When Blake learned of the field trip to Forever Fall, she had prayed with all her might that they wouldn't run into any of the White Fang's old haunts.

The actual trip brought the class right into one of the more recently abandoned encampments. Everyone was too busy gathering sap from the trees to take a closer look at their surroundings, but Blake immediately recognized the familiar signs. Though the scarlet grass and shrubbery had grown taller, Blake could still see some of the forgotten stems and roots from Peary's makeshift garden. A pair of trees to the south that had scrapes along their trunks indicated the pathway to the nearby springs that White Fang members had used for bathing. To the northeast, there was a boulder partially hidden by red moss. Blake's keen eyes could read out the phrase "the Bull was here" scraped onto the rock.

There was a hill that overlooked the small expanse Blake's class was situated in. Adam had made one of his more memorable speeches while standing on that hill. While Blake had admired Adam for his combat prowess and charismatic boldness when she began working with him, it was on that night that she admitted to herself that she wanted to be more than just Adam's student. Love-struck as she was, Blake thought Adam wanted something similar from her.

The more Blake looked back on it, the more she believed that leaving Adam and the White Fang was still the best decision she could have made.

Forcing those memories away, Blake returned her attention to the matter at hand. While the rest of her team extracted more sap from the trees, she was on guard duty. Professor Goodwitch had warned them about Grimm that may be wandering around the forest. While Blake was confident anyone in the class could take out a meandering, lonesome Grimm if one made itself known, it was better to be safe than sorry.

Though, there was at least one student Blake wasn't as confident about.

"Arc!" Canderous shouted as he turned to look over his shoulder. "I don't recall giving you permission to fraternize with the Rose. Do it on your own time."

With slumped shoulders, Jaune stepped away from Ruby and jogged after the rest of Team CRDL. They were leaving the main group and began to make their way up the hillside.

Blake wasn't one for gossip, but with Yang's and Nora's ceaseless chatter and Ruby's and Pyrrha's constant complaints, it was hard for Blake to ignore the drama revolving around Team JNPR's leader. A small part of Blake encouraged her to keep one ear open to their gossip simply because it vaguely reminded her of the plot of one of her favorite novels.

Jaune was an incompetent fighter, but his honest, friendly demeanor endeared him as Ruby's friend and the obvious subject of Pyrrha's affections. However, Jaune had some sort of falling out with Pyrrha. Though Jaune still spoke with Ruby with some regularity, he was spending less and less time with his own team. Instead, he was consistently hanging out with the members of CRDL; more specifically, Canderous has been "tutoring" Jaune.

Blake couldn't say if Jaune has improved because of the supposed tutoring sessions. As far as she's seen, he was still the gullible klutz as he had first introduced himself as.

"Seriously, Arc," Canderous scoffed in his loud and obnoxious voice, "sometimes I wonder if you aren't a Faunus who's part puppy dog. That sad expression on your face – Tell me, are you physically incapable of growing a backbone, or is it something else?"

Jango Fett – and Blake kept a wary eye on him. When she was still with the White Fang, she had heard uncomfortable rumors about the name "Fett" and the True Mandalorians – didn't give much away through his body language. With his helmeted voice filter on, he said, "Unlikely. I've babysat Faunus pups before. Even pups know how to stand up for themselves."

Artus Lok, the CRDL member wearing a red cape not unlike Ruby's cloak, barked a laugh. "You? Babysitting? I fear the day when the world becomes so stagnant and boring that Mandalorian Huntsmen are relegated to the role of babysitters. A babysitter for pups, no less."

"The pay was good," Jango replied simply. "Besides, someone had to take care of those pups. I know them. Their dad is a pig, and their mother is a bitch."

"Ah, a mixed breed?" Artus questioned playfully. "They must have been ferocious pups. Jaune, you wouldn't actually happen to have any Faunus blood in you? We can probably use that to your advantage."

"If only," Canderous muttered sullenly. "If you were at least partial Faunus, I'd have whipped you into shape weeks ago. Faunus have a killer instinct that you can't quite recreate in a human."

"You're not wrong there," Jango agreed quietly.

