"Show me a hero, and I'll write you a tragedy.": F. Scott Fitzgerald

It should be impossible this close to summer, but she had never felt colder in all her life. She kept her head down, eyes on the floor if only to avoid the bone chilling glares being sent down by those around her. It was all she could do to stand still and maintain her posture, alone as the tick of the mechanisms and machinery around her echoed off her own thoughts.

Failure. Disgrace. Betrayer. Murderer.

"Ms. Verde?" She looked up, forcing her face into neutrality as she faced her headmaster, only to turn them down again when she saw the disappointment flowing from them.

"Yes Sir?" She said, not daring to move from her spot at the center of his office.

"I've already reviewed Ms. Rose's report," he said tiredly. "But I need to know your side of the story as well."

"There's nothing else to say Sir." Her tone was just how she felt, hollow, emptied of the emotions that had come spilling out save for the pain of loss. It was one Ozpin had heard on the lips of far too many students

"Gabi," He sighed, leaning forward in an attempt to find his student's eyes. "You don't need to do this to yourself. Summer's report makes very clear that it was an accident. What happened was tragic, make no mistake, but you don't have to shoulder the blame alone."

"Someone has to be responsible. It was my decision to go in, my team that paid for my mistake." She glanced up, finally meeting the headmasters brown gaze with her own emerald eyes. "My partner that died because of me."

"… You do realize what this will mean for you? Beacon's Conduct Code is very clear about the punishment for this sort of thing."

"I understand Sir," she said robotically, reaching up to remove the pin from her uniform, before walking to his desk and placing it in front of him. "I doubt I ever really deserved it anyway." With that she turned, walking toward the elevator with all the self-control she had left.

"At least promise me you will say goodbye before you go. You owe them that much." She said nothing, not even turning around as the elevator closed behind her. Ozpin sighed, turning back to the papers on his desk and closing the file he had been distracting himself with. A small shift revealed the folder and forms he now had no choice but to complete. A final signature was all it took, but as he went to close the file one last time, he glanced over the front page, the same one he himself had filled out nearly four years ago.

Team GLDD (Gilded). Just two weeks ago they were among his most promising students, a team full of natural leaders and raw talent who met every obstacle they faced with all they had. He couldn't stop the bitter sweet smile that crossed his features, remembering the looks on all four students faces when he named Gabi, a shy girl who was more likely to listen than anything, to lead.

The headmaster's brow furrowed at the memory of one particular reaction. Gabi's partner, Leo Arnul had been outright furious about being passed over for leadership. Though he had settled down after the team's first year, Ozpin knew the young lion faunas had never been the most cautious of fighters, but he made up for it with a charisma and charm that would be sorely missed. Truthfully he wouldn't be surprised if Leo had been the one to urge the rest of GLDD to investigate those caves, not knowing they'd be walking into a Deathstalker nest. Now the same unwavering sense of duty, the very reason he appointed her leader, had driven Gabi into a self-imposed exile.

"You can't do that!"

"It's already done Derrick," she sighed, looking anywhere but her teammates, former-teammates scathing glare. "Ozpin's signing the papers right now." Derrick Beryl wanted nothing more than to reach out and smack his team leader across the face, but all the thought did was remind him why Gabi was so set on her decision.

"Dust-dammit Gabi it wasn't your fault! We were the ones who wanted to go into that cave not you!"

"That doesn't matter!" she snapped, the tears finally starting to trickle and flow down her cheeks. "I didn't have to say yes. I could have said no but I didn't and look what happened!" Derrick looked down, down to the sheets outlining his legs, legs that he knew would never respond no matter how hard he willed them to move again. Looking up was no better, the soft chime of a monitor drawing his attention to the bed where their other teammate lay silent and still. But for all the pain of seeing her lie there trapped in a coma, knowing he himself would never walk again, none of it compared to knowing their fourth member, his leaders partner, was never coming home.

"Leo's dead because of me," Gabi sobbed, leaning on the frame of Derrick's bed. "He trusted me. Ozpin trusted me to get you all home safe and I failed. Leo was right. I never deserved to be leader." Derrick wanted to slap some sense into her, tell her they wouldn't have lasted one semester with Leo in charge, but his own grief choked the words before they reached his lips.

For all his reckless bravado the gold haired faunas had earned a special place in all their hearts. Even in the middle of a Grimm horde he'd still be smiling, shouting and roaring with the thrill of the fight. Now that smile, that cheesy cocked to one side tooth filled grin he'd always toss at them, the look that told everyone around them everything would be all right, was gone forever.

"Where will you go?" he asked, throat dry from his own tears and the infirmaries food.

"I don't know," she answered numbly. "Somewhere no one knows my name. Shouldn't be too hard for me," she laughed bitterly.

