"305... 306... 307... 308! This one!" Russell exclaimed as he found team NCTR's assigned dorm. "Oh, cool! It even has the name on this panel here already! In our colours too!"

The two of his teammates that were following him looked for themselves and found that indeed, very quickly between the team being formed earlier that day and the present, the door had already been labelled with their team name, team colours (orange, red, brown and green) and their four personal identifying symbols. The teens suddenly realised why their registration had asked for those things. Evidently they would be using those signifiers to indicate them as much as – if not more than – their names. Below the room number and residing team was a small scroll reader. Russell passed his over the scanner and the door unlocked with a click.

Taking point once again, Russell opened the door and peeked inside. His teammates were bemused by his caution.

"Why's he being weird?" Topaz asked her faunus teammate.

Before any response could be made, the two were surprised when Russell threw the door open and ran in. "Dibs on back right!"

The two faunus' eyes widened as they realised the sly game Russell had been playing. You can't call dibs from outside the room so the mohawk teen had positioned himself to be the first inside with plenty of time to figure out which bed was the best. Thus the two faunus were left to face off against one another.

Despite the lag of that realisation setting in, the two moved so simultaneously it was like a starter pistol went off. With Naruto being closer to the door, Topaz took drastic measures using her semblance in hopes of bumping the fox faunus off the wall and halting his momentum.

Unfortunately for her, the combined forces pushed him through the door instead, though bashing his face into the doorframe as he went through. Taking a quick glance around he made a snap decision. "Dibs back left!"

"Dammit!" he heard from above him. Topaz slumped her way through the door over him, politely not stepping on him (as much as she might have wanted to). Looking around, she shrugged. "Huh. That works for me. I'll take back right. Closer to the bathroom."

"Great." Naruto said flatly as he rubbed at his squished nose.

"So where's our fourth gone?" Russel asked, already relaxing in his new bed, scribbling in a notebook.

"Don't know." Naruto answered. "But I have a guess."

Glynda Goodwitch, if one were being charitable, could be described as meticulous. She favoured order and organisation in all things. Perhaps that was why her semblance was telekinesis. The ability to move objects and put them in their proper place. Perhaps that was why her office at the ground floor of Beacon Tower was the epitome of organised workspaces. Desk placed perpendicular and equidistant to the entrance and the elevator to the higher floors. The desk itself was bare, save the work computer, some neatly organised files and a single photo of herself with her sister. Behind her desk in the corners of the room, two floor lamps emitted a soft light. On the opposite side, a comfortable if simple waiting area sat. Couch seating and a watercooler the only notable furniture.

After a long, stressful day, Glynda herself was sat at her desk taking one of her very few calm moments to enjoy a novel before the madness of the school year and the upcoming Vytal festival fell upon her. It was a silly story. A group of children using their monster-summoning semblance to solve a murder mystery. Somehow. Silly or not, it was very light-hearted. Something she needed when her day job involved sending children to what might be their death. An escape to a more peaceful world.

So one might not be surprised that when Cardin Winchester disturbed that peace by slamming her door open, breaking it off the hinge, blowing the files off her desk and marching into her office like he owned the place, she reacted...

Well, she reacted with the patience and dignity of someone who has had to put up with petulant children like this for a decade, actually. Slipping a bookmark into her reading material and placing it on the desk, she rose from her chair to address the teen. "Is there something I can do for you, Mister Winchester?"

The wording was a question. The tone was a demand.

Cardin, still in his armour from initiation, regarded her for a split second before moving towards the elevator and pressing the call button. "I'm going to see the headmaster."

"Not without telling me why, you're not. Professor Ozpin is a busy man and that elevator requires staff authorisation to use." Her arms folded, her riding crop was visible resting on her arm. "Why are you here?"

"He made a mistake setting up the teams. I'm gonna set him straight." he stated with one hundred percent certainty.

"The faculty didn't set the teams. You students did. If memory serves you paired with Miss Smoke and took a bishop piece, partnering your pair with the other bishop piece pair." Of course, her memory of it was perfect. She was fully expecting an outburst like this from someone on that team.

"Yeah. And then you set the mongrel to be the leader. Clerical mixup. It happens. I'll fix it."

Well, that's a special level of delusion, she thought to herself. "Mister Winchester-" she began before a beep from her scroll notified her of a message.

