When Team BWWA entered Forever Fall at about 6:30 a.m., they had no idea what had befallen their fellow first-years earlier in the morning, nor why Glynda looked absolutely murderous—or, er, more murderous than usual.

Jaune was simply grateful that no one on his team had complained even once to the professor during the mission briefing or on the whole ride over to Forever Fall. Not even Cardin!

Simply put, Jaune was over the moon. Not only had Weiss miraculously returned to the team sometime during the night, nothing bad had happened to him for almost twelve hours now—a new record since his arrival at Beacon! Sure, he had been asleep for more than half that time, but it still counted in his book. He shook his head to clear some of the stubborn memories lingering from his first day. Nope. It was a new day, and it was time for his team to turn a new leaf.

"I will be waiting at the far end of the trail," Glynda said as the Bullhead dropped Team BWWA off. "I want you to meet me there in no less than an hour. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, ma'am!" Jaune said, saluting her awkwardly.

Glynda sighed, rubbing her forehead. "Please call me Professor. Now, I expect perfect behavior from all of you on this mission. You are the huntsmen and huntresses of tomorrow, charged with protecting humanity from the Grimm. Act your station." The 'or else' went unspoken, but Jaune still gulped.

With those ominous words, the Bullhead with Glynda took off, leaving Team BWWA alone at the trailhead.

Jaune eyed Weiss. He'd show her that he could be a leader, and that she wouldn't regret coming back. He held up the egg Glynda had given to him. "I propose we entrust this to Blake," he said with as much confidence as he could muster.

"Eh?" the black-haired girl asked. Her eyes were bloodshot. Jaune wondered if the girl had gotten any sleep at all.

"I saw your shadow clones during Initiation," Jaune said. "I think you're the best at dodging heavy hits out of all of us."

"I can't fault the logic in that," Weiss said, picking her fingernail.

Cardin simply shrugged.

"Ok, sure," Blake acquiesced after a moment, taking the egg from Jaune.

Oh my Gods, had his team actually listened to him?

Jaune forged forwards in his speech, confidence growing with every word. On the ride over he'd spent time formulating the perfect plan in his head, and he was simply sure it would work. "I think Cardin should walk at the front. He's our strongest pure-melee fighter and can engage any Grimm that rush straight at us. Weiss should be right behind him, supporting him with ranged dust attacks."

"Uh, Weiss'll be right behind me?" Cardin said nervously.

Weiss's hand fell to the hilt of her rapier. "Got a problem with that?" she asked sharply.

"Errr, nope!" Cardin said quickly, clearly thinking of the two previous times in the past twenty-four hours the Schnee heiress had used him as her personal punching bag. Or Dust attack test subject? "No problem at all."

"Great," Jaune said. "Blake will be third since it'll be the most secure position. I'll bring up the rear to protect Blake and call out any adjustments in our formation as necessary."

"Hmm, not a bad plan," Weiss said, assessing him, hand on her hip.

"Thanks!" Jaune brightened.

"Where was this attitude yesterday?" Weiss finished, immediately deflating him.

"Come on, let's just go," Blake said with an eye roll, immediately setting off down the trail.

"Wait! We need to stay in formation!" Jaune said, running after Blake.

With the surprising help of Weiss, who seemed to have elected herself the drill sergeant of the group, Team BWWA was walking in formation and making fast progress down the trail ten minutes later. Oddly enough, they'd encountered almost no Grimm, only a lone Beowulf or two that were easily taken care of by Cardin at the front.

"I wonder where all the Grimm are?" Jaune speculated.

"Don't—" A loud roar interrupted Weiss from farther up the trail. "—jinx it," she finished with a glare.

"Good going, Jauney-boy," Cardin said mockingly, swinging his mace leisurely in anticipation. "I was just starting to get bored."

"Hold positions!" Jaune ordered. Damn it, why did his voice have to crack just then?

The trees surrounding them suddenly seemed ominous. Every snap of a twig he thought was the footsteps of a Grimm, every falling red petal he thought was one of their glowing red eyes. Sweat beaded on his forehead and he fiddled with his sword.

"Focus," Weiss said sharply. "Control your fear. They'll smell you."

"I'll say," Blake muttered under her breath.

With an explosion of red petals, an Alpha Beowulf burst out of the brush ten feet in front of them, its roar rattling Jaune to his bones. Its smaller kin rushed out from around the Alpha, only a third the size of the leader but still just as tall as Jaune was.

"Heh. You're on," Cardin said, pointing his mace at the Alpha and starting to move.

"Don't you even think about it!" Weiss barked. "Hold your position!"

"Psh, I wasn't going to do anything," Cardin said, the high note in his voice giving away his lie. As the lesser Beowolves charged BWWA, Cardin activated the fire dust in his mace and swung it underhand directly into the first one that lunged at him.

The Executioner caught the Beowulf underneath the chin and detonated on impact, blowing the creature of darkness's head to smithereens.

"Weiss! The flanks!" Jaune called out, but his partner was already on it. Two bolts of ice dust shot out from her rapier and froze the two Beowulfs attempting to encircle Cardin while he engaged his next opponent.

