It was another beautiful day at Beacon Academy; the sun was up, the birds were calling, and team RWBY was rushing to class with team JNPR on their tail.

Both teams were very late.

Ruby could of course use her Semblance and arrive almost instantly in class, but she felt that as the leader it would be irresponsible for her to abandon her teammates in such a manner.

Weiss however, had no such compunctions, and activated an Acceleration Glyph to propel her forward and straight towards class.

The graceful Schnee heiress turned her head back, just about to make a snide remark when she collided with something, causing her momentum to cease immediately.

"You should really watch where you're going," said the tall man she had run into as he saw the Schnee heiress groan on the floor at his feet.

"Oh, it's just you Vulpes," she said in annoyance, "Mind helping a lady up?"

The bull faunus obliged and gave her his hand and pulled her up.

"What are you doing here? I figured someone like you would be the first to arrive."

"I was actually," he said as the rest of team RWBY and team JNPR caught up to Weiss, "I'm now the class rep or something; which means I'm supposed to fetch you guys and hand you your citations for tardiness."

On saying that, he pulled out a small book and wrote the names of everyone present on a page each before ripping them out and handing them to the respective defaulters with such a smile that it seemed he was enjoying his new task more than he should.

"Okay, come along everyone, I'm supposed to make sure that everyone without a sufficient excuse attends today's class."

This was followed by annoyed grumbles from the latecomers as they fell in line behind their new class rep.

xXx

Later that afternoon, team RWBY was attending, or in Ruby's case, sleeping through a Grimm

Studies class by Peter Port. Hardly anyone was engaged or really taking the class seriously, because pretty much everyone had faced and taken down the Grimm Mr. Port was discussing.

It was so bad that Ruby rose from her nap, just to draw caricature of the aptly named Mr. Port. Although, instead of praise for her 'well-made' drawing, she got an eraser to the head from the class rep.

Still, she was hardly deterred from her antics, ensuring that she continually got on her partner's nerves.

Weiss was continuously ticked off by virtually everything that she did; it wasn't just because of their first encounter or that she found her annoying in general (she had actually warmed up to her when they had worked together to take down the Nevermore).

It was even beyond irritation, it was insult.

How could she, a Schnee, be subordinated to such a child?

It was not that she expected special consideration because of her family name. Far from it; she hadn't gone to Atlas Academy precisely for that reason (although from the few stories Winter had told, the Headmaster; General Ironwood, wasn't one to show partiality just because you were a Schnee).

Weiss had already prepared herself to take all sorts of abuse; from people who made up vicious lies about her family and the company to those who would try to use her on account of her family, but she hadn't prepared herself for something so egregious: that the Principal would skirt over her talent and achievements and give the position, her position to –not just another person- but to this brat who didn't even have a sufficient attention span to keep track of the lesson before them.

Such were the thoughts that ate through Weiss, continuously building with every childish gimmick the girl attempted throughout the class.

Just control yourself Weiss, it's the final class of the day. You can make it through that much.

"The moral of this story?" Mr. Port's voice boomed with his rhetorical question, apparently having already reached the crux of his long-winded story.

"A true Huntsman must be dependable!"

"A true Huntsman must be strategic, well-educated, and wise!"

"So, who among you believes themselves to be the embodiment of these traits?"

"I do, sir!" shouted Weiss with all the annoyance that she had gathered in the course of the class, raising her hand high in some sort of defiance as if to say "it doesn't matter that you disrespected me, I'm going to prove every last one of you wrong".

"Well then, let's find out!" The portly teacher declared energetically, as he lifted a sheet behind him that had had everyone in the class curious as to what it was while he spoke to reveal a cage with a pair of burning eyes staring with vacuous hatred; a Creature of Grimm.

"Step forward, and face your opponent!"

Weiss prepared quickly, changing into her combat skirt and holding her weapon familiarly as she returned to the middle of the class, ready to show what she was made of.

"Gooo, Weiss!"

"Fight well!"

"Yeah, represent Team RWBY!"

The encouragements came out generously from her teammates, and she might have been grateful if not that "Team RWBY" had been mentioned. Still, she shrugged it off, focused on the opponent she was about to face.

"Let the match begin!" as

Suddenly, the cage was opened, and a furious Boarbatusk charged out immediately at the white-haired girl, probably attracted to her frustration and anger.

She was able to dodge to the side, skirting around the beast before adding a gap of a few metres to observe it some more.

