Weiss walked slowly down the 3rd floor hallway, her footsteps echoing through its more stony-textured floor. For some reason, this floor seemed a little colder than the other three she had been exploring yesterday and the day before, and the reason for it still remained a mystery.

"Why is it so much colder up here?" she complained aloud, despite the fact that no one could hear her. She wrapped her arms around her body and continued on. So far, every room was just a random bedroom or empty room, maybe with a table or a few chairs. Definitely nothing interesting as far as she had seen.

By the time she had reached the halfway point of the hall, she noticed that it was even colder than before, and now it was starting to make her uncomfortable.

"What reason could this place possibly have for this floor being so cold?" she asked, shivering slightly, "It's not like this place needs heating if it's basically in the middle of nowhere, as far as we're concerned. What is this place, some kind of freezer level?"

She sniffed disdainfully and kept walking. Then she came up to a door with the tiniest hints of what looked like frost creeped in its corners. It was a metal door, and it was frigid when she touched her hand to its handle. Shivering a little more, she opened it, and was met with a freezing gust of air from the inside.

"Ah!" she peeped, her long white braid blowing behind her, "What the-"

She paused the moment she looked inside, a spike of fear and startlement pumping through her as soon as she laid eyes on what was directly ahead of her. There, sitting crosslegged on top of a large white-box freezer, was Neo.

A bowl of neapolitan ice cream in her hands and a satisfied look on her face, she was happily eating it, not at all seeming to mind the decently low temperature in the room. The room had an almost blue tint to it, and bits of ice and frost could be seen on sections of the wall, ceiling, and even the floor.

"Y-you again!" Weiss stammered, starting to shiver a lot more while the cold began to sink in, "What are y-you doing in here?"

Neo looked up and pretending to be surprised, widening her eyes and putting her hand dramatically to her chest, blinking rapidly. Then she straightened up, a sly, slight smirk crossing over her face.

Weiss hated that face, and it was one of the only faces she had ever seen her make in the few occasions she had encountered her. Every one had been unpleasant so far, and this one was likely going to be as well.

She expected her to suddenly dart at her with her umbrella or something, like she always did, and it was at that moment that she realized she didn't have her sword with her. Grunting with frustration and a bit of panic, she took a step backwards, her heart beginning to race.

But instead, the petite lady just sat here, straight and cross-legged, lightly twirling the small silver spoon in her fingers. She cocked her head to the side, as if amused at her as she stood their, staring at her, and then took another bite of her ice cream. Weiss swallowed and stood up straight, putting her hands to her sides.

"Can you talk?" she asked her slowly, wondering how and why the question escaped her mouth. Neo all but ignored her and continued to eat her bowl. Weiss frowned and took a step forward. If this girl was so prim and clearly knew what she was doing most of the time they met, then surely she would follow the rules that had been given to them three days ago.

That was, unless she was deaf and that was the reasoning for her silence. If that was the case, then she wouldn't know to follow the rules, since she wouldn't have been able to hear them in the first place.

"Are you deaf?" she asked, cautiously walking towards her, her hand instinctively at her side although her sword wasn't there. Neo still ignored her, and began to scrape the last bits out of the bottom of the bowl, slowly licking the cold metal tip of the spoon.

"Why aren't you answering me?!" Weiss scolded, frustrated and now standing right in front of her. Neo finally looked up, smirked again, and then pointed unamused at her mouth, raising a brow. Weiss rolled her eyes, groaning.

"Then why didn't you say-" she began hotly, pausing as she realized how foolish she sounded. She quickly recomposed herself and cleared her throat. "Why didn't you let me know?"

Neo slowly set her bowl down and slid down from the freezer box, forcing Weiss to step backwards, putting her hands on her hips and retaining her clever grin. Weiss looked nervously around, torn between punching the girl in the face or running away. The short girl began leaning her head forward, upwards to make it level with Weiss', and the devilish, evil look in her eyes deepened as her face got closer.

Terrified, Weiss took yet another step backwards, only for Neo to suddenly stand upright, startling her half to death and causing her to scream in fear. But Neo did nothing else but teasingly stick out her tongue and open her eyes as wide as possible. Weiss caught her breath after her near heart attack and swallowed.

"W-why'd you do that?!" she shouted angrily, "That wasn't even funny!"

Neo tipped her head backwards and threw her arms out, gesturing to make herself appear as laughing wildly, and then stood up straight again, holding her hands neatly behind her back.

