A/N: This is going to be a hard chapter to type.

Sarah: How so?

Soap: Mainly because of the context of the chapter.

Sarah: Sooooo...A lot of feels?

Soap: *heavy sigh* Yep.

Chapter 10: brings us hope

Soap woke up at his usual time before Sarah at 5:30 in the room that was provided to them by Ozpin. Soap laying underneath Sarah, and unwilling to wait for her to wake up to move off of him, he teleported himself to the floor beside the bed. Getting up, he decided that it would be best for him to wake her now rather than after he had his coffee with the reasoning that she could have more time to enjoy her own cup of joe.

"Five more minutes..." Soap heard her mumble when he started shaking her shoulder.

"Come on Sarah. It's time to get up." He said, trying to wake her up peacefully. When she didn't respond to his efforts, he came up with another plan.

"Hey Sarah, team RWBY is still sleeping. If you get up now, you will have more time to plan out pranks to play on them." Sarah instantly shot out of bed and ran toward said team's door, nearly running over Soap in the process. Soap did, however, have enough sense to prepare for this, and caught her in the hallway before she could get to RWBY's door.

"Easy there! It's 6:00 AM. We have plenty of time to prank them. After all we will be with them for the next 4 years." Soap said trying to keep her from RWBY's door. "And I did say plan, not enact."

"Fine." Sarah said, backing away from the door a little disheartened. She took the mug that Soap was currently holding out for her and took a sip.

"Besides, I hear they're serving breakfast right now." He said trying to cheer her up. Since the mention of breakfast failed to do so; he tried something else. "I also hear that the head chef serves a mean tuna sandwich."

Just then, they heard someone jump out of bed and run to the door. They turned to the noise and to see RWBY's door open, revealing a fully awake and dressed Blake. "What about tuna?" She asked, shutting the door behind her.

Soap and Sarah just looked at each other and started laughing, which left Blake confused.

"Walk with us Blake." Soap said after he had recovered. "We will explain once we make some distance between us and your teammates."

"Ok." She said shrugging.

With five minutes of walking distance now between the trio and the rest of the girls, Soap broke the silence.

"Blake, the reason why we were laughing was because you asking about tuna is just so like you." Soap said.

"What do you mean?" Blake said.

"Sarah, take off your hood for a sec." Soap said, communicating wordlessly exactly what he was going to do.

"You're a faunus Blake. To be more specific, a cat faunus." Sarah said as she took off her hood.

"What makes you say that?" Blake said, trying to look as innocent as possible.

Soap let out a heavy sigh, "Blake, I saw your bow twitch when we were introducing ourselves yesterday. Plus, Sarah is a faunus. She's able to tell who is and isn't a faunus."

"I'm not a faunus." Blake said, trying one last time to get them to leave her alone.

"Cut the crap Blake. Sarah and I both know that the bow is just for show." Soap said, obviously not going to take no for an answer.

Blake stayed silent for a while. To Soap, it looked like she was fighting with herself. Eventually she gave up and just admitted. "Fine, I'm a faunus. Happy?" She said, hoping that would be enough to satisfy them.

Soap and Sarah both looked at each other, both knowing what the other was thinking.

"Nope." They responded simultaneously.

"What more could you possibly want me to do?" She questioned. The frustration able to be clearly heard in her voice.

"Take off the bow." Soap said, a knowing smile on his face.

Seconds of silence passed between the trio before Blake fully realized what they were asking. "What?! Why?"

Soap sighed, "Blake, we will be practically living together for the next four years. You can trust me. Plus, I'm dating a faunus and have been for the past 2 years. Furthermore, there are two faunus on my team." Blake looked confused when he said this. "You'll be meeting the other later today." He said quickly before she asked. "Believe me. You can trust me."

