It was a humbling experience, Jaune decided as he rolled forward to avoid another swing of his opponents weapon, slashing out with his blade only for his opponent to shift slightly and avoid the swipe entirely. Out in the badlands he had been one of the best fighters around, capable of taking on an entire pack of Beowolves whilst most Badlanders would struggle with more than one or two, though that was as much to do with the fact he had Aura and could therefore tank much better than those around him as it was related to ability.

"Stand still and take it like a man Badlander!" The problem Jaune was encountering now with his new opponent was that he was being out muscled and out tanked, Cardin Winchester more than capable of weathering his strikes with his own Aura and every blow the taller boy had landed upon his shield felt like a cannon shot.

'Shift out of roll, dodge to the right to avoid overhead swing, slam shield into exposed stomach to wind Cardin and then use sub par ability to respond to get in a couple of strikes...' Each and every movement that he made was according to the plan he had in his head, but unlike the Grimm Cardin wasn't simply letting him act and then responding, the mace wielder was changing up his movements and tactics every time Jaune seemed to be gaining an upper hand.

Being smart and tactical just wasn't enough, though Jaune knew this would have been much worse if it had been someone like Yang up against him. Whilst he liked the blonde, he had seen the destruction she was all too willing to cause during initiation, and there was no way he would willingly put himself on the other end of that. Even as he dodged the swing Cardin used his own body as a weapon to follow up, slamming into Jaune and sending him to the ground with a thud.

"That's enough Mr Winchester, Mr Arc's aura has fallen into the red and therefore he is considered to have lost this exhibition match." It seemed like the boy wanted to carry on regardless for a moment, before dropping his mace back to his shoulder and walking off with a dismissive snort in Jaune's direction.

"Lying in the dirt suits you animal lover..." Jaune's eyes narrowed at the comment but Cardin was already striding back to his seat by the time he was back on his feet.

Luckily he was sat on the other side of the chamber from the boy, so he shrugged the comment off and instead focussed on the greetings he got as he returned to his seat.

"Good try Jaune-kun!"

"You'll get him next time Vomit Boy!"

"Your stance was terrible..." The last comment caught not just him off guard but the others as well given it's source, Pyrrha reddening as she realised everyone was looking at her.

"Sorry, did I say that out loud?" Despite the fact that Jaune could tell she was praying for him to say no he nodded, but he smiled and gestured his hand before Pyrrha could get even more embarrassed.

"It's fine Pyrrha, I just lost a match so I can't expect a glowing report card, though I don't get what you mean about my stance." Before the redhead could reply an authoritative cough reminded Jaune that he was still in class and that Goodwitch was waiting on him before they could continue.

Sliding into his seat, Jaune gave an apologetic look to the teacher who seemed willing to forgive him this time, instead gesturing her wand around imperiously.

"As you saw in that demonstration, you cannot fight humans the same way you fight your basic Grimm. Mr Arc clearly has a good tactical mind, but he was too rigid in his implementation of his attacks and unprepared to adapt when Mr Winchester changed his own strategy." Jaune couldn't help but let the frown return, even as Amber's hand on his shoulder provided some small comfort, in contrast to the smug grin Cardin had on his face.

"Before you start letting your ego inflate itself beyond it usual level Mr Winchester, I would point out that Mr Arc nearly did force you into a ring out loss twice, despite your advantages physically, the victory here was as much due to luck as it is strength of arms..." That knocked the smug look right off Cardin's face, though Jaune managed to resist allowing a smile of his own appear in case that just made matters worse.

"Now, the next pairing will be..." As Goodwitch carried on the sparring between two other people Jaune didn't know his scroll buzzed, indicating he had received a message on it, and given Pyrrha's apologetic smile sent in his direction as she leant back in her chair it was pretty obvious who it was from.

Sorry about what I said about your form Jaune, it just that I have trained most of my life to find weaknesses in people's stances and yours is so... Instinctual many of my former tutors would cry if I let it go unfixed.

Jaune smiled, if it had been anyone else other than the kindly champion his combat style would probably have been described with enough expletives to make Yang blush, but Pyrrha was kind to the point that Jaune was worried it would eventually come back to bite her.

Thanks Pyrrha, no problem I promise, my style is pretty much how you just described it, not many training schools around in the badlands you know...

His comment made the girl blush, but she nodded in understanding before the two turned their attention back to the matches, her face thoughtful in a way that sent shivers down Jaune's spine... Well it was either that or the way Nora was hefting Magnhild and cackling as her name was called.