She then charged it, hoping to run the beast through with a single hit. However, the Grimm was smarter than it looked; as it locked Myrtenaster in its tusks, trapping the heiress and turning the tables temporarily.

"Come on, Weiss, show it who's boss!"

Those innocent words of encouragement from Ruby earned her a death glare from Weiss, the latter making one of the biggest mistakes possible in a fight and probably the first thing her instructors had warned her about; she took her eyes off of her opponent. The Boarbatusk took advantage of this, seeing that its prey and wasting no time in flinging the weapon and the user in opposite directions.

One of Weiss' vulnerabilities had been exposed: among the kingdoms, Atlas was the least plagued by Grimm; this was owed in no small part to the intense temperatures, being deadly for the creatures which were incapable of thermoregulation. As a result, training sessions against Grimm were generally highly dependent on simulations aided by Hard Light Dust technologies rather than encounters with Grimm themselves, transporting Grimm was also a fairly difficult task as they could not be sustained by normal means; the SDC was one of the few companies that reliable transported the creatures in bulk and it wasn't cheap.

This was not to say that the Atlas military or Huntsmen who trained in Atlas Academy were lacking in the field (as they were the strongest military in all of Remnant) but that they would find their first encounters with some Grimm more awkward and could find themselves in quite the pickle if they were careless or distracted as was the case with the Schnee heiress.

Weiss rolled to the side suddenly, dodging another salvo of the beast's spinning attack as she got incrementally closer to her fallen weapon.

"Aim its belly, it doesn't have any armour there!"

"Stop telling me what to do!" Weiss shouted at her leader, although she proceeded to do exactly as advised, grabbing her MADR swiftly and struck it with a Dust round, before stabbing fiercely into its exposed belly.

"Excellent work, Miss Schnee! It seems that you have all the qualifications of a Huntsman-in-training,"

Mr. Port praised as he walked around her, casually inspecting for injuries once she finished it off.

"Uh, excuse me sir," a grey-haired boy with nice features and a wicked smile, "But 'Miss Schnee' took several minutes to take down a Grimm that any schmuck from a combat school could, she also managed to lose her weapon, take her eyes off her opponent and berate not only her teammate, but her team leader for offering her advice, advice she later took."

"Why y-," the Schnee heiress' rebuttal was cut off with Mr. Port's raised hand.

"What are you getting at? Mister…"

"Black," he completed with a mock bow before continuing, "And what I'm saying is that I'm sure that a little one on one, is more of a test of a true Huntsman's mettle than fighting some random Grimm. That's if, Ice Queen is up to it."

The wink that punctuated his last sentence was the last straw for the Schnee Company heiress, and she pointed her weapon at him to show that his challenge had been accepted.

Mercury nonchalantly made his way to the front of the class and warmed up.

"Go easy on me Princess," he said with a smirk as he took his stance.

The incensed Atlesian charged at him, ready to make him pay for his insolence.

She felt that she had endured enough for one day.

Mercury slickly dodged the thin blade, pocketing his hands as he did so before following it up with a low kick, causing Weiss to lose her balance and stumble backwards, swinging wildly in an attempt to keep the grey-haired assassin away from her.

Mercury simply swatted the blade away and delivered a ferocious palm strike to her gut, flinging her across the room.

"I didn't hurt you, did I?" he asked, his voice just barely betraying the mockery intended by the query.

Weiss was doubly vexed by this, but instead of charging ahead like she did earlier, she calmed herself down pointing Mytrenaster upwards before training it once more on her opponent.

"Come at me," she said, her sudden calm piquing the assassin's curiosity as he took his hands out of his pocket to convey that he was taking her seriously this time as he bound towards her.

"Gotcha," she whispered to herself, as she activated a Gravity-Affecting Glyph underneath Mercury's feet, effectively sticking him to the floor.

His surprise caused the Schnee heiress to smirk at him, returning the wink from earlier, confident that the battle was hers; although Glyphs had a limited active duration, she was confident that she could turn the battle around.

All of a sudden though, the glyph deactivated, it was only for a second, but it was more than enough for Mercury who had been waiting for an opening. He sped towards the heiress, who was still confused as to why her glyph had faltered.

Still, she reacted swiftly enough, launching Ice Dust to slow down her opponent. Mercury easily sidestepped her attacks though and covered the distance with ease.

Fortunately, the time taken for his detour was enough for Weiss to set up several glyphs above their heads.

