(A/N) So, this chapter follows the main RWBY plot just slightly, and I kind of took a bit of liberty with it because why would I ever follow the plot precisely as the main canon was written when there is one major difference that could change anything and everything at any point? Seriously, with an entirely new main character, Grey, added to the cast, I not only have no reason to follow the main plot, it would actually make no sense for me to do so. Something that big is bound to change something. Particularly, the Butterfly Effect would most definitely come into play and alter the entire timeline from nothing more than his existence, let alone his actions with the characters. I'm just saying this so, when I reference one of the biggest episodes in the show's history, you won't think I'm copping out- it would make absolutely no sense if I didn't change up the main timeline slightly.

Besides that, this is the first chapter where another character, very important character will debut. I'm not saying how important to the plot she is, but at the very least, she isn't negligible, otherwise I wouldn't have built her up this much since my last author's note. I tried to give her the most bare minimum info possible, though, so see if you can figure out anything about her, and put your theories in a review. Try to be as specific as possible, and I'll commend the one who is most accurate and dedicate the next chapter to them. Or at least the one who gives me a better idea than the one I currently have.

With that out of the way, enjoy this latest installment of War of Onyx and Aber, Beautiful Hunters.

Act 2

Chapter 2

Weiss was walking happily to the library, her hands swinging prissily at her sides. There was almost a skip in her step after sharing a private lunch with Grey in the courtyard, and even though nothing she had hoped for really came of it, it was pleasant to simply sit with him without any distractions and chat over messily made sandwiches and sour lemonade. The best part was that he accepted the lunch she made for him without any complaints, recognizing that she had never done something like that before. In order to get him alone, she had to send him a worrisome text saying she was in danger and that he was the only one who should come, choosing the day with most pleasant weather to do so. When he got to her, she was sitting in just the right spot at just the right table so the sun would be shining down on her and making the ivory shine of her hair glow like a sign from the heavens that he should be with her. It didn't work out that way in that moment, but perhaps she made him see her as something more than a friend and teammate?

Remembering the "date" fondly, she danced her way to the library while humming a tune from Grey's favorite anime, Fairy Tail, The Dragon Force OST. If nothing else, Weiss was at least proud of herself that she was able to digest the butterflies that were normally fluttering in her stomach when she was around him and actually hold a real conversation, even being able to put her silver tongue to good use to avoid his incessant questions about the team. He wanted to know why Weiss couldn't have just asked him to be alone with her. Sure, she managed to avoid giving him a completely honest answer every time, but did she really have to remind him how clingy the rest of Team RWBY was and how they would never let the two of them separate from the rest of the group?

She just had to tell her best friend back at Atlas about it. Storming into the library, she gave a wave to Professor Beedle who worked behind the desk on the days she wasn't teaching class, and charged into the "media center" where she could make private calls to anywhere in the world. Grey had often made calls to his sister at Haven Academy here, Ruby and Yang their father, and surprisingly no one for Blake which had become a common curiosity among the other members of the team, but Blake never talked about it, so they decided not to ask. The room itself was nothing more than a short, rectangular room with a single desk ringing the walls, a series of monitors lined up at even intervals with shaders hiding the screen from anyone other than the person using it. Naturally, it was dark already so the screen could be seen easier, and this, plus the lack of windows and a cold chill that was prevalent in the air, gave the room an unsettling atmosphere. Fortunately, it was empty so at least Weiss wouldn't have to worry about keeping her voice down to respect other people's calls. That wasn't really a problem for Weiss, though. Just inconvenient. Plugging her headphones in, she typed in a number at the farthest monitor and waited for it to connect.

"Hey, Weiss!" Said the woman when the screen blipped. She was older than Weiss by a few years, but only barely above the legal drinking age at 22. Due to the stress of her job as Jacques Schnee's personal assistant, however, the worry lines on her face looked like that of someone in their early thirties. It wasn't a secret to the Head Family, or any of the house servants for that matter, that this woman was Weiss's father's current mistress, but honestly, the heiress couldn't be mad at her, and didn't deem her any form of homewrecker. The CEO of the Schnee Dust Company was cold and demanding and Weiss knew that the woman was only in the relationship for coercive reasons, probably blackmail or through physical threats, and the pair had often plotted against Jacques to take control of the company as soon as possible. They were serious about it, as well. As soon as Weiss turned 18 in little over a year, they would go through with their plan and send Jacques to an Atlas prison, but that conversation would be had later. Weiss had something more important to talk about.

The woman on the other end of the screen, Scarlet Ryokellia, had a rather tan complexion for someone living in the icy north, and confusingly bright hair. The bouncy, flowing lion's mane was a bright red laced with blonde and white that made it look like a hellish fire blazing from her scalp, and her eyes were a pure gold that glowed with a sunny energy, the pupils of her eyes being shaped like a slowly rotating black daffodil, something that she claimed was a birth defect, but Weiss figured it was a symbol of physical power that she kept hidden. It wasn't like Scarlet was secretive about being able to crush a battlemech with her bare hands considering she did it surprisingly often. Scarlet was also someone who could easily turn heads with her thin waist and busty features, but even through the screen, Weiss could see that her comely bone structure was marred with smeared makeup and bags under her eyes. She looked exhausted.