Having to duck his head as she leapt over her seat and him, nearly giving him a concussion with the hilt of said hammer as she did so, Jaune decided it was definitely Nora he was worried about...

!"£$%^&*()_+

Sitting back from her letter to friends at Signal, Ruby noticed that once again her partner was distracted from her work and instead typing rapidly into her scroll.

"Whatcha doing Weiss? Weiss?" As the white haired heiress ignored/didn't hear her, Ruby decided enough was enough, swivelling her chair in Weiss' direction before kicking off with her feet and catapulting across their dorm.

"Ah! Watch what you're doing dunce!" Despite the hostility in Weiss' tone Ruby grinned in triumph at getting a response, and managed to liberate the girl's scroll from her before Weiss realised what she was doing.

"What do you think you are doing! Give that back Ruby!" Speeding away from her now incensed team mate Ruby took refuge on the other side of the room whilst she took a quick look at what had Weiss so distracted.

"White Fang attack reports, SDC shipment logs and... Company asset analysis?" Even as Ruby tried to work out what Weiss was hoping to work out with this information, she couldn't help but be impressed at the technological advances hidden in this one small device.

Compared to her own scroll, Weiss' scroll was unfoldable into two distinct forms, lighter than the standard model by a considerable margin and made from a material that gave it an almost noble silver gleam. If that wasn't enough, given the number of operations it seemed to be running at the same time whilst extracting information from what she assumed was the Schnee private network, this baby probably had four or five times the operating power as well.

"That's none of your business... Now give it back, please?" Despite the almost begging demeanour from her partner, Ruby managed to hold firm and shake her head.

"Not until you tell me what this is about Weiss, you have spent pretty much all your time on this for the last three days, a couple of times I've even found you not paying attention in class!" Which given the girl's almost OCD personality had definitely been odd enough to warrant this intervention in Ruby's opinion, though she should probably have waited until the other two got back from their classes so she had some back up.

"It's not that..." Weiss seemed to realise that Ruby had the upper hand with her speed, and slumped onto her bed in a distinctly un-heiress like manner.

"Okay, so I may be a little distracted, but I just can't work out what the Schnee name has to do with Jaune being so...Different!" The mention of the somewhat dorky but still cool blonde had Ruby smile as his cheery face appeared in her mind, before she truly caught what Weiss had said and stopped to stare at the heiress.

"This is about Jaune? I thought you were still angry about him throwing you that Grimm book in our first class, though given what you've said about it I don't see why you're mad, it sounded quite useful..." Ruby wanted to point out that it sounded like Weiss wanted Jaune to treat her normally again, but having seen the results of Yang's teasing on the subject she knew that might be enough to get the girl to stop the heart to heart, probably using her rapier to try and get the scroll back with force.

"It's not that, it's... Difficult to explain..." Deciding that Weiss had indeed given up on pretenses and she was probably safe, Ruby shifted back to her chair and shuffled over to their bed with more than a little excitement, this was her first girly talk since getting here that didn't involve her sister!

"Well we've got at least half an hour before the others get back, and perhaps talking about it will help? If Jaune is being mean to you then as team leader..." Ruby wasn't stupid, she knew Jaune had been nothing of the sort since Weiss had told him her name, but it provoked the reaction she wanted to see from the usually frosty heiress.

"No! You can't go and talk to him about this, not until I work out why he is so wary of me and my last name. Even when he came to get his damned book back he dodged around my attempts to make conversation before politely excusing himself before I got the chance to ask him... why?" The almost defeated tone in Weiss' voice made Ruby's smile at the chance to be a teenage girl fade, though before she got a chance to try and console her Weiss propped her head in her hands and continued.

"I've checked everything about him, no history of Faunus in the family so it can't be due to the White Fang or anything like that. He comes from a town on the far side of Vale, where no company or subsidiary of the SDC has ever done anything more than drop off some dust, so the only explanation is that something happened whenever he was in the badlands he talked about... But other than a few newspaper articles about the attack on Arcadia and Jaune's eventual return there is nothing, no interviews and nothing in the SDC manifests that suggest we Schnee have gone anywhere near the Vale badlands other than by air trade route..."

This was probably the most Weiss had talked to her in the entire time they had been in Beacon, initiation, and it was all Ruby could do to stop her awkwardness from rearing it's head and ruining everything for both of them.

