"What do you mean she's accepted her place at the academy?"

Jacques Schnee was screeching and absolutely livid.

James Ironwood was the one of the few people in all of Remnant to have the displeasure of being amongst the Schnee patriarch's captive audience and he wasn't happy about it at all. With nowhere to go and no discernible escape route, James listened on as the man leaned over Ozpin's desk in what was an obvious attempt to make himself more intimidated while he more or less threatened Ozpin, who quietly waited for Jacques to finish.

Once Jacques grew quiet, Ozpin decided to speak with nothing less than an incredible show of patience. "What I mean, Mister Schnee, is that your daughter Weiss decided that she will be taking her place at this academy which she earned by her own virtue." Ozpin replied, their eyes blank and expression obviously bored.

James figured that he felt some amusement from their reaction, if only because he knew that it was going to push Jacques further and further along into his indignant rage.

"I come here to tell you that my daughter, who is the heir to one of the most powerful companies in the world has gone missing- my company, and this is what you give me?" Jacques stood up properly and looked over at James, his eyes narrowed and blazing.

James was already preparing himself for whatever was going to end up leaving the man's mouth over this current ordeal.

"Yes." Ozpin replied calmly. "I believe that she made her choice and I intend to stand by it."

"James!" Jacques nearly whipped around on his heel to face James, and James did his best to keep his expression still so that he couldn't find himself in a situation where he was going to have to worry any further about what Jacques would say. Above all else, James needed to be able to hold his composure in this situation.

"Yes, Jacques?" James responded, picking his head up and looking over at the other man with bored blue eyes.

"You must have something to say!" Jacques replied. "This is kidnapping!"

James grimaced. That hadn't been something that he'd thought that he'd be hearing out of Jacques, all things considered. But he needed to do something to go ahead and speak up and try to let the situation rest as easily as he could.

"No," James began with a sound. "Your daughter is eighteen, correct?"

Jacques' brow furrowed further and his glare that he'd leveled on James had only managed to become more intense and furious. "What does that have to do with anything?" Jacques replied. "My daughter is missing and all that you care about is that she's eighteen?"

James glanced over at Ozpin out of the corner of his eye. "Has there been any word of MIss Schnee attending her classes?" James asked, keeping his voice as even as possible while he waited for his companion to say anything that could help to put the situation at rest.

Ozpin nodded. "Professor Goodwitch has informed me that Miss Schnee arrived for classes on time this morning." They said all too calmly as they sat there behind the desk that James had leaned back against. "I can only assume that this means that she spent the night in one of our dorms."

Jacques' mouth dropped open in pure indignance before he finally spoke back up. "You're going to stand for this?" He whipped his head back over in James' direction. "General, this would-"

"Jacques." James cut the man off calmly. "If Miss Schnee is over the age of eighteen there is nothing that we can do to stop her from taking classes here at Beacon, or from staying here unless she is somehow being held under duress."

"I can think of one thing!" Jacques sneered at the two of them. James tried hard not to let himself react to it, despite the fact that there was some part of him that told him that he needed to be able to do something. He needed to step up and find a way to silence Jacques. But it was also for the best to let them man talk and make a fool of himself. "You have the power to see to it that Weiss is expelled from this school or otherwise deny her entry."

Ozpin glanced over at James. "I won't do such a thing." They said calmly. "Miss Schnee has shown herself to have some talent on the battlefield and if she wants to attend Beacon Academy, then I will not stop her."

James nodded to show his support for Ozpin's words. Already, he was expecting a reaction from Jacques that would only be able to be explained in frustration or rage, but he needed to do what he could. Weiss Schnee seemed like a nice enough young girl, if James' first meetings with her had indicated anything to him. James was certain that he would see some punishment for siding Ozpin, and that put him in a difficult position.

That said, he wouldn't bend over backwards because that was what Jacques wanted.

"I agree with Ozpin." James said calmly, bringing the attention over to himself for just a little while. "Miss Schnee is legally old enough to be considered an adult within all of the four kingdoms as well as within Menagerie." He paused, thinking back to the threat outside of the city and grimaced. "In times like these, the academies could use any capable fighters that they can get, and your daughter qualifies under that."

Jacques turned his entire body and stepped in close enough that James couldn't help the reflex to tense as the man got so close to him that the two of them could have touched very easily. It was too uncomfortable, something that James wasn't going to be able to forget about nor ignore.

