Chapter 7: New Arrivals

Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth, not me.

A/N: Flashbacks are now a thing I will be using, and will be indicated by

{[time interval].

[story]}.

Ruby (3rd Person)

"You ignorant little brat!" Blake yelled at Weiss.

Ruby sighed. The day had been going so well.

It had all started when Weiss suggested that they spend the morning down at the docks. It had been sunny, the air was cool but not cold, and they'd found out that Weiss mostly wanted to spy on the students from other kingdoms for the tournament, which got a few laughs. Then they found a crime scene.

{[Earlier that day, around 3:00].

Ruby turned her head down the street and gasped. There was a crime scene at the end of the block.

The windows of the dust shop had been smashed, yellow police tape covering them. There were scorch marks from dust exploding and bullet holes in the storefront. A pair of police officers stood out front talking.

The team walked down to the storefront, finding the officers in the middle of a conversation.

"I'm not sure if I should be happy or sad that we weren't here last night." one said.

"No kidding. We'd either be heroes or dead." the other responded.

"It wouldn't have happened if that tip hadn't come in."

"Analytics figured out who sent it yet?"

"Nothing except that they aren't from Vale. Their scroll number isn't on record."

Ruby cleared her throat. "What happened here?"

The officers turned and looked at them. "A shootout with the White Fang. They showed up pretty late at night, and had half the dust in the store by the time we showed up and fought them off. Jeff got his aura broken and leg removed by a guy with a chainsaw."

Ruby's imagination conjured an image of that. She immediately regretted it and wanted some brain bleach or a trash can. Yang was in a similar state. Blake looked downcast. Weiss looked like she had just come across an open sewer.

"Hmph! The White Fang." Weiss said. She crossed her arms and pointed her nose in the air with her eyes closed. "What an awful bunch of degenerates!"

"What's your problem?" Blake asked incensed.

Weiss turned to face her. "My problem? I simply don't care for the criminally insane."

Blake crossed her arms. "The White Fang is hardly a bunch of psychopaths." She said seriously. "They're a collection of misguided Faunus."

"Misguided?" Weiss said incredulously. "They want to wipe humanity off the face of the planet!"

"So then they're very misguided." Blake responded. She also muttered something else Ruby couldn't make out, outside of the word 'branch'.

"That still doesn't change the fact that the White Fang are a bunch of scum." Weiss said hotly, to Blake's growing anger. "Those Faunus only know how to lie, cheat, and steal."

Yang took that moment to try and intervene. "That's not necessarily true…" she started.}

Then things got even worse for them. A boat pulled up at the docks, and a monkey Faunus boy jumped off. The crew of the boat made it clear that he had stowed away, and then he proceeded to make Weiss's opinion of him even worse by throwing a banana peel in a police officer's face (they had also ran down to the docks) and then booked it past the team, winking at Blake along the way. They had chased after him until Weiss tripped over someone and he got away.

{[earlier that day, around 3:15]

Weiss finally noticed that she had tripped over a person, and hastily stood up.

"Sal-u-tations!" said the girl, still lying on the ground.

"Um… hello." Ruby said hesitantly.

"Are you… okay?" Yang said hesitantly.

"I'm wonderful!" the mystery girl said. "Thank you for asking." Her voice was normal, but her tone was weirdly calm for someone still lying on the ground, and sounded somewhat… robotic?
Team RWBY looked at each other in confusion. Yang was the one to speak up. "Do you… wanna get up?"

Mystery girl thought about it for a moment. "Yes!" she said, before leaping back to her feat. Um, okay, Ruby thought as she took a step back.

The girl extended her hand. "My name is Penny! It's a pleasure to meet you!" She seems pretty nice, she thought.

"I'm Ruby." Ruby responded.

"I'm Weiss."

"Blake."

"Are you sure you didn't hit your head?" Yang asked. Blake hit her in the side. Seriously, Ruby was not the most social person ever, but she still knew that was rude. "Oh, I'm Yang." Yang finished.

"It's a pleasure to meet you." Penny responded, in exactly the same tone as before. What? Ruby thought.

"You already said that." Weiss pointed out.

Penny paused and thought for a second. "So I did!"

"Well, sorry for running into you!" Weiss apologized.

The team started walking away. "Take care, friend!" Ruby said, waving her arm at Penny's general direction.

Once they got far enough from Penny, Yang voiced the group's thoughts. "Well, that was weird."

Weiss looked down the street to her right. "Now, where did that Faunus riff-raff run off to?" she said demandingly.

"What did you call me?" Penny had suddenly appeared in front of them.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I definitely didn't think you heard me!" Yang apologized, as Weiss kept looking back at where they left Penny and where she was now.

"No, not you," Penny responded as she walked through the group to Ruby, "You!"

"What?" Ruby said. "Me? I-I don't know. I, what I, um, uh…" she stuttered, as she tried to figure out what she said.

