Beurling sat in the waiting room fiddling with the cylinder of her revolver, spinning it around.

"You nervous?" Frenda asked from across the room.

"A little."

"Wow, didn't think you'd be nervous."

"Yeah, well I have Klara watching so…"

"You'll be fine, you won't let her down." Tomoko smiled as she sat down next to Beurling.

Beurling snapped the revolver back together and put it back in the holster "I know, it's just not helped by the fact I couldn't have a cigarette before we came here."

"We didn't have time for it." Maple sighed.

"Well you could have woken us up earlier."

"Aw and ruin the dreams you two were having of each other." Frenda teased.

"Frenda, behave." Maple sighed before Beurling and Tomoko could reply "We're nearly on so we all ready?"

Tomoko leaned over a kissed Beurling on the cheek "For luck." she smiled "Now we are." Tomoko practically skipped to the exit of the waiting room leaving a blushing and stunned Tomoko 'She is so different when she's like this.' Beurling thought to herself and looking at the others in the room, they all thought the same 'She is not good for my heart sometimes.' Beurling thought as she stood up and followed Tomoko followed by Maple and Frenda.

As the team entered the arena the announcers began talking "So first up today we have team MSFT from Vacuo, if rumours to be believed this teams already caused a bit of stir among some of the other teams, partly for their team being led by a faunus and for another rumour of one of the humans and one of the faunus dating each other."

"Intresting, though not that we're here to speculate on rumours." The other announcer countered "We're here to see their fighting ability and speaking of which here is their opponent, IRRN of Vale."

Beurling looked over at the four faunus who were mostly in orange and reds "Hey, your parents know you're a bed warmer?" their leader Irn shout at Tomoko his ginger cat tail swishing. Tomoko looked stunned.

'Should have seen that coming.' Beurling thought to herself.

"Why is it any concern of yours what my teammates are doing?" Maple asked.

"Yeah, it's not your business, they're not hurting you." Frenda added.

"Oh, she is, even if she wasn't so public with it, making us look like a bunch of..." One of the girls Nasturtium if Beurling remembered her name correct started.

"Firstly keep that language off the TV, children could be watching and second Tomoko is not a traitor or that, she's in love." Maple countered calmly.

"Yes, she is and if she really believes that then we'll just have to knock some sense into her." Irn scowled pointing an accusing finger at Tomoko. Beurling saw Tomoko look away from the other team with a look of hurt on her face.

Beurling took a step between the male cat faunus and Tomoko, holding the girl's hand as she did "Don't think you're getting off the hook either, who the hell do you think you are tricking this naive girl?" Irn scowled.

"I'm not tricking her." Beurling retorted, though she knew it wouldn't make any difference to the other team's opinion of her or Tomoko "I care for her dearly and I don't care if you don't believe me, Tomoko does and that's the only person whose opinion matters to me." Beurling felt her hand being squeezed at the words.

"I know you have no cause to like or believe me and nothing any of us say will change your opinion, so how about we drop it and get to real reason we're all here." Beurling added.

"Works for us." Irn sneered as the selection of the terrain began.

Beurling looked back and saw Tomoko looking at the ground so her face was hidden from the team "Tomoko, are you…?"

"I'm fine." Tomoko snapped back "Let's just get this over with."

Before Beurling could say anything, the terrain was selected, some rubble building's and an ocean with beach and palm trees.

"Tomoko you're with me." Maple ordered "Beurling you and Frenda hold them here we'll cover you from the buildings ok?"

The rest of the team nodded as the countdown began, though Beurling had to fight the urge to look behind her as she could feel the dark mood that was coming from Tomoko and a quick glance at Frenda told her the hammer wielder felt the same dark aura coming from the gunner.

As the buzzer to begin sounded Beurling drew her pistol as Frenda aimed her hammer the pair opening fire, while Tomoko and Maple moved back firing behind them as they did.

Nasturtium put up a wall of fire to protect her team from the fire, once they heard Maple shout out Beurling and Frenda stopped firing as IRRN charged them. Beurling broke the revolver and reloaded as she saw three of the team heading straight for her.

Beurling sighed as she knew this was coming, as Irn swung his hammer first, Beurling jumped back and fired a single shot back stopping Irn from following up on his attack.

Before the other two could attack Beurling felt her aura tingle in a familiar way followed by a burst of machine gun fire breaking the pairs charge "Stop ganging up on my girlfriend!" Tomoko screamed.

Beurling kneeled fired a shot at each of them and blasted them off their feet, Beurling stood and moved to the side so Tomoko had an unobscured field of fire, Beurling glanced to the side and saw Frenda and Maple dealing with Nasturtium, with Maple shooting the girls weapon while Frenda kept getting hits in on Nasturtium.

"Rust go and help Nasturtium!" Irn ordered, as one of the trios broke off and help her teammate "Come on Ruskea!" Irn added as he charged in followed by his other teammate, the tall fox faunus making ready with his Zweihander.

As they came at her Beurling sighed as she put her Revlover in its holster 'I really hate having to fight faunus, but I'm not going to dishonour them by going halfway with this.' Beurling thought as she ignited her flames.

