Ruby stood there for a second stunned, staring blankly at her old friend's outstretched hand. 'I, I guess she wants a hand shake... Pyrrha was always really formal when we were kids...'

Hesitant and somewhat reserved, Ruby stuck her hand out and left it half way between herself and the already extended hand of her former classmate. "It's, I, w-well..."

Apparently, Pyrrha was going to be the opposite of Ruby's reserved manner. She didn't even wait for Ruby to finish her stuttering. Reaching out and grabbing the shorter woman's hand, Pyrrha yanked Ruby into a hasty hug with a short laugh. The taller woman's arms yanked Ruby off the ground, and the redhead ended up hanging about a foot in the air, looking over Pyrrha's shoulder while she felt her rib cage get crushed. And looking over the taller girl's shoulder, Ruby saw the still masked man lower his gun and slipping it into the back of his pants, either through a loop in his belt or into a holster on his back.

The old champion's strong arm's quickly squeezed the air out of Ruby's lungs, and while the hug was obviously a friendly gesture, it none-the-less startled Ruby. 'Okay, I'm not okay with you being all touchy-feely, it's not like you! I just said to myself that you were the fucking formal one!'

Pyrrha just hugged Ruby happily, chuckling to herself, her voice echoing out loudly across the deserted street. "I can't believe it! It is you!" Not feeling the girl in her arms stiffen awkwardly by the sudden motion, Pyrrha's green eyes twinkled brightly as she crushed Ruby. "I always wondered about you, I was never really sure if you would be okay when you left! Ha, I'm so happy you made it through all these years!"

Unsure of how to react, her feet dangling in the air uselessly, Ruby just locked up and froze. Ruby's voice fell back to its old deadpan, although her usually perfect actually sounded somewhat off to Ruby. It wasn't quite as menacing as it used to sound. Not quite as natural to put on either.

"...It is good to see you too Pyrrha. Now please put me down."

Caught off guard by the redhead's voice, Pyrrha loosened her grip on Ruby to the point that the shorter girl slipped down her black jacket and to the ground again. Slightly taken aback from her cold demeanor, Pyrrha's certainty on who she was talking to wavered for a second. "Ruby, I-I just-"

Trying to not give Pyrrha the chance to be anymore offended, Ruby leaned forward and quickly gave the champion a shorter, less warm hug. Ruby's was barely more than a squeeze before she stepped back. "I really am happy to see you. You just startled me, is all... This is a lot to take in..."

After a second where Pyrrha seemed at a loss, she broke out into another smile. "Oh, uh, yeah, yeah I can see that. I mean, we both thought the other was dead for the past decade!" Pyrrha took a small half step towards Ruby, as though she was going to hug her again. She saw the grimace that passed across Ruby's face though, and she stopped herself. "I mean, I can't believe it's really you!"

"Yeah yeah, yeesh, you already said that..." Ruby ran a hand through her hair while she frantically thought of what to do. She'd gone over thousands of scenarios of entering the city. Slipping in undetected, being held up by bandits, getting detained by militia, all possibilities that she'd considered. This, getting greeted with hugs and laughs by some of her oldest friends, was not one. This was obviously going differently than she had planned. 'Maybe the city won't be dangerous for us, if Pyrrha can just waltz around the street like nobody's business.

Looking up at Pyrrha, somewhat curious, Ruby asked: "It is refreshing, and again it's really nice to see you, but... well, why are you so jittery? It's not really like the old you, which is kind of what I'd expect..."

Pyrrha simply shrugged. "People change over a decade. That, and I changed and responded to the situation I thought I'd need to fit in to." Looking down on Ruby, raising an eyebrow at the shorter redhead, Pyrrha asked: "Maybe I acted a little out of character, but what's with you? Ten years ago you would've been bouncing up and down with joy even if this was just a one month reunion. If you think about this like that, who's more out of character?"

Ruby thought about that for a second, and was about to agree with Pyrrha, when suddenly the taller woman in front of her seemed to squint her eyes over Ruby's shoulder, off into the distance. After a half second, Pyrrha's lips twitched into a smile and she murmured: "Is that...?"

Turning around, already half expecting what she was going to see, Ruby wasn't surprised when she saw a snowy white head break over a small hill in the pavement. A taller, silver haired man followed behind Weiss a few seconds behind, even though Mercury should have outstripped the shorter blonde's pace in a few strides.

Whether she was aware that there was no danger, the redhead couldn't tell. All she could see was that Weiss was rushing towards Ruby and the other two, who were all still standing in a tight circle, as fast as she could. As she called out, Ruby couldn't tell if Weiss's voice was colored in fear, anger, or a mixture of the two. "Ruby!"

"Yeah, yeah Weiss, I know," Ruby started muttering, already getting ready to apologize. 'Hopefully she isn't going to kill me...' Ruby started to walk forward, away from Pyrrha and towards Weiss.

Although as she took a few steps away from Pyrrha, Ruby noticed the taller woman immediately follow behind her at maybe just an arms length away. She didn't take much notice though; Pyrrha had always had a hard time recognizing personal space. 'I always found that odd, you trying to be so polite, and then constantly screw up on the big one.'

Ignoring her thoughts, and also the woman hanging over her shoulder, Ruby just yelled out to Weiss who was maybe 100 feet away at this point. "Yo, Weiss, you can slow down, everything's fine..."

Weiss didn't seem to be paying attention though, and as she quickly crushed the gap between them with her speed, Ruby saw that Weiss was getting closer and closer to whatever everyone seemed to be tripping over. The sun glinted off the obstacle in a strange way, so Ruby didn't get a good chance to inspect what looked like a strand of blazing sunlight crossing the fifty foot gap between the buildings on either side of the street. From Weiss's angle, and the angle Ruby had been running at a few minutes ago, the cord of light probably was invisible. "WHOA, HEY, WEISS, STOP!"

Ruby's yells were also ignored, and as Weiss got within ten feet of Ruby the blonde suddenly felt her legs get jerked out from underneath her.

'Shiiiit! Weiss, don't- uff!'

