"It was them, Oz!"

Qrow Branwen was beside himself. Hands slammed down on the desk to emphasize the word. The dull thud echoed throughout the spacious chamber that acted as Ozpin's office.

The man removed himself and his offending hands from the desk and resumed pacing around the room. He knew that she should be working to keep a clear head, but right now such a task was impossible. It was them. It had to be them. No matter how much he didn't want to get his hopes up. After all, bad luck just seemed to be his lot in life.

The previous day he had been drunk. Little surprise there. What was surprising, however, was how Ozpin had called him in at the last moment to fill in for Professor Port, who would be absent for at least the next week. Taking Team CVFY out on a mission outside of the kingdom would take time, and someone needed to teach his class in the meantime. Whoever that was supposed to fall to before didn't matter now. It was Qrow's job now. For once he was glad for it.

He had run into them. Almost literally. A quartet of teenagers who to anyone else would have looked utterly unremarkable. To Qrow's trained eye, however, even a drunk eye, he saw them for what they were. For who they were. There was no mistaking it. Even after more than a decade of their absence, he knew it was them. Ruby. Yang. It had to be. It just had to.

"We don't know that for certain," the annoyingly calm voice of Ozpin countered. As if to emphasize that point, the man's hands were folded neatly atop his desk next to a ceramic mug.

Qrow spun around, a snarl bristling on his lips as he worked overtime to keep his languge in check. To face such a challenge to his hopes in this moment threatened to make him lose control.

"Then why'd you call me here?" he countered in turn. "Huh? You know that all this teaching BS isn't my style. I'm a field agent, not one of your desk jockeys. You called me because you knew."

He hadn't been able to prepare himself. He hadn't even known to expect them before stumbling into them in the courtyard. Maybe he was lucky for once that he had been drunk. Qrow had no idea how he would have reacted to the teenagers had he had his wits about him.

"I needed an unbiased reaction," Ozpin explained. "Had you known what to expect you might not have reacted honestly. You may have wanted it to be them, rather than believed it truthfully."

Qrow scowled, a harsh breath shooting through gritted teeth. As much as he hated to admit it, the man did have a point. Going in blind and cold had given him no expectations. No hoping or wishing. He simply saw them for what they were. And he knew what they were.

His hands rested firmly atop the desk again, and Qrow leaned in toward Beacon's Headmaster. "You can't sit there and tell me that this Rosalyn girl isn't the spitting image of Summer," he growled. "Or that Yara isn't exactly what Yang would look like all grown up."

Anyone else might have interpreted Ozpin's lack of a reaction for apathy. Or maybe even arrogance. Qrow knew better, however. He knew that the man liked to play things close to the chest. He liked his secrets. Those included his own emotions.

"Perhaps," the man agreed. The way his hands were clasped together calmly on top of his desk irritated Qrow. Like there weren't any stakes here. Maybe Ozpin didn't have stakes, but he certainly did. "However, we don't know this for a fact."

"I know, Oz. And that's good enough for me."

"But not for me. Wishful thinking and irrational hoping will not get us anywhere at a time like this. After all, your sister did tell us that the girls had passed."

She had indeed, and that threw a wrench into this whole situation. Raven claimed that she had been unable to create a portal to Yang, and it meant that she must have been dead. And if Yang was dead, so was Ruby. That had been more than ten years ago. If it really was them, did that mean Raven had been lying to them all for ten years?

It was a thought Qrow didn't want to entertain. Raven had always been a less than moral person. Even after she had returned to Taiyang, even after they had restarted a life together after the tragedy, she was still a whole host of words that Qrow would rather not utter aloud around others. But she wasn't evil. She would not have lied to him and Taiyang for years about the loss of the girls like that.

"I'll speak to her about that soon," the huntsman sighed. It was a conversation he wasn't looking forward to having. After all, how would he bring up his long dead niece to his sister, and then accuse her of lying about her fate? A hand came up to wipe down from his forehead to his chin. Gods, was this not a conversation he wanted to have with her. "How'd they survive, Oz? They just up and vanished one day, and ten years later they're here attending this school. It can't be a coincidence."