After a few more seconds of silence, she finally said OK and took off her bow revealing a set of black and light-grey cat ears. "Was that so hard?" Soap asked as Blake quickly put the bow back on. "Blake, thank you for trusting me. I won't tell the rest of your team, and I'm sure Sarah won't either." Sarah shook her head in agreement. "We will let you find your own way to tell them; but you will eventually have to tell them. Secrets between teammates is never a good thing. Not to mention, you look better without the bow."

Blake looked as if she was about to cry. "Thank you." She said as she turned to head to the cafeteria, but was stopped by Soap's voice.

"Hey Blake." He looked her in the eyes. "For what it's worth, I find myself to be more readily trusting of faunus than those of my own race." Soap said as he started to walk off with Sarah in his own direction.

"Why?" Soap stopped when he heard Blake's voice.

"Why what?" Soap responded.

"Why do you trust faunus more than you trust humans?"

He gave a slight laugh at this, "You really want to know?" He said turning to look at her.

Blake shook her head yes.

"Well that makes two people that want to know about my past." Even though she hadn't said it, Soap could tell that Yang also wanted to know about his past. "If you truly want to know, then you can ask Sarah later today; she'll be able to explain things better than I will."

"OK."

"Sarah," She looked at Soap, "let's go wake the rest of our team up." Sarah nodded and promptly disappeared, "Blake," He said, turning his attention back to her, "make sure that your team is up with enough time to get ready for your first class at 9:00. Also, I'll be picking you guys up at noon in front of the statue in the courtyard. Don't be late."

"What about our afternoon classes?"

"What about them?"

"Won't we be missing them?" Blake asked.

"Ozpin has given me permission to take RWBY off-campus as I see fit, and I see it necessary for this afternoon and all of tomorrow to be spent getting to know each other better. The classes that you miss will not have to be made up. Any other questions?"

Blake shook her head no.

"Very well, I'll be seeing you and you team at noon."

With that, he disappeared and Blake headed towards breakfast wondering how she was going to survive the next four years of her life.

Meanwhile back at the church...

Sarah was busy snapping pictures of one of the cutest sights she had ever seen, a sleeping Sam curled up with a sleeping Drake. 'Blackmail' she thought.

After she had finished taking her pictures, Soap appeared behind her.

'What are you doing?' She heard him ask in her head.

'Doing recon.' She responded, to which Soap raised an eyebrow.

'On Drake and Sam?'

'Yeah. These pics might be useful later.'

He looked at the sleeping couple, noting how Sam was pressed up against her partner and how Drake's arms were wrapped around her. He looked at Sarah and gave her a very judgmental look. 'You can be such a child at times.'

'Look who's talking.'

'Whatever. Let's just get them up.' Soap responded.

'The usual?' Sarah asked, already holding a bucket of ice water.

'Nah. I have something else in mind.' He turned and started towards the bookshelf that was on the opposite side of the room, stopping in front of it. 'You might want to leave the room. It's going to get a little loud in here.'

Sarah smiled knowing exactly what he was planning. She walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Soap walked over to the stereo that Soap had hid in their room in case an opportunity like this were to arise. Cranking the volume up to about halfway, he picked his poison and let it play.

*Cue Nightmare by Avenged Sevenfold*

As the bass increased, Drake and Sam started to stir. However, it wasn't until the intro ended and the main song began that they actually woke up. Seeing that they had woken up, he turned off the stereo.

"Good morning!" Soap yelled.

"Dammit Soap! Did you need to wake us up like that?" Drake asked as he pushed himself up into a sitting position on his bed.

"Yeah, I kinda did."

"Might I ask why?" Soap heard a feminine voice ask.

"To get back at you, Sam, for all of the times that you made fun of Sarah and I and our relationship." He replied, turning on the light.

With the lights now on, he was able to get a good look at the room. He looked around the room and noticed how clothes seemed to be thrown all over the room. At first he thought nothing of it, his and Sarah's room looked something similar after they had some "quality time" together. As he looked back to the sleepy couple, he realized something. Neither Sam nor Drake had any clothes on. Realizing this, Soap's jaw dropped.