Ruby stepped forward and caught Weiss midway through the girl's airborne tumble. Catching the blonde girl in her arms against her chest, Ruby kept the short heiress from slamming into the ground as hard as the redhead had earlier. But in catching Weiss, Ruby absorbed all of the shorter blonde's momentum, and was flung to the floor. Landing with a grunt on her back spread eagle, Ruby felt her shoulder blades and head slam against the ground simultaneously. If that wasn't enough, it was only a second later when she got the air knocked out of her as Weiss finally hit the ground and slammed into the redhead's chest.

Weiss slowly pushing herself up from lying on top of Ruby, and the redhead underneath her wheezed out sarcastically: "My... hero..."

Looking up at the pink sky above her, Ruby could see little silver flashes all across her field of vision. Not taking them seriously, her senses somewhat rattled, Ruby only thought to herself that they were... well, pretty. 'Like thousands of silver fireworks... all going off at once...' Taking her eyes off the sky, Ruby's gaze shifted down and moved to rest on Weiss's face. 'But that's a thousand times more... yeah... what...?'

Already feeling a headache beginning to form, Ruby first thought was worry that her partner had been hurt. It really should have been nothing, nobody would have noticed or even worried about it, but Ruby's mind blew the tiny injury out of proportion. A small stripe of red, barely a hair wide was marked across Weiss's cheek, starting at her ear and trialing down towards the tip of the blonde's slender nose. It dipped down into the scar running along and under Weiss's eye. 'Shit Weiss, did you cut yourself running?'

Reaching up, a little dazed and not entirely in control of her full senses, Ruby rubbed her thumb across the slice, murmuring something that sounded like an apology while she massaged the blonde's cheek. 'You'd kill me if you ended up with another face scar, you already hate the first...'

Ruby couldn't remember the last time she had touched Weiss's face. She couldn't even think of a time where she would have gotten away with it. Apparently getting concussed was more than enough to stun Weiss for a few seconds, let her get this tiny moment.

And Ruby loved it. Feeling Weiss's cheek shift under her fingers, pulling the blonde's soft, pale peach lips into a crooked smile by Ruby's circling thumb. Feeling the little sparks of lightning arc back and forth, from Weiss's face to Ruby's fingers and back again. Ruby didn't want it to end.

But... it had to. Before they both came to their senses, and this wasn't romantic any longer. So Ruby let her hand fall away, expecting to see a clean pink cut with its blood wiped away. Instead, the redhead just saw a large red smug across Weiss's face, adding even more to Weiss's blush. 'Oh... you aren't cut?' Suddenly, as though the universe was personally giving her the answer, Ruby felt a trickle of wetness trail down her own neck. It felt like a warm finger, slowly trailing its way down her chin by gravity, tickling her skin the entire way down. 'Ah, I get it... that's my blood. Just a splatter probably. That's good...'

Ruby was so out of funk, that she barely registered the stunned look on Weiss's face as she looked down on Ruby.

But she did catch it. For the most part, it scared her. Ruby wondered if she'd been too bold. Had it been wrong to think she could get away with something like this? Just because she wasn't entirely in her right frame of mind?

But a smaller part of her brain, which lately seemed like a sleeping dragon waking up from a thousand year long rest, fell for the look on Weiss's face. It reminded her of a long time ago, the same look she'd get every time she'd steal a kiss from her girlfriend. Ruby's vision slowly faded to black as she remembered, and she couldn't help but smile to herself at the memory. Looking up, Weiss's face now was the same. It was...

"...loving..."

Feeling Ruby's caressing fingers leave her face, Weiss could only look down at Ruby's plated silver eyes in astonishment. In those few short seconds they had taken away all of Weiss's anger, all of her worry. Ruby's fingers had left Weiss at a loss, both for words and for thoughts. The only thing her jumbled mind could get out was that she wished all this would last longer. Even if this moment was the result of Ruby's rash and foolish behavior, it didn't change how this moment felt. Weiss wished that this could just erase all the past eight or so years, and last forever.

It felt like a different time, like something that shouldn't be happening be happening now. It was something that happened in that long lost world, which had been filled with happy and silly childish romances and dreams. The days that had simply been fun and carefree... at least, compared to now.

Before Weiss could get any more lost in her thoughts, some of them wistfully wishing that Ruby wouldn't stop, the blonde's worry came rearing back to life. Now in a different way than before though. Not fear for the black clad figures around her, or the prospective danger from infected around her. But it was fear for the girl underneath her.

As Weiss watched her, Ruby's eyes seemed to lose focus. The redhead gazed up at her face for a few more seconds, and Weiss heard Ruby mumble something. She whispered something barely audible, and as the word slipped out, a crooked, uneven smile crept across the redhead's face.

"...loving..."

But before Weiss could get anything else out of the girl below her, Ruby's eyes rolled up into her head and she heaved out a heavy breath.

She couldn't believe this. "Hey, Ruby, wait, wake up, please don't pass out on me now! What were you going to say?!" Patting on the side of Ruby's face gently, Weiss couldn't believe her luck. After all that, Ruby was out cold. "Come on! You've got to be kidding me!"

Breaking her train of thought, and her focus on the girl below her, Weiss felt a hasty tap on her shoulder. "Um, is she alright?"

Looking up, hearing someone cackling in the background, Weiss saw a curtain of scarlet strands swaying in front of her face. At first, the blonde reeled back from the garish and out of place color. But when she saw the face in the center of the red tangle, her emerald eyes wide with concern as she looked down at the heiress and the passed out girl, her momentary flash of fear turned to befuddlement. "...Pyrrha?"

Bending down at the waist to the point where she was in what looked like a deep bow, Pyrrha flashed an extremely warm smile at her for a half second, and asked her again. "Is she alright? Ruby, I mean, is she okay?"

"I-I think, I mean I'm pretty sure I, t-that I knocked her out..." Weiss looked down for a second, realizing that she really didn't know if Ruby was okay. "I mean... Mercury!" Looking around franticly, Weiss found him hunched over, out of breath panting a few feet back. "Come help me!"