Ozpin offered only the slightest tilt of his head. "Perhaps."

"Not just Yang and Ruby," he continued. "The white-haired girl. She looks just like a young Winter Schnee. And if I remember correctly, didn't her younger sister go missing after a Grimm attack on the air ship that was carrying her?"

It had made international news many years ago. An air ship had been attacked and destroyed by a swarm of Lancers on what was supposed to be a routine flight from Atlas to Argus. Some of the bodies were never recovered, assumed to have been lost to the Grimm or other natural predators before the recovery team had arrived. The body of the Schnee girl had been among those never found.

"White hair and blue eyes are not traits exclusive to the Schnee family."

The huntsman growled. Was Ozpin being contrarian on purpose? Challenging him at every turn? Why summon him here to Beacon if he was just going to shoot down all of Qrow's hopes and dreams?

"I've dealt with that haughty Specialist enough," Qrow said, referring to the only surviving Schnee daughter. He approached the desk again, tapping a finger hard against it surface. "And she looks just. Like. Her."

With each with Qrow jabbed the desk again to make a point of emphasis. He wanted the other man to know just how serious he, as well as this situation was.

"The resemblance is remarkable, yes," Ozpin agreed. "But again, we don't know."

Qrow knew one person who would know. Then again, was it right to get her hopes up like this with no proof?

"And the boy. I don't know who the boy is, but if he's anything like the others, then he's probably some other missing kid. I thought he looked like Tai, the way two girls were hanging off his arms like that..." Qrow shook his head. Memories of his time at Beacon Academy flooded back. Happier times. Even if it did involve his best friend being the one to land all the ladies. "Thank the gods it wasn't Yang and Ruby, otherwise it really would have been Tai 2.0."

"Records show the boy's name is Jaune Arc." Ozpin knew the information off the top of his head. Clearly he had found this whole situation interesting enough to dig into on his own. "A real name, complete with personal records, a home address, and family members which include licensed huntsmen."

"So not another lost child," Qrow mused. "And no way of knowing if he knows that his teammates are all walking corpses," he added.

"None whatsoever. By all indicators just an ordinary huntsman student."

"There's nothing ordinary about any of this," Qrow growled.

"I agree. Nothing ordinary at all."

"What are we supposed to do then, Oz?"

The man sitting behind the desk looked as unfazed as ever. Qrow wished he could have that sort of poise. Then again it came with millennia of experience. Maybe it was best that he didn't have that sort of experience...

"They're from Haven," Ozpin stated matter-of-factly. "Perhaps I should contact Leonardo and allow him to offer an explanation for their existence."

A chill ran down Qrow's spine. "You think Leo had anything to do with them?"

"I don't, but it's always a possibility to consider. It's also possible he has no idea who these girls are, and that they were seeded into his academy without him knowing that there was anything remarkable about them."

"But which is more likely, Oz?"

Qrow hated to think that Leonardo had anything to do with this, but at the same time it was inconceivable. Unless the man somehow possessed technology or some other method of preventing Raven's Semblance from allowing her to travel to Yang. Unless it was Raven herself who was lying...

There were too many questions. Too many variables. Qrow didn't know what to do, and he hated that feeling. He wanted to take some course of action, but the uncertainty of the situation didn't allow him to do anything.

"Leonardo is a trusted lieutenant of mine, and I will give him the benefit of the doubt. That does not mean, however, that I will blindly trust him or this... Team AWRY."

That was a plan Qrow could agree with. Leo may have been a good friend and comrade, but this stank too much to not have something fishy going on.

"Probably for the best," Qrow agreed. "So where do we go from here? You gonna lock them up or something until we get an explanation of who they are or where they came from?"

"Of course not," the Headmaster dismissed. Calm brown eyes peered up at Qrow past his glasses. "These children have done nothing wrong. I don't believe them to be guilty of anything. After all, who can fault those we thought long dead for being alive?"

