Disclaimer: I do not own RWBY. I do, however, own my own characters. I am not profiting from this story.

After checking Recursive Nature for the fifth time in as many minutes, I decided I needed a break. I could only read the same paragraph so many times before dates and names of historical figures began to jumble out from my ears.

Oh, how I hated history. Give me a calculator any day.

As I leaned back in APCT's swivel chair as far as it would tolerate, I thought to the Vytal Festival qualification matches. Our fight against LPIS had been a rout. Adrian's decision to stay in pairs worked well—LPIS had poor team coordination, and so they stepped on each other's toes, both physically and metaphorically. But we weren't perfect either—or at least I wasn't. My face-full of Dust-tipped birdshot, courtesy of Brisk Solution, was proof of that.

In the meantime, I'd somewhat reconnected with students on campus. Various texts throughout the day, asking me how my mission went, were left largely unanswered until I received Ozpin's dossier. Once I did, I drafted a cookie-cutter response and just filled in the details.

I swapped my history textbook for APCT's team file. While stats on my teammates—Adrian: 5' 11"; Terra, B student at Umbra; Caelum, Mistralean native—were all well and good, I opted to read my "mission's" description instead. I planned to meet my parents this weekend, and a memory slip-up was the last thing I needed. Opening to the correct page, I began to scan its contents once again.

The first time I read Ozpin's cover story, I had almost laughed. Supposedly, our Atlas assignment went without a hitch, but a distress call from a nearby SDC mine had us stopping by for a visit. Some rampaging Atlesian Knight-130's were destroying company property, and it was up to us to stop them.

To make a long story short, my Semblance was invaluable against the robotic opponents, and I even offered to debug the dysfunctional software when all was said and done. The foreman took me up on my offer, and I found my way behind a computer screen in no time.

And that was when the explosion had happened.

A random imperfection in one of the Knights's Dust crystals caused a sudden discharge. While my teammates and I were merely roughed up, the electromagnetic blast fried Recursive Nature's motherboard. Not one to be without his weapon, I adamantly insisted on traveling to the city of Atlas to order a new motherboard. My teammates, expecting a short errand, returned to Beacon without me.

What followed was a convoluted mess of invoices, memos, and nondisclosure agreements.

Apparently, I ended up fraternizing with the Atlesian military. Because the parts I needed for Recursive Nature were custom-made, they took weeks to manufacture. The NDA's ensured no word of my whereabouts reached Vale.

While Ozpin's narrative was a bit hard to swallow—or, at least, for me it was—it did explain away any questions surrounding APCT's mission.

And most importantly, all word of the cyborg Grimm was suppressed.

In all, Ozpin's report took the most salient aspects of APCT's mission and connected them in a constellation that, unless you squinted hard enough, looked exactly as it did at face value.

Ozpin's genius did not disappoint.

Naturally, my teammates were interested in the dossier. As is common practice, the details of an ongoing mission are classified. Only when the mission is completed are the specifics released to the public. And so, the four of us pored over the reams of text the evening it had arrived.

A quick check to the Huntsman Mission Portal, endearingly called HUMS, confirmed Ozpin had not yet posted the "mission" brief. My Huntsman profile was as devoid of activity as it was the day I had created it.

I set my Scroll to the side and kept reading.

The sound of the door's lock disengaging broke my focus. Glancing up, I watched Adrian walk in and sit on the windowsill, newspaper in hand and mug at his lips. The aroma of coffee and chlorine tickled my nose as he walked by.

"Good morning," he greeted from his perch.

"How was your swim?" I asked, closing the dossier.

He shrugged. "A few thousand yards. Good for clearing the head."

"Whatever you say," I said. Seeing Adrian frown at some headline, I asked, "What's the news?"

"Oh, just an opinion piece," he replied. "I'm used to seeing my father's name in the paper, but it still isn't pleasant to see others denouncing him."

I swiveled to face him. "A bit of unpopular legislation, I assume?"

He shook his head. "Quite the opposite, I'm afraid. His position as Presiding Councilor makes him an easy scapegoat for political gridlock."

I rolled my eyes. "And what's the issue this time? Tax reform?"