Weiss heard a small gasp from Pyrrha, which she had no problem guessing what the cause of it was. 'Probably out of surprise at the company we're keeping. I probably wouldn't have reacted well to Mercury either if I'd ran into him a different way than Ruby introduced us...' Weiss hoped Pyrrha would stay open minded until she could defend Mercury.

Mercury straightened out, and by his red face and the tears streaming down from his charcoal black eyes, Weiss realized he wasn't winded in the slightest. He wasn't tired at all. The idiot was barely holding himself together from fits of laughter.

"You, you, ha... My god, man, what a reunion!" As he started walking towards Weiss, who was still on top of Ruby, straddling the redhead's waist, Mercury continued chuckling to himself. "You just knocked out cold the girl we were running to save! Some rescuer you make!"

"Shut up Mercury!" As Mercury kneeled down on next to Ruby, Weiss saw his finger's get wrapped in a silvery glow before they disappeared under Ruby's neck. Still chuckling to himself, Mercury reached out and gently felt around the base of Ruby's head with his careful fingers.

After a few seconds of silently watching Mercury, Weiss asked: "Is she going to be okay?"

"She'd be better if you first got off her."

Looking down, suddenly realizing where she was, Weiss quickly climbed off the girl underneath her. As she backpedaled, Weiss ran into Pyrrha's shins and almost knocked the taller woman over. 'Wow, you have no sense of personal space Pyrrha.'

Breaking the silence again, looking up at Weiss and ignoring Pyrrha, Mercury quipped: "I don't know if us meeting was funnier, or if it was you meeting these two." Looking up for a second, smirking at Weiss, Mercury sneered: "They were both priceless in their own ways." Mercury then turned back down to Ruby, and while he kept smiling and chuckling while he worked, Weiss noticed that the smile didn't seem quite right. It wasn't quite genuine, his usual bravado seeming somewhat forced and awkward...

Suddenly Pyrrha spoke up, still sounding somewhat on edge. In all honesty, Weiss had momentarily forgotten both her and the still masked man standing off to their side. Glancing at him for a split second, Weiss would have sworn he had his gun put away a second ago. Now it was out again. At least the pistol was still pointed at the ground.

"I don't think you should be moving her head if she's got a head injury." Pyrrha's voice seemed to take on a harsh tone, and Weiss worried for a second that she'd have to break up a fight. Last thing Weiss wanted was a brawl to start on top of Ruby while the redhead was still passed out.

But before Weiss had to intervene, Mercury responded. "Sheesh, don't be so surly, it doesn't fit you well. I've got the magic fingers... the grass is always greener in my palms and what not..." But Mercury did pull his hands away from Ruby's neck, already their normal color again. Turning to Weiss, still chuckling to himself, he said: "She'll be fine."

Weiss breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you Mercury. I was worried she would be hurt..."

"Yeah, you should have been. It's bad enough to get one concussion, but two in a ten minute period is definitely a recipe for a bad week." Ignoring the aghast looking on Weiss's face, shifting his gaze back down to Ruby again, Mercury stated: "I hadn't done anything, and she'd have probably had a few week long headache, and who knows what kind of brain damage would come after that." Catching the growing tint of worry that laced the blonde's icy blue eyes, he quickly added: "But she's fine!"

Weiss let her tension go, her heart already at ease. But the girl next to her seemed to think otherwise, and by the sound of rustling nylon and denim growing nearer, the man behind them seemed to agree with Pyrrha's apprehension. "I'm sorry," Pyrrha added haughtily, sounding anything but sorry, "but what makes you able to tell how she'll be! I heard her head hit, it didn't sound like something to just brush off!"

Mercury ignored the angry redhead, and looked back down at Ruby. He caught sight of the blood trail on the girl below him and her split chin. "Ouch, that looks like it hurt." Reaching out, his fingers relighting with their silver glow in the sunlight and the full view of everyone, Mercury rubbed the red strip with an index finger. Weiss flicked her eyes up to Pyrrha's face, seeing the champion's eyes widen in surprise.

Leaving behind a trail of fading metallic sparkles for a few seconds, Mercury watched as the rift in the skin on Ruby's chin flowed back together. Once he was sure his work was finished, Mercury's hand stopped glowing and he twisted his head back and forth while double checking his work. "Man, that left a nasty mark, even I couldn't cover that up."

"But she's fine?"

"Oh, she's fine alright. I mean... Red's got a few screws knocked loose, but that had nothing to do with me in the first place." Straightening out to his full height, Mercury smiled down at Weiss and quipped: "If it had been a few inches higher and not hidden under her chin, you two could have been scar buddies."

Mercury's joke was wasted in the tense air. "Thanks Mercury." Looking down at Ruby, Weiss's face twitched for a second, and then she added "I, well, when will she-"

"In about an hour." Rolling his shoulders, Mercury added: "Should be enough time for me to get our stuff. Fill them in while I'm gone." Mercury started walking, although he stopped for a second to look back at the person standing farthest away from the entire group. "And Lie Ren, take off the mask, you aren't fooling anybody."

And without another word, Mercury took off, making sure to hop over the string of orange that spanned across the street.

Pyrrha squinted after Mercury angrily. "He's... he's a character."

Weiss answered Pyrrha, while looking at the masked man walking up towards them. "Mercury comes off as an ass, but he's actually a good person."

The man walking forward cut in, interjecting into the conversation. "That's hard to believe, White Fang and all."

Lowering the mask, shaking his straight black hair out as he pulled the white disk down, Weiss saw that it really was her old classmate Ren. His face was still almost ageless, nearly identical to how it had been ten years ago, other than some stubble here and there on his cheekbones. Although he did lack the iconic purple lock of hair that used to run down the front of his face. "I mean, he was a scoundrel and spy for close to three years. He stole information, ferreted out secrets, betrayed us all ... should we really trust him?"

Looking off into the distance, surprised that Mercury was already out of sight, Weiss answered:"... I would, and that kind of faith doesn't come easy to me. We all were different ten years ago..."