Blake scowled darkly in CRDL's direction. Never mind that pig, bitch, and pup were typical slurs against Faunus. The team was playing up the horrible stereotype that mixed Faunus children whose parents weren't the same Faunus type were automatically born violent, mentally unstable, and intrinsically "animalistic." They might be joking and not speaking so seriously, but that stereotype was far, far from the truth.

"We can always ask our own resident Faunus for confirmation," Artus added, elbowing the tallest member of the Mandalorian team. "So, Jaing, does our favorite blonde busboy smell like he's hiding any Faunus characteristics or habits?"

Habits. Like how some people assume dog Faunus piss on fire hydrants and bat Faunus crave drinking blood. The only consistent commonalities between most Faunus that makes them different from humans were the animal body parts and heightened senses. While there may be some – some – Faunus who played into a given stereotype, it wasn't like that was the norm.

Jaing, the hulking, walking, talking monstrosity that easily dwarfed most of the other first-year students in height and weight, also wore full body armor and a helmet. His helmet was composed of a glistening steel material. The helmet he wore today had a compact, rectangular black visor instead of the usual T-shaped one. A long dark, grey pony-tail hung tautly from the top of his head. A pair of giant tusks, about the half the length of his head, protruded from the sides of his helmet. Even if Blake has never seen Jaing's bare face, it wasn't hard to figure out that he was an elephant or mammoth Faunus, though the large size of the tusks were unusual. Tusks generally only grew as thick as your forearms, not as thick as your thighs like Jaing's were.

Looking down at Artus, Jaing said, "He didn't smell like a Faunus before. He still doesn't now." Jaing turned to look at Jaune. "However, you said you come from a long line of Huntsmen, stretching back to the Great War. You must have inherited some innate combat instincts, especially if you have older sisters who are already respectable Huntresses."

CRDL and Jaune were getting farther and farther away, so Blake couldn't catch the response Jaune gave. Whatever it was that he said, it prompted Jaing to say, "Don't worry, Jaune. If you've been keeping up with your studies, as you should be, then today's lesson should be easy enough." With one last whining groan from Jaune, he and his apparent tutors were over the hill and out of earshot.

Sometimes, Blake wasn't sure if CRDL liked to talk a lot of dirt for the sake making noise or if they were legitimately bigoted against Faunus. Artus was probably the former since Blake's seen him flirt with Velvet Scarlatina often enough. Jango was the most silent out of the bunch. Blake was pretty sure he only went along with the insensitive jokes and language just to indulge his teammates. He was more indifferent to Faunus than anything, but indifference to the problems Faunus have to go through only let legitimate bigots go on uncontested. Canderous was the most likely to be an actual racist. His proud and arrogant attitude fit right in with other sanctimonious, ignorant human supremacists that Blake has met and seen.

Jaing Durge was a Faunus. His team joked constantly about Faunus, but it never seemed to bother him. Jaing must be numb to the insults or simply didn't care. Either way, it hardly looked like he was going to try to put a stop to the disrespectful jests and gags against his own people.

His position as a Mandalorian must matter more to him than his status as a Faunus.

As Blake turned away from the hill, she could hear Ruby grumbling to Weiss. "But they're going to go beat Jaune up," she was saying as she kneeled at the base of a tree while gathering red sap. "Maybe not Jango, but I know Canderous will!"

"Canderous can be crude and blunt," Weiss said in what sounded like a condescending tone, "but he isn't some common thug. If he was, then Professor Goodwitch would have had him expelled long ago."

Blake had already written off Canderous as a thug. She was surprised the proud and proper Schnee heiress would respect a bruiser like him, but Blake supposed that Canderous was a talented enough fighter and professional enough to work with (when he wasn't spouting Faunus stereotypes and lambasting "weak warriors," that is).

Ruby and Weiss continued to have their little argument. Yang, who was extracting her own sap at an adjacent tree, rolled her eyes and sent Blake a helpless shrug. Ruby has been advocating for them and JNPR to confront CRDL and to get Jaune to make amends with Pyrrha. However, Pyrrha had made it clear to RWBY that JNPR would handle their own internal team drama, and that who Jaune decided to spend time with was wholly his choice. Pyrrha's words did little to convince Ruby, but it was enough for Weiss, Blake, and Yang to agree that Jaune's relationship with Pyrrha and CRDL wasn't any of their business.