"Hey, Scarlet!" Weiss said cheerily but with a slight tone of worry, "Rough day?" Scarlet pinched the bridge of her nose and groaned.

"You have no idea. Trying to pacify the workers that your father has enslaved- excuse me, 'employed' without having to use violence, while at the same time trying to make sure they're happy and have everything they need without going against Jacques, despite his policies, is pure Hell. I swear to the Old Gods, I would make an excellent tightrope walker with this balancing act I'm constantly subjected to. Then you have the other families within Atlas and how even our criminal business partners aren't aware of my actions, and the ones that are need to be paid to keep their mouths shut, and then… Sorry, I'm rambling. What did you need, Doll?"

"You sure you have time?" Weiss asked, laughing uncomfortably, but Scarlet waved off the concern, staring at her with tired, sunken eyes that seemed to be having trouble focusing.

"Please, Babycakes," she said dismissively, taking a sip from a flask she had hidden underneath the counter, "I welcome the distraction." Weiss narrowed her eyes suspiciously but kept her mouth shut and chose to return to the main topic. She promised to quit.

"So, I maybe… kind of… met this guy…" Weiss said coyly, looking down at the desk with a satisfied smirk and pretending to adjust the keyboard primly, but cringed at Scarlet's spit take and series of choked coughs.

"What?!" she squeaked, "Are you serious?! You have got to tell me about him! What's he like?! Is he on your team?! What kind of technique does he use?! Is he a good fighter?! No wait, is he a ginger, like me?! Oh, please tell me he's a ginger! I want to meet him. Is he with you? Let me see his handsome face so I can welcome him to this family. Does he at least drink, though, because I really need a drinking buddy, and I-"

"Scarlet, would you please stop and let me explain?" Weiss asked, crossing her arms, but the drunken saleswoman paid the younger girl no mind and continued her annoying tirade.

"Hold on, no. The important question is if he's cute. And how did you even fall for him anyway? Last I heard, you wanted to focus on your studies before you tried to find a husband!" Scarlet cackled at her jest, ignoring Weiss's intense blush and terrified expression at the jab. Scarlet wasn't teasing Weiss at this point, she was full on challenging the heiress to prove some kind of point, trying for whatever reason to either start an argument or just to get Weiss flustered for no other reason than to be rude.

"No! What?! No! I'm not looking to marry him or anything! At least not yet…" Weiss added the last part with a bashful pout and ran her hand through her hair a few times, making Scarlet howl more. "Oh, come on, Scarlet, stop! What am I supposed to do? He doesn't even like me that way." Scarlet coughed a few times and her wailing died down to throbbing chuckles.

"How do you know?" She asked tritely. Weiss blinked at her.

"Excuse me?" She asked, then Scarlet leaned forward at the computer screen, making Weiss get a full view of Scarlet's perfect teeth, the orange flecks in her eyes, the woman's boobs cinching together in that low cut pants suit, and if they were in the same room together, Weiss had no doubt she would be getting a nose full of bourbon. With her face covering most of the webcam, Scarlet spoke in a breathy tone, her speech slightly slurred as she tried to enunciate more clearly. She was trying to creep Weiss out, and it worked.

"How do you know he doesn't like you?" she asked, this time more strongly. Weiss narrowed her eyes.

"Because he said so," she claimed, crossing her arms haughtily, "We're pretty good friends now, but after everything that we went through when we first took our entry exam and how moving into the dorms together was… well, it wasn't an easy transition for any of us, and I can tell you that even though he's my friend, there's nothing more there. If I asked him out, he would say no, and then things would become weird. So no, I have to wait a bit longer and make him fall for me slowly, and then wait for him to ask me out instead of the other way around."

"Baby, no!" Scarlet snapped, looking worried, her exaggerated speech now making her speak with theatrical hand gestures, "Come on, Doll. I can promise you that guys are way too simple for that to be anything more than an assumption! Just because a guy says he doesn't like you, which you didn't even prove that he did, so I can only assume you're lying about that so I'll get off your case, it doesn't mean he doesn't really want you, and if you guys are still friends now, then I bet you my Amygdala that he would return your feelings if you told him about them." Weiss cringed at the memory of that disgusting weapon, and sighed, absorbing her friend's words. It was funny. Weiss hadn't realized until she met Grey that she had a true friend in Scarlet all along, despite the woman being her father's mistress. Weiss just needed to learn what a friend was. It honestly made her feel bad that even though the older woman had never once mistreated Weiss, had often stood up for her and did whatever she could to make her happy, Weiss still spent the years refusing to believe anyone cared about her in that way.

