Hallway, Beacon Academy, Sanus.

"All I'm saying is that if any of you start coughing," Lima warned, "I'm moving to Vacuo—sand or otherwise."

"It's just a cold, Lima," Claire said, "Why are you freaking out?"

"Only a cold?" Lima said, aghast. "You say that now, but the second you come down with something, you'll turn into a twisted and warped version of yourself—"

"What does that even mean?" Claire said, furrowing her brow. "Are you scared of runny noses or something?"

"One sneeze," Lima insisted without answering her question. "If I even hear one sneeze, I'm—you're back, huh?"

Teak turned to follow his line of sight, clearly not quite able to make the connection in time, and found himself staring up at Cardin Winchester—he stepped backwards, bumping into Lux with a start. Lux hooked an arm around his neck as he tried to move further back, keeping the shorter boy trapped against her chest and forcing him to stand his ground. Dove, Sky and Russel all stood a few meters behind him, deliberately separating themselves from their leader's approach, far enough away for them to be within earshot but not close enough to offer any real kind of support.

"I'm back," Cardin agreed, reaching up to scratch at his cheek. "Look, I need to talk to you—Teak as well."

"Why?" Lux wondered, "If you're here to start anything, may as well do it now—could be fun."

"Lux," Teak managed.

"I'm not," Cardin said, "I just need a moment, please."

It was the first time Lima could remember the other boy ever using the word, at least in his presence—either way; it wasn't like he was going to try anything after getting tattled on by what the rumours were starting to make him believe was at least half of the first year students.

"Sure," Lima said, "Boys only meeting, no icky girls allowed—get out of here."

"Are you sure?" Claire asked, lowering her voice a bit. "The rest of his team is right there."

Teak still hadn't removed himself from Lux's almost headlock, but he did seem to find his courage because he cleared his throat a bit.

"It will be okay," Teak said, seemingly unable to break her hold on him. "We'll meet you in Grimm Studies."

"If you get into a fight after I leave," Lux said, finally letting him go. "I'll never forgive you for leaving me out of it."

Claire moved to follow her, the two girls passing by the rest of Team Cardinal and posting up by the other side of the classroom door to wait. Teak looked far less secure now that he was no longer being forced to remain there.

"That's probably the best we're going to get," Lima said, jerking his head at where they stopped. "What's up, Cardin?"

"Right," Cardin agreed, "I've been put on good behaviour for the rest of the year, and if I step out of line too much, there's a good chance I'm going to get kicked out—I've also been on dorm lockdown for the past week, couldn't go anywhere, and classwork's all digital on my scroll."

"Damn, all I got was a month of detentions," Lima said, a bit caught off guard. "How much shit were you even doing for the threat of expulsion to even be on the table?"

"It was kind of a lot," Cardin admitted, sighing a bit. "They started pulling everyone up to the headmaster's office to ask them about their encounters with me—I've been a pretty big dickhead since I got here, and I guess I'm finally paying for it."

"Sorry," Teak mumbled. "I didn't want you to get in this much trouble."

"Don't apologise to me," Cardin said, shaking his head. "Some of the shit I said to you was messed up—I know you probably won't believe me, but I really don't believe any of it."

Lima glanced over at Teak for a moment and found him looking down at his own feet, not quite able to meet the much larger boy's eyes.

"I heard all that stuff from my parents, so it was something I had up here, sitting in the back of my head," Cardin said, tapping on his temple. "I don't hate the Faunus—I've barely spent enough time with any of them to actually know what they're like in the first place—I think I was just looking for something to upset you."

Cardin sighed.

"Part of my punishment is to go around to everyone I messed with and apologize—but I want you to know that I'm not saying this because I was forced to," Cardin said, "I shouldn't have said any of that, it was completely out of line—"

"It's okay," Teak said, lifting his head. "I do believe you, so you know—and I won't hold it against you."

Cardin breathed out at the words, looking like he hadn't at all expected it to be that easy, and the guilt seemed to get to him because he reached across his chest to grip his own shoulder for a moment.

"Thanks, man," Cardin managed, rolling his shoulder in discomfort. "Listen, I can't go easy on you in Combat Studies or anything, but it won't be like before, okay?"

"I understand," Teak said, smiling a bit. "Thank you, Cardin."

Cardin nodded at the words and turned his attention on Lima—but he spoke up before the other boy could manage it.

"Sorry I broke your nose," Lima said, speaking up. "I saw you touching Velvet's ears, and I was overcome with an obscene jealousy—how soft were they?"

Teak smacked him in the arm for the comment, but Cardin just shook his head at the words before doing a quick check over his shoulder as if to make sure Bestwitch or Ozpin weren't standing right behind him with the expulsion papers signed and ready.

"Super soft," Cardin admitted, "Lima—we're good?"

"Clean slate," Lima said, nodding. "Hey, did we come to the wrong class, or what? Because I swear I'm seeing second years all up in our shit."

Cardin turned at the words, clearly curious about what was going on—Lima spotted the girl they'd just been talking about pass through the doors, surrounded by three others that might have been her teammates.

"This is going to be awkward," Cardin sighed, "Looks like it's time to go in—I'll see you two around."

"Take it easy," Lima said.

"Bye, Cardin," Teak said, somehow looking a bit embarrassed at his own words. "Lima—it's strange when he's being nice."

Lux and Claire slipped through the doorway the second Cardin moved away from them, and a moment after that, the entirety of Team Cardinal vanished inside.

"Better get used to it," Lima said, hooking an arm around his neck. "Come on, let's sort this out—they have an entire year on us, and they can't even find their way to the proper classroom."

"Maybe it's a shared class," Teak said, unable to break his hold. "Just—don't make a scene, okay?"

The second they stepped through the door, Lima realised that it was most definitely a shared class because he spotted Team Ruby already seated on the right side of the room, and almost the entire left half was filled with faces he was far less familiar with. Team Cardinal had moved to the furthest bench to the right side of the room in a clear attempt to avoid Velvet. Everyone else had shuffled around, something which left him with one big problem.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Lima said, addressing the entire room. "Get out of here, second years; this is my class."

"You're making a scene—" Teak protested.

"It's not my fault these losers can't follow a schedule—look," Lima said, pointing directly at a girl who was wearing designer sunglasses. "That vile girl has even taken my seat."

"Vile?" Coco said, titling her glasses down with her fingers. "Excuse me?"

"Lima," Weiss snapped, "You're embarrassing our class in front of the seniors."

"We've got maniacs out here stealing chairs in broad daylight, and you want to bring up the elderly?" Lima said, "I should have expected that from you of all people—"

Weiss smacked both of her hands flat against the desk as she rose to her feet.

"I swear to—" Weiss hissed.

"My word, what is going on here, and why are you all blocking the doorway?" Oobleck said from just outside the room. "Come on now, in you go—Mister Morta, why are you standing there? Take your seat, please."

Some of the people who'd been stuck behind him, unable to pass while they were blocking the doorway, started to push forward, and he was forced to free Teak from the headlock lest they both be run down. Lima stepped to the side to let them pass, and Teak took the opportunity to flee in the direction of where Claire and Lux had planted themselves.

"But sir, we're in the middle of an invasion," Lima squawked. "This is just like back in the Great War when the chairman stole the plans—"

"Not an invasion, Mister Morta, a gathering of allies," Oobleck said, clapping his hands. "Yes, yes, as you can see, we have combined the first and second-year classes for this period—I'm afraid several of the staff have come up with a rather unfortunate case of the flu."

Lima took a few rapid steps back from the man, his confidence fleeing in the face of what he'd just heard.

"Oh my god," Lima said, "Sir—are you sick?"

"Not as of yet, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time. Hard to avoid, I'm afraid, given all the meetings we have throughout the week," Oobleck said, linking his hands behind his back. "It seems to be a particularly persistent one, too—could be, that I may be carrying it already."

Lima fled as the man took a step towards him, making haste to put as much distance between them as he could manage. Weiss glared at him all the way up the aisle, but he was far more concerned with getting the hell out of there. He hesitated at the seat that Claire had left open for him, even after she patted it to indicate he should take it—it wasn't his chair, and she'd put him right up against the aisle. Unable to really get around it, Lima slumped down into the seat with an aggrieved sigh. When he glanced over at the source of his misery, he found Velvet whispering something in the chair thief's ear—after which they both turned to look up at him. For a moment, he made eye contact with the girl over the top of her glasses before he slowly began to sink out of sight—maintaining eye contact the entire time—until his legs were bunched up beneath the desk.

"It's just not the same," Lima muttered, voice mangled from where his chin was compressed against his chest by the back of the seat. "What a bunch of lowlifes."

"Come on," Claire said with a quiet laugh. "It's only for one class."

Before he could muster an appropriate response, Oobleck cleared his throat and then spoke up, working to project his voice around the lecture hall.

"Now, this is something of a last-minute change, so the coursework I've prepared is not suited for a combined class of this specific makeup—in fact, it's likely something that you have already gone through during your first year," Oobleck said, "You'll have to bear with it, I'm afraid, at least until tomorrow; if the situation hasn't changed, I'll make sure to cover something relevant for both years."

While Lima couldn't actually see the man from his position, the way his voice was shifting made him certain that the man was going through the furious pacing that accompanied pretty much every lesson where the man was present.

"If you have your own coursework on you, feel free to use this lesson to read quietly or to perhaps complete some of your homework," Oobleck said, "As long as you're doing something productive, you are free to do as you please—if you do wish to participate, you are of course welcome to do so."

Claire reached over and poked him directly in the critical weakness she'd previously managed to uncover with the end of her pen—he slapped a hand onto his rib cage, before attempting to disarm her, but his position as a pile of human-shaped sludge melting into the space between the bench and the desk wasn't exactly great for fending her off.

"Now, we laid out a handful of topics at the beginning of the year, all of which fell under the overarching purview of discrimination—this will be a step away from the class divide and into more unsteady waters," Oobleck said, "Some of you will have heard it called by many names, but the two most familiar to you are most likely, the Faunus War—or with far more dignity, the Faunus Rights Revolution."

Lima managed to find the willpower to drag himself back up in his chair, somewhat because of the topic was actually pretty interesting but mostly because of the prolonged assault Claire was waging on him continued to involve her aiming for areas that were far too ticklish to deal with via pure stoicism.

"In order to understand the pressures involved, we will need to shift our gaze back to the period of the Great War once again," Oobleck said, "Yes, yes, I'm sure you are quite sick of hearing about it, but I assure you, this will not be the last time it's used as a frame of reference for our lessons."

Lima clawed his way back into a normal human posture, found his own pen, and then did his best to stealthily slip it under the table—Claire pinned his hand to the bench before he could manage to mark her uncovered thigh up with the tip, somehow knowing exactly what he'd intended to do.

"During the early years of the conflict, Faunus were far less commonly found on the warfronts, but this changed dramatically as time progressed, and by jumping to roughly the halfway point in the totality of the war, the breakdown was very different," Oobleck said, shaking his head. "As the losses began to grow, measures were soon taken to address the rapid loss of manpower."