"Are you sure it's not just Jaune reacting to how famous you are? Wait, forget I said that, he is partnered with Pyrrha... Why don't we ask Rine or Amber and see if they know anything that might help?" Her first attempt to try and offer a solution was met with an imperious glare, which was why Ruby had been quick to backtrack and come up with something else to offer the girl.

"I had thought of that..." To Ruby's surprise her hasty attempt to salvage herself seemed to have worked, Weiss looking off thoughtfully towards the far wall for a moment before shaking her head.

"But Amber is almost as protective of Jaune as Yang is of you, so she will be very suspicious if I suddenly start asking around, and it will probably get back to Jaune. And Rine, it's not that I don't like her..." But she's a Faunus, the words went unsaid primarily because Ruby knew of Weiss' dislike of Remnant's second humanoid race, it was one of the things they had discussed during their bonding session in the kitchen actually.

Contrary to popular belief, there were quite a few Schnee family members outside the direct family line, or at least there had been before the white fang went all paramilitary on the world. While Weiss hadn't talked about it directly, Ruby knew from her own brief research that more than a dozen Schnee members had been killed or kidnapped by the White Fang, including two efforts on Weiss herself when she was younger which had resulted in the death of three of her staff and two bodyguards.

"You do realise that not every Faunus is in the White Fang right? Just like every human isn't a member of the Black Blades..." Weiss sent her a blank look at the second name and Ruby remembered it wasn't a worldwide thing like the White Fang were.

"The Black Blades are an illegal human organisation that started up in Vale after the Faunus Revolution, with the idea that humanity had gone soft on the Faunus and the humans should band together and drive the Faunus back to Menagerie. It had mostly died out until the resurgence of the White Fang, or that is what Uncle Qrow told me anyway..." Weiss seemed surprised at the new information before dropping her head onto the bedspread.

"Sounds like the sort of group my father would approve of unfortunately. But you are right, I just don't know how to get across that I am not like my father to the Faunus here, I know that most of them think I am just as bad as he is by how they look at me..." The way she spoke of her father worried Ruby, especially as she knew that Weiss' mother had died when Weiss was very young, the idea of her dad being anything like Weiss' sounded like was terrifying...

"Well, whilst we think on that, how about we go and get some hot chocolate? Then we can sit down and you can explain to me how to do trajectories properly again... And maybe some cookies, cookies would be good..." Whilst most would have missed it, Ruby caught the small smile that made it's way onto Weiss' face before the heiress snorted dismissively and moved back to a sitting position on the bed.

"Those cookies will be the death of you one day, but I suppose a beverage wouldn't be too terrible an idea..." And with that the old Weiss was back, as much as Ruby knew Yang would bemoan the fact later it was something the other three members of team RWBY had missed in their own way.

She just had to make sure never to tell Weiss that or they would never hear the end of it...

!"£$%^&*()_+

It had been clear to Amber from the first day that her team had not been one Beacon had been prepared for, the full sized dorm with four beds, four wardrobes and other pieces of furniture being a very obvious hint. Not that she minded the abundance of space of course, it was in fact something that would work to her advantage when her requests from home arrived, especially given Rine had half a dozen sets of clothes to her name at best.

"So there we were in the middle of the night..." Even as Rine was fully focussed on what Nora was shouting about Amber was concentrating on her food so that she could then join in the discussion properly afterwards without worrying about etiquette issues.

The two of them had latched onto Jaune's team like limpets, both out of familiarity and because of Ozpin's plan for their team in general, JNPR's link with RWBY being another pleasant and useful part of the plan. From what Rine explained, basic as it was either due to her own lack of attentiveness or the headmaster being deliberately vague, Ozpin wanted to get each first year team to have completed one B-class Grimm hunting mission by the start of the Vytal festival. The benefits of such potential experience made obvious sense to Amber, but given the limited number of huntsmen accepting the smaller class jobs he couldn't afford to start doubling the teams up or assigning two staff to each group, as was required for a first year group doing such a level mission.

So instead the two of them, both being older than the current first years and having considerable experience out in the field, were to act as the second team and partner with each team for these missions once the missions started being given out at the end of the first semester. It wasn't necessarily something that Amber would have volunteered for, but she could see both the strategic use and the benefit to her of such teams if hers proved a success.

"Let go of me!" Not that she would be as willing to work with some teams as she was others, as she looked up from her lunch to see Cardin grabbing a Rabbit Faunus' ears and yanking on them painfully, the rest of team CRDL laughing along in the sort of minion like way that Amber despised.