"This is sounding awfully familiar from you, James." Jacques Schnee. "If your intent is to steal another daughter from me-"

James' jaw tensed and he moved just slightly himself, using the chance to make himself look just a little bit more physically intimidating so that he wouldn't find himself getting in a position where Jacques had the upper hand. This was the sort of argument that the two of them had gone through many times before in the past, and James wasn't going to be able to ignore that. The fact that Jacques was already throwing certain accusations at him was a testament to that.

"I can assure you that I have had no role in your daughter's decision to attend Beacon Academy." James said, keeping his jaw tight. "I spoke to her all of once since you arrived here, which I must stress you were present for, and maybe twice in Atlas, also occasions which you were also present for."

"You know what you're doing, James."

James closed his eyes and sighed heavily, knowing that all of his frustration was beginning to show all too clearly. "I have had nothing to do with this."

"And yet you've already stolen a daughter from me." Jacques nearly shouted the words, but James didn't let himself shift back in discomfort. He didn't let himself spook, because over the course of his life, James had seen so many things that were much more terrifying than Jacques could ever hope to be. "How do I know that you haven't been directing Winter to drive Weiss away from me?"

James rolled his eyes and glanced over at Ozpin, looking for any sort of intervention that they would be able to offer. They grimaced and stood up, walking around the side of the desk and placing themself next to James.

It was a rare show of solidarity that wasn't normally brought up for them to use. James could appreciate it all for what it was.

"Jacques-" Ozpin said, keeping their voice calm and quiet as they always did. "Neither of us have had any part in your daughter's choices."

Jacques sneered and looked between James and Ozpin. "You two won't get away with this."

"We aren't getting away with anything." James growled, balling his hands into fists and fighting back every urge that arose to make him want to lash out at Jacques physically. "You daughter made a choice. If it incenses you so much, then you are best taking it up to her directly."

James made a mental note to speak to Ozpin and do what the two of them could to make sure that Weiss Schnee didn't get caught on her own in a position where any harm could come to her. Even if the girl was able to defend herself against a civilian such as Jacques Schnee, James didn't want to risk anything. He needed to be sure that the girl was safe.

That was what a good person would do, after all.

"This is not the last that the two will be hearing from me, I can assure you." Jacques said. His eyes went half-lidded and he stood up straight now so that he could adjust his damned Schnee-logo tie. "I'll be speaking to you two soon, gentlemen."

With that, Jacques left Ozpin's office in a rage and James glanced over at Ozpin and rose an eyebrow. "We'll keep an eye on the girl?"

"Of course." Ozpin replied, reaching for their scroll so that they could send a message along to some of the staff of the academy. "Thank you, James."

"I could say the same to you." James answered with a slight shrug.

Beacon Academy was an experience unlike any that Weiss had ever had before in her short life. It was only her first day of classes, so that naturally had an effect of its own, but Weiss didn't let how unsure of herself she was to the others.

Currently, she was sitting in the rows of one of the classes where the teacher at the front of the room was giving a lecture of Dust mixtures and volatility.

For Weiss, it was all simple material that she might have well have been first taught to read with.

However, there was something about hearing about such things from another context that wasn't knowing what the company made that turned it engrossing. She didn't feel like she was learning for the sake of a sales pitch but rather for something much more meaningful

Weiss had found herself sitting on Ruby's right side, while the girl's older sister had decided to take her left. At Yang's other side, there was Blake.

Despite the fact that the four of them had spent the night before in a shared dorm, there was awkwardness that had refused to subside. That was especially true between herself and Blake. In fact, when it came to herself and Blake, the only way that Weiss could describe he relationship was hostile at best.

It was only too clear that neither of them had forgotten about how violent their fight that they'd shared in the days before had been. Weiss' face was still healing, and the scar stood out pale even against Weiss' already light skin.

Blake hadn't apologized for the strike. Weiss had doubts that she ever would. And really, Weiss didn't know whether she cared for an apology or not.

At the front of the room, Professor Peach announced that they were supposed to split into teams for an assignment, and Weiss realized quickly that the most logical thing was going to be that she would find herself working with Ruby, Yang, and Blake.

Maybe it would be a chance for some proper team bonding even, Weiss thought to herself.

Ruby was the first of them to move her seat, and Weiss found herself actually backing into her seat just a little bit because of it. She gripped her pen just a little bit tighter, and when she glanced over, she saw that Yang and Blake were shifting their seats as well.

"First team project!" Ruby said, almost excitedly as she shifted about on her seat. "Soon we're going to be going on a mission-" She squealed in excitement and dropped her hands onto the table beside her notebook, where Weiss was able to see that Ruby had been doodling for some time.

For a moment, she had to worry about whether or not Ruby's academic skills would be lacking.