"Hmm... I guess." Pyrrha looked down at Ruby, who was now cleaned up and simply asleep. "Can we move her a bit? Of the street, out of the sun."

"Hmm... Should be able to." Without waiting for the others to do anything, Weiss leaned down and picked Ruby up, hefting her up into her arms and into a bridal carry. Weiss was actually surprised when she picked up Ruby. She wasn't that heavy. "Come on, let's go and get out of the sun..."

As they walked off the street, Weiss couldn't tell if Ruby's head just fell into her neck, or if her face was nuzzling itself there consciously. It didn't really matter... it still brought a smile to Weiss's face either way...

Running faster than he had in a while, actually pushing himself for the first time in recent memory, Mercury flew through the forest. This was as fast as he could have gone earlier, although before he and Weiss set off for Ruby earlier, Mercury had decided to let the blonde set the pace. He hadn't realized how much stronger he was than the average person, until he actually compared himself to the blonde. 'I remember a time when she used to outrun me... and she had stumpy little legs back then too!'

It had taken twenty minutes to go from their bags to the city with Weiss in tow. On his own, he made it back to their packs in a measly five, although he originally ran past the unmarked piece of forest where he had left them.

After a few minutes of backtracking and searching through random bushes, Mercury finally found the bags, tossed haphazardly into probably the thorniest bush within a few miles of here.

"Alright, here they are. Ah, AH, hell... of course I threw them into a rose bush, my luck."

Mercury swung his own pack over his shoulder easily, the motion routine after all this time. But he then weighed Weiss's bag on his outstretched arm for a second. 'Should I take it back? I mean, it won't take long for them to find it, especially if I leave this one out in the center of the road...'

Weighing his options, Mercury threw a quick glance back at Beacon. "Fucking hell, I shouldn't stick around... Pyrrha didn't roll out the welcome mat for me, that's for sure."

Rocking back and forth on his heels, Mercury checked the time by the sun. He'd probably only been gone for ten or so minutes... he could have time to think.

"So... is it just you and Ruby, or is Mercury going back for... others?"

While Ren was being perfectly polite, Weiss knew what he was asking. "Yang died about five years ago... it's just us and Mercury now."

Ren's eyes flicked down to Ruby, who had been placed down in the shade of a side alley, under the awning of an old store and out of the rising sun's glare. The redhead was still out, although every once in a while she'd shift or make a small murmur. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Happens..."

"I guess, but it shouldn't have..." Ren seemed to hesitate for a second, and then asked: "So... Um, why did you even come to Beacon?"

Weiss flinched for a second, hearing something in that she hoped she was just over-analyzing. "...Should we not have? Are we not welcome?"

"Of course you are!" Pyrrha's voice cut in, although the look on Ren's face made Weiss think he was about to say the same thing. "You'll always be welcome with us, you saved our lives. We would have died if you hadn't opened the flood gates... so to speak." After a moment of hesitation, she added: "I guess we can talk about Mercury later. But we're just curious... I mean, seven years is a long time to go AWOL and then suddenly show up out of the blue."

Weiss, already feeling relieved, shrugged her shoulders. "I mean, I guess we just got tired of wandering. We've been all over the continent, and every time we tried to settle down, the people we'd end up with would be worse than actual clickers..."

"Ah..."

Looking around for something to talk about, Weiss's eyes landed on the source of most of the morning's mysteries. Taking a few steps to the side, Weiss stood next to what everyone had been tripping on. Coming up to around midcalf on Weiss, it looked like several corded lines of fishing wire, all interwoven and tied together. Lifting up her foot and hooking it down on the cord, Weiss heard a satisfyingly low note pluck off the string, like the lowest cord of a harp being strummed. "What's this?"

"Oh, it's just a tripwire for infected. See that little hole in the wall that all the wires go into?"

On further inspection, Weiss saw what Pyrrha was referencing. A small hole, the diameter of Weiss's pinky finger, was bored into the brick wall of the shop, and the cord disappeared inside of the wall.

Without waiting for Weiss's response, Pyrrha added: "There's another one of those holes on the opposite side of the street. The cord then runs through the building to meet up with the rest of the trip wires, up to nine bells that lets us know when something's tripped the line, and which ones been tripped." Looking down at the cord, Pyrrha muttered: "Usually people see it and just step over, it's not meant to stop them... but eh, you and Ruby probably both had other things on your minds than to watch where you were going."

Looking at the cord, Weiss couldn't understand why they'd go through all the trouble for something so complex if they didn't seem to use it. "Why set all this up... and why not stop people?"

Pyrrha gave Weiss an odd look. "We aren't going to stop people. Why would we? They want to enter the city, they can go right ahead. We need the people, makes the place run smoother. There aren't many in the city, so we aren't going to be turning the people who do show up away."

Weiss raised an eyebrow, and then skeptically pointed at the rifle slung across Pyrrha's back. "That's a lot of firepower for just letting anybody pass..."

Ren spoke up at that point, his voice tinted with a smile that didn't make it to his bland face. "We aren't idiots, we see people who look like trouble, and we deal with them. But in doing this for... six years, we've only had to get in a fight twice." Checking his nails, as though the statement bored him, Ren added: "We've only killed eight people since we took this up while they were entering, and they were obviously looking to start trouble in the city. Everyone else, we let them pass, never even letting them know we were here in the first place."

"Oh... that's refreshing. Human decency..." Weiss looked down at the cord again, still unclear on something. "So then why set this up at all?"

"Easier. If you clean up the one or two shamblers when they show up, its way easier to handle than having to check around every corner for infected as you're walking through the city. Inner city is completely infected free, and almost no shamblers make it past that line."

"I get it..." With a smile, Weiss asked: "...Shamblers?"

Without responding, Pyrrha took a few steps forward, dragging her feet sideways and mimicking an infected perfectly.

"You'd be great at charades..." Weiss suddenly flinched for a second, as Ruby gave another loud murmur, although they still came out completely unintelligible. After Ruby went silent, not giving Weiss anything she could work with, the blonde remembered some of her partner's concerns. "What's the city like?"