-Send him up.-

Sighing through her nose, Glynda put her scroll away. "It seems Professor Ozpin is willing to see you. Be respectful or I will make you respectful. Am I understood?" she asked as she moved around the redhead and swiped her scroll over the elevator controls.

Arms folded, Cardin's only response was to lightly shrug his shoulders.

The low hum of the elevator rising towards the headmaster's office was the only sound in the small confines. Neither had anything to say during the trip. Glynda had nothing to say now that Ozpin had decided to step in and Cardin deemed her not important enough to bother talking to.

The humming ceased as a ding sounded indicating the elevator had reached the office at the top of Beacon tower. Silence fell but was quickly swallowed as the doors opened. A quiet cacophony of clockwork clicking suffused the space the two stepped into. Cardin's intentions of rushing towards the professor to demand explanations and catch him off guard were squashed as he marvelled at the intricacy of the rooms décor.

So distracted was he, he only realised there was someone else in the room when they spoke to him. "Mister Winchester." Ozpin said, sat behind his desk, hands steepled in front of him. "What can I do for you?"

Cardin jumped on hearing his name, looking from the grey-haired man back to the ceiling. Hearing the question, he shook the errant thoughts away and refocused himself. "You need to fix my team."

Ozpin's posture didn't change. His expression remained an enigmatic smile. "Is it broken somehow?"

The boy's face showed incredulity. "Yeah? You put a dog as the leader instead of me."

"Mister Winchester!" Glynda admonished loudly. She would have continued if not for Ozpin subtly waving her off.

"He's a fox, actually." the headmaster said still with a slight smile.

Cardin looked at him as if he'd grown a third head. "You- How-? No! What the hell is wrong with you?! Animals on my team I could handle. They're freaks but they need a human who can give 'em a kick to keep 'em in line. I get that. But putting one as a leader?"

Ozpin inclined his head slightly as if accepting the comment. "Very well. Tell me, what makes you believe you would be a capable leader?"

The boy snorted as if the answer was obvious. "I'm strong and I know how to keep people in line."

Rising from his seat, Ozpin nodded. "I see. Let's take a look at how you displayed those traits during your initiation, shall we?" Tapping at his scroll a few times, a holographic screen appeared between Cardin and the desk. "Let's begin with... your strength."

On the screen, footage of Cardin scrambling to stay out of the crocodile Grimm's mouth appeared.

"Hmmm. Physical strength, yes. I'm not showing too much real combat prowess, however."

"That's not fair! That thing ambushed me!" the boy whined.

In response, the footage was rewound.

"Cardin! Get into the trees! There's a Grimm!"

"Yeah and I got into your mom last night!"

The screen disappeared, revealing Ozpin raising an eyebrow.

"... What?"

Against his will, the headmaster's jaw hung slack for a moment. "You... were warned about the Grimm attacking."

"Yeah, as if anyone would've believed that."

"You were given a warning about an attacking Grimm, while in the middle of a forest filled with Grimm. And you chose to completely ignore that warning. That doesn't show aptitude for leadership. That shows incompetence."

"Hey, where do you get off calling a Winchester incompetent!" Cardin said raising his voice as the professor started speaking over him.

"Let's look at you "keeping people in line" next, shall we?"

Again, the screen appeared. This time a sequence of events showing Cardin talking down to, insulting and belittling half of what later became his team. And them basically ignoring him. Even the one member he – at the time – got along with took the lead instead of him.

"So, to review." Ozpin announced. "You belittled your teammates, pushing them away. You utterly failed to intimidate them into following your lead. The one teammate that you didn't treat poorly still took the lead better than you did. And the one time you faced a Grimm you showed dangerous levels of incompetence. Quite frankly, Mister Winchester, if you have problems with Mister Fox leading your team, know that I would rather put an actual fox in charge instead of you."

With that, the screen vanished again and Ozpin sank back into his chair, returning to the paperwork he had been working on previously. Noticing the teen hadn't moved, he looked back up at him. "Was there anything else you needed, Mister Winchester?"

Cardin felt his fists tighten. The urge was there but he recognised it as a stupid one. Instead of doing what his heart wanted – to beat the smug expression of the man's face – his head won the battle and he stiffly turned, walking back to the elevator.

On the way down, Professor Goodwitch informed him he would be in detention for the next week for his words and for his disrespect.

"So how'd it go?"