Young, inexperienced, and naïve as she was, Ruby still hasn't given up on trying to persuade her team to "go beat up Canderous so that he'll stop beating up Jaune." While Blake usually wouldn't complain about showing an obvious brute the sharp edge of her weapon, Yang and Weiss kept out-voting Ruby. Blake more or less abstained, not feeling very empathetic for Jaune's quandry. If there was one thing Blake could agree with Canderous, it was that Jaune should already have grown a decent backbone if he's supposed to be a student Huntsman in the world-renowned Beacon Academy.

Blake took another gander at the surrounding trees. A soft breeze passed through the air, so Blake let her hidden cat ears flow with the wind. Her bow fluttered with the movement.

She could faintly hear giant, bare footsteps brushing against grass, twigs, and foliage. Blake remembered waking up to such sounds while taking refuge in one of the southern camps during her White Fang days. When she had asked a lieutenant what the noise was, he had explained that it was an Ursa Major stalking through the forest. The camp had outworn its stay, almost overwhelming in negative emotion after an unlucky string of failed missions, so the lieutenant had ordered their White Fang cell to retreat and regroup rather than confront the Grimm.

A single Ursa Major shouldn't be too much of a challenge, and from the volume of its stomps, it wasn't too far away. "I'm going to take a look around the perimeter," Blake told her team. Ruby and Weiss were too preoccupied arguing. Yang, slurping some sap after having seen Nora down an entire jar of the stuff, gave a clumsy salute as a sign of acknowledgement.

Blake spring into the air and hopped across tree branches. The footsteps were soon replaced by low guttural growls. Blake put Gambol Shroud into its gun mode and readied it, her eyes scanning the tree line for black fur and white bones.

Before long, Blake arrived to the edge of a small clearing. Just as she expected, there was the Ursa Major pacing along the other side of the glade.

Jaune, shield held high and sword held low, stood at the center of the clearing. The Ursa Major was glowering its soulless red eyes at him with a sidelong look.

Canderous, Jango, and Artus were situated directly under the branch Blake was standing on. Too focused on Jaune and the Grimm, they were none the wiser to Blake's presence.

"Remember, Arc," Canderous hollered, "it's not just your soiled jeans that Grimm can smell. Grimm can literally smell your fear. The more you let the fear consume your senses, the easier the Grimm will find tearing you apart limb from limb."

Sipping from a jar of red sap, Artus held up a lien chit. "I've got five-to-one odds that the Ursa literally does tear off a limb."

"Arc's Aura reserves are too high for that," Jango commented as he leaned against a tree trunk. He was on his scroll, flipping through pages of what appeared to be wanted posters on the screen. "There's better odds of him unlocking his semblance."

"Do you mean that you're betting on Jaune discovering his semblance instead?"

"I mean that I'm not betting at all. I've learned my lesson before. I'm not gambling with you again."

Artus pocked his lien and sent his teammate a taunting smirk. "Please, Jango. Don't blame me for your failures in our last hunt together. Perhaps you aren't jatnese be te jatnese after all."

Blake didn't understand those last words Artus spoke. They certainly sounded Mandalorian in nature. It may have been an insulting phrase since Jango closed his scroll and clenched his fists. "We aren't in the city anymore," Jango grunted, leering his expressionless face at Artus. "You don't have your clan to fall back on here. If you really want to see undeniable prove of who's the better Huntsman..."

Canderous got between Jango and Artus and shoved them back from each other. "Not now! We can hold a match in the battle circle for you two later. For now, we're here to see Arc finally earn his stripes."

The Ursa barreled into Jaune. While Jaune's shield protected himself from getting eaten whole, it got caught between the various bony spikes extending off of the Ursa's body. Jaune yelped frightened screeches as the Ursa thrashed around. It eventually left the clearing and sped back into the forest.

"Damn it, Arc," Canderous muttered under his breath. He shouldered the sling for his heavy blaster and beckoned at his team. "Jango, circle around and cut them off. Don't let them stray too far away. Artus and I will make sure Jaune stays alive if the Grimm proves too much for him."