His initial efforts to twist his hand free had resulted in her actually wrapping her hand around his wrist, and the pen that had been pinched between his fingers had ended up on the floor—Lima probably could have gotten his hand free without much effort on his part, but he'd found himself bizarrely fascinated by the prolonged contact as Claire made no effort to let go, even after the danger had passed.

"As with one of our most recent open discussion lessons, Miss Xiao Long was so astute as to note the discrepancy in effect between offering a small sum of lien to a rich man and a poor one—the Faunus were beset by the very same factor—a small portion of impoverished humans were effected in a similar manner, but they were in the vast minority in this regard," Oobleck said, "Tell me, if you possess no shelter, no future, no safety, and unequal access to society itself—are you not more likely to agree to tasks—ones of great, and very present danger—that others would not in order to secure a future where you might achieve those very things?"

Lima's eyes might have been on Oobleck, but almost the entirety of his focus was on the thumb that was shifting—a fractional movement that might have been nothing more than the result of his own chest moving with each breath—against the inside of his wrist. As insubstantial as it was, it set his thoughts racing as to what exactly it was supposed to mean—or if it meant anything at all—and what he was supposed to do about it.

"Faunus were unable to own property during this period, and while marriage was not something that technically existed for them, they would not have been able to participate in such a ceremony if they had made a choice to," Oobleck said, scanning the room for a moment. "Any Faunus that should answer the call, who should fight to their best ability, and who would find renown on the battlefield, shall earn himself the right to purchase land—"

The lesson came to him, distorted through the lens of his slowly rising uncertainty—something he'd rarely felt, at least to this extent—had Claire forgotten that she was touching him? If he moved even an inch, would she realise her mistake and retrieve her hand? Did he even want her to? It brought thoughts of the night he'd spent sitting on the rooftop and the moments when the very same girl had wrapped her arms around him in the dark, seeking to comfort him as he spoke about his past—and the aftermath, in which he'd done the same for her.

"—cases of mistreatment recorded during this time. The traditions and culture of the Faunus were eroding beneath the lasting denigration, lost to time in the same way that Remnant's history has fallen to a place beyond our reach," Oobleck said, "How much of that was due to the hundreds of years of direct human enslavement, as opposed to Grimm wiping out ancient settlements, is not exactly understood—"

Claire turned to look at him—a movement that was completely normal, unrushed, and natural—somehow surpassing his ability to react. A monstrous pang of alarm erupted in his chest at the realisation that she'd just caught him looking at her, which must have meant that she had complete, unfettered access to every inch of his mind, his thoughts and all of the embarrassing uncertainty as well. Lima twisted his foot against the ground, painfully tensing a series of muscles in his leg in an attempt to shock himself into proper awareness—at which point she smiled at him.

"—despite the methods available to them to join human society resting upon a rather shaky foundation, their increasing participation in the war led to a rather astonishing outcome—a comradery began to be curated within the military," Oobleck said, "Humans and Faunus working together, risking their lives, fighting, dying, saving each other in moments of terror—for the first time in our history, a significant portion of the human population was developing a positive, and reciprocal relationship with the Faunus."

The smile was like just about every other one he'd ever seen on her face, but at that moment, something irrevocably changed in how he perceived it—the moment passed, and Claire turned her attention back towards the Professor below, and Lima, slowly being driven mad by the sheer unfamiliarity of what was taking place, dug deep inside himself for something that would give him some kind of direction—he found it, perhaps unsurprisingly, in the relentlessly honed system of reflexes, instincts, and reactions he'd built up over a decade of combat training. He shifted his wrist in a precise, practised movement, destabilising her gentle—and yet remarkably potent—hold on him before sliding his arm further beneath her own. He turned his hand until his knuckles were flat against the cushioned space between them—and then slipped his fingers between her own.

"—the problem, of course, came to fruition when the Great War finally reached its end, and those who had spent a significant amount of their lives fighting were integrated back into society," Oobleck said, "A society which was predominantly filled with civilian families—a section of the population that far exceeded that of the soldier classification—and those who did not possess the same refined comradery as the soldiers who had fought side by side with the Faunus."

Claire had glanced down the instant he'd started moving, the sharp motion triggering some internal reflex of her own, but her slight attempt to pull her arm back failed as he tightened his grip on her hand. Lima, feeling a little bit more in control now that he'd wiped away any chance there might have been that she was unaware of the contact, turned to look at her again—far more comfortable with the idea that she might simply tell him to let go, and that he could make some stupid joke in order to play it all off—

"—roughly twenty years following the end of the war resulted in a slow regression, as the soldiers who'd fought together went about the task of living out their lives, and the deeds of the Faunus heroes began to fade from circulation once more," Oobleck said, shaking his head. "It wasn't until 40AGW that societal conditions for the Faunus reached a breaking point, and it was around this time that Vale, Mistral and Mantle made a push to centralize the Faunus on Menagerie, something that was offered under the false banner of support, but in reality, it was a way to remove Faunus from general society—"

Except she wasn't making any further move to retrieve her hand, which left him with an understanding that he was now actively holding her hand in a way that she couldn't have been unaware of—and the unspent joke he'd had primed and at the ready was left to dissolve.

"—47AGW was the official year that the Faunus Rights Revolution began, but the incident that is most widely recognized as the tipping point that rapidly catalysed the conditions that ignited the war occurred in 44AGW," Oobleck said, "Is there anyone here who can tell me what that incident was?"

A mess of hands all across the room raised up into the air, and Claire made as if to lift up her own, sending a spark of alarm through him. He tightened his grip again, stopping her from pulling their conjoined hands up into the air—and then weathered her quiet laughter with as much dignity as he could manage.

#

Glynda Goodwitch's Office, Beacon Academy, Sanus.

"How does the pile keep on getting bigger?" Lima said, slumping back in his chair. "Is this a war of attrition?"

"That is precisely what it is," Glynda admitted, "The bottom half of that pile are the first of the forms for the student-run stalls—there will be more of them appearing over the next two days, but expect it to taper off after that."

Lima reached out blindly and dragged a few of the forms over into the space beneath the projected monitor—he rocked forward until he could actually read it and then scanned the paper with what was, unfortunately, becoming practised ease.

"I'm not seeing anything particularly new," Lima said. "Seems easy enough."

"Most of them are nothing more than a summary proposal and a requisition list," Glynda said, "Most of them don't need a thorough review—other than to check whether or not they are requesting something unusual."

"What about the food stalls?" Lima wondered, "The ones I did back at Sanctum had a license attached—so they could sell food and stuff."

"Yes, every single stand that intends on selling or gifting consumables must have an attached license request," Glynda said, "Once it's been approved, you'll be delivering them to the students in question—how many incomplete forms have you collected?"

"I've got about seventy of the ones for the tournament that have missing information," Lima admitted, "If we're moving onto stalls and stuff, I might use my next detention to go hunt everyone down."

"Perfect," Glynda said, sounding pleased. "Mister Morta, despite the rather unfortunate reason that brought you here, you've been a big help with this task."

"No problem," Lima said, "You thinking about enslaving some poor soul next time the Vytal Festival comes around?"

"I'm certainly considering it," Glynda wondered. "Perhaps I'll just extend your detention indefinitely—"

"Oh my god," Lima said, alarmed. "Let's not say anything we can't take back."

Glynda let out a quiet laugh at the words—and he found his interest peeked a bit when he caught sight of her taking out her Scroll through the partial transparency of his monitor.

"Speaking of things we can't take back," Glynda said, humming. "I would like you to imagine my surprise when I got around to reviewing the written debriefings and the totality of the associated footage from the most recent team-building scenario."

"Why?" Lima said, blinking. "Did something happen?"

"Your written account was different from Miss Schnee, Miss Belladonna, Miss Valkyrie, and Miss Nikos—in fact, all five were at odds with one another," Glynda said, "The footage of the engagement, however, was rather clear."

It was an accusation of sorts, but it didn't sound like one that was going to lead to a serious punishment—but then again, he was already in trouble, and she'd already mentioned extending his existing detention indefinitely, so he couldn't be sure.

"I wrote that we had a small scuffle—but I told Weiss and Blake that I took Pyrrha out with a surprise attack when she wasn't ready," Lima said, in understanding. "No idea what Nora wrote, but I'm guessing the other two wrote that in their debriefing?"

"Precisely," Glynda said, glancing up from her scroll. "Miss Nikos had a far more thorough breakdown on the battle itself—and it was a little more than a scuffle."

"I think there were like four or five actual hits that connected during the whole fight," Lima said, shaking his head, "Plus, she was already super low on aura and stamina after fighting off Yang for however long they were at it—our interaction was a scuffle."

"This was the first time you've been directly matched against her, isn't it?" Glynda wondered, "How do you believe a second engagement would end—one in which you are both fresh."

"That depends on a bunch of things," Lima hedged, "The rules of the match, the location, the equipment, our condition—"

"In the amphitheatre, no weapons, Semblance use permitted," Glynda said, clearly pressing for an actual answer. "Defeat by aura threshold or ring out."

"I specialise in unarmed combat, so no weapon use heavily favours me," Lima said, being honest. "I'd win."

"With weapons?" Glynda wondered.

"I'd still win," Lima shrugged. "I could use my Semblance to fling her out of the ring the moment she attempted to make contact with me."

Not that it was something specific to Pyrrha, he could probably ring out every single person in their class—Blake and Weiss might be able to use their respective Semblance to stop that from happening, but they were in the minority.

"That would be the same force you used to dispel my hold over the debris I was using to shield Mister Bronzewing," Glynda said, eyeing him. "A rather troublesome ability to deal with."

"I try to limit its use to just enhancing my melee or increasing the damage of my arrows, but when someone else starts pulling crazy abilities out, then it's fair game." Lima admitted, "Sorry about that, though; I actually thought Dove was the one doing it at the time—and in my defence, you did tell me to stop holding back in my spars."

Glynda placed her scroll down onto her desk with an audible clack.

"Mister Morta," Glynda said, narrowing her eyes at him. "The incident in the Dining Hall was most definitely not a spar—"

Uh oh.

#

Clearing, Forever Fall, Sanus.

Forever Fall was a sea of red, made up of a million ruby leaves, while rusty brown bark covered the thick trunks that bore them. The almost permanently unseasonal forest stretched outwards to the north of Beacon Academy, continuing long out of sight and, if what he'd heard was true, all the way to the northern coastline. Like the Emerald Forest, it was dotted by man-built landmarks that had long since faded to ruin, a combination of time and the relentless aggression of the Grimm.

"I totally called it, by the way," Lima said, pleased with himself. "So this is my 'I told you so.'"

"Everybody knew she was sick, Lima," Teak said, "Oobleck even said they would probably all catch it eventually."

"Everything has gone exactly as I envisioned," Lima said, ignoring him entirely. "Because I am the only one who could possibly have deduced this."