On returning to his assigned dorm, Cardin's eyes flicked to the blond pest that asked the question. Sat at one of the study desks, feet up on it rocking back on his chair as he craned his neck to look at the Winchester. Cardin ignored him, walking over to and flopping down onto a bed, staring up at the ceiling.

The fox faunus tsked. "The silent treatment? What are you, five?" The redhead continued to ignore him. "Guess it didn't go your way then. Well, you're 0 for 2 on your bluster getting you what you want, ya know. I'm sure you'll figure out it won't work so well for you here. Eventually."

"Hey, that's my bed!" the sole female occupant of the dorm squeaked as she came out of their en-suite bathroom in her pyjamas. They were printed with a little cartoon bear wearing a yellow hat.

Cardin glanced down the length of the bed at her standing at the foot of it. His eyes met hers before they flicked up a little. A sneer passed across his face and he turned his head away, dismissing her existence.

Topaz felt her fists clench. They had gotten along so well during the exam and in the space of an hour that camaraderie had been replaced by open scorn. She swallowed thickly. "Fine." she said placidly as she began rooting through the drawers next to the redhead's bed.."I guess you won't be wearing the girls' uniform tomorrow so I'll move all this stuff over here where I'll be sleeping." She dumped her clothing on the bed to be sorted next. "But since you've decided to claim that area, I guess I'll have to move all the stuff I unpacked for you out of here." Within the span of around fifteen seconds, she removed Cardin's clothes and equipment from what had become her area and threw them on the floor of his. Job done, she started putting away her things again before another thought struck. "Oh. Also? Eat a dick."

Cardin's reaction could best be described as nonplussed. Petty spite like this is all the animals were capable of, after all.

Going unnoticed in all of this, Russell was left to his own thoughts. The current thought being he was glad Cardin hadn't been chosen as leader.

Still, if only he hadn't been on the team at all.

A/N: Man. Main problem with this chapter was getting it to a liveable word count. I know there won't be a stopping point as good as this one for a good while and I was sat at 1800 words trying to figure out how to do more stuff. Then my good buddy Slicerness suggested what basically amounted to the first scene here and it not only padded out the chapter with worthwhile content, it made everything afterwards so much better for the context.

My buddy Slicer is cool.

So I'm inferring a lot of stuff about the dorms. I believe RWBY/JNPR were at the very least upstairs and (for some reason) I'm under the impression CRDL were on the floor above them, being directly under the rooftop. If you're mad I'm futzing the details, don't tell me. I've already given the environment more thought than it reasonably requires. NCTR are on the third floor in the same room CRDL were in canon. Sorted.

As for things that are important. Like plot and characters. Cardin want to be the bigshot in charge, everyone else just kind of doesn't want to deal with him and his bullshit. Like I say, I think I ended up with a nice contrast bookending this chapter with the team getting along in the opening and filled with tension and resentment in the closing. That was fun. Please tell me what you think of it.

Also, Fandom Flux. Youtube. Channel. Good stuff.

Thanks for reading.

PS: Had to upload via phone because the regular site is bolloxed up somehow. It was incredibly inconvenient. I am not surprised by this. If anything's skewiff, blame that.

Additional AN

I just received a review accusing me of plagiarism with this story. The review was from a guest and didn't cite what story I was supposedly ripping off. So this is pretty much the only recourse I have (aside from getting my rant on during the podcast next week).

Like just about every author worth their salt, I take plagiarism very seriously. And accusing me of it without anything to back that claim up is an excellent way to severely PISS ME OFF. I have borrowed story ideas from people before (HP:GOTY, Face Every Shadow and technically Rubber Justice) but I always give credit for where it came from and never ripped off their actual work. With the exceptions of some (noted) quotes from Harry Potter and Persona 4, every word I've written was written by me. So if you want to accuse me of stealing work, you better back that shit up with a what, where and how. I hadn't seen a single story with this plotline before I started it and I haven't seen one since. Hell, the reason I wrote this in the first place was I was so sick of Naruto/RWBY crossovers that didn't bother integrating him into the world at all.

I find it very interesting that this accusation came within the space of an hour of my accusing someone else of plagiarism. Difference there was that I used this account to do it and gave the exact story and scene that they stole damn near word for word. I won't call out that story here in case that writer was uninvolved but that's a spectacular coincidence.

So. If this particular person wants to GROW SOME FUCKING BALLS and accuse me with their name attached and tell me what I'm supposedly stealing, I'd appreciate it.