Drake face-palmed and shook his head; he knew exactly what Soap was thinking.

Soap didn't move, instead he just stood there with his mouth agape starring directly at the two. "What are you starring at?" Sam asked, completely oblivious to the fact that she didn't have anything on.

After a second, she realized why he was starring at them with a stunned look. Her face immediately reddened. "SHIT!" She swore to herself.

"Sarah!" Soap screamed at the top of his lungs.

Within seconds, Sarah burst through the door with weapons in hand. "What!?"

"Guess whose not a virgin anymore!?" Soap said to Sarah with a devious grin, currently thinking of all the teasing that he and Sarah could do now to get their revenge.

Sarah raised an eyebrow, "Seriously? Sam, you're fifteen!"

Drake got up, still not clothed, and activated his semblance making a sword of Ice and walked steadily toward Soap and Sarah. "BOTH OF YOU! GET OUT!"

Now fearing for their lives, Sarah and Soap fled the room.

Now in the kitchen, Bucky handed them their breakfast.

"So where did you guys disappear to for the past two days?" Bucky asked.

Soap gave a heavy sigh and told him their story.

"So let me get this straight, you agreed to personally train a team from Beacon?"

"Yes." Soap said.

"And, this team is going to be showing up later today?"

"Yep."

"Sweet! I have more people to cook for."

Soap and Sarah laughed at Bucky. He was always creating new recipes and was always asking them to give it a try.

Sam and Drake walked in at this time. "What about a team from Beacon?" Drake asked.

"Sarah and I agreed to personally train a team in exchange for all the information Beacon's Headmaster had on the White Fang and their connection to the recent Dust robberies." Soap looked at the time, "We should actually be heading out to pick them up. Sarah you're coming with, everybody else stays here. We will be back shortly."

"Alright, see you guys in a bit."

If there was one thing that Soap loved to do, it would have to be flying his Bullhead, and oh how he loved to fly like a madman. However reckless Soap was when he was flying, he wasn't stupid. He knew that if he tried to approach Beacon flying as low and fast as he usually did, he would be shot out of the sky by their defense system.

Deciding to be cautious, he messaged Ozpin with his Bullhead's verification number so he wasn't shot at.

11:55...he was cutting it close. He wondered if the girls would actually be there.

Nearing the school, he could see four figures standing by the statue,'They're on time. Now I have standards to hold them to.' Soap thought to himself. "Sarah," Soap yelled over the noise of the bullhead's engines, "take the controls. I'm going to go say hi to the girls." She nodded, moving to the pilot's seat.

The Bullhead was a few hundred feet directly above Team RWBY when he handed the controls over to Sarah and jumped out of the aircraft.

The girls, two of which knew what he was going to do since they knew what his semblance was, watched on in half awe half horror as Soap plummeted towards the ground. At the last second, he teleported himself behind Yang and waited for them to realize that he was no longer falling.

It took exactly a minute for them to realize that he was no longer in the air and standing behind Yang.

They turned around staring at him, Weiss and Ruby in amazement, Yang in jealousy, and Blake in half annoyance half wonder.

Ruby spoke first, "How did you just do that?"

"My semblance is smoke and fire but also allows me to teleport and fly." He said with a smile.

A few seconds later they heard the Bullhead land with a thud behind them and a female voice say, "Why do you always get to have all the fun?"

Soap shrugged, "I dunno. Why are you always on top?" He yelled back to Sarah.

She thought about this, "Fair enough."

He turned back to the girls, "Team RWBY, you ready to go?" There were nods all around. "Alright! Once everybody's on, buckle up and close your eyes."

All of RWBY followed the first and second part of his instructions without question. However, Weiss was having trouble with the third. "Why are we closing our eyes?"

"I've never been a fan of long flights, at least when people other than my own team are present, so once we're in the air I am going to teleport us to our destination." Soap said without any hesitation as the Bullhead slowly lifted off the ground.

"That doesn't answer my question though." Weiss said back.