"It's not a big deal." Blake said calmly, flipping to a new page in her notebook before casting a look across at Weiss. "Especially since I doubt this is going to take all too long."

It was entirely too pointed of a look. Every word that Blake said was barbed, and Weiss knew exactly why. This girl wasn't dumb, and neither were Ruby or Yang.

And it seemed like they were expecting for her to carry this assignment.

"It's an assignment, either way." Weiss spoke up as she looked up towards the screen at the front of the room that was all too clearly showing their assignment. It wasn't anything hugely important, just a worksheet on volatile mixtures. "And we should try to do it."

"Right." Yang said as she took the chance to stretch out in her seat. "So, what are we doing?"

"The assignment is simple." Blake said in her usual deadpan, taking down notes off of the screen quickly and turning her notebook so that everyone else on the team could see. "We're to do hypotheses on how to mix dust without causing explosions."

"Ugh," Yang groaned. "Boring."

"Probably not for long." Weiss said, speaking clearly and sitting up straight. "If Professor Peach is having us do something like this, then we're expected to learn how to do it properly and be able to do it."

Ruby looked between the three others at the table, looking all too concerned. "So this won't take long?"

"Once we're done we're allowed to leave class." Yang pointed out. "You heard professor Peach."

Weiss felt herself tense as she held her pen just a little bit more. In theory, she could apply everything that she'd ever learned for the sake of her father's company and get them out of class early. But if she did that, then she didn't know what she was going to have to worry about from her teammates.

What if she made them think that she only knew about her father's company, and couldn't really hold her own?

"Right." Ruby said excitedly, pulling the assignment close to her and announcing what the first thing that they needed to discuss was. It was simple, what would happen if Ice and Wind dust were combined directly. It bled into a short debate amongst the four of them, but for the most part Weiss decided that it was for the best to stay out of it.

And the good thing was that none of them seemed to hold it against her. Eventually they powered through the worksheet and Ruby practically ran to the front of the room to deliver it before the four of them were getting their things and getting ready to leave.

"So-" Ruby chattered excitedly the second that they were outside of the classroom. "Since we're going to be teammates and we're going on a mission in a few days-" She stopped, whirling around so that she could face the three older members of their team. "We should figure out how to fight together, right?"

"Yeah!" Yang exclaimed, fist pumping in some excitement. "I mean, if we're going to be going out there, we should be able to do something and-" Her violet eyes centered on Blake and Weiss. "No offense, but we don't know what either of you can do."

"We can fight just fine." Weiss said, standing up straight and remembering the weight of Myrtenaster at her side. "We got in here, didn't we?"

"Well, yeah, obviously." Ruby said with a slight grin. "But we can ask Uncle Qrow to let us use one of the combat rooms so that we can see what we can do. They have these cool simulation things..."

"I... don't think that'll be necessary." Blake said with her expression calm. "I think that they're sending us on this mission so that they can see how we work together as a team."

Ruby paused and blinked, her hands dropping down to her side. She looked a little bit dejected, but Weiss spoke up a moment later.

"Practice might not be such a bad idea." She declared clearly, crossing her arms over her chest as she stood there with her teammates. "Even if nothing happens, it wouldn't hurt to have some strategies."

Blake rolled her eyes and began to talk again, taking charge over the situation and stepping up to the front. "Says the girl that lost."

It felt like a slap in the face, but Weiss didn't dare allow for her displeasure to show. She didn't like that she was already being put in a situation where the others were going to be judging her for everything, and oh how Weiss hated that. She raised a hand and gingerly touched the still-healing mark that was still forming around her right eye.

"It wasn't so bad." Weiss said finally, her tone wavering. "I held my own perfectly fine. You just don't fight by the rules-"

"The rules?" Blake stopped dead in her tracks with those words and whirled around now, in the same way that Weiss had. "Out there-" Blake raised a hand to point at the space beyond the walls of the building. It was almost like she was pointing at another world. "There are no rules." Blake dropped her hand down by her side. "Monsters don't play by the rules, and outside of a tournament nobody will care about them at all."

"We were in an arena setting!' Weiss replied as she stepped in close to Blake and stared at her with narrowed eyes. "And yet you still-"

"You're a spoiled heiress that has never had to fight for anything." Blake bit back.

Weiss absolutely hated how angry those words made her feel. She stepped in a little bit closer to Blake until she and the other girl were face to face. It was a little awkward, if only because Weiss was the shortest member of their team by quite a bit. She barely even matched Ruby and she wore heels.

So being there up close to Blake was a fast reminder of the difference between the two of them.