"You called me 'friend'! Am I really your friend?" Penny said, almost pleadingly.}

After a short conversation where Ruby had agreed to be Penny's friend, Weiss thought that Penny knew the monkey Faunus, who she insulted a lot. Blake took offense (reasonably, Weiss was being kinda racist), and so the two had started arguing.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Weiss released Penny's shoulders (she had grabbed Penny's shoulders earlier to interrogate her about the monkey Faunus). "Would you like me to stop referring to the trash can as a trash can? Or this lamppost as a lamppost?" she said, pointing at the items in question.

Blake growled and clenched her fist. "You ignorant little brat!"

Oh no, Ruby thought. This is gonna be bad. She watched the argument escalate.
Her sister sidled up beside her. "Um, I think we should probably go…"

"Where are you going?" Penny asked.

"Somewhere else." Ruby muttered. "You might not want to stay here." Hopefully, if they left the area and did something else Weiss and Blake would calm down.

Several hours later, they were still arguing. While at one point it had gone to calling names, and they had paused during dinner so they could still eat, the argument would not stop. She and Yang were currently standing in the dorm's doorway, watching and waiting for the argument to just stop. Weiss and Blake were sitting on their beds, facing each other.

"I don't understand why this is causing such a problem!" Weiss said exasperatedly.

"That is the problem!" Blake snapped back.

Weiss stood up from her bed. "You realize you are defending an organization that hates Humanity, don't you? The Faunus of the White Fang are pure evil!"

Blake also stood up. "There's no such thing as pure evil! Why do you think they hate Humanity so much? It's because of people like Cardin, people like you, that force the White Fang to take such drastic measures!"

"People like me?" Weiss asked incredulously.

"You're discriminatory!" Blake yelled.

"I'm a victim!" Weiss yelled back. Wait, what? Ruby thought. Weiss leaned in on Blake's face. "You want to know why I despise the White Fang? Why I don't particularly trust the Faunus?" She leaned against the bookshelf by the window. "It's because they've been at war with my family for years. War, as in actual bloodshed. My grandfather's company has had a target painted across its back for as long as I can remember. And ever since I was a child, I've watched family friends disappear; board members executed; an entire train car full of Dust, stolen. And every day, my father would come home, furious. And that made for a very difficult childhood." She punched the bookshelf.

Oh, Ruby thought. "Weiss, I-" She rushed over to comfort her bestie.

"No!" Weiss yelled. She turned away from the bookshelf and walked over to Blake. "You want to know why I despise the White Fang? It's because they're a bunch of liars, thieves, and murderers!"

"Well maybe we were just tired of being pushed around!"

WHAT!

The room was silent. Wiess slowly backed away from Blake, who realized what she had said. She looked around the room.

"I… I…" Blake dashed out the door before Ruby could even blink.

"Blake! Wait! Come back!" Ruby yelled as she ran over to the doorway, but Blake was already out of sight.

Blake (3rd Person)

Blake looked up at the statue in Beacon's courtyard. A Huntsman and a Huntress, standing proudly, looking towards the horizon… and below them, a Grimm under a rock, looking like it wanted to rip someone's throat out. That was what Huntsmen did, they killed monsters. But what else?

What could she do?

Blake reached onto her head and pulled off her bow. Her cat ears wiggled in the breeze, happy at being free.

"I knew you'd look better without the bow."

She turned around, seeing the other Faunus from the docks.

"Hey, Belle, Sun."

She spun around again, seeing Professor Azure walking in from the direction of the main building. She and Sun(?) said something at the exact same time.

"Belle's a nice name."

"How did you know?"

Azure smirked at them. "Less complicated thing first; no, Belle isn't her name, it's a thing I call her sometimes to be annoying. As for Blake's question, I have a semblance that tells me need-to-know information. One of my students running off to track down a terrorist organization counts."

"How did you know?" Blake asked incredulously. They wouldn't give a random assistant professor access to the application forms or transcripts… oh, wait, semblance.

"I know everything." Azure, making jazz hands as he said the word 'everything'. "If you need a personal day, take it. Then maybe start looking for the White Fang. Only engage if necessary, otherwise call the police. It'll be less of a headache for Ozpin and I that way."

"Why you?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Simple. I'm the guy who gave you the go-ahead. I'll also talk to your team, see if I can smooth things over. Oh, and Sun?"

"Yeah?" Sun responded.

"Don't do anything stupid." Azure said, before turning around and heading back into the building.

Azure (1st Person)

I watched team RWY walk across the courtyard to me. Huh, I thought it would take longer. I put down the essay I was grading on the bench and clasped my hands. "Little Red, Snow White, Goldilocks, I presume you're looking for Belle?"

They looked a little annoyed at the nicknames, but nodded. "She ran off last night." Weiss said somewhat angrily. "Because…" She hesitated.

I discreetly set up a silencing spell-bubble around us, making sure to conceal it. "Because you found out she was a Faunus, ex-White Fang, and you reacted badly?'

A/N: Next time: The Docks.