"Have you ever starred at the sun, even if it was just for a few seconds?" Sarah asked.

Weiss nodded.

"Unless you're the one doing the teleporting, or you have that same ability, the teleportation process will look like something to that effect and will permanently blind you." Sarah told her.

Weiss, no longer willing to question their logic, closed her eyes.

The teleport was instantaneous, "You can open your eyes now." Soap said, the Bullhead safely on the ground in the hanger at the church, "Another reason why I teleported us is that out of you four," He said as they all exited the aircraft, "Yang would be the only one that would like my flying. Even then, she might not like it."

Team RWBY all shook their heads in understanding.

With nothing else to say, Soap took RWBY to the main lobby of the building.

Now in the main lobby, Soap called for the rest his own team to come and meet assembled in a matter of minutes.

"Team RWBY, I would like to introduce to you my team. You already know Sarah." He said pointing to her. He then shifted his finger to Sam, "This is Sam. Sam is our resident firearms, long-range, and stealth expert. She's also our intel specialist and a hawk fanus."

"How old are you?" Ruby asked, who was curious once she heard that there was another weapon geek in the same room.

"I am 15." Sam replied. Ruby smiled, she knew who she was going to be talking to the first chance she got.

"Then we have Drake, who is just an all around power house and can create any weapon he wants out of Ice." Drake waved politely at them. Soap looked at the expressions currently on the faces of Team RWBY. Ruby was staring at Sam, Blake was staring in wonder at Sam's white hawk wings, Weiss just looked annoyed, and Yang. Well...Yang was currently staring at Drake's currently shirtless body with a look that just screamed 'I want you.' Soap saw this and decided to help Sam out, "He is also currently dating Sam. So sorry Yang,he's taken. You can put your tongue back in your mouth now." Realizing that Soap was telling the truth, she closed her mouth, "However Yang, this guy will give you a run for your money. So if your looking for a good fight, he's your man."

Drake stood there silent.

"Drake, say something would ya?"

Soap felt Drake's presence enter his mind. "Why should I?"

"Really Drake? Because saying hi would be the polite thing to do."

"That still doesn't give me a reason to say hi." Team RWBY was very confused at this point. They were currently seeing Soap arguing with Drake, who wasn't even moving his mouth.

Soap grabbed Sarah's scroll and went to the picture app, "Drake, I'm going to show these lovely young ladies the picture that Sarah took of you and Sam this morning if you don't."

Drake's face drained of color, "Fine. But if you show them that picture, I will kill you." Soap felt Drake's presence leave him and then return as Drake reached out to everybody in the room. "Hello girls."

RWBY all looked around, trying to locate the source of the voice. "Who said that?" Yang asked, causing Soap to start laughing.

"Oops. I forgot to mention that Drake has two semblances. One is Ice, which he uses for combat. The second is telecommunication, which is a natural adaptation from him having his vocal chords ripped out. And before you ask, no it wasn't by choice. If you want to know why, you can ask him later." Soap said once he regained control of himself.

"Last but not least, we have Bucky; who is the very reason that I'm still alive today. Alright, that wraps up introductions. Spend some time getting to know each other and in three hours, come meet me in the sanctuary." The girls looked at each other confused. Soap sighed and pointed behind him, "The room behind me."

A chorus of Ohh's could be heard in response as he entered the room that he had previously pointed out.

With Soap now in the sanctuary, RWBY split up and did as they were told.

Ruby, unsurprisingly, followed Sam who made her way to the garage/weapons forge/shop. Needless to say, the two talked about weapons and cars the entire time.

~Sarah (this next scene, like all the scenes that I write, is going to be in 3rd person but centered around Sarah. I will not be doing any 1st person writing until I get better at it.)

Knowing that Blake was going to follow her, Sarah motioned for Drake and Yang to follow her as well and made her way towards the GYM.

She turned to Drake before addressing Blake and Yang, "Drake, did you ever hear Soap's story?"

"No I didn't."

"Would you like to?"