"Some sense of humor you have," Weiss grunted, folding her arms, "You should be lucky that we're in this weird magical place right now. Otherwise, we'd be in a full fight right now, and I've improved since we last met. I'd have you finished." Even she wasn't very sure of her statement, but she also didn't completely doubt it...

Neo shook her head, clicking her tongue, and skipped past her towards the door, which was still open and letting all the cold air out. Weiss turned around, confused.

"Hey, where are you going?" she yelled. Neo faced her and without looking backwards, swiftly kicked the door closed with the most fluent of motions. Weiss felt a bit unnerved by this, but decided she had nothing to be afraid of. She didn't even look like she had her weapon on her.

"So...where were you before we got taken here?" Weiss asked, feeling nervous as Neo approached her, "Nora told me yesterday that she and her team had fought you for the Relic-" She blinked and quickly resumed yelling. "Where's the Relic?! What'd you do with it!"

Neo rolled her eyes and leaned up against the wall, her hands still folded behind her back. She gestured to her hip, which had nothing on it, and then crossed her arms, looking Weiss in the eyes.

Weiss raised a brow.

"You don't have it?" she inquired, unfolding her arms, "Where is it then?"

Neo grinned and shook her head, turning her head to the side and away from her. Weiss tapped her foot impatiently on the ground, annoyed, and walked angrily towards her, her hands balled up into fists.

"Look here, we may be going right back where we were before," she snapped, "But that doesn't mean I can't try to get some answers from you-"

"I heard someone scream!" Jaune cried, flinging the door open with his sword in hand, "What's the matter?!" Weiss and Neo both stared at him, unamused and confused. Then Weiss noticed Crocea Mors in his hands and fully turned around.

"Hey, where'd you find your sword?" she asked, "Did you somehow have it when we were brought here? I didn't see anyone else with their weapons." She looked expectantly at him for an answer.

"Oh!" he said, realizing that nothing appeared to be wrong, "Yeah, everyone's weapons are in the arena back. You know, that place where all the contestants keep their things right before a match?"

"Really?" Weiss said, suddenly excited, "Great! Thank you, Jaune. I'll just be on my way, now." She gave him a brief nod before exiting the room and breaking off into a run, eager to reunite with her precious sword. Jaune shrugged at Weiss' odd behavior and was about to leave when he noticed the second figure in the room.

She blinked her eyes rapidly at him, as if romantically, and winked. At first, Jaune didn't recognize her, but a split second later, his eyes went wide and his hands went to his head, his spiky yellow hair sifting between his fingers.

"Ah, it's you!" he shouted, fear seeping into him, "Not you again!"

Neo smirked at his reaction and walked towards him, her smirk widening as his eyes began to get impossibly wide. He held out his sword to defend himself when he realized that she was just standing there in front of him.

"Uh..," he began, confused, "Do...do you know about the, uh, rule that the people who sent us here gave us?"

Neo stuck her tongue out and nodded, rolling her head to the side so that her long, duel-colored hair swept along with it. Jaune was even more confused at her act of silliness, and wondered if maybe she had gotten messed up somehow by coming here. Maybe something had happened to her after she had ran off with the Relic?

"W-why are you acting so weird?" he asked. Then he slapped his hand on his forehead and shook his head. "Right, you can't even talk. You know what, I'm just gonna leave and, uh, let you do whatever it is you were doing...okay?" He backed away from her and she frowned.

Jaune just laughed nervously and quickly ran off, disappearing around the corner and leaving the door hanging open again. Rolling her eyes once more, Neo closed the door and went back to the freezer box to freeze all her tastebuds off.

-That Afternoon-

Blake placed the fourth finished book of her reading marathon on top of her small stack of three other ones. All four were quick thick, proof that she had likely been doing nothing much else but reading them all three days so far.

Sighing with satisfaction, she reached for her next one, stretching with a faint smile on her face and finishing off the last sips of cold tea from the cup beside her. The title on the large, wide, but somewhat thin book said, "Human Discrimination by Faunus". This was going to be interesting.

She had just finished reading the 2-paged long introduction when she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was a soft, light tap that she was sure she had felt before, and she turned around to meet eyes with a pair of bright blue ones.

"What is it, Sun," she sighed, wishing not to be interrupted. Sun sat down, as he had been squatting before, and looked over her large pile of unread books, as well as the one she currently had sitting in her lap.