"Well someone's guilty of something!"

Ozpin took a sip of his mystery drink. "Perhaps."

Perhaps. Perhaps. What an annoying, smug way of agreeing while simultaneously dismissing the matter entirely. One of Ozpin's favorite words. Deflect. Distract. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

"In any case, we will observe," Ozpin said. "I do not believe there to be anything nefarious about these students, but like you said, this is a very big coincidence to find them here. Perhaps the girls were found by good, honest people and were raised outside the kingdoms. Perhaps they were raised well, and even with new role models still decided to pursue the dream of becoming huntresses. We simply do not have enough information about them yet to make a decision."

It was a good point. At the same time, however, Qrow hated these sorts of waiting games. "You and your three-dimensional chess..." he muttered.

"We will observe," Ozpin repeated. "As their new professor you are in a unique position to not only keep an eye on them, but to question them directly under the guise of a teacher learning more about his students. After all, the greatest teachers ask questions not only about the material they teach, but about the students themselves."

Qrow normally hated teaching. It's why he dropped the gig at Signal. A bunch of brats thinking they were hot shit because they had a Semblance and a weapon. It was ignorant and childish arrogance. The kind of mindset that was usually wiped out after a single mission in the field.

Here, however... Qrow very much looked forward to getting back into the teaching game.

"Yeah," he agreed. "I'll get to the bottom of this. I'll start teaching here at Beacon full time if it means getting to spend every day with them."

"What a frightening thought," Ozpin quipped.

The fact that Ozpin just made a joke was unusual, but in the grand scheme of things it was the least concerning thing about this whole situation.

"Joke all you want, but I'm in this for the long haul," Qrow stated firmly. "I don't know why they're here. Or how they're here. Or what happened in the past to lead them here. But those are my girls, even if I'm not their father. I don't know what they've been through or what they plan on doing, but I'm not going to give up on them. I'll die before I let them slip away again. I just can't help but wonder what they're doing at this very moment..."

"Right hand yellow!"

Oh dear. This was going to be a difficult one. Especially because it involved...

"Why hello there, big boy," the grinning smile of Yang greeted the boy as he reached down.

It had been a simple suggestion. A simple decision. Go down to Vale on one of their off days and have fun! Explore! Do some shopping! Sure, that had all been fun and good. Especially when he had suggested that they purchase a game or two to help alleviate their boredom while stuck at Beacon.

Twister had turned out to an innocent enough choice at the time. In practice, however...

Jaune reached over to the nearest free yellow circle with his hand, a path which took him dangerously close to a busty blonde clad in a school girl uniform. The hand ran in between her widely-stretched legs, and put his face dangerously near hers. Bright lilac eyes danced with mischief as the two stood, or rather hunched over, mere inches apart.

"Hey... Yang..." he managed uneasily. Not only because of the physical strain of bending, but due to his proximity to the suggestive hybrid.

Behind him he could sense the presence of Weiss as she too worked to get her hand in the new position. Though he couldn't see her, he could only imagine the jealousy radiating from her to see her mate so close to a girl who wasn't her.

"Looking a little wobbly there," Yang commented, noticing how his elbow and knees were beginning to shake a little bit in such a compromising position. His closeness to such a beautiful girl wasn't doing him any favors either. "I don't think anyone would blame you if you fell forward. Don't worry, I'd be there to cushion your fall."

She wasn't wrong. In the position they both found themselves in, Jaune had a prime opportunity to sneak a peek down Yang's shirt and get a glimpse of her hidden treasures. If he were to fall forward his face would undoubtedly collide with them. It made the prospect of losing the game oh so tantalizing...

"Yang, stop trying to seduce Jaune and play the game fairly!" Ruby, the game's referee, squawked from the sidelines.

He was sure that jealousy had nothing to do with her outburst either. Absolutely sure...

"Yeah, yeah, whatever." Yang turned her attention back to Jaune, the coy smile on her lips betraying her words. "Just fall, Jaune. You could say Weiss pushed you."