"You really think so?" Weiss whispered softly, unconsciously brushing a strand of hair behind her ear out of anxiety.

"Yeah, definitely," Scarlet affirmed, nodding a few times, "Just go up to him and tell him, 'hey! I like you!' And if that doesn't work, you could always use your sister's technique on getting a guy to like you, but if you, Weiss Schnee, have actually fallen for someone, then I doubt this guy is going to really fall for you just by throwing wads of cash at him." Scarlet took another swig of her flask and pouted, realizing it was empty and just choosing to balance it on the desk by its opening instead, watching Weiss as she waited for the girl to respond.

"Well, I have to go," Weiss said, choosing not to tell Scarlet about her date anymore after Scarlet's words sunk into her mind, "You have work to do, and I… you've given me a lot to think about."

"Hey, Babydoll?" Scarlet pleaded real quick before Weiss could end the call, and she looked at her younger counterpart with an encouraging look, "Good luck, yeah?" Weiss only nodded before clicking a button and shutting down the laptop, folding her hands in her lap and burning a hole in the desk with her eyes.

The woman, Weiss's unofficial older sister, had sewn the seed of doubt in Weiss's mind. Of course, she wasn't about to make any rash decisions like grabbing Grey's neck and planting a kiss on him suddenly- Scarlet didn't actually say that, but it was a fantasy the heiress often perused -but what would happen if she did give in to her fleshly cravings? Grey was a very genuine person, so he was often very open about his feelings, and he never really did anything that denied his interest in her, often hugging her out of nowhere and having no qualms about physical contact. Sure, his feelings for her still weren't entirely clear, but at the very least, Weiss couldn't deny Scarlet's assumption. The more she thought about it, the less convinced Weiss became that Grey would turn her down. However, the only reason she even considered the possibility was because there was just so much detail that she just couldn't predict, denying the idea of a rejection but not confirming a requitement. Honestly, now that Weiss was actually considering taking the direct route, she was filled with even more anxiety than she had been before that phone call because now, she had no idea what to do or how to go about it, and the biting of her thumbnail was testament to how much that filled her with panic.

Eventually, after pondering over these thoughts and writing them down in a small diary she kept in her satchel, Grey walked into the room. Placing his hand gently on her shoulder to get her attention, they smiled at each other lightly, and left the Academy together for a meeting with the rest of the team in the city. They walked together, chatted over trivial things, and in their friendship was a natural flow, a pleasant air to the rhythm void of any insecurities or awkwardness, and this made Weiss realize that she was too insecure in her own feelings to give herself an answer to her earlier questions. It didn't matter if they were together just yet, and she didn't need to know how to make Grey hers. They were comfortable together now, and that was really at that mattered to her in that moment, so realizing she could think about how to go about her feelings at some other point, she decided that for now, whatever may come will come.

(...)

Grey was the only one laughing. Team RWBY watched on as their dust user, the White Mage, as they called her, hopped up and down the street, allowing an excited squeal to escape her lips every once in awhile and for once not caring if anyone heard her. Grey thought she was adorable. It was a sweet change of pace to her usual serious demeanor, but he was perhaps being too liberal in his interpretation of her behavior considering how put off by her the rest of the team was. He wasn't going to give into their discomfort, though. This kind of unbridled joy in Weiss was rare, and it would be good for her to allow herself to feel it more in the future, so he enthusiastically encouraged her. He noticed weeks ago that he had that weird effect on her. If he was being honest with himself, though, he wouldn't have been laughing with her if he didn't find at her at least a little funny.

From Weiss's perspective, she was becoming less and less aware that her friends were following her through the streets of Beacon as she admired each of the decorations that were being put up for the upcoming Vytal Festival. Her eyes sparkled with excitement, her heart leapt, and for a brief moment, she danced down the sidewalk. Humming a tune from the Nutcracker, a famous classic, she appropriately tumbled down the sidewalk with a succession of pirouettes with every beat, until she realized Grey was laughing at her. She stopped with a conspicuous pout, but when she did, Grey expressed his displeasure and poorly tried to copy her movements, trying to get her to start it up again. This made her laugh back at him, but she didn't join him or tutor him in his technique. She was just having too much fun to do anything other than watch him, and he didn't seem to care about the judgmental eyes directed at him, choosing to enjoy his embarrassment rather than hide behind it. Weiss really admired that about him.

As was tradition, most of the stores on Main Street had set up stalls outside to sell their product, or some meager refreshments, while tourists and partygoers enjoyed the attractions and numerous shows around the city, the stores themselves capitalizing on the opportunity to make an easy buck. When the group passed his Grandpa's shop, Grey stepped inside almost immediately and spoke with his childhood guardian happily. The girls poignantly perused the store, Ruby hiding behind the shelves nearest the cash register with Weiss right next to her, and paid close attention to Grey as he talked to the old man running the store, seemingly happier than he had been in months. Not that he hadn't been happy, of course. Just not as happy as he was talking to the old man. They even heard part of the conversation.