"If only," he said, his frown deepening. "The SDC is lobbying for an end of Vale Dust subsidization. While this would lower taxes for the general citizen, the possibility for an SDC monopoly is staggering."

I completed his thought. "And knocking out government-funded competitors would drive down prices, but would give total control of the Dust market to the SDC," I said.

He nodded. "Precisely. But many economists are turning the blind eye, making the policy extremely popular. The other Council members are pushing for a vote, but my father manages to table it every time, to the disapproval of many."

Unfortunately. Lien wormed its way into even the purest of hearts. It was comforting to know that Adrian's father stood on the high road on this one.

"How do you think the whole thing will turn out?" I asked.

Adrian looked back to the article. "Given the amount of vitriol that even this centrist writer has for my father, it's tough to imagine him ignoring the flood of public support. On top of that, the Council member next in line is a confirmed SDC sympathetic, so it seems inevitable."

I crossed my arms. "If it's inevitable the bill will pass, why try to prevent it at all?"

"My father was a Huntsman first," Adrian said. "Destruction by Grimm seems inevitable as well, but he trained to banish that mindset to the realm of impossibility." He smiled. "It looks like Vale's government hasn't yet discovered he's kept that rationale when he transitioned to politics."

I returned his smile. "This'll be quite the surprise, then."

Adrian chuckled. "No doubt. My father is a cunning man—he'll find a way to stop this legislation." Setting his newspaper down next to him, he asked, "How's the studying going?"

I groaned. "Sitting in second-year classes when I don't even belong in the first-year introductory courses is annoying… but I'll catch up eventually."

Ozpin, in yet another face-saving maneuver, kept me in all my second-year courses with my teammates. While this move staved off suspicion regarding my amnesia, the wasted class time frustrated me to no end. Fortunately, the teachers had been instructed not to call on me, so I managed to sneak in a few chapters of introductory coursework each lecture.

That still didn't help my midnight tendencies of falling asleep with my Dust textbook as a pillow. Terra's stockpile of potentially incriminating photos was proof of that.

So, in a way, Ozpin's decision had caused my stiff neck and forced interest in grey-hat hacking.

Great. Thanks a bunch, headmaster.

Adrian's gave a sharp laugh. "Contrary to popular belief, courses at Beacon don't move very fast. If you've cracked open a book, you're already ahead of the pack." He made a show of looking at the bookshelves. "Although, your choice in literature is a bit questionable."

"Hey," I exclaimed. "Mystery is the finest of all fictional genres."

He rolled his eyes. "Sure it is, because a pipe-smoking detective trumps elves and Huntsmen."

"But he does," I insisted. "Solutions don't always lie in brute force."

Adrian gave me an amused look. "I'm teasing. Not all of those books are yours—you pulled me into the genre when we were younger."

"Oh?"

"It was maybe first or second grade—I was wandering the shelves in the school's library when I tripped over you," he said. "In short, you shoved a few titles in my hands and wouldn't relent until I read them."

I put on a smug grin. "Sounds like you lucked out."

He shook his head with a smile. "I'm not so sure about that."

"Whatever," I said. Knowing my concentration wouldn't survive another half-hour of historical facts and figures, I left my chair and headed for the door. "I'm going to the Oak," I told Adrian.

"What for?" he asked.

I gestured to my wrist. "We've got finals tomorrow. Thought I'd get some practice in with Recursive Nature."

"Don't forget sparring class at 10," Adrian called to me. "Goodwitch normally shames those who are late."

I pointed at my timepiece. "I won't."

I sat cross-legged beneath a massive tree. While the uninitiated would see the tree as simply that, Terra's contribution towards my learning campus lore changed my perspective on the Oak.

According to the campus hearsay, the Oak was planted in memoriam to a slain faculty member of high tenure. Under the watchful care of Beacon's many groundskeepers, the tree grew thicker than some of the colonnades ringing the campus.

It was also the site for midnight rendezvous between hormonally-charged students with unbridled thrill complexes.

I couldn't help but search about for discarded condoms. Thankfully, I spotted none.

Putting thoughts of sexual escapades aside, I focused instead on the timepiece in front of me. Recursive Nature lay on the manicured grass, a technological contrast to the natural setting around it.

It was time to study my weapon.