Ruskea attacked first swinging his Zweihander towards Beurling's head, Beurling brought her forearm up and beat the blade away as she slashed the man's leg and back careful not to hit the man's tail. Tomoko followed up by giving the man a burst from her machine gun.

Irn came in and tried to swing his hammer but Beurling brought out a few of her disks and threw at Irn and breaking his swing and leaving him open, Beurling took the opportunity to kick the man in the belly and before slashing the mans leg followed up by a full force punch to his sternum making him fly back.

Ruskea came to his leader help by hitting Beurling backwards with a strike from his sword making Beurling roll backwards, as she got up, she saw Ruskea charging, Beurling counter charged head on, just as Ruskea went to bring his sword down Beurling caught the man's arm just stopping the strike before slashing him again and kicking him backwards and finishing with a round house kick that left the man spawled. A buzz filled the air and Beurling saw Ruskea had been eliminated by aura level.

"You…" Irn growled, as he struggled to stand up.

Beurling turned to the man, she could draw her revolver and fire right now and knock Irn out right there, but Beurling she wasn't going to something so dishonourable, so she waited for Irn to charge, before she drew her revolver and fired twice and the rounds hitting him dead centre breaking his aura.

At the same time as Irn went out Nasturtium went out to, leaving just Rust left standing "You can stop now if you want." Maple shouted from the ruins "Never!" Rust yelled as she turned to Beurling and fired at the brawler.

Beurling felt her aura tingle as she dived out the way, followed by a hail of gun fire from Tomoko Frenda and Maple which quickly depleted Rust's aura.

"And we have a winner team MSFT of Vacuo." shouted one of the announcers.

Beurling sighed as she heard that noise, just then she heard running feet, she turned just in time to see Tomoko running at her and dived and hugged her tight.

"Are you ok?" she asked.

"I'm fine Tomoko, I've had far worse than that." Beurling smiled.

"Come on you two, time to leave." Maple said walking up to the pair.

(Five Hours later)

Beurling was sat on the roof smoking while Tomoko sat with her head on her lap "What was up before?"

"You mean in the arena?"

Beurling nodded as she put out her cigarette and looked down at the faunus "I've never seen you look like that before."

"I was just angry at them, they were judging you and us when they knew nothing about either, I wanted to just smack them, its why I got smacked by Luna, she was calling you all these horrid things and I snapped and she hit me."

"They have their reason Tomoko and they're not the only ones, we'll get more of this you know that."

"That's unfair though, you're not like that."

"I know, but life's not exactly been fair to them either and I can't blame them for being hateful or distrusting this is real."

Tomoko sat up and looked Beurling in the eye "I know, just hard to not get angry when I know different."

"Funny, I remember you moaning at me for the same thing."

"Beurling." Tomoko pouted, though it only made Beurling giggle a bit.

"Sorry, you are just so cute like that."

Tomoko's face lit up red "Beurling!"

"Sorry." Beurling said as she gave Tomoko a kiss on the cheek.

Tomoko responded by kissing Beurling on the lips, leaving Beurling blushing as Tomoko broke the kiss "You know I kind of like the taste of your lips after a cigarette."

"Tomoko!" Beurling blushed harder.

"I win." Tomoko smiled.

"Your terrible."

"Only for you." Tomoko sighed as she laid back down on Beurling's lap "I mean it though, I do like that smoky smell, it's kind of comforting."

"At least you like it, Sara and Klara moan about it all the time." Beurling said as she started to scratch the top of Tomoko's head, earning a moan from the blonde.

"And I really like that." Tomoko moaned.

"Well we're not needed to go anywhere right now, so we can stay here like this a bit longer."

"Please."

"As you wish." Beurling smiled.

"Beurling?"

"Hhmm?"

"I really like you, a lot."

Beurling opened her mouth to speak but the words she wanted to speak got stuck in her throat, her fear bubbled as she even thought about them. It wasn't the first time; Tomoko had said this a couple of times before and each time it was the same the words stopping before she could say them 'Why can't I just say those blasted words?' Beurling shouted in her head.

"I do to." Beurling sighed, as she felt Tomoko shift slightly and let out a little sigh herself.

"Still not ready?"

"Sorry." Beurling said disappointment welling inside of her.

"It's ok, I get it, I said I'll wait till you're ready."

"It's not though." Beurling sighed "It frustrates me."

"Well how about some more head scratches to make up?"

Beurling laughed "That was terrible."

"Hey, at least I tried."

"Fair point, here you go."

Tomoko wriggled and groaned happily as Beurling payed with her hair "I guess I owe you some more later."

"Huh, what for?" Tomoko asked confused and a little bit excited.

"For your help in the arena." Beurling smiled remembering the tingling feeling "You know my aura tingles when you do that?"

"Does it?"

"Yes, it does."

"It's not bad is it?" Tomoko asked opening her eyes and looking up a little concerned.

"No, it's nice, it's comforting."

Tomoko sighed happily as she closed her eyes "So is this."

"Agreed." Beurling smiled looking out at the view 'Never thought I'd find happiness in Atlas.' Beurling thought as she kept stroking Tomoko's head.