Ruby

Ruby and the rest of her team were currently practicing once again for the tournament. Over the few weeks that the teams had been given access to the sparring arena for practice, Team RWBY hadn't missed a single practice session. Team Juniper was the same and had always gone alonside Ruby's team.

Ruby wasn't normally worried about any other students watching her and her team practicing. Both Sun and Neptune had been around a few times, and although they were meant to be rivals for the tournament, they were also friends. Ruby was also sure that they weren't there to watch them practice, instead they were likely there to see Blake and Weiss.

But a new team had arrived recently from Haven, and so far, from what Yang had heard, they had been present at almost every practice session to watch people fighting. The amount of time they had spent observing everyone, it wasn't unlikely that they knew the tactics and strategies of every student and every team in the school.

And yet, the team had not once bothered to practice at all. Ruby was wondering whether they thought themselves too good to need to practice, or perhaps they were too scared, nervous or embarassed to try.

Ruby was sure that it was more likely the first option, as none of them looked as if they were incapable of combat. Especially the faunus boy that was with them today. The team had been present for most of her teams practices, but today was the first time that Ruby had seen him at the arena.

At first look, you wouldn't have thought that he was a faunus at all, as he didn't have very obvious faunus features. Although he still had the trademark ears, being a bear faunus, they were much smaller than other faunus ears, and were covered by his messy brown hair.

He wore the same uniform as the other male student from his team, a dark black blazer with a white trim and a white armband around the left bicep. Matching black pants did nothing more than help his eyes stand out even more than they already did. His eyes were a deep black, which made it unsettling when he saw Ruby looking at him and looked her in the eyes, making her feel as if he was absorbing her soul.

Getting shivers down her spine, Ruby quickly looked away from him and back to her team. They weren't focusing on anything major for the day, instead they were working on somethine useful to them on a piece of equipment.

Yang was viciously attacking one of the shock punch bags, expertly hitting the sack to cause maximum damage, whilst maintaining control to not hit the electrified parts that would give her a shock.

Weiss was practicing the use of her glyphs for both her movement and protection. Blake was shooting at the heiress with practice slugs so that she wouldn't cause any serious damage to her teammate. Weiss would block the bullets with glyphs and move around to give Blake the challenge of having to hit a moving target.

Ruby glanced at her scroll and realised that their time at the arena was almost over. Looking up at her teammates, she called out to them to stop.

'Ok guys, we did really well today! Our time's up though, so we need to get moving before the next group arrives!'

The three other members of her team stopped what they were doing, looking at the young leader before acknowledging her and beginning to pack up.

Ruby went to go and help Jaune pack away, who was struggling to move the practice dummy by himself, but was stopped when a hand placed itself on her shoulder. Turning her head around to see who had grabbed her, Ruby saw one of the Haven students had made their way down to her.

'Excuse me,' the girl said to Ruby. 'Me and my team only arrived a few days ago, and we still don't really know our way aroud your school. Could you possibly show us around so that it will be easier for us to get around later on?'

Despite the girl's bright red eyes, the girl looked trustworthy to Ruby. Looking over to the rest of the green-haired girls' team, Ruby saw that the three other students were watching the pair eagerly. It was likely that the faunus was also listening in on the conversation.

Looking back to the girl before her, Ruby made a decision.

'Well, I can show you around the dorm rooms that all the exchange students are going to, and show you around to the most important places in the school.'

The girl beamed at Ruby, thanking her.

'Thank you so much, we've all been really lost since we got here. This is the only place we were able to find!'

'No problem!' Ruby replied. 'But can you just wait until my team has packed up?'

'Of course.'

It didn't take long to store all of the equipment away and before long, the four girls were walking the team from Haven around the school, showing them the most important places, such as the cafeteria, where they were heading to now.

'So Emerald, what do you think of Beacon so far?' Weiss asked the darker girl.

'It's much bigger than Haven. But it's really unorganised too. At Haven, everything is really close together and in an orderly fashion so that it's easier to get around. But it doesn't really look nice. Haven is just four different blocks around a courtyard in the middle. Here, everything is open, and detailed. Something must be going right at here though, I hear Beacon trains some of the best Huntsmen and Huntresses that get seen.'