As with my Semblance, my knowledge of Recursive Nature extended to basic application, borne from muscle memory and the necessity of battle. However, if I wished to truly earn the title of Huntsman, that would not do.

I activated my Semblance and plunged into the logical realm.

The Nexus, as I had taken to calling it, greeted me with its familiar pulses of information. The various modules waited before me, their individual forms hidden behind glowing façades. Pinpoints of light dappled the Nexus's walls, ceiling, and floor. Without the pressing need of a fight, I found the light show comforting, my own digital firework show.

After consulting the book I had checked out from the library, sans enigmatic messages, I was able to make more sense of my surroundings. As I had predicted earlier, each module was a program constantly stored in RAM—a cross-check with the littered comments in my program files confirmed that assumption.

Unlike the other virtual constructs I had encountered, the Nexus was entirely enclosed. This led me to assume that Recursive Nature was closed off to outside signals. Careful examination of the back of my wristwatch revealed a USB port, quelling my questions of how I updated my weapon's software.

An external port was needed because, as I discovered, I couldn't breach the Nexus's walls. No amount of bashing my bodiless digital representation of my consciousness against the Nexus's floors caused me to phase through them to some other cache of stored information. While this precluded any internal debates of Semblance-enabled hacking, I was also disappointed—such a tool would have been handy.

My next order of business was to determine how each module worked. The images each module placed in my mind's eye when I drew close were still an unexplained mystery, for my comments on the matter were silent and I had yet to decipher the more complex algorithms that operated Recursive Nature.

I found that merely entering a module did not begin my weapon's characteristic mechanical shape-shift. Rather, I had to manipulate a single bit of information first. While the strings of data were still unintelligible to me, meaning would surely come with practice.

With the more pressing mysteries either solved or tabled for later analysis, my curiosity led me to more playful experimentation. I wasn't surprised that activating an already active module did nothing, but I was pleased when selecting a second module in the process of transforming into a first seamlessly transitioned into the second.

Recursive Nature's design lent itself to my battle tactics. Unlike many of my peers, who wielded dual-form weapons, I had a Mistralean-army knife. However, to achieve the jack-of-all-trades status, I had to sacrifice speed. Where Terra's shotgun took a quarter of a second to switch to a bludgeon, or where Riptide needed a half-second to fold into a sniper rifle, Recursive Nature took almost two seconds to change from sword to laser gun. In the interim, I held a chunk of whirring metal, useless in a fight.

Puzzled by my weapon's comparatively sluggish transformations, I combed through Recursive Nature's file trees. A README with my weapon's specifications gave me unsatisfactory answers. My best guess as to why Recursive Nature's conversion speeds were so slow lay in the danger of overclocking either its internal computer or its Atlesian shape-shifting tech. A weapon of Recursive Nature's complexity absolutely begged for entropic mischief; if I snapped the reins too hard, I could end up with an exploding Dust crystal or locked up servos.

No, best to stay within the manufacturer's recommendations on this one.

The modules at my disposal numbered fifteen, although only a few were fit for battle. My longsword and laser gun were obvious choices, and the grappling hook would be useful in certain cases, but a wristwatch, a stethoscope, and a digital camera were hardly battle-worthy. So, effectively, I had two-and-a-half weapons and a baker's dozen tchotchkes.

So much for that Mistralean-army knife.

However, in the wake of displeasure that realization brought me, clarity came. Sure, a line of five weapons would make me adaptable, but in order to stay competitive, I would need to master all five, as opposed to the two I had now. After all, the army needs not do the job of a single cadre.

My past self's decisions no longer seemed so careless.

A portion of last night's conversation with Adrian came to mind. Over dinner, we had ended up discussing our early days at Signal. As per the norm, all students designed their own weapons. Most thirteen-year-olds, as they were wont to do, rushed to pack their weapon frames with all types of blades and gun barrels. However, as Adrian noted, those that practiced mastery and subtlety ended up the victors. Top-ranked students didn't bristle with force but knew where to stick the knife.

I, on the other hand, was the exception.