"She was a snotty mess in our last class," Lux said, "It was the most obvious thing in the world."

"Obvious to me, I agree," Lima said, intent on taking all of the credit. "My predictions are unbelievably accurate; thank you for saying so—"

"You're totally having a conversation with yourself right now," Claire pointed out. "Are you—can he even hear us anymore?"

Lima planted his hands on his hips and gave off a bout of unhinged, staccato laughter, drawing the attention of everyone else in the clearing. Glynda seemed to consider that as a good enough point to restart the lesson because she spoke up, projecting her voice around the clearing.

"Professor Peach was very much looking forward to accompanying you all today, but I'm sorry to say she can't make it in her current condition," Glynda said, "So, instead, I will be taking her place today."

Lima let his laughter fade away but took some amusement in how the class formed up into the same type of cluster they usually did during the Combat Studies class—part of it was because everybody was dressed in their combat gear, something that was required when stepping out of the academy grounds and into any of the surrounding environs.

"Some of the fourth-year students were recruited for this task and have since spent several days preemptively clearing this portion of the forest of any hostile species—something which should help facilitate a more constructive learning environment," Glynda said, "That being said, migration is always possible, so ensure you keep an eye on your surroundings at all times."

The fourth-year students got to go out and clear the forest? What a bunch of absolute pricks.

"Now I've been informed that you are already aware of the general task you will be accomplishing, but to make sure everyone is on the same page, let's go over the basics," Glynda said, "Each of you is to take one of the supplied containers and use it to collect enough of the Red Sap to fill it entirely—the metal needle will be used to puncture the exterior of the trees and provided you do so at an appropriate angle, gravity should do the rest of the work for you."

Glynda took one of the containers in question from the top of the pile, moving towards the nearest tree, aligning the jar on a slight angle that had the needle pointing almost upwards before bracing herself to force it through the tough bark. Almost immediately, the thick sap began sliding down the needle and slopping down the inside wall of the container to pool at the bottom—the colour and consistency oddly reminiscent of blood.

"The sap has some unique properties, but it's most well-known for being sweet, nourishing, and completely edible," Glynda said, slipping the needle-free once the container had been filled. "If any of you have any further questions about its extended use, I suggest you ask them during your next session with Professor Peach—I'm sure she would appreciate your earnest engagement on the topic, especially after missing out on the excursion."

"Start thinking up questions, Teak, because we're gonna sweet talk her," Lima said, attempting a headlock on the boy. "Just you wait; by the end of the year, Professor Peaches might even let you be taller than her."

"I am taller than her," Teak insisted, not even trying to free himself. "Even if it's just a bit."

"We technically have two hours allotted for this task, but I'd like you to assemble after one to check on the group's overall progress; two containers per person are requisite, but there are far more containers available," Glynda said, "The surplus can be donated to the catering staff to use over the coming weeks; there are menu recipes that make use of the sap, the most obvious one being sweets and pastries—you may begin when you are ready."

They collected a few containers each before Lima waved them to follow him out of the clearing—he sped up a bit so they couldn't quite close the gap, heading deeper into the trees and using the distant Beacon Tower as a guide to get the angle right.

"What does this stuff taste like?" Lux asked, furrowing her brow at an empty container. "It looks thick—I bet it's nasty."

"You've never had it before?" Claire said before tilting her head. "Wait—you did have it when Lima's friends brought us all those desserts."

"I don't remember there being any sap," Lux frowned.

"It was in the pastries with the jam and the white powder on top," Teak said, "Red Sap is one of the ingredients for the jam—it was also used as a sweetener in the smoothy."

"Galaxy brain," Lima said with interest. "Are all of the ingredients in the universe also under your purview?"

"I don't even know how to answer that," Teak said, scrunching his face up. "Sometimes my mother and I bake things—it's one of her favourite ingredients."

"I don't remember what it tastes like," Lux said, obstinate. "But if it comes out of a tree, it's probably gross."

"You don't even remember what the desserts tasted like?" Claire wondered. "It wasn't that long ago."

"The only thing she can keep in her head are memories involving punching someone," Lima decided, "Everything else fell out."

"I'm about to punch you," Lux muttered, "Idiot."

"Why don't you just try some?" Claire prompted. "We've gone way farther than we need to, so let's stop and collect some."

"Denied," Lima said, speaking up. "Keep moving, soldiers; we're on a secret mission."

There was a pause between the three of them as they realised that he wasn't just randomly walking through the forest without a real destination in mind. He made it almost fifteen meters before they actually decided they were coming along.

"Lima?" Teak said, "I don't think we should be walking off during the middle of a lesson."

"What are we even doing?" Claire asked, falling in step beside him. "You're not dragging us off to find Grimm, are you?"

Lima glanced over at her for a minute, feeling the side of her hand deliberately brush against his own, almost catching for a moment—and he cleared his throat in an attempt to drag his suddenly spiralling thoughts back on track.

"As fun as that sounds, that is not what we're doing," Lima said, "If you want to find out the details of the super secret mission—don't fall behind."

Lima ignored the trio of protests as he suddenly burst forward, scattering the carpet of red and rust leaves as he went. He had to pull out his scroll as he lost sight of the tower completely, using the map function to get them back on track. The premarked areas he'd spent most of last night working on weren't exactly close to where the Red Sap excursion was taking place, so they had a little bit of a journey ahead of them—the hour check-in worked as something of an upper limit as well, which exclude about ninety per cent of the locations he'd marked.

Two of them were pretty close, though, and that would have to do for now. Eventually, the dot that represented his position began to converge on the first of the locations, and he slowed down his approach. The three of them caught up to him at roughly the same time, although Teak was looking a little bit worse off than the others as he panted for breath.

"It's a bunch of trees," Lux complained, looking around. "Some secret mission."

Lima swept a hand out towards their left, through a particularly dense mess of trees, and drew all of their attention in the process. Lux moved forward without a word, slipping through and out of sight. Teak stumbled after her, still not fully recovered, and a moment later, he heard a surprised intake of breath. Claire stopped directly beside him rather than pass through the gap in the trees.

"You know if we get caught," Claire said, studying his face. "We're definitely going to get in trouble for this."

"Probably," Lima admitted, "You guys can just blame it on me—say that you couldn't let me go off on my own or something."

"What's through there?" Claire asked.

Lima just nodded his head at the trees, directing her to go check for herself, and she brushed past him, fingers trailing across his hand in a way that sent a series of sparks up his arm—he watched her vanish through the gap, and then brought his hand up. Lima had never really had someone attempt to make so much contact with him before, and it left him wondering about what he was actually supposed to do about it—he needed to talk to someone who actually had some kind of experience with the whole thing.

Lima clenched his hand into a fist and then stepped through the gap in the trees—he almost ran straight into Claire as she had apparently waited for him on the other side. A series of stone platforms spread out, mixed up and in a losing battle against the root systems of the nearby trees. They were crumbling, covered in dirt, and clearly struggling against nature's attempt to wear them down. Atop the biggest of the platforms was a large stone block, sticking out of the middle of it and striking up into the air to tower over everything else.

"That's what you were doing last night," Claire said, stepping up onto the first platform. "Looking up this place?"

"I found about a dozen different ruins that were close enough to Beacon Academy to actually make it to, but most of them we can't get to and back in under an hour," Lima admitted, following them up. "This was the second most interesting one—about an hour to our northwest; there's a waterfall with a stone pagoda in the middle of the river it falls into."

"Sounds beautiful," Lux admitted before waving her hand at the centrepiece. "This is just a mossy rock."

"It's not a rock; it's a mural," Teak said, already standing up on the first of the platforms. "This is amazing—look, you can see the lines they carved into it."

The mass of stone in question had been mostly taken by vines and moss, enough that only a small portion of the carving in the upper right was actually visible—a series of concentric lines that seemed to be radiating out from something that was obscured. Lima followed the broken steps up to the towering rock, going out of his way to place his hand on Claire's back as he passed her by. He eyed the vines and the moss obscuring most of it—the picture he'd seen online had shown it in pretty much the same state, but he was pretty sure he could do something about it.

Lima slipped his hand under the mess of vines, searching until he found the stone. His Semblance began branching out across the surface of it. He pushed until he had the entire surface of the thing mapped out—and then the mass of vines began to slowly fall to the ground. The moss was harder, but there was still a distinct difference between it and the stone, enough that he could target it. Large patches of it began to slough off, falling away to reveal the stained and aged stone beneath—the mural revealed itself in full, with only the bottom left corner being far too damaged to retain the surface carving.

"Lima," Teak managed.

Lima stepped back from it to get a better view of the entire thing and then was forced to squint in the dark in an attempt to actually understand what was happening with the sheer amount of concentric, overlapping lines that made up the pattern—it was messing with his eyes to even look at, like one of those pictures that started to shift around after you stared at it for too long.

"I regret everything," Lima complained, "Is this messing with anyone else's eyes?"

"No?" Lux wondered.

"It's kind of hard to pick out what the picture is supposed to be—it would be easier with more light," Claire said, tilting her head. "The two different-sized circles at the top, what are they supposed to be?"

"It's the sun and the moon," Lux said, apparently having no trouble seeing it in the low light. "I guess that means it was made before it shattered?"

"It may just be a reference to how it looked before, but it was carved at some point far more recent," Teak said, "The sun dominates the carving, but that cracked line is the central focus—it's probably supposed to be a staff, which is a pretty common icon in ancient surviving art, it's associated with creation and light."

"I remember that—in the Tale of the Two Brothers?" Claire said, a bit curious. "The staff was always linked to the older brother, wasn't it? The god of light."

"Well, I can't see anything," Lima said. "So he's not doing a very good job, is he?"

"Putting all of that together, what's the picture actually saying?" Lux said, still eyeing it. "The god of light created the sun? The sun is the god of light?"

"The staff of light is the god of suns," Lima said, clicking his fingers as if in understanding. "He whoever shall hold my big staff shall command the sun—it's too hot today; let's turn it off for a few hours."

Claire laughed out loud at the stupid joke—and he found that he was bizarrely pleased with himself for managing to elicit the action.

"You're an idiot," Lux said. "It's the sun, not an air conditioner."

Lima flapped his hand at her as if shooing away someone beneath his attention—Lux narrowed her eyes at him in the low light, visibly offended by the sheer condescension dripping off of the gesture.

"That's a very literal interpretation, but it might be more abstract than that—it's possible that this is actually a representation of what they believed at the time," Teak said, slipping his Scroll out of his pocket. "It could mean that they believe creation drew its power from the sun, something like heat energy was responsible for life on Remnant—it may even be some kind of origin story for Humans and Faunus alike."

Lima watched as the boy began to take pictures of the mural, feeling more than satisfied that the little detour had gone as well as it had—even if they hadn't managed to make it to any of the other locations.

"That's pretty cool, too, Teak," Lima offered, stepping back to give him some more room. "But I prefer the interpretation where it's a staff that shoots suns at people."