'Yes. It could just be some of the students, as some teachers at this school is quite, interesting, to say the least,' Weiss replied to the girl.

Ruby smiled at her teammates comment, knowing exactly which Professor she was talking about. Some other students were taking small glances towards the two teams as they walked across the large courtyard towards the cafeteria building.

'You probably found this already, but just in case you forget later on, this is where we eat,' Ruby announced to the Haven team. 'Breakfast is at 8 and the cooks stop making food at 8.30, but you can always stay and eat anything that is left. At least, until you have a class to go to.'

'Lunch is at 12 and goes through to 1. Then dinner is at 6 until 7. You can look up on the noticeboards around the school what is being cooked at dinner, and if you don't like it, you can always order something to your room.'

'Can you stay and eat what is left after 7, just like you can at breakfast?' Mercury questioned.

'You can stay and eat,' Yang replied, walking alongside the tall, grey haired boy. 'But there is a curfew at 9, and by then you have to be in the dormitories. Not necessarily your dorm room, so you can visit other people in the building at that time, you just can't see anybody who isn't there.'

Mercury nodded, and gave Yang a smile of gratitude, which in turn, led to a snarl from Emerald, who saw the interaction.

The group continued to walk past the cafeteria, where several teams were either eating or revising. There were a select few that were doing both at the same time. Ruby didn't recognize anybody from inside the building, so decided against going inside. She was sure they wouldn't need to see inside anyway.

'Where is the medical bay?' Rowan asked.

'It's that building over there,' Weiss said, pointing to a building that was smaller than everything else at Beacon, but was still quite large to look at. 'Hopefully you won't need it though. It's only for really severe injuries, minor cuts and scratches we can heal with our auras easily.'

'What about the headmaster's office?' Cinder, the team leader asked. 'We noticed that there is some, faunus discrimination with some students, and we wanted to bring it up to him. At Haven, we don't have any discrimination towards faunus students.'

'He already knows about the faunus discrimination,' Blake piped in. 'So there isn't really any need to go and see him. But just in case there is anything you need to talk to him about, his office is at the top of the building at the far end of the academy.'

Blake pointed at the large tower that was half hidden as it rose through the clouds.

The group headed over to the dormitories and at this point, Cinder and her team knew where they were going.

'Thank you for showing us where things were, that was very kind of you,' Emerald said to Ruby.

'No problem! It's our job as huntresses and huntsmen to help people out!'

Emerald gave a smile to the young girl, before turning and heading with the rest of her team to their dorm room.

Ruby and her team members started walking up the stairs to their room. Yang turned to her younger sister.

'They seemed like a nice enough group of people!'

Rowan

Once they reached their room, Rowan pulled out his key card and opened the door to their room. He stood to the side and allowed the three humans in first, as he wasn't going to be staying with them. He had a job to do.

'Did you get her scroll Emerald?' Cinder asked calmly, placing herself on the bed in the middle of the room.

Pulling out a scroll with a red rose design on the back from her pocket, Emerald gave a small smile and a nod to Cinder. She threw the device to her leader, who caught it in her hand and began to open the phone, using a program on her own scroll to help her get through the feeble password on the red girl's scroll.

'Mercury, did you figure out anything about them from watching today?' Cinder asked.

'Teams Juniper and RWBY were the only threatening first years that were there today. Legacy and Titan don't look too challenging. Titan is more so based on offense and none of them have a proper defense. Legacy is the complete opposite. No offense, all defense.'

'What about the others?'

'Justice and Imperial attack in an orderly manner. They don't have much variation in how they attack or defend, so they wouldn't be that much of an issue for us, but they would still be effective against untrained warriors, like the White Fang members.'

'The third year team wasn't even here today, so I can't tell what they were like. But if they didn't bother to turn up, they are either to ashamed to practice with other students, or too good to even bother.'

Cinder nodded, listening intently to every word that Mercury spoke, whilst finally getting through into Ruby's scroll. Setting up a link between a spare scroll that she had brought along and the stolen one, making the blank one a complete copy of Ruby's.