"You going to buy anything today, my boy?" The elder said to their friend with a bright grin, "I have some nice gifts you can get for one of those girls you came in with?"

"Nah, Pop, I'm just stopping in for a visit, like I told you," Grey explained, playfully using a demeaning tone, "And I don't think any of them would accept the pile of crap you sell." Grandpa Arsen chuckled throatily as Grey snapped a costume tiara in his fingers like a twig.

"Oh, come on now," he complained, but without a single trace of regret in his voice, "Anything here would be a prize to them, as long as it comes from you. They clearly worship the ground you walk on!" Grandpa Arsen laughed loudly and waved to Ruby and Weiss who were peering over the shelf which caused them to yelp and duck behind cover. The girls glanced at each other. Smiling lightly, sharing their embarrassment with one another, grateful they weren't alone, they thought about how the senior citizen entrepreneur didn't seem like the type who Grey would normally associate with. He may have been Grey's grandfather, they heard, but the man seemed rude and uncouth. The pair shared no real similarity. Even Grey was put off by the older man's tactlessness, frowning at one of the last thing his progenitor said.

"Grandah, I don't think I'm that special to them. Or anyone besides you for that matter," Grey complained, his voice uncomfortably strained and low. The pair of voyeurists stopped breathing at that uncharacteristically depressing statement, and both had to resist the urge to jump out from their concealment and hug him as tightly as possible. He was so damn wrong about that.

The older man cackled heavily as the two stubbornly stepped out from behind the bookshelves, Weiss feigning a haughty pride behind a blush as she placed one hand on her hip, and Ruby rubbing the back of her neck nervously. Seeing them, Grey turned to them with a frown and scratched his head curiously. A few flicks of his now shoulder length hair that he had been growing out, he opened his mouth to speak, to say that if they wanted to meet his grandfather they could have just asked him, but Ruby shoved a pair of clip on earrings in his face with a bright smile. They were the tackiest things ever, and she knew it- a corroding silver paint covering the three pendants, with the final one having a plastic amethyst as a centerpiece, and he doubted she would ever wear them, but when she pleaded with Grey to buy them for her, he only hesitated just long enough to process that she was entirely serious in her request. Weiss, not to be outdone, was a bit pickier in her choice. She knew that costume jewelry wasn't the only… couple-y in the store, the thought sending a chill down her spine, and Weiss knew the sentiment they were trying to express would still be the same even if she got something more slightly more expensive. Coyly, she mentioned how she thought a reggae bracelet in the lock box underneath the counter looked nice and dominantly told Grey to buy it for her. She did make sure to add a "please" to the order, though.

Grey smiled. It was crass, but the sentiment touched him deeply. He was always looking out for others, whether they wanted him to or not, but for whatever reason, he never truly felt like anyone cared about him despite his kindness, and yet, the minute both of the girls saw this self-deprecating attitude of his and sent it straight to the Underworld. It was… hard to describe the feeling. This one simple action sent a burning directly to his chest. It was painful but pleasant. He couldn't really put a name to it, because he had never really felt it before, and his grandpa and two sisters didn't really count since they were family but was this… was this what feeling cared for felt like?

As the register dinged from the sale, the group heard a commotion outside and ran out, ready to fight should they had to. It was their job as huntsman to be ready for an attack constantly.

"What is going on?!" Weiss yelled, reading the protest signs and listening to the chant of the protesters, her hands balling into fists and a vein pulsing in her forehead. Grey, Ruby, and Yang glanced at her curiously, having seen the girl annoyed beyond realism almost every single day, but never having seen her show any signs of true anger before now. She was pompous and arrogant, but even though she would snap at her teammates whenever they did something even slightly uncouth, showing snappy frustration with them, that pattern could never compare to the bull headed fury she was showing now. Blake showed the biggest reaction to this, jumping away from her teammate in fright. However, she wasn't the one to respond.

"I know, right? At least they're actually protesting this time instead of blowing up trucks or trains or stealing ammunition or torching stores or looting overturned ice cream trucks or whatever they do. Do you even know what they're protesting for?" Said a random voice from above them. The group looked up to see another faunus, a blonde monkey boy hanging upside down from a streetlamp by his tail and eating an apple happily. His hair was curled tightly and scraggly, his pant legs rolled up high over his converse, and his white button down was spread wide, revealing his finely toned abdomen seconded only by his cheeky grin. Weiss snapped at him to back off, and the guy raised his hands in surrender and sauntered off on the rooftops.

"These degenerates are ruining the Vytal Festival!" Weiss continued, storming around with her hands waving around dangerously, setting the group on edge because of the dozens of knives in her sleeves, "They should take their protests somewhere else! Like the slums where each of these filthy animals belong!"