#

Clearing, Forever Fall, Sanus.

They'd made it back before the check-in, although Glynda had seemed pretty suspicious that they'd only managed a single full container each—something they'd hastily remembered to do just outside of the main group's vision.

"I don't even like raspberries," Lux said, frowning at the jar in her hand. "What if I hate it?"

"What if it's the best thing you've ever tasted?" Claire said, bumping into her. "You'll never know unless you try some—scaredy-cat."

Lux's head snapped around at the taunt, an explosive breath emerging from her nose.

"Wouldn't it be scaredy-snake?" Lima wondered, "Shaky-serpent—actually, that just sounds like a sex move; we'll table that one for now."

"Shut the hell up," Lux said, turning her attention back down to the jar. "I'm not scared."

Lux twisted the cap off with far more force than necessary and then scooped some out onto her finger. The three of them watched as she brought her fingertip up to her mouth, hesitating for a final time, and then clenched her eyes shut as she closed her lips around it.

"That's—actually pretty good," Lux said, cracking a single eye open. "Now, I kind of wish we'd brought some more jars for ourselves."

"Figures," Lima said, "Are we allowed to come back out here with our own containers or is the forest private property?"

"It's technically the property of Vale, and you must be accompanied by a license holder in order to harvest the sap," Glynda said as she moved to check on them. "While we are out here, performing this task, each of you are under the umbrella of my license."

"How do I get a license for that?" Lima said, "I could totally stock up on Red Sap before the Vytal Festival and then spend a week seeling it all off at a stall."

"On the seventh floor of Beacon Tower, there is a department that can provide the forms for you to apply with—you can access the consumable license while you are there," Glynda said, "Should I expect to see an application form for a stall to pass over my desk in the next few days?"

"Absolutely not," Lux denied. "We're doing the tournament, not a food stall."

"Ugh," Lima complained before pausing. "Bestwitch—there isn't a monetary prize for winning the tournament, is there?"

"There is an award ceremony, but there is no prize money attached to it," Glynda said, "It is a good opportunity to showcase your skills to the wider populace, which could be a good investment if you were looking for private or governmentally funded contracts in the future."

"Who cares about prize money or some dumb contracts—we don't need something like that," Lux insisted. "All that matters is making sure everyone knows that we're the strongest."

"Lux, you might not need to worry about something like that," Teak tried, "But it's a bit different for us."

"It's not," Lux said, in complete denial, before pausing. "Plus, I don't care."

"Rich girl," Lima accused.

"Nobody is going to think we're strong if we can't even afford to pay for shelter or for transport to where the missions are," Claire said, trying a different track. "Lima breaks down and stops moving entirely if he hasn't eaten in a couple of hours—"

"What the heck?" Lima said.

"—so we need to worry about food money as well," Claire said, ignoring him completely. "Teak definitely won't be able to afford the library fee without money either, so he'll start to starve—"

"I don't eat books," Teak protested.

"I'll keep a few magazines handy to feed him every now and then," Lux decided, reaching out to pat the boy on the head like some kind of pet. "Lima can just start a garden or eat wild berries—"

"Berries?" Lima cried.

Glynda let out a laugh at the argument, apparently unable to help herself, before reaching up to cover her mouth with her hand. It barely did anything to curb the noise, but she did manage to get a hold of herself.

"Whoa," Claire said, "I didn't know Bestwitch could laugh."

Lux grinned at the comment, teeth showing through, visibly pleased with herself.

"I'm quite capable of laughing, thank you—we've got fifteen minutes left, so make sure you don't leave any of the containers behind," Glynda said, still covering her mouth to hide the smile. "Mister Fawn, if any books do start vanishing from the library in the near future, I'll know just where to look."

"Professor," Teak squeaked.

#

Workshop A4, Beacon Academy, Sanus.

Lima adjusted the panel on the side of the bracer extension for what must have been the fiftieth time, wishing he'd made it slightly larger. The minor problems with the first version of the Grappling Gauntlet continued to make themselves known to him the more work he did on it—he made sure to keep a running notation of each one to avoid in the event that he ever made it to version two.

The basic design—a blueprint from Atlas that was perhaps a decade old—hadn't included the dust channels he'd decided to machine into it, which was pretty much the fractal point from where all the other problems had stemmed from. The series of angular grooves spiralled out from the protective plate that sat over the back of his hand, crossing under the palm and back up just before the segment that separated the hand from the base of the fingers. More than enough capacity—once he slotted the Dust tubing through it—to generate enough of a pull to bring any nearby spikes back to his hand.

He'd wanted an actual crystal for it, but there just wasn't enough space—overloading the thing with the ground-up stuff was just more cost-effective here. Between the spiral groove now blocking the back of his hand and needing his palm free to actually fire the cable, he'd needed to move the cable storage elsewhere—something which he just couldn't seem to figure out a good system for. His first attempt left a cylinder sticking up from the back of his arm; the cable wound up inside, but it was beyond obnoxious, obstructive and perhaps worst of all, made it look like crap. Widening the cylinder and planting it on the underside of his wrist made it look a little bit better, but he honestly couldn't tolerate having it get in the way of his hands.

Attempt number three, and his best solution so far, had been to add a whole new extension to the gauntlet—a bracer that covered the better part of his forearm and through which the cable was wound inside, allowing him to get rid of the protruding cylinder entirely. The only problem was keeping the two segments secure while retaining the flexibility of being able to move his hand without pulling on the hidden cable threaded inside. A task that had required him to leave a very specific amount of slack inside the connecting tube, enough that it didn't resist his hand bending but not too much as to risk it somehow kinking up in the channel.

He finally managed to lock the panel down again, turned the bolt tight until it wasn't going anywhere, and then stuck his hand back inside of it. It slipped down over his hand, the internal layer of padding catching a bit until he'd worked his fingers into the gauntlet itself and twisted it tight on his wrist.

"Alright," Lima grunted. "This time?"

He wriggled his fingers to make sure he had it on properly and then began rotating his hand, checking for the thread of resistance linking the top of the bracer to the glove—and squinted a bit at the slight feeling of oddness. It wasn't anywhere near enough to actually impede his movements, but now that he knew it existed, it was super hard to stop thinking about it—

"I apologize for interrupting you while you're busy," Weiss said, clearing her throat. "But I need to speak with you."

"So you've come," Lima said, "My first moving target—you're earlier than I expected."

"After seeing that monstrosity in class, I want no part in being any kind of target for it, thank you," Weiss denied, without any mercy. "I'm actually here for something else."

Lima tipped back on his chair until she passed into his line of sight—something that required him to hook his foot on the furthermost under-edge of the desk to accomplish. Weiss took a step closer and to the side, perhaps in an effort to accommodate his refusal to actually turn around like a normal person—she had a smooth black case in her hand, the letters 'SDC' stamped onto the surface of it with a slick white vinyl sticker.

"Something else?" Lima said, curious. "Is this a confession?"

"In your dreams," Weiss said without pause. "This is a discharging of my debt to you, the payment you requested for my cooperation in the forest."

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

The way she said the last part almost made it sound as if he'd been the one to ask her to team up—

"Oh," Lima said, clapping a fist down onto his palm. "That time I beat you up, and you were like; 'I'll pay you—'"

Weiss made a strangled noise in the back of her throat at his version of the recounting—or perhaps the high-pitched and panicked voice he'd affected in order to give it the drama it really deserved. Lima reached out to take the case from her before she could gather herself enough to throw it at him or something as equally punishing. He cracked the case open and found two rather large gravity dust crystals sitting snugly in the padded interior—the quality was visibly superior to just about anything he'd seen in recent memory.

"Thanks, Weiss," Lima said, impressed. "This is way better than the stuff they're selling bottom-side—perks of being the dust-girl, huh?"

"Of course it is," Weiss said, preening a bit. "I had them pull it out of an SDC delivery that just came into Vale yesterday."

He slid the open case over on the desk before slipping the gauntlet off his arm and placing it down next to it. Weiss leaned forward a bit, narrowing her eyes as she got a good look at the grooves machined into the face of it.

"Those are dust channels," Weiss said, frowning. "I thought you wanted crystals?"

"Not enough space for a large crystal, and if I cut them down enough to actually fit, they aren't going to have enough power," Lima admitted before scratching his chin. "I kind of don't want to shave these down, though; they look expensive."

"I suppose it doesn't really matter," Weiss said, straightening up a bit. "If that's what you're using them for, then you should go ahead."

Lima fired off a salute at receiving permission to destroy the pair of them before pulling his chair flat against the ground and spinning around to face her properly for the first time—the unexpected movement seemed to startle her a bit.

"I showed you mine," Lima said, giving her an upwards nod. "How's your own project going? I don't think I've seen what it is yet."

"Well, since you asked," Weiss said, clearing her throat. "I'm redesigning an old version of the autonomous drones that the SDC once used for mapping out unexplored tunnels."

"A drone?" Lima prompted.

Weiss shifted a bit at the interest before lifting her hand up, her index finger about an inch away from her thumb—

"It's only small, and the AI is relatively simple, but it should be able to perform some basic tasks to assist during combat," Weiss said, fingers remaining posed in the same obscene shape. "The original test run of these was deemed a failure because the size didn't allow for much in the way of storage capacity, and it had a very limited run time, but there have been many upgrades to battery technology since then."

Lima did a quick scout of the room to make sure nobody was paying enough attention to see Weiss making such a terrible lie of a gesture towards him and found Claire smirking at him from her own workbench.

"Ack," Lima managed. "Isn't that too small?"

Weiss tilted her head at the words before increasing the space between her fingers a few shades in consideration.

"I suppose it is relatively small compared to the conventional drone," Weiss said, humming. "Making it a little bit larger would allow for more storage."

Claire was practically laughing now, and he forced himself to ignore her entirely, less the heat that was crawling up his neck doom him.

"You said it could perform some basic tasks?" Lima said, clearing his throat. "What are we talking about here?"

"Its primary function was to map out difficult terrain, which was done with a form of echolocation, and I'm hoping to include a small hard light projector so it can render a map of the area," Weiss said, warming to the topic. "I also want to give it some kind of weapon that could act to interrupt an enemy—but I'm having some difficulty finding something suitable because it's too small for a conventional weapon."

"Rather than a weapon," Lima said, "You could go for something to launch a tracker, which would get you some extended use out of the projected map."

"That's a good idea," Weiss said, reaching up to touch her chin. "If we marked a Grimm, we might be able to follow it back to the nest—that would help during extermination missions."

"Something that small is probably fragile, though," Lima wondered. "How are you going to save it from getting shot out of the air?"

"The original model had a shield to protect it from collisions and from a potential Grimm attack," Weiss said, "It only really lasted for a single hit, but I think I can upgrade it to survive quite a bit of damage with more modern technology."

"I'm kind of jealous, you know? That sounds super useful," Lima said, tilting his head. "Hey, if you ever mass produce them, make sure I'm first in line for a test model."