Jango nodded wordlessly. His jetpack spewing orange flames, he flew into the sky and became a vague blob along the skyline. As Canderous and Artus began jogging on the ground, Artus asked, "Are we leaving Jaing behind?"

"He'll take care of the sap and keep the class and Goodwitch from finding out about Arc's real initiation. Come on! We can't let the Grimm outrun us!"

Blake couldn't help but frown. Her own opinion on Jaune aside, this was barbaric treatment. Forcing Jaune, a less than proficient warrior, to fend for himself against an Ursa Major, a relatively difficult Grimm for lower division combat academy students to defeat, was too cruel and cold-hearted. If Blake was a professor, she would have assigned Jaune hours worth of remedial training, or maybe even suspend him from classes outright if he failed to get his act together. She never would have thrown Jaune to the wolves and tell him to toughen up or die trying.

That was something Adam had done to one of the younger White Fang recruits. He had been only a year younger than Blake, and she had barely gotten to know him before they were burying his body in an unmarked grave, where the authorities or his parents would never find him.

Canderous may have said that he wanted to make sure Jaune doesn't get himself killed, but this was still behavior that would warrant expulsion for all of CRDL. As one hand slipped to her back pocked to pull out her scroll, she scanned the area for Jaing. If he was supposed to be on guard duty, alert for any students or Professor Goodwitch who might wander into Jaune's "real initiation," Jaing probably did another sweep of the area when his team left. Though Blake felt fairly secure under the shadow of her tree, Jaing was still a Faunus who had a better chance of spotting her than the other Mandalorians.

Blake had opened up her scroll, just about to navigate to her contacts list, when the cat Faunus made eye contact with Jaing. He was a few yards away, on the ground and surrounded by jars of red sap.

Jaing raised his arm. A blinding red light flashed for a split second. In the moment after, Blake lost her footing. The branch she was standing on was suddenly disconnected from the tree. The smell of charred wood filled her nostrils as she jumped to another branch on another tree. More flashes of light – thermal projectiles from a wrist-mounted blaster, no doubt – followed, destroying more branches and forcing Blake to remain on the move.

As another tree branch faltered under Blake's feet, she created a shadow clone to distract Jaing. The clone continued jumping from branch to branch while the real Blake made herself scarce by hiding behind the large, wide trunk of a tree. She heard rapid, heavy footsteps whizz behind her. Finally free to catch her breath, Blake went back to her scroll and brought up Goodwitch's number.

Forcing Jaune to fight a Grimm in a somewhat controlled, gladiator-like duel was one thing. Raising arms against and blatantly assaulting a fellow student was something else entirely.

Before Blake's finger could hit the holographic "call" button, the footsteps abruptly spiked in volume. Turning toward the sound, Blake looked down the sight of her gun. A force that might as well have been a freight train charged into her.

Her grip on her scroll fell apart instantly. The device was flung in a random direction while Blake fired point blank at Jaing. Her Dust bullets dented his armor, but they didn't slow him down by much. The sharp ends of Jaing's tusks skidded off of Blake's Aura shielding. Most of her Aura was focused on diminishing the damage done by the weight of Jaing's forehead plowing into her stomach. Lifting his head, the top of Jaing's helmet impacted against Blake's chin. Her teeth grinded as she involuntary chewed on her gums. Jaing grabbed Blake's wrists and pinned her to the grassy floor.

Blake's weapon hand was basically useless. She couldn't get it pointed to the right angle to get another shot off at Jaing. There was no momentum to blindside Jaing with Gambol Shroud's sword form either. Blake's Aura-enhanced flailing kicks didn't help her situation, unfortunately.

"Settle down," Jaing said. His voice was also altered slightly by a noise filter. "I don't want to fight you any more than I have to."

"Then why did you attack me in the first place?" Blake hissed angrily. She stopped her struggling, but she was ready to start again if an opportunity to escape became available to her. "Is keeping your private little initiation for Jaune a secret so serious that you would try to kill one of your classmates?"

"I wasn't trying to kill you," Jaing said in an attempt to placate Blake. "This is simply a private Mandalorian affair. Professor Goodwitch wouldn't understand why Jaune must undergo his true initiation, and neither do you."