"Nothin'," he answered casually, "Just bored out of my mind. Looks like you've got a lot of reading you want to do, huh?"

Blake nodded, averting her gaze and attention back onto her book. "Mhm."

"Do you have any idea when you'll be done?" he continued, looking over her shoulder what she was reading. She slightly shook her head, hardly paying attention, and flipped the page.

"So you don't know?" he asked, craning his neck so that his face was level with her's, "Because, if you really don't have any idea, and we're going to be here for a while-"

"Sun, please just let me read," Blake said, cutting him off, "As long as we're here, I might as well read all that I can. I haven't had any time to read much since we've been so busy, with all the chaos with Salem and such, so right now is precious time."

"Oh, c'mon!" Sun protested, holding his arms out, "I found you the first night we were here, you were so excited, and suddenly it's like you've been with me for a bunch of time and me being with you is old now?"

Black rolled her eyes and sighed.

"What would you even do with me?" she asked after a few moments of expectant silence. Sun's face lit up for a moment and he scooted in front of her, his tail waving with the motion.

"Well," he began, "We'd go the kitchen and have Ren cook us something fancy, then go to the arcade place on the 2nd floor, hit the arena to watch or join in a fight or two-"

"I don't play in arcades," she said flatly, her eyes not leaving the pages, "And I'm not in the mood to fight at all. I'm a little exhausted from earlier, like I told you before with Atlas and all that."

"Oh, right, right," he said quickly, "Uh...then what do you want to do?" He put his hands in his criss-crossed lap, almost in a childish way, and looked intently at her with an eager, exaggerated face. Blake looked up, a slight smile sliding onto her face at the sight of him, and rolled her eyes again.

"Well," she said, "I want to read this book."

"Yes, I get that," Sun said, frowning.

"But other than that," Blake continued, looking down with a little hesitation, "I guess it wouldn't hurt to enjoy a little good food. I didn't really eat lunch when Ruby told me it'd be ready, and if Ren could make some good-"

"Fish?" Sun interrupted, finishing her sentence for her, "Cool! I didn't eat lunch either, since I wanted to eat some with you, so it works perfect! Come on, Blake! Let's go!"

"Wait, what?" Blake asked, confused, "You didn't eat lunch because you were waiting-" But she was cut off as Sun grabbed her arm and pulled her up, leading her off towards the kitchen in happy excitement.

On their way, however, Sun literally ran into another duo, neither parties paying attention, and both ended up in a heap on the floor.

"Ow," Sun said, sitting up and rubbing his head, "Sorry about that, whoever you two are." He opened his eyes and then saw them. He'd never seen them before, but he had the feeling that he'd seen or at least heard of them somewhere...

Blake, however, looked like she knew them very well, and was giving the two across from them one of her golden, cold glares. It was a girl and a boy, both looking to be about the same age as Sun and Blake.

The girl had minty green hair that went about to her shoulders in a short cut, with two long strands of hair coming out separate on each side. Her eyes were deep red, and her skin had a tanner tone to it. The boy had messy, gray-silver hair, gray eyes, and a mean stare.

"Blake," the girl spat, clearly unhappy at the sight of her.

"Emerald," Blake replied sharply. Sun raised a brow, confused.

"You two know each other?" he asked, confused, "How many people do you know that I don't, Blake? First Ilia, then them..."

"And who are you?" the boy asked, looking hard at Sun, "Another member of your sunshine-and-rainbows party?"

"Uh, I'm really not sure," Sun answered, shrugging, "But I'm Sun. I have no idea who you are, or your friend over there, but it's nice to meet you. So, do Blake and her have some kind of frenemy relationship or something?"

"It's more than that," Blake muttered, still glaring at her. Emerald nodded.

"Much more."

"Right..," Sun said, still confused, "So who're you?"

"I'm Mercury," the boy said, "Me and Emerald work together for...well, we worked together for Cinder, if you know who that is." He gave a quick glance at Emerald to see if she had reacted at all to his sentence.

"Oh yeah, that creep?" Sun said, "I sort of remember her. My friend talked all about her and how much problems she'd cause and that kind of stuff, so I think so. Haven't really seen her in person, though. Did she die or something?"

Emerald's glare intensified and she stood up.