Weiss seemed kind of hesitant at the words, almost as if she thought he was making fun of her, but she couldn't figure out the punchline.

"Mass produce them?" Weiss said.

"Imagine every Huntsman and Huntress had something like that in their arsenal, like it was part of the standard equipment you take out on missions," Lima said, "If you added a high-definition camera and linked the controls up to work with a standard Scroll, you could probably market it to civilians as well."

"Do you—" Weiss started. "Do you really think people would buy something like that?"

"I'd buy it," Lima said in answer. "Either way, it's a cool project, Weiss—you've got me hyped up to see it now, so you better not quit halfway through like Jaune did with his jetpack-slash-flamethrower."

"I—would never quit like that," Weiss said, glancing away. "I'll definitely complete it."

"You got it," Lima agreed. "Thanks again for the dust—I'll make good use of it."

"You're welcome," Weiss said, taking a step back. "If you need something else in the future, well, I'll listen to your requests, at least—goodbye for now."

Lima waved her off, a bit bemused by how pleasant the conversation had actually gone—outside of combat scenarios, they were usually prone to conflict or at least getting into silly arguments. Mostly that was because of his attempts to rile her up, succeeding more often than not, but he was surprised to find that he didn't mind having a normal conversation with her after all. He caught sight of Claire as he turned back towards his desk—and felt a pang of alarm as she lifted her hand up off the desk, her thumb and index finger held about an inch apart.

"God dammit," Lima managed. "Weiss."

#

Second-Year Dormitories, Beacon Academy, Sanus.

Seventy-eight names—and one unknown person who'd filled in literally everything except for their name—that's how many people he had to track down. Seven of them were first years, twelve of them were second years, and it just got worse from there on up. That made him realise that the length of time you've spent at Beacon Academy was directly correlated to how much of a lazy ass you became when it was time to start filling out paperwork—further supported by the fact that Ozpin had probably been here the longest, and he was fine with fobbing off the forms to Bestwitch, who in turn had shaved off her own load by making Lima do it as punishment.

"Open up," Lima said, rapping on the door a few times. "It's the police."

There was absolutely no response, which was annoying because he'd most definitely heard a girl speaking less than five seconds ago. He started knocking out a steady rhythm on the door and then just kept on going—a technique borrowed from Sage that had never failed to piss him off to great effect.

"Who the hell knocks eleven times?" Sakura said, pulling the door open. "You're not even the police either."

Lima attempted to knock a twelfth time on the girl's forehead, but she smacked his hand out of the way before it could make contact.

"If you heard me say that, then you should have answered the first time, jackass," Lima said, standing up on his tiptoes in an attempt to intimidate the much taller girl. "You and I are about to have a reckoning—Miss I can't fill out a form properly."

He attempted to smack her with the rolled-up sheet of paper, but she snatched it out of his hand before it made contact—Sakura unfurled it with a look of clear curiosity on her face as she scanned the printout.

"A reckoning?" Sakura wondered. "What did I miss?"

"You're supposed to sign the bottom of it," Lima said, reaching under the sheet to tap his finger near the bottom. "I had to convince Bestwitch not to kick you all out of the tournament, so you can all put your heads on the floor and apologize to me—go on, get down there and grovel."

Sakura laughed out loud at the demand and attempted to pat him on the head like he was some kind of dog—dammit, why did she have to be so tall? Stupid second years.

"Oh really?" Sakura said, "Guys, the little first year that broke the cafeteria saved our asses—everybody say thank you."

There was something of a chorus of voices from out of sight in the room, lacking just about any kind of real gratitude and sounding like they'd been woken up from a late afternoon nap. Lima grunted at the sheer lack of enthusiasm and genuinely considered eating the form in front of her just to make sure they knew who they were dealing with.

"Bastards," Lima complained. "Hurry up and sign it; I've got a bunch of them to deal with."

"You got a pen?" Sakura asked.

Lima glanced down as he fished the pen out of his pocket and let out an aggrieved sigh as she took the moment to pat his head while he was distracted.

"Hurry up," Lima said, smacking the pen down into her hand. "I'm getting mad."

"Turn around," Sakura said, pushing his shoulder until he did just that. "I need something to write on."

Lima blew a breath out of his nose as she placed the form against his back, the nib of the pen a faint pressure that he could feel through the material of his uniform.

"I'd kick your ass if you weren't so pretty," Lima warned, "You better thank your mother for your good fortune."

"I'll get right on it," Sakura laughed, "All done—thanks, hero."

Lima suffered through another head pat with as much dignity as he could muster and then snatched the form back. He ignored her laughter as he put it in the satchel with the other ones he'd finished already.

"You know where—uh—Coco and Yatsuhashi are?" Lima said, reading the unfamiliar names off the top of the next two sheets he'd stapled together. "They're my next victims."

"Right there," Sakura said, pointing past his shoulder. "Three doors down, opposite side."

Lima spun underneath her next attempt to mess up his hair again and skipped back out of range before looking down his nose at her to make sure she knew what she was getting herself into—the girl laughed a final time, waved, and then vanished inside, completely unintimidated.

"God dammit," Lima huffed. "My reputation sucks."

He moved up the hallway, eyeing the acronyms adorning each one without interest, and then came to a stop before the door she'd pointed out—rather than deal with the same nonsense again, he reached up and started knocking, aiming to defeat his previous high score. He only made it to eight before someone managed to open the door; he reached out and rapped a knuckle on their head before he'd really seen who it was—

"Oh," Lima said, blinking. "Sorry, Velvet—that was actually for someone else."

"That's okay," Velvet managed, reaching up to touch the spot on her forehead. "Hello again, Lima."

"Hey, I didn't realise this was your room," Lima said, "I'm actually here because two of your uh—teammates I guess—forgot to sign their tournament forms—which means the whole team would have been disqualified."

"Oh no," Velvet said, sounding more than a little distressed. "Is it too late to fix it?"

"Don't worry; I totally bullied Bestwitch into letting you guys off with a warning," Lima said, puffing his chest up. "You can start praising me now, but please keep in mind that I also accept gifts."

"Thank you so much for looking out for us," Velvet said, clapping her hands together and ducking her head. "I'll make sure to buy you something nice—"

A familiar girl stepped into view, apparently close enough to the door to have overheard the conversation—and despite the fact that she was inside, her designer sunglasses were still on.

"Oh," The girl said, eyeing him for a moment. "It's you."

"Vile girl," Lima retorted, pointing directly at her. "What the heck are you doing here?"

The two girls shared a glance for a moment before Velvet hesitantly spoke up.

"This is our room?" Velvet said, "That's Coco—and that's Yatsuhashi."

An absolute giant of a boy, who might have even been a match for Jupiter in sheer bulk, moved the door all the way open—it left him towering over the three of them, his dark hair just about brushing the top of the door frame.

"I should have known," Lima said before planting his hands on his hips. "I guess I couldn't recognise you without a stolen chair in your hand."

Coco shifted her glasses further down her nose, revealing her eyes and raising an eyebrow at him.

"Are you really that cut up about it?" Coco wondered.

"Thank you for speaking with Professor Goodwitch on our behalf; it would have been unfortunate if we had been excluded from participating," Yatsuhashi said, speaking up before he could fire something back at her. "I apologize if we have caused you any problems through our mistake."

"I was joking about that," Lima said, scratching his cheek at the apparent good nature of the guy. "It happens all the time, apparently, and Bestwitch always follows up with the mistakes anyway."

Velvet flushed at this new source of information and then puffed up her cheeks as she realised that he'd lied about being the cause of their survival.

"Bestwitch?" Coco said, tilting her head. "Why are you the one coming to speak with us?"

"It's part of my detention," Lima said, shrugging a bit. "Sort the forms, upload them all onto the computer, note down which ones weren't filled out correctly, and then go find everyone who messed up—that's you, chair-thief, you messed up, so embarrassing, for you."

Coco hummed in the back of her throat at the words, apparently immune to his attempts to rile her up.

"I believe I have messed up as well," Yatsuhashi said in a clear attempt to take on his share of the blame. "I am also embarrassed."

"Don't even sweat it, big guy," Lima said, giving him the thumbs up. "Mistakes like this happen, man—don't beat yourself up over it."

"Uhuh," Coco said, amused at the completely one-sided nature of it all. "You brought the forms with you?"

Lima handed the two forms over and flipped the pen up into the air—Coco caught it almost without looking, using the wall beside the door jam as a backing to write against. Lima scrunched his face up as he realised that the pink-haired second-year could have done the same thing. He took the two forms back once they'd finished signing them, slipping each into the satchel.

"I've got about twenty more of these to get done," Lima said, tucking the pen into his pocket. "Wish me luck—"

"I saw the video of what happened in the cafeteria," Coco said before he could move away from the door. "Velvet also explained everything that happened and how you came to help—"

Lima wasn't willing to touch that subject with the hands of a chair thief, let alone his own—and the fact that Velvet looked visibly uncomfortable with the topic was more than enough for him to put a stop to it.

"How you can see anything while wearing sunglasses indoors like a lunatic is a complete mystery to me—or maybe you can't, which would explain why you stole my chair," Lima said, interjecting. "Whatever, I'll let you off the hook this time, Choo-choo, but don't let it happen again—any of you know where a guy called Onyx sleeps? He's supposed to be a second year."

The interruption seemed to throw her off entirely, and an expression of alarm came across her face.

"Choo-choo?" Coco managed, "Have I become a train, Yatsu?"

"Not yet," Yatsuhashi hedged, "Maybe soon?"

Velvet took the chance to speak up, more than happy to push the conversation as far away from the bullying incident as possible.

"Onyx is a girl," Velvet said, "Her room is actually right behind you."

"I would have known that if she'd bothered to fill in the gender space on her form," Lima declared, nodding at the three of them. "Peace, losers."

Lima spun on his heel, took three steps forward, and then started knocking on the door, well aware that they were staring at him from the still-open doorway. Ten knocks in, the door finally opened, and a tired-looking girl appeared before him for judgment—

"Don't you know what time it is," Onyx sighed. "Can't you come back in the morning?"

Unable to believe the words coming out of her mouth, Lima took his time rolling up the form like it was a newspaper—and then smacked her over the head with it. Onyx let out a startled squawk at the sudden attack and then covered her head with her hands as he took another whack at her.

"Let me tell you the story of a girl named Onyx," Lima threatened, brandishing the form at her in a warning. "She wrote her name at the top of a very special form and then had the absolute audacity to sign it at the bottom—after leaving the entire thing blank."

#

Grounds, Beacon Academy, Sanus.

Sneaking out in the dead of night probably wasn't the best way to reduce the number of detentions he'd accumulated, but this time he wasn't the driving force behind it, so if they did get caught, he'd get the chance to dump all the blame on someone else for a change—he just wished he hadn't allowed his imagination to pull him in a million different directions, because the reality of Claire's request to 'sneak out together' fell pretty short of what he'd managed to dream up over the course of the day.