"Whoa…" Grey muttered. This was going to get dangerously close to a race war if anyone in the increasingly passionate crowd heard her. Weiss was his friend, but she was also Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. She was a very well known public figure, basically a celebrity, and with her father's less than reputable business practices such as faunus slavery, the Schnee princess openly professing that level of racism, especially right next to a group of people who were already upset enough to practice their right to Freedom of Assembly, was bound to cause no end of trouble. Disregarding his own safety, Grey pushed past the rest of his team and tried to lace his fingers into hers.

"Snow Angel, maybe you should-" he tried to reach out to her, but she turned on him, ripping her hand away from his, but before she could say anything else, and she did try to, Grey took the chance to silence her by placing his hands on her cheeks lightly but firmly, and moving in as closely to her as possible without their faces touching. She froze. She was as silent as a church mouse in a room full of starving bobcats as he stared at her. She was acutely aware of his lips mere inches away from hers, his silver eyes looking deeply into her own, and the heat of his breath scraping against her mouth, a blush burning its way across her face. She immediately forgot what she was so mad about previously. Her body instinctively leaned forward a bit at his gesture, out of an autonomous desire to be closer to him so strong that she had to fight in order to keep herself reigned in. It was excruciating. If she just stood up on her toes and leaned forward another inch…

"Let's talk about this somewhere else," Grey said, breaking her out of her euphoria, "OK?" Struggling to find her wits, she silently nodded and ran off, a prissy skip to her step as she fled, Blake and Ruby following after her, but Yang holding back for a second with the other boxer.

"Dude, what was that?" she hissed at him, "You didn't have to kiss her to make her chill out!" Grey looked at her oddly.

"What are you talking about?" he asked genuinely, but then his eyes went wide as he suddenly realized that the way his back was turned to him, the way he suddenly, intimately grabbed her face and moved in, it could easily make them view that move as something more than what it was. Their perception probably would have made them think that he was stealing Ruby's move from the Emerald Forest. He was just trying to shut her up! He had always been able to get the most unique responses from her, bring out things in her that no one else could, so he did that knowing that it was an easy way to calm her down. He kicked himself. He was going to have a lot of backtracking to do later. Granted, it wasn't like he hadn't thought about closing the distance, but still.

"Nevermind," Yang said dismissively, walking off in a huff, "You do you, Grey. Just be careful who you piss off." Grey rolled his eyes tiredly and ran after her as Yang frustratedly pondered how much that stupid kiss would mess with her bet.

The pair hurried to catch up to the other three, the problem child having already recovered from her lustful daze and returning to her tirade, but this time making sure to keep it quiet. It wasn't quiet enough to avert the dirty looks from nicer people, but it was a start. At the moment, Weiss looked like she was about to set fire to Vytal Festival she was previously fawning over, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Regardless, Weiss had to have had a reason for this level of hatred. Normally, racists like her would speak about their bigotry in private venues with hushed tones, but this kind of wrath had to have had some kind of bigger reason for it, some kind of trauma that may have caused her to view that protest with so much murderous disdain in her heart. Grey knew that the White Fang had become violent over the past few years. Frankly, given the Schnee Dust Company's reputation, he wouldn't have put it past them to have planned organized attacks against it, but even for them, it wasn't a very believable scenario for any faunus rights organization to wage actual warfare. Why was Weiss revealing this side of her now, though? She treated every single faunus at Beacon Academy just the same as she treated the members of Team RWBY, but as soon as things became political, it somehow made her mad? No, there had to be some other reason for it. Grey may have been grasping at straws to find some kind of excuse for her horrendous behavior, but he was hoping it had nothing to do with faunus, and was specific only to the White Fang. He just needed to wait for Weiss to calm down before he-

"How can you be so single-minded?!" Blake shouted. Finally having lost it, she turned Weiss around angrily by her sleeve when they turned down a barren alley, her feline eyes narrowing dangerously. Grey slapped his palm to his forehead. This was probably worse for him than the averted race war from earlier, but at least Blake waited until there was no one around before breaking.

"Single-minded?!" Weiss snapped back, standing up to her teammate, "Do you not know what those people do?! They're pure evil!"

"How can you say that?!" Blake shot back, finding trouble meeting someone so demented head on, "How can you stereotype half of Remnant just because of some misguided extremists?!"

"I'm talking about those extremists! Not all faunus are bad, I'm not an idiot like you, but the White Fang are nothing but homicidal maniacs!" Weiss pushed, shoving her finger in Blake's face.

"It was a counter protest against violence!" Blake claimed, slapping Weiss's hand away. Weiss began throwing herself into her sassier attitude, sarcastically speaking with her hands and making her tone even more condescending than normal.

"Don't you know that the White Fang knows what's best for the faunus? That they're going to 'guide' these rapscallions into their 'rightful path'? Just because the people they're protecting say they want a peaceful alternative, it doesn't mean that the White Fang is actually going to listen to them! And misguided?! How dare you say that! They're killing people!"