"You know you're always welcome on Patch," he said softly, reaching out and placing a bandaged hand over Gabi's folded digits. "Dad's always going on about how we need more help with the beowolves. Dust knows I'm not going to make a very good huntsman without my legs."

"Maybe," she sighed. "But I doubt Qrow would let me anywhere near Patch now."

"Hey," Derrick said, placing a hand on his leader's shoulder and turning her gaze toward his. "If that mangy bird tries anything, you just tell him I'll."

"WHERE IS SHE?!" The door slammed open, and Derrick knew he would've jumped a foot in the hair if he'd still had control of the muscles needed to. The stark white room seemed to melt under Raven Branwen's burning gaze, the Huntress's red eyes searching the room.

"Hey Rave,' Derrick smiled weakly, only to wilt under the woman's glare, making sure he didn't glance to the now empty seat beside him.

"Beryl," she half snarled, stomping over to the paralyzed student. "Where is Gabi? And what the dust is with the rumor about her getting expelled?!" Derrick recoiled, remembering vividly what happened to someone on the receiving end of Raven's wrath. He chose his next words very, very carefully.

"Raven please," he said quietly, glancing toward his unresponsive teammate. The reminder of Demi's condition seemed to calm the Huntress down if only a little, but her glare never wavered.

"Derrick, I swear if Gabi's trying to take all the blame again so help me I'll."

"She's already gone," he sighed, fibbing only slightly as his eye caught a shimmer passing out the doorway.

Gabi didn't turn off her semblance until she reached the locker rooms, cursing her own cowardice the whole way. Raven had only ever been nice to them. It didn't matter they were a full year ahead, she and the rest of team STRQ had made fast friends with GLDD, and Gabi had always been able to go to Summer and Raven for advice.

Now here she was, ripping off and stowing away her uniform like a dirty secret. She quickly pulled on her combat gear, a black sleeveless T and knee length shorts and a belt beneath small blue shoulder guards and kneepads. She immediately kicked herself, taking off her shoulder armor so she could slip into the continental coat that made up most of her outfit, the dark blue and white fabric contrasting sharply against her mocha skin and shoulder length ash blonde hair. She'd torn the sleeves off to make way for the shoulder armor in her second year, the shallow scar of a beowolf's claws still evident where it had ripped through her aura and coat. Tan boots that reached just below her knees went over her feet and calf's, followed by a hip holster, the bottom wrapping around her thigh, the top clipping secure to her belt. A pair of vambraces decorated with her personal sigil, a white five pointed star fractured like the moon in the sky, completed her combat gear, but as she was strapping the bronze armor to her forearm she paused.

From the moment they were thrown together as a team, it hadn't been lost on Gabi that her name was the only one that didn't allude to a metal of some sort. So halfway into their second semester Leo had given her a set of custom forged bronze vambraces.

"If we're gonna be team GLDD, our fearless leader needs to at least look the part."

Now her partner was gone, reduced to Grimm food because she hadn't had the courage to say no. Maybe she should just leave them. No armor was worth the protection it gave if it hurt to even look at it. But then she thought back to the new first years, soon to be seconds. There was more than a few among the still new teams with a tracking semblance, and she knew at least one girl who could find someone with only s scrap of clothing to start with.

With every intention to ditch them later Gabi secured the bronze braces to her arms, then checked the twin straps crossing over her chest to make sure they fit, before retrieving her weapons from the locker. Familiar weight balanced itself in her hands as the twin tomahawk axe blades, Wash and York, shone in the low light. Sliding Wash into its strap on her back she collapsed York to its sub-machine gun form and holstered it to her hip. Another minute or so to clear out her locker into the trash was all she needed, but before she closed the door for the last time, she noticed something, something she had seen so many times over the past four years of her life she hardly thought about it anymore.

She reached up and plucked the picture from the door's metal frame. Gabi had seen it so many times now she didn't even need her eyes. It was a picture of them, Team GLDD, taken not two hours after they had passed initiation and been named a team. As usual, Demi was in the middle with her arm out, holding her scroll to take the picture while Derrick squeezed herself and Leo into the shot. Leo hated it of course, and had threatened to destroy her if Demi ever let the image escape the confines of her scroll, but Gabi asked for a print out anyway. Just seeing what they had been like at the start, Leo glaring bloody murder at everyone, herself wanting to be anywhere else, and Derrick and Demi smiling happy go lucky enough for two more teams, reminded her of what she had to strive for as a leader. To make her team more than just hunters, more than just soldiers in the never ending war against the Grimm. In the end it hadn't been a goal so much as a need, something she wanted so desperately it was almost unconscious. And now it was all dust in the wind.

Tucking the picture into her coat, Gabi closed her locker. Then she activated her semblance, and disappeared.