"What are you doing for the break?" Claire asked, voice low. "Are you staying here?"

"I'm heading back to Mistral to visit my family," Lima admitted, hands folded behind his head. "Sage already paid for my tickets, so I couldn't change my mind, even if you begged me."

"Who's begging?" Claire huffed, shifting the visor around on her head until it covered her eyes. "You're going to spend more time on the train than you do in Mistral—you know that, right?"

"Yeah," Lima sighed. "I'll finally get to catch up on my sleep, at least."

"It's going to be weird after being stuck with you three pretty much every hour of the day," Claire said, "I wonder what Lux is planning to do."

"Rich girl could probably fly back to Vacuo," Lima said, "Guess that depends—she doesn't really talk about her family, so I'm not sure if she actually wants to visit anyone."

"Mm," Claire said, "Teak is going down to Vale to stay with his mum."

"What about you? Is your fancy sister in town?" Lima asked, "This could be your big chance to beat her up in front of your parents—it's time to become the favourite by force."

Claire let out a startled laugh at the words and then smacked him in the belly when he did as well—Lima curled up from the hit, unsure if she was going for a second strike in the dark.

"You're not supposed to joke about that," Claire warned, "It's not funny—"

"You're the one laughing," Lima protested, managing to block the second attack, but it deflected off his hip, a little bit too close for comfort. "Hey—that one was—I'll start fighting back—"

Claire pulled back after the third attempt, apparently content with the delivered punishment or with having gotten him to react. The fact that she was able to target him so accurately meant that the night-vision visor was working, at least to some degree.

"I'm going down to Vale as well," Claire admitted after she'd sat back onto her hands. "My sister lives here, so she'll probably come to see me as well—do you think Teak would want to meet my parents?"

"It's Teak, so yes, he would," Lima said, "You should drag Lux down with you as well."

"Will she want to?" Claire hesitated.

"Tell her I'll fight her as much as she wants when I get back," Lima said, "That should get her motivated."

Claire clapped her hands together in a soft thup of skin on skin, and he recognised the gesture by the noise alone.

"Your sacrifice will be remembered," Claire said in thanks. "What do you want to be written on your headstone?"

"How about," Lima said, humming. "'He killed so many Grimm that they eventually stopped coming back.'"

"You're going to break the respawn point?" Claire said, impressed. "That seems like a lot."

"You bet," Lima asked. "Claire, what made you choose twin short swords—did you spend too much time reading Atlas comics as a kid?"

"Shut up," Claire protested, whacking him again. "It used to be just one, but my firepower at range kind of sucked—everyone else at Signal had something better."

"Yang was there, wasn't she? Ruby, too," Lima said, managing to catch her hand before she could pull it back. "I suppose her sniper rifle is stronger at range, but you definitely outrange Yang."

Claire gave something of a token resistance to his grip and then let him keep the hand—at which point he had no idea what to do with it, so he just let his arm fall back down, feeling vaguely disappointed that she'd given up.

"Yang has two-shot gauntlets, so she had twice the output," Claire said. "I just followed her example, I guess."

Lima glanced over at where she was sitting on the rooftop, but she might have well have been using her Semblance for all that he could see her—with the moon hidden by the clouds, all he had to go on was a slightly darker splotch amidst the black.

"Why did you choose a bow?" Claire asked, shifting towards him a bit. "Don't lie either because I can see your face."

The words sent a pang of alarm through him, and he glanced down as she slipped her fingers between his own, but he couldn't see anything—the silence stretched, and he came to realise that he hadn't even answered the question she'd asked.

"They say that living a good life is the best revenge," Lima said, doing his best to pull himself together. "But there's no clause that says I can't do that and hunt the Grimm down like the mindless animals they are—they don't deserve anything more than a bow."

The grip she had on his hand tightened a bit, and he looked away from where she was sitting, feeling a bit embarrassed by admitting it and by the fact that she could see him when he couldn't see her reaction.

"That might be taking the whole 'hunt' part of Huntsman a bit too literally," Claire said before pausing. "Are you sure it's not something lame, like the fact that you have bad aim?"

"What the heck?" Lima squawked. "My aim is impeccable—"

#

Glynda Goodwitch's Office, Beacon Academy, Sanus.

Despite the hasty shower, he spent the walk to detention with the lingering smell of rain, mud and grass following him—he'd probably need to take a proper one once he finished up, or his sheets were going to smell come morning. All in all, it was a pretty novel lesson—if only because of the fact that he'd had the distinct privilege of watching Weiss and Pyrrha wrestle in the mud over who would get to retain ownership of the flag during the final seconds of the battle. He pressed the door to Bestwitch's office open and offered her what had become a rather routine salute in greeting. The stack of forms on her desk was more or less gone, a small pile of faded blue leaflets resting beside her hand that he didn't recognise. He paused beside the desk he'd come to label as 'his' and then stared at it in confusion—the small stack of forms he'd had leftover from the last detention was gone.

"Hey, where did mine go—" Lima protested, tipping the desk up onto two legs in an attempt to check beneath it. "Stealing? Not setting a very good example, are we, Bad—"

"If you even think about calling me Badwitch," Glynda said, in a clear warning. "I'm going to give you a practical demonstration about what the word defenestration means."

Lima gave a nervous laugh at the threat before carefully setting the desk back down.

"Moving past things that I never had any intention of saying out loud," Lima said, pressing both of his hands together in apology. "Where did my stack of forms go—I could have sworn I had like two dozen left."

"You did have a small amount left," Glynda said, raising a single eyebrow. "However, yesterday was your final day of detention, and so your punishment has concluded."

Lima opened his mouth on reflex, allowed the words to actually register, and then paused, entirely unsure about how to feel about it. On the one hand, it had been a pretty mindnumbing task overall, but on the other, he'd grown quite used to working quietly alongside her, and the idea that it was coming to an end actually twisted something in his chest in a way he didn't like at all.

"There will no doubt be some stragglers who come to me in the weeks following the break in a complete panic, but for now, the task has been successfully managed," Glynda said, patting a hand on the leaflets. "There are always one or two of them that have stuffed their form in a locker or in the back of a book before forgetting about it—it happens just about every time."

Lima had an existential moment of dread in which he wasn't certain as to whether or not he'd handed his own form in—which would prove catastrophic if Lux ever discovered the mistake.

"Uh," Lima said, "Totally unrelated to what you just said—but did I hand my form in?"

Glynda looked distinctly amused at the question, enough so that she sat back in her chair to meet his gaze across the top of the projected monitor once more.

"You handed it to me on the second day," Glynda said, smiling. "You don't remember?"

"Of course I do," Lima lied, "But if I didn't—well, a memory of a single sheet of paper is hard to find inside a forest of them."

"You know, if you hadn't just lied to my face," Glynda said, raising an eyebrow. "I'd have said that was almost poetic."

Lima reached up to thumb his nose before pulling a too-bright smile onto his face.

"I know plenty of poems," Lima said, clearing his throat. "There once was a woman from Kuchinashi who liked to show off her—"

"Lima," Glynda said, eyeing him. "If you finish that rhyme, I'm going to start handing out more detentions—go."

Lima fled the room before he could be overcome with the need to rise to the challenge and before she could make good on her threat in return. The smile on his face burned at his cheeks, but he couldn't manage to rid himself of it—it may have taken the better part of a month, but she'd finally called him by name.

#

Workshop A4, Beacon Academy, Sanus.

Lima shifted the gauntlet around until he could see the dust guard set into the surface of the metal, the clear sheet of durable material pinning the dust tubing in place within the groove. Despite the movement, he could barely see the gravity dust shifting around in the tube, so tightly compact that it was struggling to find any kind of space to move around—which is pretty much what he'd be going for overall. He spent a final moment making sure it was as well-fitted as he could manage before slipping the entire thing back over his arm.

The new padded sleeve on the inside of the glove felt soft against his skin, and he clenched his fist, feeling the material shift with the motion, the resistance practically non-existent. Lima turned his hand, spread out his fingers until he could see the glowing purple spiral of dust, and then activated the attraction mechanism—the spike sticking out of the holder at the edge of his desk pulled up into the air as he shifted his hand upwards. It scraped against the top edge, came free, and then spun into a blur—before smacking flat into the palm of his hand.

"Heh," Lima noised, teeth bared at the success. "No problem."

Lima deactivated the glove, twirled the spike around his fingers and then caught it again as he rose to his feet—rather than wait, he slipped out into the aisle before heading straight to the front of the room.

"Praise me, Mulberry," Lima declared as he came to a stop at the man's desk. "I am the greatest inventing man that ever lived."

Mulberry looked up from his own work, placing his tiny drill down onto the desk, and then scanned the Grapple Gauntlet on his arm. Lima twisted it around so the man could see the pattern on the back of his hand, dropped the spike, and then pulled it straight back to his hand before it could hit the floor. Mulberry hummed at the sight before planting his elbow on the desk and holding his palm out in expectation—Lima slipped it off his arm and handed it over without a word.

"Atlas design, but way heavier than expected," Mulberry said, turning it over to see the link between the glove and bracer. "You moved the cable from the canister to the bracer—how long is it?"

"Sixty metres," Lima said, "Number 7 cable on the requisition list."

"Thin enough to maximise the length, but also the most durable for the gauge," Mulberry noted, "The casing is decent; reinforced palm to help withstand the friction generated by pulling against the cable—can you open the socket on the palm without firing it?"

"You can, but you need to be wearing it," Lima admitted, "When the cover pulls back, the tip of the grapple arm is pretty much level with the socket."

"You went for powder instead of a crystal; space concerns, I'm guessing," Mulberry said, running a finger along the dust groove. "You could have added three or four reinforced sockets on either side of the back of the hand—it would have been raised up a bit, but it would have more attraction and repulsion."

Mulberry drew a finger along the back of the glove, marking out the four lines, knuckle to the wrist and raising his finger up about an inch to show where they could have been.

"I didn't even think about cutting a series of short crystals," Lima said, scrunching his face up. "I'm so used to cutting them long and thin for my arrows that I dismissed using crystals straight away."

"I'd say it would get you about thirty percent more power at a guess—you'd lose the aesthetic value, though." Mulberry wondered, "Something for next time when you redesign it."

The man said it as if it was a foregone conclusion that he would be making changes to it—and he was completely correct because now that Lima knew there was such an easy way to improve it just lying around like that, he couldn't just ignore it.

"You could go for a bigger hook mechanism as well, set a small amount of dust inside of it to help reduce the load on the motor," Mulberry said, tapping a finger on the palm. "Probably wouldn't get much out of it, but ten percent lighter is still an advantage."

"Damn it," Lima complained, smacking his palm into his forehead. "I should have asked you for ideas at the start—both of those are going in version two, for sure."

"Don't sweat it," Mulberry said, "Have you tested the grapple yet?"