"So they're very misguided!" Blake tried to defend, "Their hearts are in the right place but they're just not going about it in the right way!"

"What is wrong with you?! How can you possibly support a terrorist organization?! I don't think you heard me before so I'll say it again. They're killing hundreds, thousands, millions of people! The White Fang are evil! It doesn't matter what their intentions are if their hands are stained with the blood of innocent civilians!"

"Shouldn't we be trying to stop them at this point?" Yang asked Grey while swirling in a desk chair absent mindedly after the team had returned to their dorm. Grey sat in the corner, looking over the most recent update in a comic feed from one of his favorite online artists, Snailords, but set his phone down to address the question.

"I'm not going anywhere near this, Yang," he said through a great amount of mental fatigue, "There are some fights I'm neither willing to start or finish. Feel free to do it yourself, though."

"It's people like you who are the reason why the White Fang are taking these measures in the first place!" Blake pulled. Grey raised his eyebrow without looking up. Yang and Ruby, the latter hiding behind her sister under the nearest desk with a comforter over her shoulders, looked up at him pleadingly, sensing how short their fuses were getting, but Grey still wasn't getting up. Thankfully, the girls were losing steam. The debate was finally beginning to devolve from an argument to a barrage of insults. However, considering Weiss's godly amounts of pride in herself and her family name, the rest of the team knew she wasn't about to take that insult lying down.

"People like me?!" Weiss started. She jumped out of her seat, about ready to stab Blake through the eye, and Blake glaring at the smaller girl as if welcoming the challenge. Unwilling to see that through, Grey had jumped out of his seat at the same time Weiss had and moved between them. Normally, he would have taken a peaceful approach, choosing to deescalate the conflict instead of ending it, but after having dealt with this for nearly six hours, he was tired, frustrated, and had lost all sense of reason, and this made him end up taking the exact opposite approach.

"Both of you shut up! Just shut up!" He yelled at them, making all four of the girls in the room jump, "Seriously! Enough with you two! It doesn't matter what either of you think on this matter, and you know why? Because you're huntsmen. You're meant to stop whatever kind of force, whatever monster or organization that tries to threaten the peace of the Kingdoms. It doesn't matter if it's a grimm, a human, or a faunus, and that includes the White Fang. I'm sorry Blake," he turned to her, his back facing Weiss, and his irises glowing red as if Black Steele was dying to rip her throat out, "But you're defending an organization that is killing innocent people, breaking every law imaginable, and I don't care if you think they're justified or if they're cause is at least understandable. They need to be stopped by any means necessary."

"But Grey!" Blake tried to say, sitting forward again, ready to defend herself and the "very misguided" defenders of her kind.

"Let me make this clear, Blake," he said, his eyes twitching murderously, forcing her to back up to the other side of the bed in fear, "Your belief in their ideals doesn't matter. They're killing innocent people, and if it comes to it- excuse me, when it comes to it, you're going to have to put your own feelings aside and fight with us to take them down. If you don't see that, then I want nothing to do with you, and I will take you down myself if I have to."

"Grey…" Ruby whispered sadly. Even Yang was uncomfortable.

"As for you, Princess," Grey snarled, turning on Weiss with just as much ferocity as her teammate, making even her buckle under the weight of his threatening stare, "You're a horrible person." She gaped. Her jaw dropped and she tried her hardest to prevent a sob from escaping her lips, but a crack in her voice still slipped through.

"But…" she swallowed, trying her hardest to speak, let alone preventing her tears from flowing over, "Grey… Please listen to me." The tears fell despite her efforts. Without any pause, her cheeks became stained with betrayal as the droplets ripped through her make up's foundation.

"No, I've had enough of you both," Grey interrupted, "Blake's defense of terrorism just because it's coming from an underprivileged group, and your unbridled hatred for those people just because of that same group-"

"I don't hate faunus! Just the White Fang!" Weiss pleaded, and even Blake was beginning to whimper at this new fight that had sparked. This wasn't about Blake and Weiss or racial equality anymore. This had somehow been corrupted into the destruction of Weiss's and Grey's friendship, and even the former's previous opponent was acutely aware what kind of effect that would have on the heiress. She was losing her best, first, and sometimes only friend right now. Not only that, but she was losing him because of something she had said that had fully turned him against her with the same amount of animosity and fury Grey had only ever shown his enemies, so the guilt would most likely destroy her. Grey, on the other hand? If his kindness and compassion for the girl had been broken, after hours of trying to stand by her and defend her against Blake's jabs, he was without a doubt in a great amount of pain himself. Wisely, Team RWBY kept their mouths shut and watched.

"I don't care, Weiss!" Grey announced loudly, turning to face her fully, "I have been listening to both of you promote dangerous and evil ideas all day, and I'm freaking sick of it. At least Blake's view is kind of understandable since faunus are an oppressed people, but you? You're just an awful, horrible person."