"Yes!" Jaune pumped his fist before his gaze narrowed in on the alpha. It hadn't moved since the start of the fight, seemingly content to watch Weiss and Cardin decimate his underlings.

Then, out of nowhere, the Alpha started running. "Huh?" Jaune said aloud. Then a cold realization hit him. It wasn't running away from them, or even at them—it was going to flank them!

Weiss simply couldn't support Cardin and keep the Alpha occupied at the same time. She would need help, or their formation would be shattered.

"Blake, fire upon the Alpha at range," he said, shifting his feet. "Don't get close. I'll take it on."

"What?!" Blake exclaimed. "But you can't—"

But Jaune was already gone. As Weiss and Cardin continued to battle the Beowolves at the front, Jaune rushed out to the side, activating his shield and stepping directly into the path of the charging Alpha. His heart beat at a thousand miles per minute. He could do this. He was a Huntsman! He braced his feet and lifted his shield as the Alpha swung its huge paw at him—

Wait, why was he flying?

Reality slammed into him, quite literally, as his back collided with a tree. Black and red tinted the edges of his vision. The world spun. Where was he? Who was he?

After a few moments, his head cleared enough to realize he was over thirty feet away from where he'd been before. And that their carefully-planned formation was totally shattered.

Blake, Cardin, and Weiss ran in circles, peppering the Alpha and its minions as best they could, but they were on the back foot.

Then, Weiss activated several glyphs, allowing Blake to race in close to the Alpha, sped up by the heiress's semblance. Her quick slashes did not appear to damage the Alpha's bone armor, but its heavy, retaliatory swipe missed Blake as she used a shadow clone to flash away. Its paw crashed into the dirt, unbalancing the Alpha for a moment. But that moment was all his teammates needed. Cardin's heavy mace collided with the Alpha's back and detonated, wreathing the creature in flame.

Its screech told Jaune that that blow had, in fact, hurt. It swung wildly, knocking Cardin off his feet and flying into Blake.

"That's it," he realized, finally getting back to his feet. If he couldn't block its blow, he needed to redirect its force. If he could successfully do that with his shield, he could unbalance it and give his team another golden opportunity to damage the Alpha. Given the state of the Alpha's bone armor, he doubted it could withstand another blow from Cardin's mace.

"Cover me and be ready!" Jaune yelled as he sprinted directly at the Alpha once again.

Weiss's eyes widened as he rushed by her. "Don't! Your Aura can't withstand a blow like that again—"

But Jaune wasn't stopping. He slid to a stop in front of the Alpha and screamed, "HEY!"

The Alpha's attention turned away from Cardin and Blake towards him. Its red eyes bore directly into his soul. Jaune steeled his knees, heart, and his grip on his shield. The Alpha lunged, bringing his paw directly down on Jaune.

At the last moment, Jaune shifted his weight and the angle of his shield, deflecting its paw to the side. The Alpha roared in confusion as it stumbled forward, losing its footing. Jaune raised his sword right as the Alpha fell forwards. And as Jaune was crushed under the Alpha's weight, his sword slid home.

Jaune's face was buried in its fur, but he felt its roar of pain. He attempted to twist his sword deeper, but he was completely pinned by the creature's weight. Worse yet, he could hardly breathe! The Alpha's weight was crushing, and his consciousness started to flicker…

Then, his world exploded.

When he came to, the Alpha was gone, black dust drifting through the air as it disintegrated. Looking around, the lesser Beowolves had been taken care of, too.

"We… won?" Jaune said groggily, sitting up.

Weiss rushed over to him with a relieved expression. "You absolute dolt," she said, but for the first time, her words didn't have any real force behind them.

"That was quite the battle," Cardin remarked. His gaze was assessing. "I'm surprised you were able to endure that blow from the Alpha. I thought you were done for, Jauney-boy."

Blake said nothing, but even she seemed pleased.

Warmth filled Jaune's heart. Was this really happening? He smiled as he got back to his feet. "We did it," he said. "We did it together." Then a bolt of realization. "Wait, Blake, the egg!"

Blake dug into her pouch and pulled the egg out. It looked perfectly fine at first glance, but then he froze. At the top of the egg was a tiny crack. It wasn't deep enough to ooze yolk, but the shell was clearly broken.

"We failed," Jaune said in disbelief, his spirits crashing once more.

Without a word, Weiss lifted her rapier and froze the egg in a small block of ice. "There," she said with a smirk. "It won't break any more. And I don't think Glynda will be able to see a crack that small through the ice."

Cardin and Jaune gaped at her. Then, Jaune scratched his head awkwardly. "Man, we should've done that at the start," he said.

Cardin let out a short laugh of agreement and rested his mace on his shoulder.

Weiss harrumphed, but Jaune saw the smile threatening at the edges of her face. "Well, I'll remember that the next time we're tasked with transporting an egg through Grimm territory."

Jaune laughed.

"Guys, I think we're running out time," Blake said, looking at her scroll.