She ascended unto one of the glyphs, as it held her in place midair, and prepared for a strike. Surprisingly, her glyph faltered once more, except this time there was no chance to remedy it.

Fortunately, Mercury caught her… with a kick midair, sending her to the ground ungracefully.

Weiss wasn't finished though, she got up and faced Mercury once more.

"That's enough students! Shake hands and congratulate each other on a match well-fought."

The word from Professor Port were like cold water on the Ice Queen's face (or perhaps hot water); she still hadn't responded his insult.

"Good job, you really had me on my toes," Mercury said genuinely as he stretched his hand out,

"You really do have what it takes to be a Huntress." Weiss stared at his hand for a few seconds; she knew he was mocking her, his eyes showed no evidence of deceit, not an iota of insincerity, but she knew.

The anger in her throat grew, worsened by the reluctant realisation that he was probably stronger than she was.

Regardless, she would not add rub salt in her own wound by agreeing to shake his hand; she was a Schnee and she wasn't going to be mocked.

She went straight out of the class, because the period was over several minutes ago, the students had only stayed to watch the fight.

"Weiss!"

The voice came from behind her, she turned around although the voice was an imprint on her auditory senses by now.

"What was that? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," her voice was curt and cold, clearly showing her lack of regard for her team leader.

"You could have fooled me; refusing to shake Mercury's hand even though he praised you as a fighter."

"I said I'm fine Ruby... just leave it at that."

"No! We're a team and I'm kind of the leader, you have to talk to me, Weiss."

Her voice carried imploration in it, as though desperate for her partner to confide in her.

"Leader?!"

Weiss laughed harshly as though she found the idea incredulous.

"In what world are you a leader? Is it because you had us get bunk beds? Or because you shout 'banzai'? Oh, maybe it's because, you are such a great leader that you managed to get us late on the very first day!"

"I-I…" the silver-eyed team leader stuttered and hugged her arm, recoiling from her teammate's reproach.

You wanted to know the reason for my behaviour? It's you, all you. You're my problem.

"Just tell me this," Weiss lowered her voice finally, knotting her eyebrows, "Give me a single reason, a small one, why I, an Atlessian elite, someone who has trained all her life to be here, would follow a fifteen-year-old who… likes weapons."

"I-I do…"

"What was that?"

"I don't know."

"As I thought," she said as she placed her hand on her 'team leader's' shoulder, with patronizing smile.

"Listen, honey you're really cute, so maybe you can be the mascot, but I'll make one thing clear; you aren't my leader."

After her declaration, the Ice Queen walked off, clearly having felt a measure of relief at venting on the object of her frustrations.

"That was very harsh," said Principal Ozpin, as he suddenly appeared behind her with his faithful cane and even more faithful coffee mug, "I'm surprised that you didn't cry."

"Not funny," she said, using her signature pout against her principal.

"I suppose not," he agreed mildly, handing her another mug of coffee, that he had removed from Monty knows where, "Walk with me Miss Rose."

The two walked through the halls and made their way to a balcony. "So Miss Rose," he said as he took a seat on the balcony, "What do you plan on doing?"

"Well, I was going to go to your office and asked to be removed from my position as team leader. But you saved me the trip and gave me coffee… Thank you for that."

"I see," he responded, looking at the horizon in an almost distracted manner.

Ruby had been expecting a different reaction; some rebuke or advice, but not a distracted approval.

"You think she's right?"

Her anger was kindled against her teacher; why was she made team leader then? As a joke?

"Completely the opposite, I never choose anyone that I'm not confident in and I was extremely confident in your ability."

"If I'm truly so qualified, then why doesn't Weiss think so?"

"To be fair, Miss Rose, you have showed your natural potential for leadership, but it's far from enough to justify your being leader. What reason do you give Weiss Schnee, someone of high birth and standing, or Blake Dellarobia, or even your sister Yang, who has taken care of you to follow you?"

"This is your team, my opinion of your abilities is irrelevant; you have to be the one to prove to your subordinates that you're worthy of their respect and loyalty."

"S-subordinates?" Ruby's eyes quivered as she muttered this word, she already knew that she was going to be the leader, but 'subordinates?' The word seemed to scary to her, she couldn't imagine Yang, someone who had basically been a mother to her being her 'subordinate.'

"Yes, Miss Rose, they are your subordinates. You can be their friends, but you are different, that's the sacrifice of a leader; you are always alone in some way, you will always bear the responsibilities, you will always bear the consequences. This is the price of leadership, it is the heaviest responsibility ever."