Supposedly, my fascination with breadboards and programming, courtesy of my mother and a few hobby store visits, carried over to Signal. A series of unique circumstances revolving around a cereal-box sweepstakes and my mother calling in a few favors netted me top-of-the-line Atlas tech, which I promptly utilized to craft a prototype—Recursive Nature's grandfather, in a sense.

According to Adrian, the instructors at Beacon had ridiculed me. While some merely distrusted anything Atlesian, others steadfastly stood by their own field experiences and shunned new technology. In fact, the school's scythe wielder was sent to talk to me directly.

But, in all of my bullheaded wisdom, I pressed on.

Initially, I was like all the other students. I, too, had packed as much firepower as I could into my two-pound cube. But when I began to fall behind in the rankings, I took a hard look at the dozens of weapon designs I had and deleted all of them.

All, except for two: my longsword and my laser gun.

Recursive Nature was born.

Adrian told me that what followed was a rare single-mindedness, a state of flow that lasted for weeks and only ended when I topped Signal's ranking system. He said that I inspired him, and our friendship became a heated rivalry.

By the time Beacon had sent back their acceptance letters, Adrian was king of the hill. I trailed by only a few losses, but I'm sure those few losses felt like an ever-widening chasm.

Beacon offered a clean slate, a new mountain to climb. But then initiation happened.

And that's where Adrian's tale ended—for the time being, at least.

The mess hall was packed, more so than usual, forcing me to actually look for a place to sit. I was humored when the only seat available was next to one Lily Vermeer.

Serendipity, that.

I set my tray down and dropped onto the bench next to her. "Nice fight today," I greeted.

The sounds of my tray hitting the table and my greeting caused Lily to look up from her notebook. I couldn't help peeking at her notes—Dust manipulation, from the look of it.

"Oh, hello, Phoenix," she said. "And thanks. NDGO was a tough opponent."

I smiled. "I could tell. Even from the stands, it looked like two steps forward, two steps back."

"Yeah…" she trailed off. She twirled a lock of her blonde hair in her fingers.

Seeing Lily's face light up at my arrival had rekindled an internal debate, and it roared to full force in the silence. The question: do I tell people about my amnesia? The answer? Generally speaking, no.

Ozpin and Glynda were the first exceptions to that rule, but I considered my choice apt. After all, the headmaster and his de facto deputy held my future in their hands. Best not poke sleeping Nevermores.

My team was next, and I had no regrets about that decision either. In the past year, we had grown to trust each other to the fullest level. Who was I to deny them a secret that could jeopardize our lives?

But everywhere else, the exception held. I temporized with my mother because I didn't want to contradict myself—one did not tempt computer scientists with a contradiction—and friends and acquaintances need not be bothered with such trifles.

Well, total retrograde amnesia isn't a trifle, but it certainly isn't a pressing matter.

And then there was Lily.

From the way she embraced me a few days ago to the way she eyed me now, I could tell she was more than just a passing friend. I owed her my secret.

Or did I? I had no clue if she was the type to gossip. An offhand comment here could wind up plastered on every cork board before the end of the day.

Let's not get too impulsive here, Phoenix. Once a secret is told, it cannot be untold.

"Three months is quite a while," I mused. "Anything happen with the family while I was gone?"

Lily perked up. "Quite a lot, actually. Mom got a new secretary job, Dad got promoted, and my brother finally completed his paperwork to attend Signal next year."

"Things seem on the up-and-up," I said.

She nodded. "Now if only LMON could qualify for the Vytal Festival. That would really cap things off."

I held up a finger. "While you fought well today, finals may not be so kind tomorrow."

Lily deflated a bit. "Yeah, I have to keep telling myself that," she said. "LMON has never defeated SPHR or APCT before."

I winked. "Maybe now's your chance."

She rolled her eyes. "As if. Adrian really drives you hard. I'm afraid I don't compare."

I blinked. I had forgotten that Ozpin's team-naming scheme crowned the first letter as leader. This morning's battle played in my head in a new light.

Suddenly, Lily looked dejected. Had I said something wrong?

"I—I've got to go," she said. She tucked her notebook under her arm.

"Lily? Is everything alright?"

Her redeeming look didn't have much strength. "I'll see you tomorrow, for better or for worse."

And then she was gone.

Sandwiches don't taste as good when they're covered in confusion.