"It's a... It's..." Ren seemed to have a bit of trouble putting it into words. "Have you been to many cities since the fall?"

"A few. What's this one like?"

Scratching his head for a second, Ren began naming cities. "Uhhh... Mistral's the only other big city besides Beacon that held itself together." At the blank look on Weiss's face, Ren changed tactics. "Okay, smaller cities then... I've heard about Vizal, Sestrai, Ovelyk, Caric, Marlz-"

"We went to Vizal but didn't enter..." Weiss fell off awkwardly, not wanting to explain Ruby and Yang right now. "We were actually staying in Caric for the winter, until we left a few weeks before the season ended."

"Okay, good, Caric is pretty much identical to how the city's running now." Ren walked over to the shattered window, covered in dust and ash, and started drawing circles within circles in the dust motes. "Okay, the inner city is basically just downtown and all of the apartments, docks, and shipping yards. So, most of Beacon. This is where about ninetyish percent of the people in the city live." He then drew a larger circle around the first. "This is the part that Beacon tries to keep infected clean, just to make things easier for the city inside."

"Are thing's going that well that you can afford to risk people to keep the area around the city clear?" Weiss had a hard time believing what she was hearing. It sounded too good to be true.

"Risk? Nope, we're just told to do this. City's not that great, it's kind of under marshal law. It's worse than not great... really dangerous place." Ren shot a look off towards a circling flock of black specks in the sky. Weiss remember those clouds of pest birds, how they hovered over to the city and coated the sails of every ship in the harbor with black feathers. "They stay in there and leave us alone... we do our jobs... everybody's happy..."

"Where's out here? So you guys are just waste landers or something?" Weiss felt stupid, having to ask so many questions. "And what's your 'job'."

Pyrrha suddenly cut into the conversation with a quick laugh. "You haven't changed... you still ask nonstop questions, top of the class know-it-all," Pyrrha hummed, smiling slyly at the scoff she got out of Weiss. "Hah, don't worry about it, I'm just poking fun. Gets boring when you've got only the same few people to talk to every day. We live in the outside circle of... Ren's horrible diagram."

"You want to draw it then!"

Pyrrha just laughed: "Nope, I don't get to critique if I do it." Looking back at Weiss, the taller woman said: "Nobody wanted it, so we actually got all of Beacon's campus." At an incredulous look from Weiss, she added: "I know it may sound like too much to protect at first, but really, it's safe. The walls are too high for infected to get over, and there's only one main entrance now, we chained up all the other gates."

Ren suddenly piped up, answering Weiss's other question. "We keep clickers and other things away, and in exchange... Caric gave out rations right?" At the nod from Weiss, Ren nodded back. "Same here. Guys in charge give out ration cards for doing whatever they assign you. You go into the city once a week to pick up what you can trade your cards for, and you take whatever they give you back."

"Most of the people in charge were council members. They knew we were hunters, so as long as we don't go causing trouble in the city, they let us just run wild out here. We keep this side in order, and everything's good, they cough up the tickets."

"Sound's... bittersweet I guess." Weiss couldn't help feeling let down. So, they trek all this way, and find out that Beacon just fell apart like everywhere else. She hadn't known what she'd been expecting, but it hadn't been this. A dangerous city, and a couple of old friend shaking their head's saying 'don't go there'. 'I know it was illogical, but I thought... if one place made it, it'd be Beacon. I guess I just kind of hoped..."

"It's not that bad, really." Pyrrha's voice caught Weiss off guard, it sounded concerned. It sounded as though she was worried about Weiss's opinion. "I mean, you wouldn't want to go into the city anyway..."

The way Pyrrha dropped that last line, just leaving it in the air waiting for Weiss's response, made her finally realize what was up. Weiss realized what they'd been leading up to. "So if I shouldn't go into the city, then..."

"You could come with us," Ren finished for her smoothly.

There was a couple seconds of silence, where everyone waited for someone else to speak. Pyrrha seemed to chew on her tongue before saying: "So, do you want to? Come with us, I mean?" Her eyes flicked down to the still sleeping girl lying on the sidewalk, and she suddenly stuttered: "I mean, you can wait, there's absolutely no rush. Talk with Ruby and all, you should do that first before we suddenly start asking-"

"You guys are idiots," Weiss cut in. Smirking as she watched their stunned faces, Weiss then added sarcastically: "Yeah, I just ran into two of my oldest friends, just got the chance to reunite with them, and got the feeling they're somehow still decent people through all this mess. Whelp, see you guys around, I'm sure we'll bump into each other every once in a while... Of course we'll all come with you guys. We'd be fools not to. I don't have to ask Ruby, I'm sure she won't have a different opinion."

Ren finally cracked a smile, and Pyrrha just sighed in aggravation at Weiss's remark. "What's with you two?! I'm formal with you, and you start cracking jokes and ripping on us. I give Ruby a hug, and it's like she's about to bite my head off! Why"

"Hmmm... yeah, I guess time changes people." Weiss suddenly realized she'd missed an important question, something she should have asked about a minute into the introductions. "So... Who else has changed?"

"AHHHH, FUCK THIS! WHY IS THIS SO HARD TO CHOOSE!?"

Fifty minutes passed, and Mercury was no closer to deciding. He'd gone back and forth, ended up walking towards Beacon again, and throwing Weiss's pack down in a heap and walking away. He usually only went ten feet in either direction before he stopped and came back to his center point, right under the first break in the canopy, and began the cycle again.

Thinking away from himself for a moment, trying to get some abstraction from the issue, Mercury found the hole in the tree line above him. Looking off in the distance, already feeling his own worries slip away, the flashes of deja vu he was getting was the oddest feeling. He could see Beacon academy's tower on the horizon, even more like a black pillar against the sky now with the rising sun. He'd talked with other hunters before in the past, back when he was still undercover and all buddy-buddy with everybody else, and how they felt pride and joy at the sight of their own monument in the world. They thought it was some grand treasure to cherish, and felt pride at saying they'd been a part of that

Mercury had never gotten the feeling. To him that giant, over glorified spike sticking out of the ground like it was Remnant's own personal splinter, used to fill him with so much dread that he'd feel like vomiting. Every day he'd have to bottle up and force down his growing fear, that he was getting closer and closer to being found out. His bravado and arrogance finally unmasked as the marks of a spy. He knew he'd inevitably get captured, and probably be tortured for information by Ironwood personally.