"Don't make me come over there!" the white-haired hybrid snarled. There was a strain in her voice as well, presumably due to her own position atop the game mat.

Why had he agreed to play Twister with these girls? He knew there was absolutely no way this could end well.

"Okay, spinning for the next move," Ruby announced. The soft whirl of the game's cheap spinning device filled the air for a couple seconds before it ground to a halt. "Horn to red!"

Jaune's eyes narrowed even as he was still staring down the twin peaks of Mount Yang. "Horn?" he questioned. "Ruby, there's no horn option on a game of human Twister!"

"Yeah, well, I just thought I'd spice things up."

The flesh of the hybrid before him began to shift and pale, and soon enough he was staring down into the white, black-veined skin of the fun-loving and dangerous hybrid. Eyes shifted up to stare into Yang's own glowing crimson orbs.

"You heard the lady," she grinned. "Horn to red."

"B-but I don't have a horn," he protested.

Ruby knew he didn't have a horn, too. Out of all the girls in this dorm room only she knew he was a human being. He couldn't transform like Yang and Weiss in order to place their horns on the red circle.

"Right. I know how important it is to stay in your human form at all times. So I guess you'll just have to substitute."

"Substitute with wh...at..."

Yang wiggled her eyebrows, her gaze falling to below Jaune's waist. His own eyes went wide. A shiver ran down his spine. She wanted him to...

His thoughts were interrupted before he could even continue his train of thought as Yang took a large whiff of air next to his neck. "You smell really good right now. You've always had a particularly good scent about you."

That was something the hybrids had been telling him since he arrived at the school. What they mistook as a pleasant scent had always simply been his own fear and negative emotions. Only Ruby knew the truth due to knowing his true nature. He wasn't about to correct Yang about the matter right now.

Baleful red eyes continued to stare into him. "Come on, Jaune. Horn to red. Or... if it's easier for you, you could always just stick that horn straight into yellow..."

As much as he had grown immune to some things, there were others he would simply never get used to. Blake, and all of her Blakeyness was the first and foremost. The next on the list was Yang and her tantalizingly tempting flirtations. Despite the fact that he was with Ruby and Weiss, he couldn't help his thoughts from wandering to the well-endowed blonde in moments like this. He was still just a teenage boy. He was only human, after all. And therein lay the problem.

Jaune felt himself losing his balance, but not through his own actions. Something was tugging from behind him, and as he twisted to turn around and confront the source he lost his footing completely. A pair of arms came to wrap around his torso, and Jaune fell forward straight onto the petite body of Weiss.

It was an all too familiar sight, being positioned directly atop the small yet aggressive hybrid. A single, proud horn jutted from her forehead, and blackened cheeked blushed below a pair of hungry red eyes. Arms were wrapped around his back, and legs locked around his waist.

Jealousy at its finest. All to get his attention off of Yang.

"So aggressive," Weiss whispered into his ear. "But if you insist on taking me right here and now..."

Right, because it had been his decision to fall on top of Weiss. Jaune wasn't buying her innocence for a minute. He knew about her and her... kink.

It thankfully didn't last long, as he felt a powerful hand grip the back of his own shirt and pull him up despite the protests of Weiss' limbs. Torn off of the girl like a band-aid, Yang and her monstrous arm dangled him mid-air for a moment before setting him back down on his feet.

"None of that right now," she said. Ironic, considering she had been the one propositioning him only a few moments earlier. Jealousy was a two-way street, he supposed.

Ruby gasped, tossing aside the game spinner. "That's right! We gotta get to the last class of the day!"

Jaune brushed himself off, taking out his scroll to check the time. Their little break time was over, and it was time to go to Professor Port's Grimm Studies class. Or rather, the new substitute teacher's class.

"Tch," Yang dismissed. Her human hand rested defiantly on her hip. "Why bother?"

Jaune frowned. He knew that Yang wasn't a fan of classrooms outside of the ones where she got to fight, but even she didn't normally suggest blowing off class.