My schedule said: Grimm Studies, instructed by Professor Peter Port.

I'd heard a lot about Professor Port. Hearsay made him seem less like a teacher and more like a garrulous uncle that everyone humored simply because he offered presents and kept a gun tucked under his belt.

My teammates saw Professor Port as a source of entertainment, but in different ways: Caelum took his stories at face value, enraptured at every turn; Adrian treated the "lectures" like one would a movie; and Terra satirized everything she could, from his pompous poses to his vociferous exclamations.

I entered Port's classroom expecting one of the mustachioed instructor's hubris-laced tales, waiting to see which camp I fell into.

Instead, a woman stood behind a wooden podium, Port off to the side, his usual boisterousness noticeably absent.

As we took our seats, I studied the woman. Gray hair pulled tight into a bun and a pressed suit suggested she rarely breached her air of decorum, if ever. While an observable lack of weaponry or armor on her person didn't automatically disqualify her as a Huntress, her examination of students filing in was one of a scholar, not a warrior.

At Port's request, the lecture hall fell silent. When she spoke, her voice filled the hall, clear and sure.

"Good afternoon, students. My name is Doctor Umber. I am the head of the psychology department at Vale University," she said.

A psychologist, then. But why was she in Grimm Studies?

"As you all know—and perhaps as Port has told you," she said, a hint of a smile tugging at her lips, "Grimm are attracted to negative emotions. Instances of economic disaster, deadly plague, and political tension are often followed by an uptick in Grimm presence.

"However, Huntsmen and Huntresses sometimes have difficulty in engaging the Grimm enemy when an invasion occurs. To a young Grimm, any human or faunus is good prey, but older ones tend to avoid those with swords and guns."

In the meager amount of reading I'd conducted since arriving back on campus, I'd learned that the older a Grimm is, the more intelligent it tends to be. Now that she mentioned it, older Grimm evading Huntsmen and aiming at defenseless civilians would maximize the damage incursions caused.

After a pause, Doctor Umber continued. "Older Grimm are more dangerous, and that leads us to a conundrum: how do we attract those Grimm when they would rather slink away?

"The answer? Emotional manipulation."

Murmurs swept through the room. From Caelum's look of surprise and Terra's tilt of her head, I could tell this was a new concept for everyone. Adrian stared straight ahead—I wondered if he had encountered this tactic in any of his readings.

Doctor Umber waited until the whispering died down. Smiling, she said, "Today, we will practice amplifying our negative emotions. Then, we will work towards maintaining a battle calm throughout that agitated emotional state."

After a short demonstration from Professor Port and a few words of instruction, we split into groups of two teams each. Each group had an electroencephalogram, or EEG, that for scientific reasons beyond me somehow recorded our brain activity. The EEG's were hooked up to Scrolls, and the display on ours showed a blank readout.

According to the doctor, when the EEG was worn on the head, a battery of calibration tests would run automatically. When those were completed, the device would then monitor the wearer's emotional state. Further, the Scroll was preprogrammed to chime when a certain level of negative emotion was reached.

In a nutshell, we were training ourselves to freak out. Under supervision, of course.

Terra got the Scroll to chime in about ten seconds. Caelum took a bit longer, but he eventually swayed his sentiments to satisfy the rubric.

And then it was my turn.

I strapped the EEG on. The device's electrodes tingled where they touched my skin. A glance at the Scroll showed me rolling sine waves—my brain activity. The signal came, and I took a breath.

Whitewashed walls and harsh fluorescent lights filled my thoughts. An oppressive sense of captivity, of being confined, was batted back with anger.

No chime. I looked at the Scroll. Halfway there, by the doctor's standards. I reached deeper.

A biting wind chilled me to the bone. The cold metal grip of Recursive Nature made my hands numb. Shifting eyes sought out the enemy, but there were none to be found.

And then there It was. All snarling muzzle and slashing claws. Its eyes held no bestial hunger, nor cold intelligence as its circuits suggested. Rather, It stared back with a wretched mix of the two, a blend that should have never walked the face of the planet.

Our eyes locked. Then, It charged. Gaping maw, tooth and claw, death incarnate, It sprang—

Beep.

