Just wanted to thank everyone for their continued support!


My scream was high-pitched, a shrill sound I thought I was incapable of making anymore at the ripe old age of twenty-two. That apparently was not the case as my voice cracked and eventually ceased as my throat went dry. This left me to stare in terror as tar-like tendrils emerged from Weiss' wound and wrapped around her abdomen. They worked quickly, shredding the majority of the tattered dress and then dropping to the floor alongside the fabric. I scooted farther away, looking over to Ruby in an attempt to try and preserve the woman's modesty.

It definitely wasn't because I was freaked the hell out. Yeah, definitely not because of that.

Weiss didn't seem to care much. I heard her grunt as she pushed herself to her feet, but I refused to look her way for multiple reasons. Instead, I continued to try and gauge Ruby's reaction to all of this, or, rather, her lack of reaction. She had grown bored of picking at her skirt, more interested in attempting to hide the growing smirk on my face at my own reaction to the whole thing. I scowled in her direction but stopped when a pair of white panties came into view. My breath hitched, but, being the gentleman I was raised to be, I brought my gaze higher. That did little to help since now I was staring at a smooth expanse of pale skin comprising Weiss' stomach. My eyes roamed higher, only to be met with the tantalizing view of her breasts covered by mere strings of her dress and the hint of a lacy bra. My heart beat wildly in my chest as I swallowed thickly.

She quirked an eyebrow. "Are you quite done?"

"Yes," I admitted, ashamed and ensuring my gaze didn't leave her mismatched eyes.

"Good. Your screaming was grating on my poor ears."

What? A part of me wanted to laugh in complete shock, while another part of me wanted to jump for joy in relief that she didn't realize I had been ogling her. Although was it really that? I didn't ask her to stand like that right in front of my face. Still, the larger, more rational part of me wanted to know how the hell any of this was even a concern when I was confronted by two monsters.

The more annoying monster chose that moment to cough into her fist. "Pervert…"

I flushed and grumbled out a complaint without any real heat. It was hard to defend myself when she technically wasn't wrong.

"Sorry about that, Weiss. I was just trying to make sure you weren't hurt anywhere," I said, hoping my apology would help get me in her good graces.

Her eyebrow remained raised on her face and I figured I was in for a verbal lashing. "You know my name."

I nodded at her statement, unsure what to say to that. Weiss flipped around and walked over to Ruby, pulling down the woman's hood and standing on her tiptoes to whisper in her ear. It wasn't like Ruby was that tall either. Weiss was just vertically challenged to the point that Blake had once compared her to a porcelain doll and not because of her looks. That had certainly earned the bookworm an earful she would never forget. I laughed quietly at the memory as the two continued to whisper back and forth to one another.

"Dolt!" Weiss shouted.

Ruby waved her hands in a frantic surrender placating the older woman with a hug. That was probably the hope at least. In reality, it ticked the former heiress off and had her shoving Ruby away with a few muffled curses. As she shuffled away from the small scuffle, I rose to my feet. Although she was a foot shorter than me, I felt small while she surveyed me from head to foot.

"You knew Ruby's name as well?"

"Yep."

"I see." She hummed to herself and flipped her long ponytail over her shoulder. "Yet, I don't recognize you. Are you a new creation?"

The same thing Nora had asked me. I nodded my head in response, carefully watching Ruby over the other woman's shoulder to see if she would rebuke me. She simply smiled, put a finger to her lip, and winked. Meaning my secret was safe for now. Probably.

"I am."

"If that's the case, then how do you know us?" she asked.

And that was the million lien question. I could easily tell them the truth, but what good would that do? They didn't have any of their past memories. At best, they might decide to laugh it off as me being born defective and walk away. At worst, they might kill me. Or Weiss would try to at the very least. It was growing increasingly difficult to get any kind of read on Ruby.

Instead, I decided to go ahead and go with an excuse I often used when I was in school. "I heard some first years talking about you guys."

Weiss preened at that, her smile all teeth. "How wonderful! Team WR's fame precedes even my wildest imagination. Between my accolades and our…"

I turned her out more interested in what she had just said about her team. It appeared that students were still grouped into teams at this academy. Furthermore, Salem either had the same poor taste in naming teams as Ozpin did or had decided to keep the initial system as a callback to Beacon. Either way, that wasn't the important part. Weiss had said that her team was WR, not RWBY.

"Hey," I asked, interrupting her never ending monologue, "where are Yang and Blake?"

There was a sudden change in the atmosphere, and even someone as unaware as me could feel it. The silence stretched on, a glance exchanged between the two the singular movement in the entrance hall. I half-expected the chandelier to dim and fade with how chilly the mood had gotten.

"Why do you ask?" Ruby asked, her voice hardly above a whisper.

I scratched the back of my neck, curious to what kind of landmine I had stepped on. "I just thought I heard them say something about Team RWBY."

Ruby sucked in a breath before turning away entirely. Her shoulders shook and the hood was once again pulled up over her head. Her teammate, on the other hand, sighed and yanked on the front of my sweatshirt to pull me closer. "What team are you on?"

"I'm not on any team," I said, briefly wondering if there was some test to be assigned to one.

Weiss released me and sighed to herself, grumbling something under her breath. When she turned back to me, she seemed defeated, a frown stretched across her face. "Do you remember who you heard this from? I don't want unsavory rumors flying around again."

I shook my head. "Sorry."

"If you do happen to recall, let me know."

"Right," I agreed.

A bell chimed from somewhere in the distance, startling me into backing up a step. The sound wasn't something played over the speakerphone like at Beacon either, considering there was no such technology here to facilitate that. Obviously, that meant it had to be coming from one of the bell towers I had seen on my way into here. It also meant that the bell faded away to become the sound of the crowd moving to wherever they were supposed to go. Weiss gripped my hand in hers, doing the same to Ruby, and then tugging us through the crowd.

"We'll talk more in our room."

Ruby said nothing, still preoccupied with staring at the ground, but I quickly agreed. She let us through the throng of students, some of them I could vaguely recognize from the battle at Vacuo. None of them were anyone I was close to, though, so I allowed Weiss to lead me to through the marble corridors. On occasion there would be framed pictures on the wall as we passed. I could only snort in derision when I realized every picture was one of Salem, just in a different pose.

How vain.

We took a turn and ended up in another alcove where there were a total of three doors. Surprisingly, the doors were made of wood, which must have been imported, considering trees had no chance of growing in this wasteland. Ignoring the troubling agricultural problems of the Land of Darkness–and what that meant for my future meals–I let go of Weiss' hand and pushed into the dorm room.

Unsure what to do with myself, I decided to lean on the doorframe while they settled in. Weiss took Ruby over to a bed opposite the door and sat her on it before sitting beside her. She kicked her short legs, her heels quietly pounding against the metal frame. "Now where to start..."