Looking up, she threw the phone back to Emerald who caught it and started to walk out the door again. She had to return it to the battle arena before anybody realized it was missing, hopefully the energetic girl would think that she just left it behind.

Cinder looked at Rowan, who was still standing in the doorway.

'You know what your task is Rowan. You should get moving. Do your best to stay out of sight, but if things get too messy, do not hesitate to kill whoever is in your way.

'Of course,' Rowan said, closing the door after Emerald and following her out of the building. Once outside, they split ways. Emerald headed back to the arena, whilst Rowan made his way over to the large building where all of the teacher's offices and living quarters were.

His first stop however, was the nearby security center. The center was responsible for the various security measures that kept the academy safe. Concrete walls surrounded the school around from where the school met land.

On the cliff, Beacon was only exposed to air, or to the water at the bottom of the rocks. Defensive turrets guarded the landing pad to control air control, and the water was monitored with video cameras, so that if security saw anybody trying to climb up the cliff, they would have a team of
A-130's at the top of the cliff in no time.

The only entrance into the school via land, was a large iron gate, outfitted with an electrical surge device, which would repel anybody who tried to open the gate without authorization.

Getting to the security room wasn't an issue. Not being seen was the issue.

Rowan made his way through the wide corridors, hiding behind corners when staff members walked past, or out of doors. Being a high-ranking member of the White Fang, Rowan was used to participating in infiltration missions, and was able to reach the security center with ease.

Pressing his ear to the door, Rowan could hear two people conversing with each other.

'Did you see that match between Drake and Chase yesterday? He's just constantly on a roll, never loses!'

'Nah, I missed it. How long did she last? Two minutes?'

'Less. Try again.'

'One minute?'

At this point, Rowan had quietly turned the handle for the door, and snuck into the room, shutting the door behind him without as much as a click.

'Close enough. He took her out in roughly 50 or so seconds.'

'You kidding me?!'

'Nah man. She put up a good fight, but just like always, she didn't even hit him once.'

Rowan took out a small tool from his pocket and started to unscrew the back panel of one of the large computers in the back of the room, keeping an eye on the two security officers in case they turned around and saw him.

'That's crazy man, I hope I never get on his bad side.'

'No offense, but you would need to know him first, and I highly doubt that you will ever know him.'

Rowan smiled at the comment, and caught the panel as it fell off of the back of the computer, gently lowering it so that it leaned against the wall and the floor. He pulled out a small, mechanical device, and began to connect it to multiple wires in the computer.

He hadn't chosen a random computer, he had made sure that he was putting it into the one that controlled all of the security systems. It was easy for him to identify which computer it was as soon as he walked through the door, seeing as he had done this multiple times before, and to much more secure companies and businesses than this school.

He lifted the panel back up and started screwing the panel back in. Whilst he did this, something started to tug at his mind. As if he had just heard something that was a distant memory that he couldn't remember. He started listening in on the conversation again.

'Even though she has that really powerful semblance of hers, Drake's weapons and his style makes it impossible for you to fight properly at either close or a further distance.'

'Further distances? Oh right, his blades turn into those whips. Really cool design in my opinion.'

And there it was again. Another tug at the back of Rowan's mind. The small description of the weapons that he had just heard seemed awfully familiar to him, but he couldn't place why.

Finishing his task, Rowan quietly crept back out of the room, holding his breathe to make even less noise. He only let the breath out once he was outside and the door was closed.

And yet this was only the easier part of the job. He still had to get into Ozpin's office and plant the next bug on the headmaster's scroll.

He took the lift up to the top floor, and prayed that only Ozpin was there. He had already practiced a conversation, and if he had to stray from it too much, his cover could be blown quickly.

Once the elevator stopped on the top floor and the doors opened, Rowan stepped out directly into the headmaster's office.

The simplicity of the office surprised him. He was expecting expensive rugs and furniture, bookshelves filled with every book under the sun, and a large desk to boost the headmaster's ego.