'Their wings would have wilted, their halos would have disappeared, and their smiles would have rotted the second they found out about me if I hadn't ran first. We all never even thought of doing things like that, but no! Does it matter that we never stooped to their level? Of course not! Apparently they're the good guys, they're allowed to get away with torture! Nobody ever talks about that side of the hunter's huh, just the goody two shoes who got to keep a blind eye to everything else!' Mercury's thought's burst out of his lips, his sudden burst of anger making him forget where he was. "NOBODY EVER REMEMBERS YOU WERE WORSE THAN WE-," Mercury suddenly stuttered off, realizing what he was doing. "...And I'm yelling at a tower of rocks. Greaaaaaaaat..."

That spire didn't fill him with hope. It just reminded him of his fear. Luckily that fear was long gone... With the end of everything, at least that had ended too. Maybe anger had replaced it, but at least Mercury could deal with anger. He didn't have an outlet for that anymore, although every time he did it seemed to go too far, like with that stalker only a few weeks ago when it had been just himself and Ruby trudging along.

'Enough living in the past, I've still got problems to deal with now...'' And Mercury was right. He still had to deal with the problem facing him. And holding onto Weiss's bag in his left hand, shaking it up and down, Mercury knew he had to come up with a final decision.

"Gah! You know what, Weiss'll find her stuff eventually, it's not like she had anything really..." Just to confirm, Mercury quickly opened Weiss's white backpack, which had turned grey with wear and tear, and felt around inside. "Are you kidding me?! She's... she's got nothing!"

Mercury felt around a bit more, feeling his hand brush against something hard and metallic. Pulling it out, he found himself holding Ruby's lighter. "Okay, she's got a lighter... big deal! It's a piece of scrap metal, it doesn't even light anymore, it's a paper weight!"

But turning it over in his hands, Mercury felt a pull towards the city. "But I... I should return this." He got another two feet, and stopped. "But they'll shoot me! I don't want to get shot, and that's saying I live pieces of metal getting flung at me at a thousand miles an hour!"

Dropping the lighter back into Weiss's bag, Mercury himself dropped to the floor. "I really don't want to go back...," Mercury groaned out to the air. "I know things'll go sour eventually. They may decide to shoot me now as I'm walking back, or a month from now when Ruby and Weiss have their backs turned... And that's if Ruby doesn't strangle me herself when she wakes up..."

Suddenly, Mercury's inner voice roared into life. 'What is wrong with you?! How in the name of hell can you even think of letting that no good priss run you off? We beat her in the past, we can crush her again! You're seriously going to let her just sweep you away from Red and Weiss like you're some no good piece of lint, back to wandering across mountain ranges on your own! You just going to let her take away your friends like as if you don't have a right to them too?! FUCKING MAN UP!'

Mercury had to smirk at that thought. "I guess I'm right, like always..." Pushing himself off the ground, ignoring the hard roots that dug into his palm as he pressed into the earth, Mercury rose to his feet and swung Weiss's bag over his shoulder on top of his own pack. Turning towards Beacon, finally feeling some sense of finality in his decision, he started walking along the rough pavement trail for the third time today, muttering to himself as he went.

"Maybe I'll leave... maybe I won't. But if I'm leaving, it'll be on my own terms, not just because some snobby bitch gives me the cold shoulder..."

Walking up slowly, Ruby's first thought was slight discomfort. As she came too, hearing several voices that sounded as though they were bickering, Ruby felt as though her head was a balloon filling with water. The more she woke up, the more stretched she felt. And when someone noticed her shift and grimace at the noise, the question that followed made her feel like she was about to pop.

"Ruby, are you awake?"

'Ahhhh... no need to shout... my head feels like somebody kicked me in the eyes."

Her eyes cracking open, Ruby found herself lying against the cool ground in the shade, looking up at the bottom of a rotten, faded wood slatted awning. Although, she had to squint in even this dim glow, the light feeling like flaming hot pins being jabbed into her eyes. Sitting up, feeling somebody back away from her as she did so, Ruby pressed the heels of her palms into both of her eyes, trying to deal with the pressure in her head. "Yeah, yeah, I'm up..."

Ruby identified Weiss's voice easy enough, although there were more than a few voices muttering in the background. "Are you okay though? You look like you're in pain..."

Unable to help herself, Ruby snapped back sarcasticly: "Oh noooooo, I just enjoy ramming my fists into my face for fun is all, great way to wake up..." Ruby kicked herself the second the phrase left her mouth, she heard everyone around go silent at her snippy reply. Pulling her hands away from her eyes, Ruby felt them begin to water in the dim light. Squinting up at Weiss, whose face looked more concerned than offended, Ruby mumbled: "... Sorry, my head's killing me is all. It feels like I fell down a flight of stairs."

"Oh, I...," Weiss trailed off, looking satisfied in Ruby's response. Turning back, Ruby saw Weiss glare at Mercury, who was standing back with Pyrrha and... Ren?

'Why not Jaune?'

Suddenly whirling around, raising her voice to the point where Ruby winced at the noise, Weiss shouted: "Mercury, I thought you said she'd be fine?"

Smiling sheepishly, Mercury shrugged. "I may have exaggerated how fine she'd be. Nobody's going to just walk of getting skull fractures and concussions, even with healing... I mean, at least she isn't asking what her name is."

Weiss's eyes widened, and she slowly turned back to Ruby. "Uh... do, do you...?"

Standing up, ignoring the senses of both vertigo and nausea that hit her as she got off the ground, Ruby growled: "Weiss, I'm not playing twenty questions while my head feels like a spinning top." While she snapped that, trying to sound strong, everyone in the group could see Ruby's legs shaking. The redhead swayed back and forth on her feet to the point where she had to reach out and put a hand on the nearby wall to keep herself from falling over.