"I'm a victim!" Weiss shouted before she could stop herself, stomping her foot in place. She dropped to her knees and sobbed into her hands, Grey's face still cold and unyielding, but this time, remaining silent. She was shaking. It would only take another word for her to lose her mind. She repeated in her head over and over a reminder to not lose control, because if she did, she knew she would say something she would regret, or do something even worse. Team RWBY sat stock still and waited for something, anything to happen. As if in a psychic connection, the group had agreed that this fight had gone on long enough, and Ruby stood up to go across the room to get Pyrrha, hoping she would be able to help out a little bit, but before she could, Grey moved. Ruby, Blake, and Yang all tensed. His face was clenched tightly, his eyes closed in an effort to try to prevent any kind of pain from escaping him, but he just sat next to Weiss, and nothing else. No one in the room knew what he was doing. Not even him. No one knew what was happening until Weiss turned to him, her eyes puffy, and then crashed into his arms, hugging him tightly and only crying stronger.

Another half an hour passed before things had settled down long enough for Weiss to speak. She had stopped crying almost as quickly as she started, but stubbornly refused to leave Grey's embrace, only choosing to even acknowledge the other girls when she had finally eased her mind enough to confess why she truly hated the White Fang.

Weiss had never hated the faunus. Just like people don't hate all dogs just because one had bitten them one time, they only hate that one dog, Weiss held the strongest contempt only for the White Fang thanks to the actual war they had waged against her family. She explained how she grew up living in fear everyday, wondering if that would be the day she, a small child, would lose their life thanks to something she wasn't even responsible for, terrified that family and friends she had seen just the previous day would suddenly disappear. She even talked about her plans to fight for faunus rights after her father stepped down from his position and she took over. Weiss genuinely seemed like she wanted to make things better for those that had less than her. Once her story was over, Team RWBY settled into their seats and pondered over the tale, absorbing the details and silently appreciated their friend's honesty, but Blake, having been the one most directly affected by the girl that day, said that she needed some time, and everyone agreed to let her go as she sped out of the door in a blur.

(...)

"Really?" Weiss asked with the most dubious expression, "You knew she was a faunus? And you didn't think to tell us?"

The pair walked down Main Street just as they had yesterday. Needless to say, Grey felt bad for the way he treated Weiss the night before and had taken the girl out to enjoy the attractions of the Vytal Festival with him footing the bill for anything she would want, whether it be food or gifts to make up for it. It was good that he was an heir to a wealthy company in his own right, or else he would have felt his wallet crying out to him "why" as he slowly ripped out its innards to appease the girl. At the moment, as night was beginning to come, the pair were sitting at a bench in the middle of a park with the perfect view of the sunset, chowing down on some ice cream. Both of them were uncomfortably aware of how romantic this scene may have been. They tried not to let it get to them.

This isn't a date, this isn't a date, this isn't a date, Grey repeated in his mind.

This is totally a date, this is totally a date, I swear this is a date, and if this isn't a date, I'm going to make it a date. This is a date! Weiss gleefully cheered in her own.

"Yep," Grey answered his friend's question, biting into his mint chocolate chip like a demon that was immune to brain freeze, "I figured it out a few weeks ago."

"But… why didn't you tell us?" Weiss gasped, pouting cutely, "How did you figure it out anyway? She hid it so well!"

"Well…" he stammered, tapping his foot nervously, and chuckling stiffly in an effort to ease the tension in the question, "I guess I should answer the second question first, because that'll help you understand the first bit. So, I noticed how she was always wearing the bow. I mean, she always wears it with literally every outfit, regardless of the color scheme, even to bed and probably in the shower too which I wasn't about to find out for obvious reasons." Weiss covered her mouth at his consciously avoidant perversion so her giggle wouldn't make her cough up her strawberry swirl. Grey smirked and pushed her head to the side playfully, making her laugh loudly and bump him with her hip in response, and it made her smile at how easy and natural talking to him had become since yesterday. She didn't feel the need to constantly watch her words and berate herself all of the time anymore, at least not around him. Talking to him was so comfortable now after that fight. Now, the only question was if Weiss could flirt with him effectively. "Anyway, she wore it casually so I never gave it much thought until the one time I saw her not wearing it during that costume party last month. You remember?"

"Yeah, she-" Weiss tried to say, but paused to swallow the ice cream that was in her mouth, wiping her lips afterwards, "-she went as a… cat girl." Weiss's eyes went wide as she connected the dots. Thinking about certain other factors, the goth girl's confession from last night after she returned to the dorm made a lot more sense, even if she was clearly hiding the fact that she had been with someone all night judging by the love marks on her neck. It was Weiss's heartfelt confession of her tragic backstory, and her admission that she would forgive any White Fang members that would turn their backs on their former allies that moved Blake into revealing her deepest secret as well as the sins of her past. Blake nearly broke down herself when they accepted her so easily.