"Sure. I've been curious about his past ever since I accepted his offer."

Yang and Blake looked confused when Drake mentioned the word 'offer'. Yang was about to ask what he meant when Sarah stopped them, "Don't ask, Soap will be explaining a lot later." Blake and Yang looked satisfied with the answer. Sarah called them over to a table in the corner and told them to sit down.

"Before I begin, do you have any questions that you want answered now? Otherwise, hold any and all questions till the end." Sarah asked.

Blake spoke up first, "Why are you telling us Soap's past instead Soap himself?"

"There are things in life that we only have the strength to face once. When Soap told me, he nearly broke down with every word." Sarah began with an emotionless voice.

"What in his past could possibly be so terrible that he's unwilling to even talk about it?" Blake asked.

"Well, the mindless slaughter of an entire village tends to do that to people." Sarah responded in a monotone voice, effectively silencing Yang and Blake. The emotionless stare that Sarah gave them sent a chill down their spines.

"What happened?" Yang asked, now concerned about Sarah's emotionless, monotone voice, but decided against voicing her concern.

Sarah sighed, "I'm going to apologize now about how emotionless and monotone my voice will be; not to mention how indifferent and disconnected I will seem. There is a reason for that." She paused to take a breath.

"I became aware of life at the age of five. This is nothing unusual. What is unusual is that my aura was unlocked. I have no recollection as to how though.

"When I first started fighting, I found that I already had an immense amount of control over my semblance. This fact led me to believe that I was born with it. Because of this when I unlocked Soap's aura a deep bond was formed between the two of us. An aura bond if you will. The bond that we share allows us to share aura, semblances, and thoughts. Because of this, when Soap told me about his past I saw and felt everything through his eyes. I lived his memories as if they were my own." She quietly pushed back tears. "This is why I sound the way I do. I guess you could say that it's a way for me to cope with the pain that he felt." She took another breath.

Sarah finished stilling her emotions and began, "No one remembers the first day that they are alive, nor do they remember the first couple of years of his or her life; this is also true for Soap. Up until Soap was five, he had lived in a village that was a 3 day walk from here. A couple of weeks after he turned five, his world was turned upside down. His village was attacked by a group of thugs that made a living by choosing specific villages to attack, killing who lived there, burning it to the ground, then picking through the rubble for loot. They would take someone hostage, usually a child, to make sure that the villagers wouldn't attack them. Soap was the one they had chosen that time, but his family wasn't going to let him go without a fight.

"This was a mistake on his family's part though and spelled doom for the rest of his village. He watched as his family and friends were killed in front of him either by their throats being cut open or by execution. When everyone was dead, the thug holding Soap went to slit his throat but he saw an opportunity to escape and took it. By doing so, Soap was forced to mentally mature 10 years in less than two seconds."

Sarah looked at the people in front of her visibly shaken; even Drake after all that he had been through.

"Soap killed the thug that was holding him with his own knife. When he did, something inside him snapped. Channeling all the rage, hate, and anger that he had in him, he killed the thugs that had destroyed his home. As he killed them one by one, the emotions tainted him, changing his pure white hair to pure black. This change is what gave him the nickname 'Demon'. After everybody was dead, he made his way to Vale, meeting Bucky along the way, and purchased the building you are in currently. The rest is history." Sarah said, her voice changing to it's normal cheerful self. "Any questions?"

None were mentioned, "Alrighty then. Yang, Drake. I believe that you two have a fight to get to." Sarah said.

Yang perked up at the mention of a fight, and immediately went to the center of the GYM. She got into her fighting stance and taunted Drake, "Let's fight pretty boy."

"Since I'm not going to over see it, all I ask is that you don't kill each other." Sarah said. She turned to Blake, "Make sure that they don't kill each other, will ya? I'm going to go find Soap. Don't come looking for us until Drake says so." Blake nodded in understanding. "See ya in a bit." She activated her semblance and disappeared. Blake turned back to fight and settled in for a long fight.