"What's wrong with you?" she whispered, her voice on the edge of breaking.

"First, you try to stop me from quitting. Then you dump all these… things on

me. Why? Tell me what it is that you want!"

"Don't misunderstand, Miss Rose; I am here more to help you than reassure you. The only thing I can give you is the truth of the world you have entered now. It isn't the carefree life you had in Signal."

"I-I'm sorry," said Ruby, ashamed that she had raised her voice at her principal, when he had just been trying to instruct her.

"Doubt can be a good thing; so long as you learn something from it. Empty reassurances and reinforcements will not help you grow. There is a choice before you; I've done my job by presenting you with the pros and cons, now your job is to decide."

xXx

"Did you have to scare the poor girl so much?" asked Glynda Goodwitch, who appeared at Ozpin's side immediately Ruby Rose left.

"Leadership is full of far scarier things than the ravings of an old man, if she was scared off by just that, then she's certainly not ready, not yet."

Glynda shook her head although she knew he was completely right.

xXx

Ruby felt terrible, she wandered about till she arrived back in class; she couldn't go back to the dorm room, not right now.

"You're still here?" came a voice from within the classroom; it was Adam who seemed to still be cleaning up after the class.

"Oh, Adam, sorry, I didn't mean to disturb you. I'll, I'll go now."

"Wait, don't," the redhead, called to her as she tried to leave, "Help me clean up."

xXx

"Why is there so much trash on the first day?" Ruby asked as she tried to clean up copious amounts of some sort of slime from the floor.

"Somebody played a prank and let's say the victim's Semblance wasn't keeping his lunch down."

"I preferred it when you didn't tell me," she said as she pinched her nose in disgust.

She turned around to see that Adam was cleaning up a similar mess, but on the ceiling, she feared to ask how it got there, for he might actually tell her. At the end of everything, Adam cleaned up most of it, Ruby actually added to the mess when she thought she saw something move in the slime.

"Here," he said, passing a small chocolate box to her as he sat down next to the exhausted brunette.

Ruby's eyes glowed in happiness, as she picked a small, dark circle and placed one on her tongue.

Adam doubted his heightened hearing for a second, because he thought he heard her purr.

"So, what's got you down?"

"Oh, you noticed," Ruby said meekly, although she still popped another chocolate into her mouth.

"It's practically written on your face."

He spoke kindly, as though he was truly interested in what she had to say.

"It's nothing that serious, it's just… It's just that I don't have anybody I think that I can talk about this... stuff with."

"What about your sister?" Adam suddenly had a feeling that he shouldn't have asked that question, as Ruby dropped the chocolate that she was about to eat, as though something was wrong.

"I'm sorry," he said gently, "You don't need to talk about it if you don't want to."

"No, it's okay. Yang is… well, to be frank, Yang is tired of me."

With every word of that that she spoke, Ruby's entire body gravitated towards the chocolate box on her lap, as though it were the only source of warmth in a blizzard, as though it would slip away from her if she didn't smother it.

"You see, I don't remember much of my mom... but up until I was about seven or so, whenever I thought 'mom,' I thought 'Yang'. Yang was always there, she taught me so much; like how to braid my hair, something I never do, how to put on makeup, how to flirt… boy, what a disaster that one was. There's a guy somewhere who still thinks I was threatening him."

"I think part of the reason I never do any of those things anymore is because they're 'Yang things'... doing them without her would be wrong."

"This put stress on our relationship, because I always wanted her around for something, but she had her own life, her own friends, that she never got to got enough time with because she was taking care of me."

"Sorry for going on, and on, I'm done with my pity-party now."

"I certainly don't know what to say about this," Adam stated as he could not relate to Ruby's type of mother figure; his sent an honest chill down his spine.

"I'm sorry, you asked me about what was bothering me, and I just dove into another topic entirely.

How did I even get there? I don't know I'm just really… ditzy."

"Not at all," he said as he ruffled her hair, mostly on instinct, "I feel as though there's something you want to ask me though."

"How… how are you able to do it? All of this?" she said gesturing at the now-glistening classroom.

"I mean, doesn't it get difficult at times?"

"Well," he said stroking his chin, thinking seriously of his answer.

