a bulkhead."

"I don't know where they took us, but it was far away from home. When we arrived, they tied us to chairs and set up a camera in front of us. They made us read from cards they held up, made us say that they were… that they would return us bit-by-bit, until their demands were met."

Yang felt the blood drain from her face, and felt the sudden urge to void the contents of her stomach as she found herself picturing what Weiss was describing.

"They made us say it," Weiss hissed. "They forced two ten-year-old children to describe what they were going to do. Recorded it. When we started to cry, they held their knives to our faces and forced us to keep going."

Weiss paused for a moment, seemingly gathering herself a little.

"I had to sit there and watch as they cut my brother's eye out."

Yang heard Ruby gasp, and saw her sister cover her mouth in horror.

"It was my turn next. I was struggling so much that he missed at first, cutting across my eye instead of around it. He had to get his friends to pin me down so he could try again."

"But…" Blake swallowed. "But you still have your eye."

Weiss nodded. "I do. Because I was lucky. In that moment, as he went in to try and take my eye out again, I unlocked my own Aura and used my Semblance for the first time."

Yang had heard that it happened sometimes. People who were in life-or-death situations could unlock their Aura without realising it, drawing out the power of their soul out of sheer desperation.

She and Ruby had had their Aura's unlocked by Dad as soon as he felt they were strong enough, and they had been allowed to figure out their Semblances in their own time. Yang couldn't even begin to imagine what it must have been like to discover such a thing in such a terrifying situation…

"I couldn't really control it, but that didn't matter in the end. It only bought me a few extra seconds, but that wound up being enough. Turns out the little bracelets that Father had given us for our birthday had tracers installed on them, and just as they were getting ready to pin me down again, the military arrived to save us."

Weiss was no longer staring at Blake. She had lowered her head and was now staring at her balled-up fists in her lap.

A few tears had dripped onto her knuckles.

"Whitley was never the same after that. I suppose neither was I. I had corrective surgery, but my left eye never fully healed."

"I… I th-thought y-you got it in a… training accident," Ruby whispered.

Weiss lifted her head and grimaced at Ruby. "Father likes to spread that story around. Better for people to just think I was a clumsy child than learn the truth. Better for our reputation, after all. It's the same reason why he keeps Whitley out of public view. He was the heir at first, you know. But after he lost his eye, and after he…" Weiss took a shaky breath. "Well, I was the better choice after that. Or rather, the only choice Father had left."

Weiss returned her gaze to Blake. "So there you go. Now you know this ignorant little girl's story."

Blake said nothing. She no longer glared or sneered. She looked as shocked and horrified as Yang felt.

"I…" Blake swallowed. "You… you were ten?"

Weiss nodded.

"But… the White Fang doesn't target children."

Weiss just stared at Blake. "Now who's being naïve?"

Blake took a step back.

Then another.

Then she turned and ran for the door.

"Blake!" Yang grabbed Blake's arm. She was not going to risk losing her again.

Blake twisted free of Yang's grip, and in doing so, lost her balance and fell to the floor.

Her bow had already come a bit loose earlier.

Now, jolted by the rough landing, it slipped from her head and fluttered to the ground.

Yang froze.

Blake froze.

Ruby gasped.

Weiss uttered a stunned "What!?"

Blake, her cat ears on full display, shot up and bolted for the door as fast as her legs could carry her.

The door slammed shut, and the remaining three inhabitants of the room remained silent and still.

…

"Oh no…"

This was so much worse than Yang had ever expected.

"She… she ran?" Ruby sounded lost.

"She's a Faunus?" Weiss sounded shocked.

Yang spun around, panic overtaking her mind.

"It's not what you think!" she exclaimed.

Weiss' eyes widened. "You knew!?"

"You don't understand! It's not like that! She isn't…"

Isn't she? How do you know?

No! She's not like that! She would never… she would never…

…

She wouldn't… would she?

Yang didn't know any more.

But she did know she couldn't let things end like this.

Yanking the door open, Yang sprinted down the corridor, burning her Aura to give her a boost, hoping that it would help her to catch up to Blake before she vanished into the night.

Yang rounded the corner, her shoulder slamming into the wall hard enough to crack it, but she kept on going.

Yang leapt down the entire staircase, landing hard enough to cause her Aura to flash from the impact, but she kept on going.

She burst out the main doors and onto the courtyard.

But there was no sign of Blake.

She was gone.

No! No no no no no, this can't be happening! How did this all go so wrong!?

"BLAKE!"

Hello once again to all my returning readers, and hello for the first time to anyone who decided Chapter 12 of a long-running fic was a good starting point for some reason. I'm Not Scot.

This was more difficult to write than I was expecting it to be. I don't know why Yang feels harder to write than the other three, but getting into her headspace is trickier for me for some reason, and I can't really explain why.

If anyone has any insight they would be willing to offer, I'd greatly appreciate it. I always want to improve as a writer, after all.

Weiss' backstory reveal went through a few different variations before I settled on the final version. The first draft had her being taken from the manor in the dead of night, but that didn't seem plausible, so I had her be out with her family, away from the security of home. Another version had Adam be present to establish an early connection with Weiss, but that didn't make sense with the timeline I have in mind, so he was removed. In the end, I chose to focus more on just what Weiss and Whitley would have noticed and remembered, rather than trying to force any other links.

Eagle-eyed readers may have noticed that Weiss being partially-sighted in her left eye is something I hinted at way back in Chapter 6, 'You Don't Know Me'. Ruby kept attacking Weiss from her left side because she had picked up on that from what she had observed.

Next time, Team RWBY deal with the immediate fallout of what just happened here. But for now, I will take my leave.

Until next time,

Not Scot.

P.S: Neo had to have gone by an alias of some sort while pretending to be a student, since she is a known associate of Roman. Nyx seemed like as good a cover as any, since she does deal with illusions (of a sort) and it allows me to use Carmine as Cinder's team name, which is a shade of red.

As for why Cinder and the other two go by their real names? Well, Emerald is a nobody that isn't on anyone's radar, Mercury's dad was renowned enough that he still uses his family name to gain recognition, and Cinder… well, spoilers.