"Yes," she said, her face portraying deep pain, "She was the only person I had...who cared for me...she was like a mother to me!" Her eyes immediately became shiny, and a single tear drop threatened to fall. Mercury looked like he wanted to object, but remained silent for some reason.

"And because of your friend," Emerald went on, pointing accusingly at Blake, "She's gone now! A-and now I'm all alone, without anything or anyone to rely on or rise up for." The tear rolled down her cheek and faded from view as it thinned.

"She was a villain," Blake shot back, "A horrible, evil, black-hearted villain, and you should know that."

"You didn't know anything about her," Emerald replied, her fists shaking, "And before she took me in, I was nothing. I was a thief with nowhere to go...no home to live in...no one! Being alone is terrible, and she helped me not to be."

"For the last time," Mercury sighed, shaking his head and deciding to speak up, "Cinder doesn't care about you. How many times do I need to go over this?"

"Shut up!" Emerald yelled, glaring at him now, too, "You didn't know her like I did, so be quiet about it!"

"Hold up," Sun said, stepping in between them and holding his hands out to separate them, "First off, why do we want to know your life story? Second, me and Blake were about to go have some lunch together, so...no offense, but we're kinda in the middle of something."

Blake elbowed him, but said nothing. Emerald sniffed, and wiped away at her teary eyes while Mercury just grunted. Sun put his arm around Blake, causing her to slightly tense up, and pulled her away back towards the kitchen. Then they disappeared from view around the corner.

A moment after they left, Emerald sank to her knees and began to cry, quietly and in her hands. Mercury's hard look slightly softened, and he sighed, kneeling next to her and placing a hand on her shoulder.

"You need to get over his," he said, not showing much sympathy, but not cold either, "Seriously. I'm sure no one wants to know about your past when they don't even want to know you in the first place."

Emerald wiped her eyes again and stood up, brushing off Mercury's hand. "I know that. But it's so hard when everyone who's only seen her for her bad accuses her and treats me like some kind of alien, just because we cared about each other...and then people like you are always saying all kinds of lies!"

"Emerald-" Mercury began, frustrated, but was cut off when a certain someone came skipping over with a bright smile on her face.

"Hey, guys!" Ruby chirped, stopping next to them and holding her hands happily together, "Me and a bunch of other people are gonna set up a huge board-card game in the conference room place! Wanna join us? We're making it an all-dayer starting tomorrow morning."

Emerald and Mercury both looked extremely confused, likely because Ruby was treating them like life-long friends rather than what they really were; complete, absolute, flaming hot, mortal enemies.

"Excuse me?" Emerald said, putting a hand on her hip. Ruby continued smiling, making Emerald feel uncomfortable.

"Me and a bunch of other people are gonna set up a huge board-card game," she repeated, "In the conference-"

"We heard what you said before," Emerald cut in, stepping forward and hushing her, "I just meant, why are you asking us to come? We hate you, and you clearly hate us. If you don't, then you've lost your mind already."

"I think she lost it a while ago," Mercury said, partially smirking, "When you knocked her at Haven last year."

"Oh, I hate you plenty," Ruby said, still looking plastically cheerful, "But why not invite you while we don't have to be enemies? You guys were some really great fake friends before I found out that you were actually villains."

Emerald rolled her eyes, and Mercury just folded his arms.

"So, you guys in?" Ruby said, blinking innocently. Emerald and Mercury exchanged glances, almost appearing to be communicating telapathically, and said nothing for at least a minute. After that minute was up, however, they both nodded with heavy signs.

"Sure, fine, whatever," Mercury said, waving his hand dismissively, "We'll be there tomorrow morning. Just don't be disappointed or mad if we end up destroying it all or leaving in a fit of rage. Games are stupid."

"Great!" Ruby beamed, giving a little hop, "See you there tomorrow morning!"

Happy Easter, everyone!

For those of you who are like me, we celebrated the amazing resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and praised God for His awesomeness and love. For those of you who aren't like me...well, I hope you had a great Easter, even without getting to see family and stuff like that! :D

Last chapter was basically me saying, "Look! I watched volume 7! See?!" Hehe.

Story Advertisements: A Rosegarden Seedling, by Miasushi (The name is self-explanatory; why not try to get more favs and follows?)

Do What We Do Best, by RelightTheTorch (a funny/non-funny story with Torchwick and Trifa; I find it fun to read :P)

Thanks for reading and tune in for more chapters!