It was a brisk autumn morning in Vale, the air still chilly from the night before. The sky was still darkened by clouds, but the sun trying to break through. Like most brisk mornings, Weiss Schnee strolled down the street to her favorite coffee shop right before heading to her first lecture of the day. Also like most brisk mornings, the streets were bustling with cars, buses, students and workers, all trying to make their way to their respective posts for the day.

Although it was still autumn, Vale was in the middle of a cold front and so Weiss had to don a white coat with black buttons that stretched down to her thighs, giving it the appearance of a short dress. She preferred to keep her hands free, so she omitted her black gloves, instead opting for a white scarf with black lining. She wore black stockings and white slouched high-heel ankle boots, and her hair was pinned in an off-centered ponytail, as she usually had it. Some people would say her manner of dress pushed.. showy, but given that she really didn't care, she wore glamorous clothes as often as she pleased, even to class.

Weiss attended Beacon University, a fairly large public school that was home to tens of thousands of students. This time of the year was busy for the university because of the incoming freshman and their lack of experience with dealing with rush hour, midterms, parties… you name it. Freshman were just a little incompetent during their first semester, but there was always an exception to every rule, and Weiss Schnee was that exception.

Being a Schnee, her expectations were a cut above the rest, her father being an esteemed CEO and all. He was hard on her, like he was with Winter, the eldest Schnee daughter, but it wasn't needless encouragement. Weiss' father could be demanding, manipulative, harsh and.. well, a little scary. But, he cared for his daughters and simply wanted them to do well in life, to grow up worthy of the Schnee name. So, Weiss was naturally inclined to succeed and excel in all that she did.

That being said, it wasn't like Weiss had super-human powers, as much as she wished she did. It was an early morning, 7:20 AM to be exact, and despite her seemingly royal blood and well-known aptitude to match her well-known attitude, Weiss Schnee was most certainly not a morning person. She needed her caffeine, and she needed it now. Nothing would get in her way.

'It's been several weeks since the start of the new semester, one would think these bumbling idiots could properly find their way around by now,' she thought sharply, studying two clearly new students pouring over a campus map, apparently still very much lost about where their classes were.

Weiss eventually passed the pair of students up, dipping down onto the street and quickly stepping back onto the sidewalk, as if to show off to the students that she knew where she was going. Sure, she was just going to get coffee. But Weiss really liked the feeling she got when she knew people were looking at her with awe.

Along her stroll, she always had to pass by a couple of buildings that were a little older, certainly not part of the recent infrastructure plans for Vale that had begun a few years ago. These buildings were cracked, crumbling at certain points, their red bricked exterior screaming 'retro' and lined up with other buildings perfectly to make for rather dark alleyways. Some of the city's homeless population made their homes in these alleys, usually grouping together to form some small community. Vale's homeless population was mostly but not exclusively, faunus. The faunus had long since been subject to racial bigotry and discrimination for as long as Weiss could remember, and she knew very well that her father used to be a part of such treatment, using the faunus as cheap labor and forced them to work in conditions simply unspeakable. Those days were over, however, and Weiss was glad for this; she had hoped that her father would change his ways before she took over the company, and although he does hold some prejudice, it isn't nearly as bad as it used to be.

Sometimes Weiss saw parts of these buildings with fresh white paint over it, sometimes in multiple coats and in multiple spots. She knew that these spots were the city's attempt at thwarting an ongoing practice by certain thugs and ruffians running rampant in the city, and that practice was the all-too familiar graffiti writing.

Weiss technically knew what graffiti was, having written a small report on them as well as gang movements throughout Vale, but it was a detached report, not really anything that warranted her attention or memory. She knew relatively well which phrases belonged to which gangs. Sometimes the graffiti wasn't writing, but an image instead, a drawing to depict a story or an event; or maybe it was just a silly drawing, Weiss really didn't know, and she really could not care less. She thought the act itself was foolish and did not tolerate it; though she couldn't really tolerate the blaring white paint against the dull red bricks either, like seriously, they could have matched the paint or something. Yeesh.

She decided to think nothing more of the wall, when she caught a glimpse of something very… yellow. There was a part of the graffiti that hadn't been covered up, probably due to whatever lazy city-worker was assigned to patch up the wall. Peeking out from the white paint was some sort of yellow, maybe golden dragon head. Its exquisite lines were bold and the shimmering yellow paint looked fresh. Weiss couldn't tell if it was the image was officially painted on the building or if that was graffiti too. She paused her journey for a second to stare a little longer at the peeking dragon, finding its colors almost too vibrant to pass up. Huh. Perhaps it was the building's old logo.