Amber was already moving to her feet as the bullying continued, and as she heard an animalistic growl from next to her she knew she wasn't the only one to find this nature abhorrent, Rine looking like she wanted to claw Cardin's face off with her bare hands. But even as they stepped to go round the table Amber saw a flash of white that showed they were too slow to be the first to intercede.

"Let her go now!" Despite her sometimes bratty attitude, Amber found herself respecting the young Schnee heiress as she stood authoritatively in front of the much bigger Cardin, arms crossed in a distinctly unimpressed manner whilst her firm tone brooked no argument.

"Sorry, what?" It seemed to take Cardin a moment to realise who it was that was talking to him, the boy releasing the rabbit girl a moment later and turning to stand from his seat, all jovial expression gone from his face as he towered over the heiress.

"You, of all people, are going to try and defend these animals? Your family should be the first to stand with the Blades against this filth." If Weiss was intimidated by the boy's stature she didn't show it, though the fact the rest of Cardin's team had stood and looked distinctly unhappy with her intervention was more of a concern to Amber as she saw Rine indicate with her head that they should back the girl up.

"No, I wouldn't do that..." A dead silence seemed to fill the room as they heard Weiss' response, though before Cardin could react she raised a manicured finger and pressed it firmly onto his chest plate.

"That would imply that I only wanted to make myself look good by being the 'white knight' and try and trick the Faunus into assuming I am different from my last name. My issue is with you and your barbaric bullying, not because of who you are picking on but the fact that you think it is okay for you to act in such a moronic and insidious manner..." Cardin looked down at the point where she was pressing on his chest plate for a moment, probably trying to work out what Weiss had said given the range of vocabulary she seemed to be utilising, before his face turned into a snarl and he grabbed her finger and yanked it away painfully.

"Yeah, and what are you going to do about...Urgh!" His attempted threat/question was cut short as a fist buried itself into his lower chest plate, the blow's force being mitigated by his aura but not enough to stop the wind being forced straight from his lungs and leaving him winded.

"She won't do anything, as Princess here has a thing about stupid things like 'rules' and following them meaning she doesn't want detention for starting a fight outside of class..." Amber had been moving forward to assist Weiss, but it seemed the rest of the girl's team had beaten her there, Yang prizing Cardin's grip from Weiss' finger whilst Blake and Ruby stared down the rest of Cardin's team along with Nora and Jaune.

"But me, I Cardin-y ('Can't deny' if you can't get that one) that such silly things don't bother me in the slightest, especially if you even think about touching one of my team again... Let's just say it's my Cardinal rule..." Even though Yang was still using her playful and friendly tone Amber could tell that it was scaring the shit out of Cardin, though the boy quickly recovered enough to wrench his hand from her grip and size himself up against the blonde brawler.

"Cardin, you are outnumbered and already injured, my advice would be to stop here whilst you still have some pride left..." There went Jaune, always trying to be friendly even against a guy who had beaten him up and picked on his friends...

"Though, if you would prefer I can always let Nora break your legs, though knowing her she won't just stop there..." Or not as the case maybe, Amber surprised at the serious tone in her younger brother's voice as Nora started jumping on the spot in excitement.

"Gonna break your legs, then twist your arms, stomp your face till it's flat, tra la la la..." The sing song voice managed to surpass Yang's in the terror it managed to generate, and Amber wasn't even the one at risk of Nora Smash as they politely termed the girl's penchant to violence.

"There will be no such activities Ms Valkyrie!" Luckily, or unluckily in Amber's case as she wanted to see Cardin get his face stomped in, Goodwitch's arrival had the mounting tension collapse in an instant.

Seeing that she and Rine were not stood directly with the group that Goodwitch was now glaring at, Amber saw the opportunity to slip away without being drawn into the inevitable punishments to follow. Some would see it as a little cowardly, but Amber preferred to think of it as simple tactical sense, besides she had her own revenge to inflict on Cardin for what he had said and did whilst trying to justify it as anything other than racism...

"Ms Arc, where do you think you are going?" Pausing mid-step and cursing her bad luck, Amber then plastered her best smile on her face before turning back to the Professor.

"Apologies Professor Goodwitch, but there are some armour plates I left in the forge and I remembered I need to take them out before they melt..." Which was actually true, though it would be at least another 30 minutes before that became anything near the point of becoming a problem.