While Blake, Yang and Ruby wandered off to where ever they wandered off to, Weiss found herself shadowing Bucky. She followed him to the last place that she expected him to go, the kitchen. Walking in behind him, she cleared her throat, getting his attention.

"Oh hey. What's up? You're Weiss right?" He asked.

Weiss was confused for a second, "How do you know my name?" She asked.

"Two reasons. One, Soap sent us your files. Two, you are the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company, how could I not know you?" Bucky replied with a smile.

For as long as he could remember, Bucky was always better in tune with people's emotions than anyone else that he knew. Being able to accurately guess a person's mood or emotions just by what sort of energy their aura was giving off, and right now, the heiress' aura felt confused and annoyed, but more than anything, it felt like she wanted to ask him a question.

"I guess that's true." Weiss replied, referring to Bucky guessing her name. She was about to open her mouth to speak when Bucky spoke.

"Annoyed and confused, that's what you're feeling right now. I can also tell that you want to ask me a question, what's on your mind?" He said as he put on his apron. "Also, before you ask, over the years I have developed the ability to accurately guess a person's emotions before they say a word. But seriously, what's on your mind?"

"Why do you follow Soap?" She blurted out, slightly surprising Bucky, who did nothing other than tilt his head asking her to clarify what she meant. Weiss noticed this and proceeded to explain herself, "I mean, why do you take orders from him? It's obvious to me that you're older than him; so, why do you follow him?"

Bucky turned to face her, "13 years ago, I picked him up off the side of the road and brought him to Vale. I gave him some lien and sent him on his way. I thought that was it. I abandoned him, because surely there was someone else that could take care better of him than I could, and to be quite honest, I didn't expect him to survive more than a month. Yet he survived against all odds. 12 years later, broken, tired, and literally starving to death, I came knocking on his door hoping he would forgive me and put a roof over my head. He knew very well what I had done, and yet, he let me in anyways. He gave me a second chance, even though he knew that I didn't deserve it." He took a breath, "I follow Soap because he gave me a chance when no one else would. I owe him my life."

"That's it?" Bucky could sense that she hadn't gotten the answer she was looking for. "What has he done to prove that he is worth following?"

"More than you ever possibly could." Bucky stopped for a second and let the anger flow away from him. "I know that you are discontent with Ruby's position as leader. This morning, in fact, you yelled at her for giving you advice in the middle of a fight, claiming that she was proving to be little more than a distraction. You also said that you had trained your entire life to be a leader and that a child has no place being a leader. You also said that Ozpin made a mistake." Weiss was stunned, how could he possibly know all of this? she thought. "I follow a man that has made more bad decisions and mistakes than anyone else on the planet has, more than even Ozpin. And yet, there is no one else I would rather follow."

Weiss turned around to start walking away, but was stopped by a voice, "Weiss, your leader can't lead, if you don't let her. Do yourself a favor and give her a chance."

As Sarah walked to the sanctuary, she could hear the sounds of a guitar being played as she got closer to the door. She recognized the song as one of their favorites, Rhythm of Love by the Plain White T's. She walked in and sat down next to Soap. He knew she was coming and motioned for her to join in on the last chorus, and she did.

With the song now over, he turned to look at her. "Thank you for telling them my story. I don't think I could have been able to re-live those memories again."

Sarah said nothing, instead, she pulled him into to a deep, passionate kiss. They continued the kiss until the need for air became too much. Soap wrapped his arms around her and laid back into his seat, bringing Sarah with him. They stayed like that until it was time to call the others back. He sent a message to the rest of his team, telling them to start heading back. The couple got up and got ready for what they had in store for Team RWBY. A brief overview of what they would be learning over the course of the school year.

"We all have done things that we aren't proud of. I, more than most. Holding onto thoughts and emotions that were controlling me; had she not found me when she did, they would have killed me."

- Chris

A/N: I can't believe I did that. OVER 5K WORDS! Time for sleep though. See you guy's next time!