Furrowing her brow, Weiss shrugged and continued on her way.

Cars were honking loudly and incessantly, and Weiss did not have the patience to deal with the morning commute noise beside her any longer, so she felt a wave of relief set over her when she finally got to pull open the door to The Lucky Gambol. The place was run by her friend's family. Actually, it was really just run by her friend's aunt as she was her only living relative, but her friend did work there, and she knew Weiss' order by heart. Her father objected her visiting the establishment at first, seeing as how it was run by Faunus, but over time he grew to care less and eventually quit hounding Weiss about "maintaining her appearance as a member of the upper class."

The Lucky Gambol was certainly a unique 24/7 shop, home to numerous pool tables and a full bar that was jam-packed on the weekends. It actually had a second room, and offshoot from the main hall, and this room had its own entrance from the outside as well as the entrance from inside the billiards room. This room was most popular on weekday mornings, serving a variety of coffee and teas at affordable prices, making it an extremely popular go-to spot for late-night study sessions and the unfortunate early-morning lecture student. Since it did get rowdy at the bar, the entrance was actually sealable, a soundproof door blocking out most if not all of the noise so as not to interfere with anyone's studying. The atmosphere of the entire floor was almost akin to a kind of tasteful saloon, home to a few neon lights and antique furniture, misplaced second-hand chandeliers and dark oak barstools. It was actually a pretty nice place if you looked at it from the right angle. It was kept clean under an iron-fist, and it was fully-staffed most of the time because it did so well, being a coffee shop bar mix-in.

Today, Weiss came in through the entrance from the street, right into the long line for coffee.

Weiss rolled her eyes. 'Of course there's already a line… At this rate, I might actually be late to lecture. Not that I actually need to be on time today, we're just reviewing the material for the midterm, and I've already done that. Will attendance be taken? Probably not, there's at least five-hundred students in this lecture this semester…'

As Weiss was mentally going through her backlog of notes for school, she'd already made it to the front of the line.

Manning the register was her very close friend, Blake. Her cat ears twitched in pleasure as she caught sight of Weiss; she'd already known she was here the minute she came in, so she quickly prepared her drink before she got to the front of the line.

"Tired of morning lectures?" Blake asked the heiress, ringing her up for a small coffee even though she'd prepared her a large.

"What I'm tired of is being stuck walking behind people that don't know where they're going," Weiss replied, handing over the correct change, but not before leaving a large tip in the tip jar and mouthing a silent "thank you" to Blake. She took her coffee in hand, "White mocha?"

"Of course," Blake told her proudly, flashing a small smile. "Now get out of here or you'll be late."

Weiss turned to the door, but stopped for a moment to look over her shoulder, "I'll see you after class?" Blake simply nodded to her while she took the next customer's order, trying to kill the line before it stretched out the door.

So, there she was, Miss Weiss Schnee, heading to class and cutting it real close with time. She silently chastised herself for not walking a little quicker, even leaving just a little earlier. She was about to hit a 4-way, when she was stopped by construction work. Uh oh.

'Oh, no way. You've got to be kidding me.' Weiss walked up to one of the workers behind the yellow caution tape and orange traffic cones and asked him, "Excuse me good sir, may I please cut through here?"

"No can do little missy, too dangerous right now. Yer gonna have ta use the detour, right over there," the construction worker point to the orange sign directing traffic to the right.

"I have class in 10 minutes, I won't be in the way!" Weiss pleaded, trying to sound as sincere as possible. In truth, she was just getting really annoyed.

"And I have to make sure people are safe, or my boss'll have my head. Answer's no." The worker walked back to his post and continued his labor, as Weiss huffed and stomped off to the detour.

"Oooh, the nerve. It's just one street, it's not like I was planning on falling into any holes. Honestly. I'm going to be late because of this, uuughhh," Weiss spoke, looking down at her coffee. As she hurried down the street, an alleyway caught her eye; one that looked like it cut straight through to the university in a much shorter time than the detour would.

She stood there, staring at the alleyway, its dingy atmosphere leaking through to the open streets. It was narrow, almost too narrow for any one person to fit through. However, Weiss was a thin gal, she thought she'd have no trouble squeezing by without dirtying herself. It looked dark, but light poured out at the end, indicating that it must have lead somewhere open.

'Uhh…'

Weiss looked both ways to make sure no one was watching her, and she shot down the alleyway in hopes of making it to class, relatively on time.