"Glad you remember! Guess there is a brain in there after all!" Grey grinned as Weiss jokingly smacked his arm, giggling alongside him again, "Her costume was just so lifelike that I had to figure out how it worked, and even though moodiness and being isolation are kind of Blake's thing, it seemed out of character how defensive she got when I asked her about them, but again, it wasn't like turning people away was odd for her, so I forgot about it and tried to sneak a peek as closely as I could at the wires and material she used to make her ears, figured out that the tail attached to her belt was made from something totally different, and then…" Grey paused to take a bite of his ice cream, then swirled it around, admiring the quick work he made of the dairy steeple and that now all he had left to do was bite into the cone, teasing his counterpart with his silence.

"Don't leave me in suspense! Keep going!" Weiss smiled excitedly and pushed him, unconsciously sliding closer to him to where their thighs pressed against one another, so Weiss leaned up against his shoulder to be more comfortable. With a start, she realized how natural this position, her curled up in his side like she was, was for her.

"Oh, are you still here?" He smirked at her, glancing at her from the corner of his eyes again. She scoffed with a sarcastic smile and crossed her arms, turning away from him, but a chill going down her spine when she felt his arm snake around her waist. It made her blush. Thankfully, her head was turned away from him so he wouldn't be able to see the color.

"Cheeky," she accused. Grey chuckled at her a bit more. What could he say? A cute girl sitting half way in his lap was definitely something he wasn't about to decline.

"So, eventually, after watching her for hours, I noticed that her ears were moving, just like a cat's would," he explained, "I tried to find any excuse I could to try to explain away the twitching, but come on. You can see how much of a stereotype she is, right? The yarn fetish, the nearly entirely fish based diet, the way she just… Have you seen her dance after random lights? Not just laser pointers, either. Like when my watch catches the sun and it makes a weird spot on the wall that flicks around when I move my hand and she jumps at it- no, wait. She's a cat. She pounces at it."

"Didn't you nearly kill me for judging all members of a group by a standard that had nothing to do with them?" Weiss walked her fingers up his arm, giving him the same shock he gave her with her finely manicured nails.

"Pfft, you kidding? I don't care if she sheds. Cats are the best!" Grey shot back, then made Weiss jump when he ran his free hand through Weiss's hair a bit roughly, but mostly affectionately, "And I would never kill you, stupid. Maybe I'd… punish you a little… but killing is off the table. Unless you steal my cheese puffs. Then, I'll not only kill you, but I'll also pull your screaming soul back from Heaven just so I can criticize your tacky choice in doilies." Weiss scoffed.

"Excuse me!" she reprimanded, "I can forgive you murdering someone as excellent and perfect as myself, but leave my doilies out of this! They're amazing! Much better than those entirely unremarkable torn jeans of yours, which, by the way, makes Professor Oobleck's glasses look fashionable." Grey theatrically gasped, his hand over his chest.

"How dare you, Snow Angel! So, rude!"

The two broke out into uncontrollable laughter, their stomachs getting sharp pains through them. Weiss didn't even realize it when she threw herself into Grey's chest from the joy he was filling her with, or even when he wrapped his arms around her and buried his face in her hair, trying to muffle the noise. The motions were just so natural, so comfortable. She belonged in his arms that way, settling herself against him and finding a peace she had never really experienced before with his contact, melting into him. Klein, Winter, nor Scarlet had ever made Weiss feel so happy. Happiness, friendship, kindness, compassion, excitement, and many other emotions had become so common that Weiss wondered how she had ever lived before she met Grey. With him, life was exhilarating, stimulating, and intoxicating. Before he showed up, life was nothing more than a series of appointments and rules, each one more stifling and disappointing than the last, but now, she took every breath with joy since life was now suddenly worth living. Every day was lovely.

It was hard to believe that she could ever be happy, but suddenly, Grey made her believe that maybe life wasn't so bad.

(A/N) And finally, we have Scarlet Ryokellia, Jacques Schnee's mistress. Why is she so close with Weiss? Did Scarlet have anything to do with the death of Weiss's mother? Was she sleeping with her boss when Mama Schnee was still alive? Will she and Weiss successfully overthrow the White Haired Snake?

Why would I answer any of these right now? Keep reading! Don't forget to post your theories as to what's going to happen with her in a review for a chapter dedication next month!

**PS** (In addition to this chapter, I've also published a Bloodborne one-shot and will be publishing the follow up I wrote for it in two weeks. This mini-series is Doll x Hunter, of course- why would it not be -and is titled "Daily Life in the Hunter's Dream." I got the idea from the girlfromgraz and her Skyrim one-shot series about the relationship between Vilkas and the Dragonborn to write a number of short, fluffy pieces on the Doll and the Hunter, and just to be clear, there is a pretty significant chance that I will continue with this idea as a side project. Go check it out, and tell me what you think!)