A "Mandalorian affair." Blake scoffed. "Don't hide behind excuses. Being Mandalorians doesn't mean you get to do whatever you want whenever you want. I hardly know Jaune, but I'm enough of a decent human being to know what you're doing to him is wrong."

Jaing was silent for a moment. "A decent human being?" he said after a short pause. "Aren't you a Faunus?"

Immediately, Blake's panic skyrocketed. No one at Beacon should know that she was a Faunus. Contrary to popular belief, Faunus didn't have an identifiable scent to differentiate themselves from humans. It was all in the heightened senses and extra body parts. Further, while she's expressed sympathy and spoken with other Faunus students out loud, Blake has never revealed her own Faunus features. Someone connecting Blake Belladonna's past with the white Fang was too high a risk.

"What are you talking about?" Blake asked, faking an incredulous tone. "I'm not a–"

"Adam trained you," Jaing interrupted, and Blake felt herself grow incredibly cold. "He wasn't your first teacher, but you were his first student. He said that you'd go far in the White Fang. How is Adam, by the way? I assume you're still in contact with him. He and I haven't been able to correspond between letters for a while now."

Jaing waited for Blake to respond. For longer than she would have liked, she couldn't find her voice, too overwhelmed by Jaing words. He knows Adam? He corresponded letters with Adam? Jaing even knows about who Blake was, except he didn't know that Blake wasn't with the White Fang anymore.

Eventually, Blake quietly said, "Get off me."

Obliging, Jaing released his clutches around Blake's wrists. He stood up and offered a hand. Blake took it and pulled herself to her feet. "I didn't mean for our first meeting to be so heated," Jaing apologized. "Truthfully, I've been a little out of practice since leaving the White Fang. I was more zealous in chasing after you than I should have been."

So Jaing wasn't currently with the White Fang either. The question was whether he was one of the honest social activists or one of the violent radicals. "How do you know Adam?" Blake asked. "He's never mentioned a Jaing Durge to me before. Neither have the other members."

"I've known Adam for a long time," Jaing said. Tilting his head in what may have been a gesture of contemplation, Jaing explained, "I'm not much of a swordsman, but I taught him what I could. I was his teacher. One of them, at least. Then we became partners. Brothers, I would call ourselves. Probably not too unlike your own relationship with him."

Adam never referenced or elaborated on any teachers or close brothers. White Fang members called one another brothers and sisters, but Mandalorian culture considered brotherhood and sisterhood, blood related or not, much more important and poignant than other faiths. Why didn't Adam tell her about Jaing? "Why did you leave the White Fang, then?"

Jaing lowered his gaze and shrugged. "As I'm sure you can tell, I'm a Mandalorian first, and a Faunus second. Your father was a fine leader, but too... unmotivated to adapt to the escalating situation regarding human treatment of Faunus." Blake could tell Jaing had less polite words in mind to describe Ghira Belladonna. She was happy Jaing didn't. Otherwise, Blake might have been forced to instigate another fight. "Sienna Khan has more spirit, but she also has too much ambition. The bombings, assassinations, sabotage, thefts; the White Fang fights for superiority rather than equality now. I wanted no part in such things."

Honestly, Blake was a little surprised by Jaing's reasoning. "I thought Mandalorians loved fighting."

"We do," Jaing confirmed. "However, the circumstances for why we fight still matter. It's the same difference between competing in a regional tournament and brawling frivolously in an underground fight club. For myself, the path of a Huntsman should yield far greater honor than the path of the White Fang. Don't you agree?"

"Yes, actually," Blake found herself saying. She couldn't say she disagreed, after all. "I'm... There's a reason I've been keeping my Faunus features a secret."

"You're on an undercover assignment," Jaing deduced, surprising Blake with how wrong he was. "I can't say I approve of Adam's newest tactics. I always favored honest battle over subterfuge. Deception never ends well once found out. Still, I didn't want to interfere with whatever your mission is, so I've kept my distance from–"

"It's not that," Blake cut him off. Respiring a silent breath, she decided to take a leap of faith. "I left the White Fang, too. I couldn't handle how we became so focused on hating humans instead of human-Faunus equality. I wanted something more... honorable than that. That's why I'm here at Beacon. I'm not a spy. I'm just another student."