Despite the dismayed and betrayed looks on the others faces Goodwitch seemed to buy it, the blonde haired telekinetic turning back to unleash her displeasure on the rest of them as Amber breathed a sigh of relief at having escaped, for the moment at least. Leaving the now crowded great hall, Amber made her way to the stairs that lead down into the lower levels of the academy, where the reinforced areas for forging, dust enhancement and aura classes were based.

'Might as well carry on with the project, not as if the rest of them are going to be happy to see me for the next few hours...' Stepping through into the small forge that each first year Forging class student got for personal use, Amber sighed quietly as the door closed behind her, reaching up with her real hand to start the sequence of unclipping her mechanical arm.

Given that students at Signal crafted their own weapons before graduation, the forging class set was therefore only a class utilised by those who either wanted to enhance their weapons and armour further, through the use of dust enhancement or the advanced forging knowledge held by the Beacon Forgemaster Vaulen. Or, she thought as the last seal came loose with a hiss and allowing her mechanical arm to drop into the waiting stand she had for it, like her they had prior injuries or enhancements that they needed to maintain and understand for themselves.

Looking over to where three other arms were waiting, though none of them were anywhere near the quality of the one she had from Atlas they were all her own creations and that carried a quality of their own. Selecting the one she used for forging, a simple device with a hammer for a hand, she decided that the work she was doing on unlocking the secrets of her Atlassian arm could wait for a little while longer.

'After all, it's Jaune's birthday in 3 weeks, wouldn't want to give him a substandard present as his favourite sister...' Amber deliberately ignored the little voice in the back of her mind, the one that had grown insistently louder since the return of her now battle scarred and rugged sibling, which whispered that being his sister had nothing to do with her desire to give him the present she had in mind...

!"£$%^&*()_+

"I have gotten into Beacon as intended, though you have yet to tell me what is so important that requires us risking communication under Ozpin's nose." There was barely a pause before text appeared on the screen in front of the cloaked figure.

You were never one for patience, though that is one of the reasons you passed the trials I suppose... Our source in the White Fang suggest there is an infiltrator who has gained access into Beacon alongside you from their ranks, though the reason for such a bold move is unclear even to us.

"Interesting, but there are six Faunus in the new intake, so the chances of finding one amongst them doing something suspicious without seeming suspicious myself, given the views of certain members of the year many of them aren't exactly... Welcoming to humans... And that is assuming that the infiltrator isn't hiding their Faunus heritage."

Given the resurgence of the White Fang in Vale, it is not surprising that the Black Blades are on everyone's lips once more, lines of the new Faunus War are being drawn and we need to be prepared. Keep your eyes open and report anything suspicious through the normal channels, we cannot afford to be caught on the back foot once more.

A sigh and the rolling of eyes came from the cloaked figure, before they closed the connection with an irritable wave of a hand.

"It's not like I was planning on doing anything else..."

A/N: Mwhahaha! You weren't expecting that! Or at least I hope you weren't, if you were then you know how my mind works better than I do and that is really disconcerting.

So Jaune lost to Cardin... Probably not a big surprise given my earlier comments and A/N's, but Jaune currently fights as if following a script in his head, which given the predictability of lesser Grimm is not particularly surprising if you do assume they follow their instincts.

But it is a major problem when fighting people of anywhere near your level of skill, especially when they are better trained and more experienced than you are. Most people dismiss Cardin as a one line bully put in solely for comedic value, but he is still at Beacon and if you remove canon Jaune as an outlier we are talking the top 1-3% of fighters their age is the minimum to be able to attend.

I am not saying he would be able to out fight say Pyrrha, but depending on the circumstances I can see a realistic Cardin at least drawing with Ruby or Weiss simply because he is built as a tank and both of them can't really take a hit. It also makes the rivalry between CRDL and RWBY/JNPR more interesting if his team are actually capable combatants.

Weiss. Given her earlier confrontations with Jaune and then his sudden politeness, her frustration and not understanding 'the problem' is fast causing her to obsess more than a little bit, which is not going to be helped by Yang's teasing. But the talk with Ruby as well as her determination to try and separate herself from the Schnee family image will have consequences that go beyond merely standing up for Velvet to Cardin...

Lastly, the Black Blades are my own OC group, primarily on the logic that if the humans 'lost' the Faunus war, the most extreme members of the humans wouldn't merely go quietly into the night. More will be expanded upon as we go. But for now they, and/or the mysterious duo at the end of the chapter, will provide another front for what is going on in Vale.

Cinder isn't the only one capable of forming a plot or two after all...