Jaune turned to her. "You're right!" He said. "We should—" he stopped abruptly, finally noticing what was missing from the girl's attire. "Wait… you have…"

Yep. In the excitement, no one had noticed. Just a handful of feet away, Blake's black bow lay on the ground, knocked off at some point during the battle. Leaving her cat ears exposed for all to see.

And suddenly the moment they had been sharing was gone.

It chilled Jaune how quickly Cardin's expression transformed from one of good humor to pure, visceral rage. "An animal," he hissed. "I should have known from that damn poster."

"Why didn't you tell us?" Weiss said accusingly, her voice wavering with some buried emotion.

Cardin activated his mace and leveled it at the girl. "Tell me right now—are you with the White Fang?" he growled.

"I… I…." she backed away. "I can't do this," Blake said, activating her semblance and disappearing into the shadows.

"GET BACK HERE!" Cardin roared. Jaune stared at the auburn boy in horror. It was like another person entirely had taken over Cardin's body. "COWARD!" A tear shone in Cardin's eye.

"I can't believe this," Weiss whispered. "She was in our room. She was in my room while I was sleeping."

"Guys," Jaune said, trying to wrestle back control of the spiraling situation. "All we know is that she's a Faunus. There's nothing wrong with being a Faunus. She isn't necessarily a member of the White Fang."

"How do you know that?" Weiss snapped.

"She ran," Cardin said, slamming his mace into the soil. "That's an admission of guilt if I've ever seen one."

"All those Faunus…" Weiss said. "They all support the White Fang, openly or not."

Jaune wasn't educated nor bold enough to challenge the girl's statement, but he was pretty sure that wasn't true.

Blake had left the egg behind, still frozen in the block of ice. Jaune walked over and picked it up, turning and facing his two remaining teammates. "Let's finish our mission," he said, "and then we need to go find our teammate."

Cardin was positively murderous. "I'll find her, alright," he said, stalking past Jaune up the trail.

"I don't want to see her ever again," Weiss said quietly. Jaune found he couldn't read the normally volatile girl anymore. It was as if a mask had suddenly slid over her face.

The final part of the journey happened in silence. Thankfully, since they had already killed every Grimm in the immediate vicinity, their path was clear. They reached the exit point only ten minutes later.

"You're late," Glynda barked. Then her eyes scanned the three teens in front of her. "Where is Blake?"

Neither Weiss nor Cardin said anything.

"She left," Jaune said. Glynda was too stunned for words, so Jaune handed her the egg.

Their professor assessed the egg before sliding it away into her bag. "I would have considered this a pass, if only Blake had been here alongside you," she said after a long moment.

"I know," Jaune said.

The three teens filed onto the airship, which quickly took off back for Beacon. As stunned as Jaune was by the events of the morning, he somehow wasn't left without hope. Their teamwork against the Alpha, their shared laughter after their victory. That hadn't been a lie. Jaune refused to believe it was. Blake was a good person and an essential part of their team. He knew that in his heart. He looked at Cardin, and then at Weiss, and felt his resolve harden. His teammates would see that too, one day.

But first, he needed to find his missing teammate.

…

High above Beacon in his office at the top of the tower, Ozpin frowned as he reviewed the results of the first remediation exercise for BWWA, RYND, and RVST on his monitor. All three teams had managed to fail the task he had set out for them, all in entirely different ways.

He leaned back in his chair and let out a sigh, taking a long sip of his coffee. He truly was at a loss on what to do about the first-year students. They were the most troublesome bunch he'd ever had at Beacon, and that was saying something, considering it had only been forty-eight hours since their arrival on academy grounds. He was frustrated—and no, not just because he might lose his bet with Professor Port.

He'd handpicked each one of them to join his school out of the hundreds of applications he'd reviewed. He'd always selected students based on potential, not accolades. That was especially the case for Jaune, whose transcripts were obviously faked, and for Blake, a former agent of the White Fang. But more importantly, he chose his students based on how unique their skill sets were.

On his monitor, he replayed BWWA's fight against the Alpha. Their fight had been far from perfect, but they'd shown several flashes of excellence. It was perhaps the only glimmer of hope he'd had when reviewing the teams' exercises. If only the teens could see that they were stronger together—that their differences could bring out the best in each other, not the worst.

Clearly they weren't ready for another remediation exercise just yet. Perhaps some time to rest and reflect might be best for the teens.

Professor Port cleared his throat from the far corner of the office. "Oz… I know our usual policy is lenience, but I wonder if now is perhaps the time to take firmer action."

"No," Ozpin said, still staring at his monitor. "The Grimm do not play fair, nor take mercy. If they cannot handle the pressure nor get along with others, it's best to find out now than out in the field."

Port scratched his mustache. "But this is more than the usual first-year drama. I think they might all actually fail out."

A pause. "They might," Ozpin admitted.

"Twelve students, Oz. They need help."

"I know," Ozpin said. "I won't intervene, Port. They need to learn to resolve their issues on their own. But perhaps… hmm." He took another deep sip of his coffee as he considered his next move.

…

A/N: I greatly appreciate all the reviews on the last chapter! Each one made my day :)