As always, review, PM me and all that jazz.

As he got closer to the girl, he realized just how small she was, but he couldn't for the life of him tell what she was doing, especially at this time, and this location.

"Hey! This isn't the place for a little girl! Hey!" He shouted towards her. She picked up her umbrella, using it to poke at something on a tree. "Hello?!" He stopped behind her and looked up to see she was trying to get an apple from the tree branch that was too tall for her, even with her umbrella as an extension. Eric surprised her and grabbed her attention when he reached up, plucking it from the branch before staring at it for a bit. He revelled in the fact that something so small and almost insignificant to the rest of the world could be so beautiful. He caught the girl in the corner of his eye, looking slightly annoyed. "Oh, sorry! Here you go." He slid the apple into her hand, before staring at her, particularly her hair. "She stared back, almost as intensely, snapping him out of his daze. "Hmm? Oh, sorry. It's just, why'd you colour your hair like that? It's so strange." She covered her hair defensively. "I mean, normally people have like, brown, or blonde, but not pink, white and brown." She pointed towards his bright blue hair. "Ah yeah but I've seen someone else at a school with blue hair, and he pulls it off rather well." She stared grumpily at him. "Oh don't look at me like that. Anyways! Do you know where you are?" She nodded slowly. "Then you know that this is no place for a little girl." She lightly punched him in the shoulder, an angry expression on her face. "What?! What was that for?!" He rubbed his shoulder lightly, the girl turning her back on him. Turning to walk away from her, he repeated "It's not safe for a little girl, so please, leave. You might get attacked out here. By anything." He walked back to the academy grounds, waving to her as she just looked pissed off.

"I'm older than you, you twit!" She thought angrily, dismissing his existence entirely.

When he arrived on the school grounds, he stopped for a minute and watched the sunrise flicker through the trees of the Emerald forest, painting it and the beacon a nice, dark gold, slight shades of red cropping up every so often.

"Hey bruiser." He didn't even need to turn around to realise who it was, knowing that only one person ever calls him bruiser.

"Matchstick." He replied bluntly, rubbing his eyes with his palm.

"Please don't ever call me that." He looked at her quizzically for a few moments before dismissing anything he would have said.

"Why you up so early?" He asked, noting the fact that stubble was starting to grow.

"I'm always awake this early. Watch the sunrise, then train until school starts." She shrugged lightly.

"So, how're things with you and Weiss?" He tried to think of things to talk about, realizing that they really don't talk as much as teammates should.

"They're….okay I suppose."

"Rough patch?"

"Yeah."

"I know how you feel. What's the problem?" She scratched the back of her neck for a few minutes breathing in heavily.

"I just feel that…." Eric watched as her chest raised quickly, then slowly descended. "I feel like she doesn't like me, you know?"

"Maybe she doesn't." he dead panned. Her gaze dropped to the cliff edge, her eyes turning a dull purple.

"Thanks."

"The real question, my dear Yang, is whether she loves you." He held a finger up to emphasis his point. She stared at him, eyebrows raised. "You see, you said that you don't think she likes you, but there is a difference between like and love. I like…." He spun his hand in the air as he thought of a name. "Nora." He dragged out dragged out the 'N', before continuing. "Yeah that'll do. I like Nora, but that doesn't mean I love her. I like Jaune, but I sure as shit don't love him, no offence to the poor boy. He's so unlucky. I digress. You need to find out whether Weiss loves you, not whether she likes you, because those are two completely different things."

"Yeah. Yeah thanks for that." She stood up and started towards the main doors before he stopped her.

"Yang!" He called.

"What?!" She replied, equally as loud.

"Do you wanna repay me for my wisdom?"

"How?" She asked sceptically.

"Drop me off in town."

"At this time of night?"

"Yeah. I gotta pick something up that I ordered a couple days ago."

"Sure I suppose." She still sounded sceptical, but a lot less so than before. The duo walked towards the garage, trading small talk before getting on bumblebee.

"Well, this is slightly awkward." He murmured at the prospect of where his hands should and shouldn't go.

"Oh don't be a child." She moaned, grabbing his hands and pulling them around her waist. "Make sure they stay there though, or you're walking." He nodded.

A couple of hours later, and the roar of an engine caught the attention of both teams RWBY and JNPR.

"You friggin kidding me." Yang's jaw dropped as she saw the black and purple bike stop in front of them.

A few "No way!"'s came from JNPR, while Weiss simply went with "You twit." Ruby, as the fun-loving mechanic she is, simply floated towards the bike.

"It's so cool!" Ruby ran circles around it as the figure on top merely took of his helmet. "Does it have guns on it? Does it have hidden guns? Is it like Cloud's where you have a thousand million swords hidden somewhere? Does it turn into a car? A boat?" She paused for a minute to catch her breath, everyone look at her in amazement, Eric chuckling to himself. "Does it turn into a jet?! A nuclear jet! A nuclear submarine!" She squealed again. "A nuclear rainbow unicorn!"

"No Ruby. It's just a normal bike, but I'll let you in on a secret." He motioned for her to come over and he whispered loud enough for Yang to hear "It's way better than your sisters."

"Okay that's it bruiser." Yang shouted, hopping on to bumblebee. "You. Me. First one to Vale and back wins."

"We're already in Vale you dolt." Weiss reminded her.

"The town centre!" She shouted, cheeks bright red.

"Gosh Yang!" Eric mocked, raising a hand to his mouth. "Get any angrier and your face might rival the colour of Pyrrha's hair!"

"Oh you're so dead!" With that, she sped off towards the town centre, Eric quickly following up behind her. As the duo sped past all the cars, horns honked as civilians were cut off from proceeding. Without her bike, considering how angry she looked, Eric couldn't help but notice that Yang looked exceptionally-

He was cut off as the horn of a truck ahead of him made him realize that in his daze he'd wandered off into an oncoming lane, almost killing himself. Snapping back into action, he rode back to the correct lane before catching up with Yang, barely missing a red light. When they hit the more cluttered, central part of Vale, they both had to slow down due to pedestrians, but both decided not to change their speed by much, constantly trying to best the other, until they were back up to their previous speed. They got to a straight road as a truck started rolling down the other side of it with no driver in it. Noticing that the truck was more to his side than it was to hers, Eric decided that a good plan would be cross over to Yang's side of the road, but it seemed that she had the same sort of plan. As the truck continued to pick up speed on the hill, Yang and Eric started to inch their way towards each others side, until both were side by side in the middle of the road, realising what she was doing, Eric tried to convince her to head back the way she'd came, but she ignored him, pressing on towards the oncoming truck, now hitting top speed. In the split seconds he had, he came up with a risky plan that could possibly work. Slamming his fingers on the gas, he shot ahead, catching up with Yang in no time. Appearing to her side, he moved ahead of her a bit to compensate for the fact that she as moving.

Readying himself, he took a final breath, and before wrapping himself in his aura, jumped towards Yang.