Jaing slowly nodded in understanding. "I see. I had thought that... from Adam's letters, I assumed..."

Blake shook her head. "Adam and I... aren't on speaking terms."

"I don't need to know the details," Jaing said as he waved a dismissive hand. "Adam and I have never had much luck with women."

"We weren't –"

"Moving on," Jaing continued, "I would appreciate it if you don't tell Goodwitch about Jaune's initiation ceremony. Tell your team if you want, but not to any of the professors. Let Jaune earn his place in Beacon and his place as a Mandalorian. Canderous is an honorable man. Whether Jaune fails or is victorious, he will make sure Jaune still lives to talk about it."

Jaune's plight hardly mattered anymore compared to the fact that Jaing was also formerly White Fang and apparently knew Adam personally. "I won't tell the professors, as long as you don't tell anyone about who I was before."

"I'll have to tell my team, but other than that, your secret is safe with me."

Something about Canderous knowing that Blake was a Faunus and a former White Fang member didn't sit right with her. "Does your team know about your past?" Blake asked. "Do you trust them that much?"

"Of course. Why would I call them brothers if I did not trust them? I may not agree with or like everything they say or do, but all their bluster and wisecracks about Faunus generalizations are all done in good jest. When it comes down to it, they couldn't care less if you're a Faunus. Personality traits and the actions you take matter far more than biological differences to a good Mandalorian."

Blake still didn't trust Canderous or Jango, but she'll have to take Jaing's word for what it was. "If you say so."

"I do say so. I am a man of my word."

Noise began to steadily fill Blake's ears again. She turned to face the noise. Canderous, screaming his head off, was flying through the air and hit the midsection of the tree Jaing and Blake were standing beside. His armor and Aura should have prevented any serious damage when he fell like a rock to the ground, but he still groaned in pain.

"Canderous?" Jaing asked in concern, kneeling to help his team leader up.

"There's an entire pack of Ursai out there," Canderous huffed through a shuddering breath. "Arc's fear, Jango and Artus' pissing contest, and I suppose my own irritation with all of them gave away our position. There's admittedly more than we can handle on our own." When Canderous stood up, he fixated his gaze squarely on Blake. "What the hell is Belladonna doing here?"

A ferocious roar prevented Blake from answering. As a pair of Ursa Majors rushed toward them, Canderous, Jaing, and Blake unloaded their firearms at them. The Grimms' faces became unrecognizable charred messes as they crashed into each other. More Ursai were slowly emerging out of the woodwork. Bursts of red light glimmered farther, deeper into the forest beyond them. Artus and Jango must still be in the thick of it against the Grimm with Jaune somewhere caught in the middle.

"Blake!" shouted a voice from behind Blake. She whipped her head around. The rest of RWBY and JNPR were making their arrival. Ruby was at the forefront. "We heard gunshots earlier and you never answered your scroll. What happened?"

The nearby Grimm roared again. Jaing held up his wrist-mounted blasters and began firing, temporarily deafening everyone in the immediate vicinity. "Strike first," he yelled, almost as loud as the Grimm, "talk later!" He hopped onto one Ursa's bulky neck and began riding the beast. Everyone followed Jaing's lead and sprang into battle.

Blake found herself stepping in sync with Yang. Shooting off potshots and opportune swings of her sword, Blake distracted and misdirected the Grimm while Yang unleashed shotgun blasts to finish them off. Yang's slacker ways when it came to studying fortunately wasn't the case when it came to practicing combat routines.

"Team CRDL didn't try to jump you or anything," Yang asked as she weaved around a claw swipe and punched an Ursa's head clean off, "like how they've been basically jumping Jaune. Did they?"

"They didn't," Blake answered calmly. She glanced at Jaing, who was ramming his Ursa Major into the smaller sized Grimm. "Actually, I think I may have made a new friend today."

Yang's confusion was obvious, but the blonde shoved her bemusement aside and returned her attention back to the battle. While Blake wasn't sure if she should reveal her past to her whole team quite yet (especially since Weiss Schnee still acted like the spoiled princess Blake expected she'd be), she'll tell them a half-truth about her unexpected understanding with Jaing later.

This wouldn't be the last conversation she and Jaing were going to have. Of that, Blake was certain.