"Ew, ew! Disgusting," she complained, accidentally touching something very damp on the walls, "Don't the city workers clean the alleyways too? Ugh, I suppose not, they're spending all their time cleaning up that silly graffiti and constructing the new planned buildings," Weiss said quietly, eyeing the cracks and crumblings of the bricks in the alley, watching her feet so she wouldn't step on a rat or anything.

Closer and closer she inched toward the end of the alley, a wave of relief washed over her as stepped out into the open air, and—

"What is…"

Weiss took one look around her, and she realized she'd been enclosed by brick walls, covered from head to toe in various graffiti. All sorts, ranging from simple black scribbles to fairly elaborate drawings and phrases, all types of colors and patterns and lines. There wasn't much of the brick wall left to see, even on all four walls. The lot she stood in was open, seemingly abandoned by the city, covered in grass and pieces of chain-link fence all over the place. There was a small swing set near the center, which probably meant the lot used to be a playground at some point. Perhaps when Vale was first built?

Weiss stood in the middle of the lot, staring at the walls before her. She was trying to read some of the words, but she couldn't quite make them out. "Who wrote all this? Do they even say anything? This illegible scrawl has absolutely no business being on city property," Weiss checked the time on her wristwatch briefly, "Crap, I'm really late."

The heiress strode through the lot, searching for another way out before spotting a tell-tale sign of Beacon University.

"Oh, there's the bridge! I knew this path lead to the school."

A massive walkway was constructed recently, and it connected Beacon University to the main street in an impressive display of concrete, wood and lights. This particular bridge was so incredible that it was considered a landmark in Vale. Underneath the hanging overpass were two of Vale's busiest highways, where cars constantly roared through, and Vale River right smack dab in between.

All that was fine, but Weiss was stuck in this little lot, and she was not about to go back through the alleyway she came from. Tapping her heel in frustration, she looked around the lot once more, hoping to catch a glimpse of an opening. What she saw instead, was a person. A person.. hanging from the edge of a building… a person with really, really long blonde hair.

Weiss stopped her scan of the area and focused on this person. She narrowed her eyes and mentally scoffed, 'Ah, just what I needed. A hooligan, hanging from the side of the building, and—is she the one doing all this?!'

Weiss approached the character cautiously. Upon nearing the figure, Weiss could make out the faint hiss of a spray can, starting and stopping in increments. The figure in question was a woman, as Weiss could now make out, hanging by her left arm off the edge of the building, her white, beat-up basketball shoes holding steadfast on the brick-face. She had on a pair of black sweats, tapered at the calf and baggy around the thighs, with two diagonal zippers on each pant leg. She wore them with a sag, her white boxers peeking up from the pants. She also had on a yellow crop-top, probably cut up from a yellow t-shirt once before, her bare midriff and a very short, thin black tube top showing just beneath it. Her hair was tied up, an impressive golden mane cascading down her arched back, and a half-face respirator colored yellow and black was wrapped around her jaw, obscuring Weiss' view on anything about her features.

In her right hand, she was spray-painting the wall, something Weiss couldn't decipher at first glance. It wasn't anything impressive, it was just some black lines that looped and connected here and there.

Weiss figured it'd be best to leave the hooligan alone after she'd asked for directions, so she tried to make it quick. Looking up to the girl, she called out, "Excuse me."

*hissss, hissss*

A continuous symphony of sprays rang out, and Weiss was ignored.

Her brow twitching, she called once more, "Hello there, excuse me!"

. . .

. . .

*hisss, hiss, hissssss*

Weiss snapped.

"EXCUSE ME, WILL YOU PLEASE STOP SPRAYING AND PAY ATTENTION WHEN SOMEONE IS ADDRESSING YOU, YOU UNCIVIL MONGREL?!"

The spray-can clattered to the cement not long after that. Weiss opened the eyes she'd screwed shut in her outburst and peeked up at the girl. Her face, or, well, her eyes at least, were stunned as she stared back at Weiss. Her eyes were a bright amethyst color, eyes unlike any Weiss had ever seen before. Finally, the girl removed her respirator and stuffed the straps into her boxer bands before hopping off the wall—nearly twenty feet high—onto the ground.

She landed with both feet, moving with the impact to avoid injury. She stood up and stretched her back before resting one hand on her hip, contrapposto. "Didn't think a cute little thing like you could be so loud!"

She wore a grin, almost mockingly so. The girl had a strong looking face, and up close.. well, she was a real looker.