I bashed the memory back into the recesses of my mind. I no more wanted to think of that monstrosity than I wanted to drive Recursive Nature into my own foot.

I ripped the EEG off and handed it to Adrian wordlessly. He gave me a sympathetic look, one that calmed me a lot more than I thought it would. We swapped seats, and he put on the EEG.

No sooner had the battery of tests finished then did a chime come. The readout on the Scroll did not lie—Adrian had vaulted his mental state from calm and collected to downright petrified in less than a second. I would be impressed, if not for what his emotional aptitude implied.

Tearing the EEG's electrodes from his skull in much the same manner I had, Adrian and I shared a look. His features betrayed nothing. Not a hint of fear, anger, or anxiety lay behind his azure eyes.

What was going on inside that head of his?

"It's a mental Semblance. Not illusions or anything like that, but not enough to have a great effect on the battlefield."

His Semblance?

A piercing siren assaulted my eardrums, causing me to wince. Everyone around me, however, sprang to their feet. Students rocketed from the hall, ignoring shouts from our loquacious professor. I noted that Terra and Caelum joined the rush without hesitation.

"Sirens?" I asked, plugging my ears with my thumbs. However, instead of an answer, Adrian yanked me to my feet, motioned for me to follow, and ran for the doors.

Puzzled, I turned to the last person in the room. Doctor Umber was rummaging through her handbag, likely searching for her Scroll. "Those damned Grimm…" she muttered under her breath.

The Grimm. I needed nothing more. I spun and sprinted after my leader.

Time to put that reverse emotional therapy to use.

A short air ferry and a free fall from said ferry placed us in an open square. Spotting Vale's flag fluttering atop a marble-veneered building, I guessed APCT was stationed in front of City Hall for Grimm defense.

I smirked. Not like any present company had a special interest in that building.

Adrian filled the vacuum of power naturally, assigning various other Beacon teams to the corners of the plaza. At his urging, I switched out my longsword for my laser pistol. APCT huddled in the center of the square, anticipating the coming battle.

We waited.

I could sense the Grimm even before they rounded the street corners. Something about them churned the stomach, and my intestines were doing entire gymnastics routines at the moment. I gripped my pistol and deepened my stance.

A roar ripped through the air. The ground rumbled beneath my feet. They would soon be upon us.

At the first sight of their characteristic bone plating, I raised my gun. I fired off half a dozen shots before the creature collapsed. When the ash had cleared, three more Grimm had taken its place.

Two were Beowolves. Hardly larger than normal, they would barely pose a threat.

The third was an Ursa. I trained my sights on its head.

And then its cybernetic eyes locked with mine.

Initializing…

Scanning for updates…

Logging in Hayes, Phoenix…

Startup completed.

Welcome to Clover Search Engine!

Type a word or phrase below to begin searching.

Search phrase: "Council of Vale"

Retrieving…

The Council of Vale is the reigning legislative body of the Kingdom of Vale. Established in Vale's Constitution, the Council's job is to "enact any and all legislation deemed necessary for the operation of a strong and healthy Kingdom" (Article 2, Section 3).

The Council is comprised of nine elected Council members. In addition to the accompanying legislative responsibilities, each Council member is in charge of a different governmental department, e.g. the Department of Agriculture (for more information on the powers and responsibilities of each department, see List of Vale governmental departments). Council members serve for nine years, unless in the case of impeachment or resignation. One Council seat is held up for election a year, rotated based on department.

The most senior member of the Council, i.e. the seat up for election in the coming year, is the Presiding Councilor, responsible for calling meetings into session, bringing bills to vote, and setting the Council's political agenda. In the case of a tie vote with one or more Council members abstaining, the Presiding Councilor splits the vote.

For further reading, see the following:

Constitution of Vale

List of Vale Council members

List of Vale governmental departments

Vale Court System

Closing search…

Saving cache…

Goodbye, Phoenix.

A/N: Since Council members serve for nine years, and since Adrian's father is currently the Presiding Councilor, then he ran for election nine years ago. This places Phoenix's flashback with Adrian when they were nine. In my headcanon, Signal schooling begins after sixth grade, as youngsters wouldn't be able to handle the strain of physical and Aural training required of aspiring Huntsmen and Huntresses before then.