"I've had responsibilities for a while now, so I guess that I'm used to it. Rather, I'll say; everyone has responsibilities; some decide not to take any that's all. I could easily have turned down the class rep duties or my duties as leader of team AMEN, or simply not done anything I was supposed to do. But responsibility is always there, if you don't take it now, you'll probably take responsibility for it down the line... I know I did."

He whispered that last part, although Ruby heard him and decided not to ask him about it. But the two kept talking, mostly her though, she talked about everything that came to mind; she told him how she made her weapon, about her uncle who had trained her, how she liked her coffee, she talked about everything, everything except her frustration with Weiss, how she had asked to be removed from her position as team leader, in other words, everything she wanted to get off her chest.

xXx

"Thank you so much," Ruby said, as the two stood before her dorm room.

"It was nothing," Adam stated, waving off her thanks, "Don't hesitate to come over and talk with me anytime. Although I'll probably have nothing useful to say, and just give you chocolate to cover it up."

"Chocolate anytime I'm down?" she asked, as she headed into her room, "I can live with that."

"Hey Ruby, where've you been?" Yang asked as soon as her silver-eyed sister stepped into the

room.

"I was just talking to…"

"What?"

"I just realized that I spent hours talking to someone, and I somehow never ended up saying what I wanted to," she held her head in her hand as she was too drained for a full-on facepalm.

xXx

"So where were you boss?" Mercury asked sarcastically once Adam walked in as they were supposed to have a meeting a while ago. It wasn't anything formal though, as they had learned nothing new and had no exact directives at the moment other than to remain undercover.

"Either way," Adam said, seeing that was nothing else to discuss, "I was with Ruby Rose, and I was cleaning up the classroom too."

"And, I've suddenly lost interest," the grey-haired assassin said, laying back down with a comic book.

"The team RWBY leader?" Emerald inquired, apparently interested.

"Yeah."

"What about?"

"She happened to walk in on me while I was working, she decided to help me out and we ended up talking."

"Aren't you supposed to hate humans or something?"

"And I'm interested again," Mercury said, "You were also okay about talking to several of them casually, not to mention you agreed to be part of a group of humans." Even Neo seemed to be interested, although she simply cocked her head slightly in the direction of the conversation.

"Well?"

"Firstly, the White Fang isn't necessarily antihuman, it's pro faunus; our priority isn't the extinction of the human race as is often advertised, but rather the liberation of faunus. It's actually very common for us to collaborate with human organisations if the conditions are sufficiently beneficial."

"Secondly, at times I feel sufficiently enraged, I take this."

While he spoke, he pulled out a small metallic case, about four fingers wide.

"Is that…?" Emerald asked surprised, and Neo made a whistling movement with her mouth to express her surprise.

"What? What is it?" asked Mercury as it all went past him.

"Oh I forgot; you were raised outside the kingdoms so you wouldn't be familiar with it," Emerald responded smugly.

"It's called apathy," Adam answered as he leaned back in his chair.

"As in the Grimm?"

"Yes, it's a drug that's synthesized from a Grimm of the same name," Emerald interjected, "It serves as a sedative of sorts and calms the user down. It's very common on the streets."

"And very important as well, as negative emotions attract Grimm and apathy masks these emotions effectively and is convenient to produce for Huntsmen."

"This container looks strange," Emerald said as she held it up to the light, "Not to mention that there isn't any company logo on it."

"I actually made that myself, the doses, not the container... that was a gift."

"You know how to make apathy?"

"Yeah, it's commonly used on faunus who work in the mines, since the mines are usually away from well-guarded cities and slaves don't tend to have many positive emotions. Apathy kept the slaves in check and also reduced the incidents of Grimm attacks, a win-win."

"Long story short, I was able to pick up the trick as a kid and it has saved me quite a number of times."

"You were force-fed apathy?" Emerald asked, somehow filtering the rest of the conversation out; she had used the substance, although it indeed gave you relief from negativity, it was deadening drug.

"In every meal until I was nine," he said with a sardonic smile that set the entire group into a strange silence.

"I can't believe our leader is actually some kind of pimp," Mercury said, breaking the silence.

"Not really, I actually only use a variation of the drug that can be bought at any pharmacy, I even have a prescription."

"Well he somehow just got a lot less cool," Mercury said, his loss of interest apparent in his voice.

xXx

Later that night, Weiss, who had finally returned from her excursion with Cardin into the city, walked into the dorm room. She looked up at the bed that was tied precariously above hers, she didn't believe that she agreed to this, still, despite her displeasure, she had always wanted bunk beds.