"I hate to agree with Yang, but tch indeed," Weiss echoed, only in her case phonetically speaking the scoff rather than it coming naturally as Yang's had. "This new professor is a drunkard and a scoundrel. Yesterday he reeked of fermented hops and barley, and that gives me little hope that he could live up to the... impressive standards of Professor Port..."

Had Jaune not known that Weiss had eyes for him, he would have thought that the hybrid had a crush on Professor Port. Her dreamy manner of speech certainly made it seem that way.

"Still, we have to go," Jaune insisted. "We can't stand out in any way. Standing out means people will ask questions. Ones we don't want to answer."

He moved to grab his uniform jacket from the bed and slipped it on. The girls did the same to complete their own ensembles, reverting back to their human forms as they did. Especially important in Yang's case.

"Whatever," Yang breathed. She was annoyed. Why, Jaune couldn't say.

Gathering up their backpacks, Team AWRY set out to attend Qrow's class. Jaune could only hope the man would be sober this time around.

"You all think you're ready," Professor Branwen said. Qrow Branwen was the man's full name, as it turned out. "You think you know things, but you don't. One day out there is worth a week in here," he gestured to the window, indicating the world of Remnant as a whole.

Well at least he wasn't drunk. But he also wasn't pulling any punches telling them how unready they were for the world outside of Beacon. Jaune knew full well now just how unready he was for everything.

The boy sat in his usual seat, flanked by his usual teammates with Weiss on his right and Ruby on his left. Yang sat on the other side of her sister. All in all, a normal setup for Grimm Studies.

Qrow stood before the class, hands in his pockets as he stared up at the tiered seats of students. There were awkward starts and stops to his lecture. Sudden pauses. Lingering glares. Was this man even a teacher at all? Jaune had to believe it, as there was no way the Headmaster of Beacon Academy would bring in just anyone to instruct the future huntsmen of Remnant. But with the way Professor Branwen was going on... it filled him with doubt.

A gruff sigh slipped through the lips of their new teacher. Hands came out of his pockets and he all but threw them in the air in what seemed like frustration. Maybe he wasn't good in front of crowds. That was pretty bad for a teacher. That also only reinforced the idea that he wasn't a teacher at all.

"You know what? Forget it," the man said. "Tell me, what was Port teaching you yesterday? Where did he leave off in his lesson plan?"

Weiss' hand shot into the air. It figured that she would be the only one to actually know or remember what that old man had been rambling about.

"Yes, Miss... Slate was it?"

Weiss nodded firmly. "Yes. Professor Port was teaching us about the time he saved a village from not only a pack of Beowolves, but then an Ursa Major as well."

Qrow snorted a laugh. "Is that so?"

"Yes. He also told us about the customary reward offered to huntsmen by those who have been saved."

"Customary... reward?"

"In which the fairest young maiden of the village offers herself up to the hero as compensation for his services," Weiss explained. "Professor Port was, as he put it, quite the stud back in his day."

Jaune clenched his eyes shut as snickers sounded all around him. He wasn't sure if they were laughing at Weiss or laughing at Port's words. Maybe they mistook Weiss as mocking Port herself, quoting him verbatim. Had he not known that Weiss was being one hundred percent genuine, he probably would have thought otherwise himself.

"So that's the kind of nonsense he's been teaching you," Qrow sighed. "Great. Looks like I gotta start from scratch here. I can't believe I'm about to ask this, but knowing Port it looks like I have to. Do you all know what Grimm are attracted to?"

Me, Jaune's mind said silently. He looked around, and a number of students raised their hands.

"Yes, Miss Nikos?" he called.

"Negativity," she answered confidently and correctly. "The Grimm are drawn to all sorts of negative emotions, and seek to destroy humanity as well as our creations."

"Good, at least you all know that much. Thank the gods for small miracles..."

Honestly Jaune couldn't blame the man for being skeptical about Port's teaching methods and curriculum. It left much to be desired. The boy had probably learned more about Grimm anatomy by sleeping with hybrids than he did from the old teacher.