Instead, the room was bare, empty. A desk sat at the far end of the room, before a large window. Professor Ozpin was standing up, facing out of the window. Rowan quickly scanned the headmaster's desk for his scroll, which, thankfully, was sitting on the top of the desk.

The Headmaster turned around and saw the faunus standing in the doorway of the elevator.

'Please, come in,' he said, waving Rowan over with the cup of coffee in his hand.

Rowan cautiously made his way across the room and under the turning cogs above his head. He looked up at them as they spun so that he would look more natural to the headmaster. Once he reached the desk, he looked back at Ozpin, who had found his was to his seat and was now staring at Rowan's eyes, as if he could use them to look into his mind and see what he was thinking.

'I haven't seen many students from Haven here just yet. It's a pleasure to finally see one Mr..?'

'Miles,' Rowan stated, not bothering to say his first name as he could see the professor was waiting for him to say it.

'Mr Miles,' Ozpin said, nodding. 'To what do I owe the pleasure of your company then?'

'Discrimination, sir. I myself am a Faunus, and coming from a school such as Haven, where we have no discrimination against any race, it is difficult to come here and see students being picked on because of their Faunus heritage.'

'Yes,' Ozpin said, nodding his head as he stood up. 'I myself am shocked this year by the amount of discrimination shown to the Faunus by some students.'

Ozpin began to walk back over to the window again, facing away from Rowan. Taking this as an opportunity, Rowan quickly pulled a small device out of his pocket with one hand, picking up the Professor's scroll with the other.

Plugging the device into the scroll, he saw the contents of the file being downloaded.

Acting as normal as he could while he waited, Rowan continued his conversation.

'It's just, I was in your cafeteria the other day and saw a full team throwing food at a single Faunus girl. I could tell that she was close to tears, and in all honesty, I wanted to attack them quite badly.'

'And why didn't you?' Ozpin said, turning around to look at the Faunus. Rowan hid the scroll behind his back and replied.

'I thought it would have been a bad image to have attacked one of your students on my first day here.'

'Of course you did and I amend you for your thinking. Violence is not the answer to everything, especially when it comes to the discrimination of the Faunus. I mourn for many of the White Fang members who believe that it will actually work and that they will get their rights through violence and fear. I only hope that someday they will realise the error of their ways.'

Casting this information aside as Rowan did not believe it, he tried to move the conversation back to what he was talking about.

'Yes, I do too. But what will you do in the meantime? How will you stop the bullying of my people in your school?'

Ozpin turned away again and Rowan took a peek at the download. It had completed and was installing onto the Professor's scroll now. He took out the device and set the scroll back down on the desk quietly, placing the device back into his pocket as Ozpin began to speak.

'Unfortunately, Mr Miles, there is not much that I can do. Being the headmaster of the school would make you think that you can control everyone, but people do not want to be controlled. I cannot force something to happen, only try to guide people indirectly to what I believe is correct through examples.'

'Spoken like a true teacher,' Rowan said.

'Indeed,' Ozpin said, turning back around again. 'I am sorry that you will have to leave empty handed for today, but thank you for approaching me about your concerns.'

'Thank you for listening,' Rowan said. 'I should get back to my team then, I said I wouldn't be too long.'

'Of course, go ahead, I won't hold you up.'

Rowan spun on his heel and walked back over to the elevator, holding his breath once more and only letting it out once the elevator was falling.

Now that he had done the tasks for Roman, he would be joining Mercury in battling against other students to measure their combat abilities. It wasn't going to be long before they moved into the second stage of the plan, and so he had little time to get as much information as possible.

This was going to be an interesting week.

A pretty tame chapter, but it was necessary so that things wouldn't be too confusing when s*** starts to hit the fan later on.

Rowan felt a bit bland to me, but I had to get someone else to replace Roman, as he can't exactly walk into Beacon, and I wanted to have a fourth team member so that it isn't reminding me that Cinder, Emerald and Mercury are a team member short.

Team Legion will be back in the rest of the chapters from now on, even though they should really be in all of them. Ooops….

I'm thinking of the next chapter being comprised of only combat. That sounds like a good idea….