"I tried it out in the forest last night, but it takes a bit of getting used to," Lima said, sliding his hand up to mess up his own hair. "I probably should have made two of them."

"I'll pretend I didn't hear the part about you sneaking into the forest at night—pretty solid work overall, so this is an easy pass, kid," Mulberry said, "You've got the rest of the year ahead of you, so unless you're going to sit around cleaning your gear every lesson, you might as well build out a second one."

Lima caught the Grapple Gauntlet out of the air as Mulberry underhanded it to him, already moving to slip it back over his arm.

"I'll do that," Lima said, pleased. "Thanks."

Mulberry waved him off, already returning to his own mess of metal panels, and Lima turned back around to face the class—he found Teak, Lux and Claire all watching him from their respective desks, matching looks of expectation on their faces. Lima flashed them a thumbs up, making sure to use the hand with the gauntlet.

#

Grounds, Beacon Academy, Sanus.

"I've seen rotisserie chickens spin faster than this," Lima said, reaching out to poke it. "What have you got to say for yourself?"

"I haven't even turned it on yet," Teak said, pushing his hand away. "Let me do a final check to make sure it's actually ready—"

"Didn't you say that about the last check?" Lima wondered.

Teak shushed him before moving back into a crouch and placing his scroll against the ground. The short boy glanced between the interface and polyhedron, the mess of glowing lines between the smooth white panels lighting up one after another.

"Okay—go back over where the marker is," Teak breathed. "It's going up."

Lima shuffled back behind the line, following the direction without question. All of the lines lit up at once, and then the panels shifted outwards slightly—a series of blue hard light panels appeared in a sphere, two meters out, surrounding the projector and Teak both, sealing him away inside.

"Okay, that's cool as hell," Lima admitted, reaching out to place his hand against the seamless curve of the hard-light projection. "Still not spinning though—whoa."

Lima pulled his hand back as the shield began to spin, and when he glanced down, he could see where it was cutting a perfectly circular groove into the well-manicured grass of the training field—so it wasn't a sphere that went underground, it actually a dome that stopped a few inches below the surface.

"That's more like it," Lima said, "Now—tell me what you want me to do again because I totally wasn't listening, like, at all."

"Lima—you're helping me test for weak spots and angles of attack that will cost more charge to deflect," Teak said, glaring at him through the shield. "I need you to keep hitting it with roughly the same amount of force each time, but from different sides and angles."

"You got it," Lima said, punching into his palm. "I was born to hit things."

Lima waited until Teak was ready and then rolled his shoulder for a moment—and then struck forward at a comfortable amount of force, hitting the dead centre of the shield. The brief contact was enough for the shield to start pulling his fist to the right and, off course, the motion working to disperse some of the force.

"That was good," Teak said, pleased. "You did four percent damage."

"Like hell I did," Lima cried, "I'm going for forty next—"

"You better not," Teak protested, "Keep it exactly the same as before."

Lima grunted, unable to believe he'd done so little damage to the damn thing—he aimed higher on the next hit, the angle slightly upwards. The spin pulled it up higher and to the side, dragging it off course, and he could tell, even before Teak said anything, that it only carried about half of the previous force.

"Two percent," Teak said, nodding. "That was the same strength, right?"

"Same strength," Lima confirmed, "Going low next—this could be a critical hit depending on the gender of this shield."

Lima struck out in what would have been an absolute monster of a dick-shot, and once again, the strike was dragged off course, the edge of his knuckles dragging a line across the hard light projection.

"One-point-five," Teak offered.

"It's a girl," Lima decided.

A strike to the left of the centre followed, and Lima could feel how he was fighting directly against the path of the shield, the rotation working harder to break straight through his attack.

"Five percent," Teak said. "I kind of expected that—attacks coming in against the rotation are more costly to block."

Lima waited until he was ready and then went for the right of centre—his fist glanced off the instant it made contact, the rotation carrying out wide.

"Point-five percent," Teak said, "That's—"

They kept going, mapping out the points of impact and then went on to redo it all with ranged weaponry to find out how much of a difference the size of the impact actually had on the drain. By the time the shield had been depleted, charged, and depleted again, they'd used up the remainder of the afternoon entirely.

"Thanks, Lima; I think I have a pretty good idea of how to use it now," Teak said, sitting on the grass. "Sorry if it was boring for you."

Lima dropped down beside him with a grunt of effort before leaning back onto his hands, not at all bothered—he made sure to push the other boy in an attempt to knock him off balance, but Teak was aware enough of the potential threat to brace himself.

"I can't believe you wouldn't let me try and one-shot it," Lima complained, "That would have been so cool."

"No way," Teak said, "You might have overloaded it."

"You're going to need a way to deploy it more quickly, though," Lima said, watching some of the older students crossing the path that led to the landing zone. "The Grimm aren't going to wait for you to do a system check beforehand."

Teak hummed in agreement, plucking at the grass between his legs without actually ripping it out—Lima caught a flash of white hair that might have been Weiss over the railing, but it was gone a few moments later.

"Claire said you're going home for the break," Teak said, eyes on the grass. "To see your family."

"I am," Lima said with a nod. "Did she tell you how much she wanted you to meet her parents?"

Teak glanced over at him for a minute, searching his face for something—maybe some kind of tell that he was lying or just messing with him about it.

"She didn't," Teak said. "Is that true?"

"Very true," Lima said, unbothered by the doubt. "You should introduce them both to your mum as well."

"Both of them?" Teak said, ducking his head. "Do you think they'd even want to?"

"Absolutely," Lima said. "Besides, it will be a solid revenge for the time they kept making all those weird noises while you were on that voice call—oh Teak, when are you coming back to bed—"

"Don't remind me of that," Teak said, waving his hands around in alarm. "My mum keeps saying how proud she is that I've got so many girlfriends—"

Lima laughed out loud at the words.

"She sounds awesome—I want to meet your mum as soon as I get back," Lima decided, pumping a fist in the air. "Then I'm going to ask her to be my girlfriend."

"Lima," Teak strangled out, "You—"

Teak tackled him down onto the grass, the shorter boy's initiative allowing him to take the full mount before he was really ready to contest him. Lima's laughter was muffled by the hand that was attempting to seal itself over his mouth, but he managed to turn his head to the side enough to speak.

"Me and your mother, Teak." Lima teased, pulling his arms up to guard his face. "We're going to go on dates—"

"No dates," Teak cried out, fighting to get through his guard. "You're way too young for her."

Teak, flustered that he couldn't manage it, dropped all of his weight down, and attempted to smother him instead. Lima wrapped his arms around the boy's back, shifted his weight, and then twisted, planting Teak on his back in the grass. Teak struggled to keep him from breaking free, managing to take hold of the collar of his uniform and then locking his feet behind Lima's back.

"Just think about it," Lima said, working to break the boy's hold on his collar. "You and I could mess around during the day, and me and your mum could mess around at night—I'm talking about sex Teak—"

Teak's outraged response was muffled by the flesh of Lima's forearm pushing against his face—and while the words were entirely incomprehensible, it sounded passionate enough that he couldn't help but believe him. Teak managed to roll them back over again, regaining the mount with a burst of energy as his fighting spirit was ignited. Lima snatched hold of Teak's hair and pulled the boy's head down until his face was smushed against the chest of his uniform, seeking to maintain some control of the now wild boy—Lima realised his mistake a moment later as Teak bit down on the front of his uniform, catching hold of a chunk of pectoral muscle as he went.

"Don't eat me," Lima cried in protest. "I'm not food—"

#

Library, Beacon Academy, Sanus.

"I mean, it has to be some kind of joke," Lima said, leaning back until his chair was balancing on two legs. "Why would Lux want to meet us in the library of all places—is this the obligatory bodyswap episode?"

"We better test it," Claire said, touching a finger to her chin in thought. "Teak—want to fight?"

"It's annoying that you automatically assume she swapped bodies with me," Teak said, scrunching his face up. "It could be literally anyone else."

"You were born in a library," Claire contested, "It makes sense that it's you."

"That's a good point," Lima said, impressed. "If Teak is in Lux's body—"

"Excuse me?" Lux said, approaching the table. "What the hell does in my body mean?"

Claire lifted both of her hands into the air, made a tight loop with one, and then slowly pressed a finger inside in a gesture that couldn't possibly be misconstrued—Lima laughed out loud at the betrayed look on Teak's face.

"It's this, right?" Claire taunted. "Busted."

"Claire," Teak managed. "You're being gross, and people are looking."

"Everybody shut the hell up," Lux said, slapping a plain paper-wrapped book down on the table directly in front of Teak. "I don't know what Lima infected you all with, but this is what I wanted to show you—"

Lima made a pleased noise in the back of his throat at the fact he was the one getting the credit when he'd barely done anything at all.

"You found a book," Claire said, sucking in a breath. "In the library?"

"I'm seriously going to start hitting people," Lux warned, lifting a fist up. "I've got enough for all of you."

"I didn't do anything," Teak protested. "Don't hit me."

"She's still violent," Lima wondered. "So it can't be a bodyswap episode—I'm going to fall—"

Lima flailed his arms around in an attempt to regain his balance as she booted the leg of his precarious balance chair before quickly sitting forward and using the table to settle once more.

"Lux," Teak tried, leaning forward to study the obvious but unmarked packaging. "What book did you get?"

Lux, who'd been impatiently waiting for someone to finally ask, seemed to preen at the words.

"Open it," Lux said, planting her hands on her hips. "Hurry up."

Teak appeared more than a bit startled at the knowledge that he was now the centre of attention.

"You bought him a present?" Lima said, a bit taken aback. "Whoa."

"That's actually adorable," Claire admitted. "I'm totally cheering for you two."

Lux let out something of a nervous laugh at the words, clearly uncomfortable with how the situation was progressing and probably revisiting whatever had compelled her to do this while the entire team was present. Teak seemed to shift a bit as well, but his eyes remained glued to the package, apparently taken in by the mystery of it all.

"It's more like—a team thing or something," Lux hedged, suddenly unable to look at any of them. "Teak can read it first, but I want to read it after."

Teak carefully reached down and pulled open the thread keeping the packaging shut. Lima watched with interest as the boy flipped it open, and carefully unwrapped the paper, making an effort not to tear it. A familiar-looking book was revealed, with the same golden lettering and the exact same title—except the number on the front was different.

"The second Ozymandias Journal," Teak said, stunned. "I already tried to order it, but there haven't been any copies for sale in months—where did you even get this?"

Lux seemed to regain some of her confidence at the positive reaction, her teeth showing through as a pleased smile took over her face.

"I called Tukson and made him put a buyer listing out for me," Lux said, flashing a smile. "I got annoyed when nobody answered it right away, so I made him double it a few times—someone finally sold one at the end of last week, and it just came in."

"Rich girl," Lima accused.

"That's where you went this morning," Claire said, clicking her fingers. "If you were going down to Vale, you should have taken us with you."

"That would have ruined the surprise," Lux said before glancing down at Teak. "Well—do you like it?"