"Good enough for me!" Slapping his palms together, already starting to walk off, Mercury started off down the street. "Just keep her away from me, last thing I want is her hurling on my shoes..."

Weiss watched him walk off as though he was insane. "What the hell are you doing? Let's give her a minute, she's barely stand-"

"Let's go." Ruby saw Weiss shoot her a look, and she smiled back. "I'm feeling better, I'd rather move and shake out my legs. Clear my thoughts." Casting a glance over her shoulder, to Pyrrha and Ren, Ruby asked: "I'm guessing you were probably showing us somewhere... or are we just heading on alone without you two?"

Pyrrha hesitated in place for a second, but Lie Ren just nodded. Walking ahead first, he stayed in the shadows of the buildings. To be nice to the still woozy redhead. Pyrrha fell in behind him, and Ruby and Weiss after her. After they all passed him, Mercury smirked and then turned and followed, whistling as he went.

Ruby's headache hadn't gotten better as she walked along, and her head was still killing her as she darted between each bit of shade with her head bowed. But she was getting pretty good at hiding it. She'd just kept her mouth shut and her face down, concentrating hard on not vomiting. Luckily she hadn't needed to bite her tongue yet, Weiss'd probably make everybody stop and wait around for no god damn reason if Ruby showed any signs of weariness again. 'Not like it helps, just kills time... if anything, the sooner we get there, the better. After introductions, I can lock myself in a dark room, keep my head down, and let the headache fade away...'

She'd paid attention to the conversation long enough to key in on where they were going. Once Ruby had heard where they were heading, to the academy of all places, Ruby felt totally content in just tuning out their yammering and bickering. She could barely believe that there of all places was where Pyrrha and Ren had decided to set up shop. Too dangerous... too open and obvious.

'They've been here for six years though apparently... I'll hold onto my opinion until then. If anything, I want Weiss near somebody to protect her as long as I feel like hurling.'

Maybe it was rude to just key out of the conversation, but Ruby didn't care. Really, it sounded pointless, from the tiny snippets she was catching. From what Ruby heard, it seemed like Pyrrha was snapping at Mercury every few moments about whatever she could. Ruby could feel the malice just oozing off the champion, even while she was half out of it and not Pyrrha's target. Every time she'd rant at Mercury, he'd usually return in kind, although his tone did sound more sarcastic than actually biting to Ruby. That probably made all their bickering more heated, instigated a fight more than just a simple snide comment.

'Speaking of Mercury...' Ruby thought, raising her eyes off the ground for a moment to look for him. And as she did, Ruby realized she must have checked out for longer than she had thought.

Standing tall in the sky, absolutely massive with how close to it they were, was Beacon academy's clock tower. The hands were stuck at three and eleven, telling Ruby the tumblers inside must have broken long ago.

Ruby tried to find everyone, figure out where they were. In front was Pyrrha and Ren, both their backs to Ruby as they led the way forward. They were almost to Beacon's main gate, the thin metal bars making up the door were rusted and warped with the years of neglect. Walking next to Ruby, so close that their sleeves were brushing against each other's, was Weiss. And since Mercury was nowhere to be seen, yet still just as loud, Ruby knew he had to still be following behind the rest of the group.

Slowing down, beginning to meander and let everyone else pass her by, Ruby stopped to walk next to the one person in the group who seemed to be lagging behind. Grabbing Mercury by the arm, Ruby spoke out forward to the rest of the group. "You guys go ahead, I've got to chat with Mercury for a second."

The responses she received were mixed. Pyrrha raised an eyebrow at the two, obviously curious, before she turned away to give Ruby her privacy. Ren seemed as though he couldn't care less, taking a second to look at the pair before he shrugged his shoulders and kept walking on, pushing the grand entrance's swinging gate open and passing through.

The face that seemed the most anxious was Weiss's though, and Ruby could almost hear the blonde's thoughts in the air.

'Why are we already starting this again? Can't we all just be honest with everyone?'

Ruby tried to get Weiss to relax, giving her an honest and genuine smile past her headache. "Please? Just thirty feet up, and I promise it'll only take a second..."

Weiss seemed to linger for a few seconds, continuing to stare at Ruby anxiously as she began to slowly walk away. Ruby smiled at her the entire way, up until Weiss followed behind Ren and Pyrrha, passing through the iron wrought replica vines that separated Beacon's street's and the academy. The second Weiss wasn't watching Ruby and was out of earshot, Ruby's smile disappeared, and angrily she whirled on Mercury.

"They hell are you playing at Mercury?!"

Mercury stopped his humming for a second, although his usual snark was somewhat lacking in his answer. "I couldn't begin to guess what you're getting at... care to enlighten me?"

"Why the hell did you even let Weiss get that close to me?!"

"I don't-"

"Don't you dare try lying to me!" Ruby had to reign in her anger, which was getting ready to boil over into pure rage. She'd been trying to sit on it the best she could until Weiss was out of the way. Her head's constant throbbing wasn't helping. "I know you saw me leave the camp this morning, you knew I had left! Why the hell did you even tell Weiss!?"

"I didn't-"

Grabbing Mercury by the shoulder's, feeling woozy as she got another hit of vertigo, Ruby snapped a response at the silver haired man. One he couldn't brushoff. "We made eye contact when I left! You gave me this unapproving, know it all look, but didn't move to stop me! Why the hell did you wait just long enough to put Weiss in danger for?!"

Mercury sneered, obviously knowing he was cornered. "...I waited long enough for you to get away, and get into the city. Believe me, if I had wanted to let Weiss catch up to you, we would have caught you on the trail ten minutes after we left our campsite."

"You seriously think-"

"You weren't wrong by the way." When Ruby stopped for a second, listening to what he had to say, Mercury continued. "You going in by yourself was best. Your predictable Red, I knew you'd try sneaking off. So... I let you. Weiss would be close enough to help you if things went wrong, and I'd be there to patch things up, like I did today." Starting to walk past Ruby, brushing off the redhead who looked livid, Mercury finished with: "It was best. Now let's go and meet the wolves."