"Okay, so you know the basics I suppose. Attracted to negativity. Destroy humanity and their creations. Mindless beasts bent on destruction."

Weiss' hand shot into the air once more. Jaune's brow furrowed as he gave her a curious look.

"Yes, Miss Slate?"

"Mindless would hardly be the word to describe them," she protested. "The creatures of Grimm follow a strict hierarchy structure in which the strong dominate the weak."

The statement gave their professor pause, and even from up here Jaune could see that Qrow arched an eyebrow of his own. "Almost correct," he said with some surprise. "The presence of Alpha creatures does tell us that Grimm become more powerful as time goes on, but there's nothing to suggest that they have anything resembling any sort of social structure in which the strong have control over the lesser creatures."

"False!" Weiss again protested. "Alpha Grimm possess complex synapse nodes which they use to control and direct the movements of weaker Grimm."

Jaune could feel the attention of his classmates turning on Weiss. All around students moved to face her as she confronted their new professor. This was not following the plan of not standing out...

"Is that so?" Qrow offered. "And where did you hear about these 'synapse nodes'?" he asked, using fingers to make air quotations.

"From-"

"Haven!" Jaune interrupted quickly. He couldn't trust the girl to not say something incriminating right now. Leave it to Weiss to finally know what she was talking about, only for that knowledge to be rather... privileged for lack of a better term. "We're second year students. So we've, um, learned more than other students I guess?"

Qrow held his gaze for a few seconds. "Haven," he muttered. His eyes lingered on Jaune a little while longer before moving on. "And what about you two, Miss... Rouge. Miss Xanthic. You learn about synapse nodes at Haven?"

Ruby seemed to shrink under the man's accusatory glare. Yang on the other hand remained defiant, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Yeah. What of it?" the blonde offered.

Qrow held his own hands up defensively, sensing the tension in the air. "Nothing, nothing. Just the first I'm hearing of it is all. And I've only been a professional huntsman for the past twenty years."

"Obviously not a very good one," Yang muttered under her breath.

"What was that?"

Yang scoffed. "Nothing."

"I bet Professor Port would know what synapse nodes are," Weiss continued. Jaune wasn't sure if he should be thankful or not that doing so interrupted whatever issue Yang seemed to have with their new professor. "He would know about adrenal glands too. Toxin sacs. Bonded exoskeletons. Acidic ichor. Grimm are far more complex than the simple 'mindless beasts' you make them out to be. Any number of them can be completely distinct and unique by their biomorphs and experiences gained by living decades, or perhaps centuries in some cases."

It almost sounded as if Weiss was offended by Qrow's earlier words. That by calling Grimm mindless beasts, he was calling her a mindless beast. An insult that the proud, white-haired girl would not take lying down.

"Look, girl, you're saying a lot of words, and I'm not sure who taught them to you-"

"Proper education and teaching," Weiss interrupted.

"Yes, but from who?"

"Irrelevant!"

Jaune blinked, staring at the girl to his right. "Wow. You actually used that word right."

He received a stern headbutt to the shoulder in return. "I always use my words right!"

"Children, children," Qrow called out, trying to restore some semblance of order to the room. "Save the fighting for Glynda's class. Okay?"

Weiss harrumphed, folding her arms across her own chest much like Yang had.

Jaune leaned over to speak in her ear. "You really need to stop headbutting me," he whispered.

An icy glare was sent his way. He swallowed hard under its cold stare. Eventually she turned away, settling back into a relaxed position.

"I will have to find a way to bring you to heel without my horn, it seems." Her voice was low, an edge to it that made Jaune flush from the game of twister before.

He wasn't sure if this was something to look forward to or not.

"Now if we're done with the hubbub," Qrow started, glaring at Weiss. "Let's continue. Miss Xanthic, I'd like you to come down here."