"That" Weiss began, her eyes narrowed and her heart pounding all too hard against her chest as she went ahead and confronted Blake. "Isn't even remotely true."

Blake rolled her eyes and stepped away from Weiss. "Says the heiress to the megacorporation." There was a pause where Weiss was ready to give a response, but it was quickly interrupted by Yang, stepping in between the two of them.

"Okay." Yang said, holding her arms out at both of her sides like she thought that was going to be enough to keep a distance between Weiss and Blake. "I don't know what's going on but you two need to calm down!"

"Calm down?!" Weiss responded, though she wasn't sure why she did in such an impassioned manner. "Tell that to her!"

"I am!" Yang replied before snapping her eyes over to Blake. "You both need to relax. I don't know what's between you two, and I don't think that I really want to know right now."

There was a pause. Weiss and Blake stared across at each other, but neither of them said a word.

Yang took it as permission to keep on going. "Whether you two like it or not, we're a team now, and we should start acting like it."

"Yang is right." Ruby spoke up. "We're supposed to be getting ready for a mission, but if you guys are going to fight, we're not going to do any good." She let out a quiet breath. "So can we please all agree to go to the training rooms and start figuring things out?"

Weiss sighed quietly, because at the very least she knew that Ruby and Yang were both right. For her and Blake to argue all the time wasn't helping anyone.

Besides, Weiss thought to herself as she turned and let her hand fall down to Myrtenaster's hilt as she seeked comfort from the weapon. She had other things going on that she needed to deal with.

The sight of her father at the end of the hallway told her everything that she needed to know, based on the way that he was staring at her.

Weiss stopped dead in her tracks and picked her head up, knowing that it was going to be a show of defiance that her father wouldn't let go easily.

Her three teammates stood at her back, and when her father passed down the order for her to come with him, Weiss didn't budge.

She had a feeling that her teammates had been able to figure out that there was something wrong, based on the way that Yang stepped up to her side to ask if there was something wrong.

Jacques sneered down at her without ever saying a word, and he bid her away with the simple raise of his hand. Weiss was sure that he would find a way to get her alone later.

It was typical that he wouldn't fight her when he didn't know that the room was going to be on his side through whatever happened.

"Weiss?" Ruby asked as Weiss began to lead the way back to their dorm, walking a little too quickly. "What's-"

"I don't want to talk about it." Weiss responded as she sped up a little bit more. Blake and Yang had also picked up on the fact that there was something wrong, and so they too were speeding up and doing everything that they could to match pace with Weiss.

In the end, Weiss didn't explain anything to her teammates about what was wrong.

It wasn't that she didn't think that they deserved to know it, Weiss was just afraid to know what would happen if they learned.

Again, Cinder found herself in a clearing. She was surrounded by crystals of dust that shined a bright violet color. Before her stood a black pool of a liquid that was like blood, and this time, it was different.

This time, when Cinder stared at it, the pool had some meaning to it. She knew a little bit more.

But still, the waters beckoned her close, and so Cinder let herself listen to that pull in the back of her mind as she walked forward. The waters didn't seem to disrupt themselves in the way that they had the last time that Cinder had visited a pool like this in her dreams. Or visions.

Whatever they were.

Cinder was only at the edge of the pool when something began to happen or change. The waters disturbed, and they began to take form, but this time when they did so, the mirror of herself stood at the other side of the pool.

The twisted, monstrous Cinder reached out for her and opened a completely white hand to beckon Cinder forward.

When Cinder took the first step into the pool, it was cool to the touch. The dark waters ripped around her ankles, and for the first time Cinder realized that she was going in completely barefoot.

She didn't know when she'd lost her shoes.

She took a second step into the waters, drawing a little bit closer to the woman that didn't dare move.

Cinder waded further and further in, step by nervous step until she was so close to the woman that she could have reached out and touched the clone of herself. The false Cinder Fall raised her arms, almost as though she was offering a hug.

Cinder didn't accept it.

"Who are you?"

"What you could be," The woman replied, reaching out and bringing a hand up to brush Cinder's bangs away from her left eye which had been left covered. "You want this, don't you?"

"What do you mean?" Cinder asked, trying hard to keep her confusion from showing too much. "I'm-"

"What do you want?" The woman asked. "Anything could be yours but I need to know-" Her hand drew closer. "What do you want?"

Cinder opened her mouth, but she didn't know what she said.

"If you'll obey me-" The woman hissed in a way that almost managed to be comforting. She placed her hand against the left side of Cinder's face, once again brushing her hair out of her face with a careful thumb. "It shall be yours."