"You… Did you hear me that entire time?" The heiress questioned, her eyes narrow.

The blonde girl shrugged, "Yeah, why?"

Weiss was fuming. "Then why didn't you answer me?!"

"Whoa whoa, chiiiill! I just wanted to have a little fun with you, I didn't think you'd get so mad, princess," the girl threw up her hands in defense and backed up, picking up her spray-can in the process.

"Don't call me that, you fiend. What were you even doing up there in the first place? Destroying city property? Vandalizing the buildings? Leave it to heathens such as yourself for making Vale look so downtrodden and unsightly," Weiss scolded, grasping her coffee with both hands and taking another disdainful look around the lot.

The girl let the hand on her hip hang free at this, toss the can back and forth between both hands, "If you find this place so 'unsightly,' then what brings you here?" She gave Weiss a once-over, "You sure don't look like the tagging type," the grin never once leaving her face.

Weiss snapped her head back to the girl, "Tagging? Is that what you call this?" She turned to look at the walls again, baffled at how this mess could have anything resembling a word.

The blonde laughed at her confusion, "Oh, what a sheltered life you lead." The girl stuffed the spray-can into her boxers in a similar fashion as the respirator. She moved to the side of Weiss and started to back up slowly, causing some distress for our dear Weiss.

"What are you doing…? Hey, n—oh, oh my goodness!"

Weiss couldn't contain her gasps when the girl ran toward the wall at full-speed, ran up along the bricks for a few feet and grabbed the ledge of the building once again, at the spot she'd been where Weiss had discovered her.

"H-How did you do that?!"

The mysterious girl pulled herself onto the roof of the building and turned around to look down at Weiss, "I'm almost allll muscle, cutie. Wanna feel?" She ran a hand over her biceps to tease her, which certainly worked.

"Wh—NO! Ohh, you perverted street-rat, just—just tell me how to get out of here!" Weiss' words said 'no' but her blush said 'oohhh yessss.'

The blonde looked up for a moment, a finger on her chin as if to suggest she was actually thinking about Weiss' request. "Nah."

"Excuse me?!"

"You seem like a smart gal, you'll be fine. See ya, snowflake!" With that, the blonde walked off, out of view.

"Hey, wait! Don't walk away when I'm talking to—she's gone. Right. Of course." Weiss rolled her eyes, recounting the scene in her head.

Weiss had met some strange people in her life, most of them the creepy business partners of her father, and their creepy sons and daughters as well, begging like dogs to become a part of the Schnee name; a part of that family business. In fact, there weren't many people in Vale who didn't know who Weiss was. She was, in short, a bit of a celebrity. But this girl, this.. this riffraff, had no clue as to who she was. It was actually sort of refreshing. Apart from the fact that she'd been tasteless and invasive, calling her undesirable nicknames and suggesting she take part in touching her admittedly well-muscled arms. And abs. Weiss coughed a little as she remembered the rest of her body.

"If I ever see that girl again, I'll have some words for her. Now, to find my way out…" Looking around the lot again, it was clear that there was no other way out. Not from what she could see. She'd just have to suck it up and go back the way she came in.

After grumbling and trying desperately not to admit she was wrong, Weiss finally started back to the narrow alleyway. But before she could get very far, she was struck by curiosity.

Taking a sip of her lukewarm coffee, she flit her eyes back and forth at the ground, as if cursing herself for even being curious about that girl in the first place. She turned and took a few steps toward the wall which she'd hung off of, trying to get a look at what she was writing.

She could see in fresh yellow paint, a few letters were written, in a surprisingly likeable font. If it was a font, perhaps it was just the girl's writing style. Squinting her eyes a little more, she could make out the letters 'Y' and 'A,' followed by a few more.

"Y… A… N… G…? Yang?"

The Schnee heiress tilted her head at the name. If that really was a name at all.

In a daze, staring at the name, Weiss was brought back to reality by the sudden remembrance of the fact that she'd been trying to get to class, and she checked her watch one more time...

"Dammit, she MADE ME LATE!"

a/n: Ah.. yes... here I am starting another thing...

Street-artist Yang makes her appearance! The thought came to me when I was thinking of things to write for an original story. But of course, when I was thinking about the dynamic between a free spirit tagger and an uppity, high class gal.. Well, who better fits the bill other than Freezerburn?

I'm not really sure how I feel about this chapter, I tried to make it humorous, but, dunno if it worked out. But anyway. Hope y'all like it!