Jaune groaned to himself, fearing the worst. However Yang made no comment, unnervingly calm as she diligently rose and descended down the stairs. Only now did Jaune realize, holster strapped to her leg, that she was carrying her shotgun. The very idea of it made him want to shrink into his seat. A normal student carrying around their weapon would be odd, Yang carrying around her blood-earned weapon was terrifying.

But again she surprised him, arriving at the center floor without a care. She showed no signs of being any more bothered than she normally was. Crossing her arms, she waited for further instruction. Instruction Qrow was slow to give, Jaune noticing the man looking stunned. Qrow blinked as Yang quirked an eyebrow at him.

"What's the matter, teach? You look like you've seen a ghost."

Qrow glared at her before pulling out a controller. "I want to see just how good Haven has been at teaching you basic Grimm defense. Port left me, on top of some cryptic notes and what looks to be an especially detailed biography, a test." Pressing the button, a cage rose up from the opening floor. "Say when you're ready."

Yang smirked, drawing her shotgun. "Always ready."

Qrow stepped up into the stands, pressing the second button. "Then let's see what you can do, firecracker."

The cage fell away, revealing a pissed off boar Grimm. Boarbatusk, Jaune believed they were called. Snorting, the pig tilted its head in confusion at Yang. She however held no hesitation, rushing the beast and sliding into it, kicking its hoofed feet out from underneath it. Popping it up into the air Yang snatched one of its tusks, a flare of yellow aura bursting as she smashed the Grimm into the stone floor beneath them.

Then, with a hideous crack, she jumped away from the beast. From her left hand she held its now broken tusk, taunting the monster with it. The Boarbatusk was quick to get back to its hooves, making angered noises as it shot out at Yang. Twisting itself into a ball it spun toward her at extreme speed. Speed that did not seem to matter to the girl who casually moved out of the way, easily sidestepping the beast.

The Boarbatusk smashed into the far wall, bouncing off and rebounding back at her. Yang, grinning, met the spinning attack with her left fist, grinning violently as yellow sparks shot from the impact. Suddenly the Grimm started squealing, falling to the ground, his own broken tusk stabbed into his underside. Jaune's eyes widened as he realized she used its own attack to stab it instead. The Boarbatusk started thrashing, until Yang stomped down on the tusk, making it cry out and go incredibly still. Yet still unnervingly alive.

Yang's grin turned violent as she ground her foot into the broken tusk, slowly driving it in further.

"End the fight already!"

Qrow's shout caught Jaune by surprise. The man looked sickened by the display. Looking around, Jaune found that most of the students were wearing similar looks of dismay or horror. What he had been watching with so much interest, they could barely stomach. How much had he changed? A deafening boom brought him out of his introspection, the Boarbatusk's head splattered across the floor, Yang's shotgun smoking from both barrels. As its remains evaporated she flipped her hair before looking up at Qrow.

"That good enough, Qrow?"

Qrow looked shaken. He came back down to his temporary desk, watching Yang saunter back up to her seat. "Going to have to ask Lionheart," was all Jaune could hear him muttering to himself.

Weiss snorted. "Show off. I could have killed such a simple threat far more efficiently." She grinned to Jaune. "But do you feel that wonderful swell in the air Jaune? It's so delicious!"

That swell was the fear Yang managed to produce in the hearts of many of the younger students, sympathy for a Grimm of all things. Jaune's throat was dry as Weiss laughed at the despair of her fellow classmates. Finally he took her by the hand.

"We should go."

Weiss looked at him holding her hand and for once did not argue. Instead she allowed him to pull her up and followed diligently as he collected Ruby.

"What for? It feels so nice in here!"

She didn't argue much when he took her by the hand as well. Yang was already standing, deciding she was going to leave one way or the other. Qrow watched them, but to Jaune's surprise, did not make a move to stop them. Class would have been over soon anyways, he reasoned. They stepped out into the hall with no further incident.

"Weiss, Ruby, could you get changed into something casual? I'd like to talk with Yang." Jaune hoped they wouldn't fuss.