Burning.

Fire.

When Cinder woke, it was something that overtook her entire body, and she couldn't bite back the scream that forced its way forward out of her lips as an immediate response to the pain. She clamped one hand over her left eye, where the worst of the pain was. The first thing that Cinder realized through the pain was that she could feel something wet, and hot against her skin.

Blood.

Cinder choked back her pain, and shifted in an attempted to push herself up to her feet. She needed to do something or anything to help herself relax. Nothing was enough to make her get through that pain.

The fact that the others were all staring at her barely even registered to Cinder. All three of them were there, all getting close to her and looking down to her. They were talking, but Cinder wasn't quite able to make out what they were talking about. In the end, the first one to reach out to her was Hazel.

"Cinder." He said her voice too quietly, and she could vaguely make out the feeling of him getting in close enough to her that she could ask some questions. When she didn't look up at him, Hazel repeated her name. "Cinder."

She whimpered and did her best to curl herself away from Hazel, and he didn't seem to judge her for it. There was the sound of Watts' voice coming up next, saying something about medicine and a wound.

"I-"

"It's okay." Hazel said quietly. "Can you show us?"

What sort of question was that? Cinder almost found herself getting angry over how it was, and then she allowed for herself to turn in Hazel's direction, at least a little bit. Slowly, she allowed herself to pull her hand away from the injury, and then the reality of what had happened struck her so quickly that she lost the ability to breathe.

When she'd had her hand clamped over her eye, she hadn't been able to see, but that had had so much more to do with the fact that her eyes had been closed and that she'd had her eyes covered.

But now, Cinder realized that she was in such deep pain that she could barely peel her eyes open.

And when she did, she saw nothing out of her left eye.

Hazel hissed quietly, and Cinder had to guess that it was out of sympathy rather than him going through any sort of pain himself. He reached out and brushed her hair away from her face.

It smelled as though it had been singed. Like she'd just walked through fire.

Everything smelled like it had been burned, at least on some level. Cinder really didn't like how worried that made her feel about everything that she'd been through so far. That couldn't be good but-

When she thought back on it, she was sure that they hadn't even started a fire the night before. How had she been burned.

"Watts." Hazel commanded the other man over, and sure Watts was there, stepping in and kneeling down in front of Cinder. He was much less kind about what he was doing than Hazel was. With Watts, there was no hesitation before he reached out and grabbed at her face.

His touch hurt, and he pulled her head and turned it so that she had no choice but to look over at him. It was cruel, and almost angry.

He hummed quietly and looked over at Hazel. Cinder only caught about half of the motion. "Get my kit."

Hazel got up and left her, and soon Cinder realized that Arthur Watts was actually talking to her, but it felt much more like an interrogation than it did anything else.

"Girl." He said the word so commandingly that Cinder looked up at him and focused in on his expression. "What did you see?"

Cinder tried to open her mouth to answer, but no words came out. Arthur rolled his eyes and hummed as Hazel slipped into the position at her side to offer the man's medical kit. Arthur ignored it for the most part before reaching out on Cinder's left side and grabbing hold of her face so that he could finally get a good look into her eyes and see what the damage is.

"Not good." He murmured to himself before glancing over at Hazel. "She's been branded." He said calmly, and Cinder couldn't help but hate the feeling that swelled in her stomach and told her that this was the part where things were going to start falling apart and going poorly. "Looks like it's gone."

"Gone?" Hazel repeated as Arthur took the first item out of his medical kit and began to do whatever he could to patch Cinder up. Arthur hummed in affirmation, and Hazel went all but silent not too long after that. "How will that-"

"It'll slow us down, for sure." Arthur replied as he began to treat Cinder's wounds. After trying to pull away a few times too many, Arthur's grip got to be a little bit more cruel before he spoke up. "If you are going to keep trying to get away from me, I will see to it that you cannot do so, are we at an understanding?"

Cinder swallowed hard and did all that she could and hold herself still so that nobody could do anything to hurt her as things got worse. She said nothing to him, and gripped onto her dress tightly because that was the only thing that she could do to ground herself in that situation. Slowly, Cinder's eye was bandaged over.

The entire time, she could barely bring herself to speak.

When the others didn't do anything to push her away, Cinder was glad for it.

The fact that they were taking the time to rest so that she could be treated was a relief in itself.

But that didn't make Cinder feel like she was safe with the three men that she'd begun to call her companions. How was she supposed to ignore this.

When Arthur gave her something that he claimed would be enough to kill the pain, Cinder was still too afraid to do anything to lie down and go to sleep.