Ruby stared after Mercury as he walked off, trying to know if she should be angry, glad, upset, or some weird mixture of all three. He'd been that calculating, and she hadn't even noticed. Shaking her head and walking after him, Ruby couldn't help but wonder what else he'd been callous about.

'I worry about you Ruby. You... you scare me. We could have waited, there's no rush... god, half the time it's like you already know what I'm thinking, why can't you know all this?'

"Weiss..." Ruby grumbled while walking next to the blonde, breaking her train of thought. "I can almost hear you stewing on your thoughts..."

Looking up at Ruby, seeing the layer of shiny sweat on her skin, Weiss asked: "Ruby, you're green... are you sure you're okay?"

Walking along, Ruby just continued to squint her eyes and look ahead. "I'm fine, don't worry about it. I don't care where we're going, but the second we get there I'm locking myself in the dark and quiet."

"You do know that your headache wouldn't be as painful if you'd just waited a few minutes, instead of just rushing off the second you woke up..." Sighing loudly, not caring now that Ruby winced at the loud noise, Weiss commented: "I'd like it if you'd listen to me every now and then..."

Ruby snorted at the statement, and she commented dryly: "I'll think on it..."

She scoffed back. Weiss wasn't angry at Ruby, but she couldn't say she was pleased either. 'Right now, you should be glad that I don't-'

"Weiiiiiiiiss!"

"Fine!" Looking around, Weiss couldn't help but get flashbacks from everything around her. It was their old campus, and even after all this time it really looked like old Beacon academy. The ivy was out of control, and the greenery from the grass medians was almost knee high, but other than that it all looked the same. Off to her left was the old cafeteria, minus a few windows. And towards her right was the lecture and sparing hall. 'Ah, those were fun days... showing off like idiots for fun... just goofing off and beating the shit out of each other for no other reason than to get a break from studying...'

And directly in front of her were the old student dorms. It was probably in the best condition out of all the buildings, most of the window open and clear. Weiss's eyes roved the side of the building, and she could actually see inside her old dorm room. 'I don't think Ozpin ever filled our room when we left... I wonder how much of our old stuff is still there.'

As they walked towards the building, Weiss heard arguing voices echo out of the inside. After talking to both Ren and Pyrrha, the blonde had expected seeing them. But, it was still odd hearing them. It was strange, the feeling of finding out those who, in your mind, had been dead for a long time and that you were wrong. Weiss kept on half expecting Pyrrha and Ren to turn to wisps of smoke and vanish. She could hardly believe in even two more survivors.

Echoing out of the entrance, just behind a door that had been left slightly ajar, the two voices continued to bicker.

"...I swear to god, you keep cheating and I'm not playing this with you anymore!"

"I'm not cheating! I'm beating you fair and square, you're just being a sore loser!"

"You didn't think I'd notice when your queen just suddenly reappeared on top of your rook three turns after I take it! You can't just take pieces that I took out and slip them back on the board when I'm not looking!"

"Okay, I can see how you may see that at as cheating. But look, it's boring to pla-"

"It's the way you're supposed to play the game!"

"I just thought it'd-"

"Speaking of your queen, what the hell is that?! You can't just stack pieces, this isn't checkers!"

"But I'm queen of-"

"Oh my god, that joke is so old! I'm sick of it, find a new one!"

"YOU KNOW WHAT, YOU'RE RIGHT! I DON'T WANT TO PLAY THIS ANYMORE!"

"DO NOT FLIP THE- NORA!"

Just then Ren pushed hard on the front door, sending it swinging into the room, then entire group got a good look in on the scene inside the main hall. A shaggy haired blonde man had fallen backwards and was lying on the floor, and a shorter woman than anyone else in the room with vivid orange hair stood over him, her hands thrown into the air, still holding onto a black queen. And raining down on both of them, dozens of black and gold stones pelted the two as chess pieces fell out of the air and back down to the ground.

With the sudden light that entered the dimly lit room, both of the two were blinded by the change in brightness. Ren and Pyrrha stepped in, the taller redhead shaking her face at the two in annoyance, although from here Weiss could see the hints of a smile on the side of Pyrrha's face. The other three stepped in behind them, although in the somewhat cramped hall entrance, they still stayed standing side by side in the full glare of the sunlight.

Weiss heard Jaune snap at Ren and Pyrrha from the floor, his voice making it obvious that he hadn't seen the other three figures still standing behind the other two in the sun. "AHHH! Fucking shut the door, it's bright as hell outside!" Jaune shielded is eyes with the back of his palm, and looked out at the figures standing in front of the blindingly bright light.

Ren simply sighed a response. "So, I take it you weren't going to get to doing inventory as soon as we left like you promised."

"Well, we had some time to goof around, you two weren't supposed to be back before nightfall." Glancing up, still squinting at the bright light, Weiss heard Jaune ask: "Why are you two back so soon? Something happen?"

Weiss had expected some introduction, and by the way Ruby straightened out, she guessed the redhead expected the same. But instead, Ren just reached over and grabbed the heavy edge of the heavy wooden door, swinging it shut behind him. As the harsh light disappeared, and the room returned to the gloom that had probably been present before they had entered, Nora and Jaune could finally see again.

If Weiss had said she didn't find the sight in front of her somewhat funny, Weiss would have been giving a bold faced lie. Jaune's jaw almost hit the floor when he saw the floor when he saw his new guests. That, and his eyes almost bulged out of their sockets.

And Nora... she was so speechless that Weiss saw the queen fall out of her hand and drop onto her bare foot, landing pointed top first. It probably had hurt, but she seemed so stunned that she didn't even notice. All she did was utter a single sentence as Weiss flashed a smile, feeling somewhat awkward just standing there in the grand foyer's entrance.

"... y-you're back... I guess we should probably move the armory out of your old room then."

Nothing to say really, I hope you all liked the first story of the new year. Know that there are plenty more to come, sooner rather than later. Comment what you think about the chapter, I love hearing feedback and good criticism. And remember to follow the story if you're interested in what happens next.

Thanks for reading!