Thankfully they didn't seem to care much, the two bantering as they wandered off to their dorm. Alpha male indeed, he mused. His mates in the pack followed orders from him to the letter. In times like this it turned out to prove very useful.

Looking around he found they were alone. Yang was watching him warily. Still it paid to be safe, and he guided her over to a secluded corner where he urged her up against the wall. He stood in front of her, shielding the girl from any prying eyes that may have been behind them. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a pair of lovers who were about to make out in the hallway.

"Look big boy, I'm into a lot of things, but we're not going to go at it here," she joked.

"You can't do that to people."

She grinned. "That wasn't a people. Not one these humans consider people, anyway. Just what you heard Qrow call them. A mindless beast."

Jaune's eyes narrowed. "The way you talked to him. Do you know him?"

"Of course," she laughed. "He's our uncle. My uncle. Must really be hard for him, seeing me and Ruby like this."

Jaune's eyes went wide. Uncle...

"Yang..."

Her eyes flared red as she grabbed him by the front of his shirt. They reminded him of her Grimm eyes, only here they were present in her human form. "Don't Yang me! If he really loved us, he would have come after us! He would have forced my mother to tell him what happened to us! I don't care what his excuse is, he abandoned us." Her grin returned, revealing too many teeth. "But what does it matter? When he knows what we are, he'll just want us dead. Just like every other human alive. There is no happy ending here, Jaune."

The outburst took Jaune aback. Where was this coming from? Yang had always seemed so carefree. So content with her life as a hybrid. It was all normal for her. But now what was this? Was it regret?

He knew that she knew her birth mother. Unlike Ruby and Weiss, Yang had memories of her past. She hadn't been too young or too damaged by the transformation to forget everything. Those memories obviously included her uncle.

Her uncle obviously remembered her, too.

Blackened veins begun to creep up the exposed flesh of her neck. Even now her skin had begun to pale. No... she was losing her grip on her humanity. And it was showing.

"Yang..." he whispered. He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Yang not out here. You can't-"

Her arm moved with a flash, slapping his offending hand from her shoulder. "This is your fault. Ever since that day, ever since my Aura was unlocked... and Ruby told me how much she loved me... I haven't been myself anymore. I remember things I wish I didn't. Only now I'm regretting them. I'm regretting what I don't have." She shuddered, her eyes closing and voice becoming shaky. "What I lost."

With those softly spoken words the twisting black veins began to subside, and color returned to her flesh. Despite the fact that she was in pain right now, it was still human. Sorrow was as human as any love was, and right now Yang's heart appeared to be filled with it. It was sadly far better than the animalistic rage that would have transformed her into her hybrid form.

At the very least she wasn't completely freaking out like Blake had that one time back at Salem's academy. Qrow had thanked the gods for small miracles. This was one of them.

How could he convince her that things would be okay? How could he ask her to trust in her family, and say that they wouldn't kill her? Yang still believed him to be a hybrid, after all. He couldn't very well use himself as an example of a human being able to accept her for what she was.

She let go of him, turning away, hand resting on her shotgun. "They're going to find out. They're going to find out that we're monsters and they're going to try to kill us. And I'll be ready. All my life has been a fight, Jaune. And that's how I'll die. Nothing's different, nothing's changed." She turned away, walking down the hall as students began to pour out of their classes, quickly getting lost in the crowd. "See you later, lady killer."

To that Jaune didn't know how to respond.

Author's Note: And we're back. Sorry for not posting last week, was just feeling a bit burnt out from writing. I've also been drifting away from the roots and support system which got this fic up and running in the first place. I'm going to try getting back to that. Hopefully it'll turn out for the best.

It's been a while since we got some Yang love. She's always been the weakest developed of the RWBY foursome in my eyes, so hopefully this lends a little more insight to her as a character and why she acts the way she does.

As always my thanks go out to Burkion, Lightningstrxu, as well as everyone else out there for their help, support, and love. I truly appreciate you all, and hope that you enjoyed this latest chapter.

Thanks for reading.