Teak turned to look up at her, the journal cradled in his hands and his eyes practically shining.

"I do," Teak said, "You're amazing, Lux."

Lux turned away from them for a moment, hands linked behind her back, and so obviously flustered with the praise that it was impossible for any of them to have missed it. Lima shook his head at the sight of the journal, still unable to believe there was something she appreciated other than beating the crap out of people—and that it was poetic writing, of all things.

#

Workshop A4, Beacon Academy, Sanus.

"This is so stupid," Lux said, fretting over her mostly assembled glove. "Does this even look like it's sitting properly?"

"It's fine," Lima insisted. "Exactly how many times are you going to unscrew it?"

"Until it sits properly, you—" Lux hissed before sucking in a breath. "I heard a click—there, it's perfect."

"Are you sure?" Lima hedged, immediately flipping his position. "I could swear it's sticking up a couple of—"

"Shut up," Lux moaned, smacking her forehead against the desk. "Shut up, shut up, shut up—"

Lima laughed at the reaction—he'd already tried teasing her about making something that looked so similar to his own project—in that, it was also a glove—but she didn't seem to care about the originality argument at all. Turns out that they actually had something in common after all, and it was that Lux could be just as fussy about these kinds of things as he was.

"I'm messing with you," Lima said, "It's definitely flush—now get it together before I accidentally eat your spare battery on purpose, but by mistake."

Lima scuffed his shoes on the ground as if he was going to go after it, and Lux shifted the battery pack in question all the way to the opposite side of her workbench in alarm—then, when she realised she'd reacted to such a stupid threat, she flushed.

"You're trying to piss me off," Lux accused. "You must want to die."

"I may as well be dead if you were the one who did me in—because I couldn't ever live it down," Lima taunted before pointing a finger directly at her face. "Lux, what are you doing for the break?"

Lux narrowed her eyes at the sudden change in topic, clearly expecting some kind of trap, but he leaned back against the edge of the desk, content to wait out her suspicion.

"I'm staying here," Lux said, "It would be a hassle to organise a trip back to Vacuo—and it would be completely boring because I'd have nobody good to fight."

"You don't want to see your family?" Lima asked.

"They'd make me do a whole bunch of annoying things as soon as I got back," Lux huffed, "I'd rather just stay here."

"What about seeing your old school buddies," Lima said, tilting his head. "You don't want to catch up with anyone?"

"Everyone at Oscuro was a total loser," Lux said without a care. "So I don't have anyone like that."

Lima just nodded at the words, half expecting it.

"Teak and Claire are going down to Vale—you should make sure they don't get lonely while I'm gone," Lima said, watching her. "They both want you to meet their parents, too, so you better say yes when they ask."

Lux looked unsettled at the words or maybe at the seriousness with which he said them.

"Why would they want me to do that?" Lux said, "I'll just—mess it up."

"Because you're their friend now, and that means you have to do annoying things," Lima said, "It's part of the rules, rich girl, and nobody cares if you mess it up."

"Why don't you have to do it then?" Lux said, looking away. "You're running away like a coward."

"I'm going to make an effort to meet everybody's parents as soon as I get back," Lima said, "For those two, at least—not sure when we'll be able to catch a ride to Vacuo, but I want to meet yours as well."

"My parents would hate you," Lux said, staring at him. "Completely."

"I can live with that," Lima said with an upwards nod. "I'll introduce you to Sage whenever we end up on Anima—he'll fight you as many times as you want, trust me."

Lux looked a bit torn at the idea, clearly stuck between the idea of actually meeting his guardian and her desire to test herself against the man.

"I could just get us both an airship to Mistral," Lux said, "Teak and Claire can throw their parents at each other and come with us—"

"Denied," Lima said, shaking his head. "I want you to suffer, so you have to do it properly."

"You suck," Lux said, fiddling with the glove in her lap. "They won't even like me."

"Who cares?" Lima said, "Teak likes you, Claire likes you, and I like you—that should be enough, brighteyes."

There was a long silence in the wake of his comment, in which Lux refused to take her eyes off the glove and risk making eye contact with him, but he remained in place, giving her the time she needed to come to a decision—he caught the moment she glanced over at the table where Claire and Teak were huddled up.

"Fine," Lux muttered. "I'll do it."

"Good," Lima said, nodding. "Now get up already—it's time to flash Mulberry."

"Don't say it like that," Lux said, scrunching her face up. "You idiot."

Despite the words, she rose to her feet without pause, the glove hanging from her fingers as she cut into the aisle. The movement seemed to attract the attention of their teammates, who both looked up with interest as she approached Mulberry's desk. The man took the glove from her, and the two had a quiet conversation that was far too faint for anybody to really make out. Eventually, the man lifted it up, turned it away from his face, and then set it off—a blinding flash of light illuminated the entire front wall, and despite it not being pointed at them, it still left Lima with a few odd spots in his vision.

Lux idled at the desk for a few moments longer, one of her shoes twisting impatiently on the floor before she took the glove back and turned towards them. Lima raised both of his eyebrows in expectation and lifted his head a fraction, the unspoken question clear. Lux pulled the glove onto her hand, the elastic material snapping tight against her palm—the smile on her face was answer enough.

#

Dining Hall, Beacon Academy, Sanus.

"What's wrong with our normal table?" Lima complained, trying and failing to dig his heels into the smooth floor of the Dining Hall. "I don't want to be social."

Claire continued to push him forward, her palms pressed flat against his back—he could have put a stop to it if he'd really wanted, but then she'd stop touching him, and he'd be forced to trail on behind them anyway, or else eat dinner by himself like a loser.

"Too bad," Claire said, "It's been ages since we've hung out with anyone else, and we won't really see any of them until after the break."

"We'll see them in class," Lima said, crossing his arms. "Every single day."

"One meal isn't going to kill you," Claire insisted, shoving him forward. "Stop being difficult."

He managed to catch his balance before he could fall entirely onto Yang, and then, as punishment for trying to bully him, he took the seat beside her so that Claire couldn't have it—the absolute look of betrayal on her face was almost enough to bring a tear to his eye. Yang, Ruby and Blake all straightened up a bit, while Weiss remained entirely unaware of their arrival, her exhausted, slumped-over posture leaving her cheek to rest flat against the table.

"Yang, Blake," Lima said in greeting. "Melted ice cube."

Ruby puffed up her cheeks at being completely overlooked, so he made a big show of suddenly noticing her, his expression the picture of surprise; he opened his mouth as if to greet her—and then turned away without saying anything at all.

"Hey," Ruby said in protest. "I'm here too."

"Hello Ruby," Teak said, taking the seat beside her. "Don't pay him any mind; he's just doing it to annoy you."

"I am not an ice cube," Weiss managed.

"Not anymore, but that's because you melted," Lima said with great patience. "The question remains—who is responsible for this monstrous act of defrosting?"

"Our dear, sweet Weiss decided it would be a good idea to stay up all night in an attempt to finish her project," Yang said, tapping her fork on her empty plate. "Now we're spending the day learning about the importance of keeping proper sleep patterns—aren't we?"

Yang dragged the tip of her fork across the surface of her plate like an absolutely unhinged degenerate, sending a screeching, demented noise ringing out—just about everyone reacted to it with some degree of horror. Weiss couldn't seem to lift her head up, so she made a sluggish, blind grab in the direction of the sound, almost scattering her own untouched plate of food across the table in the process.

"You know I hate that—" Ruby cried, covering her ears. "Yang."

"Sorry, sorry," Yang said, grinning. "Accident."

Claire dropped down into the seat beside the still-moving corpse and leaned down next to her ear—whatever she was saying was too quiet for him to make out from across the table, but Weiss kind of flapped her hand in something approaching communication.

"Buzzing, thumping, grinding," Ruby said, anguished. "At one point, I could have sworn she set the room on fire."

Weiss managed to lift her head for the first time, giving her teammate what was perhaps the most muted expression of outrage Lima had ever seen from her.

"In her defence," Lima said, "Weiss only does that to forests, not dormitories."

"That's in her defence?" Blake said, her cheek planted firmly on the palm of her hand. "Your Honor, she is an arsonist—but only kind of, sometimes."

Yang laughed out loud at the words before letting the fork in her hand dangle dangerously close to her plate again. Lima kept one eye on it, just in case, because he wasn't sure he could withstand another attack of that magnitude—surprising everybody at the table, Claire somehow managed to get Weiss to sit up properly.

"What brought you guys over here, anyway?" Yang said, twirling the fork between her fingers. "Something interesting going on?"

"Claire has been begging us for weeks—" Lux started.

Claire's head snapped up in alarm, but Teak came to her rescue before she could be thrown entirely under the bus.

"—to ask you what you were doing for the break," Teak said, interjecting. "Claire, Lux and I are all staying here while Lima is going to Mistral."

Lux scrunched her face up at the interjection before folding her arms on the table and dropping her chin down on top of them.

"Have we even talked about that yet?" Yang wondered. "Ruby—what are we doing?"

"Dad will definitely want us to come home," Ruby said, furrowing her brow. "At least for a couple of weeks."

"We'll do that then," Yang decided. "He can come to visit us in the city during the last half—yeah?"

"Yeah," Ruby said, nodding. "Cool."

"Blake?" Yang asked, tilting her head. "You staying or going home—where are you even from, anyway?"

Lima caught the sudden odd shift in Blake's shoulders at the question, like she'd been bracing herself for it—her face, already angled away from the rest of the table, hiding her expression from view. All at once, he realised that she hadn't confided in her team at all, and now she was stuck between lying about where she was from and telling them that her family was from Menagerie—something which would immediately reveal her as a Faunus to everybody present.

"Hold on," Lima said, playing defence. "I'm still trying to picture a being that could spawn a beautiful, athletic, and powerful girl like Yang—and also a Ruby."

Yang brushed off her shoulders as if she'd just done something particularly and impressively strenuous while Ruby let out a squawk of protest at the fact that he hadn't given her even a single descriptor of her own.

"Lima," Claire warned, "Be nice."

"Oh, you know, it could have been anyone, really," Yang said, flapping a hand at them in an attempt to play coy. "Psych—I was pretty much always going to be the complete package; I mean, come on, it's me."

Blake shifted, realigning her palm so she could see the rest of the table again.

"So humble," Blake said, "I'll be staying here as well—Weiss, what are you doing?"

The words carried none of the previous tension, and she wasted no time in passing the conversational ball straight onto to someone else, using the distraction to avoid answering Yang's original question—and from what best Lima could tell, nobody had managed to catch it. Weiss, on the other hand, looked as if she was trying to figure out how to sleep while sitting up, and Claire's arm was probably the only thing actually keeping her upright. The question took about twice as long to register with her as it should have, her tired, sluggish mind grappling with it as best she could.

"Staying," Weiss murmured. "Home—isn't very fun right now."

Lux rocked her head forward in agreement, chin still pressed against her arms and in a gesture that was vaguely reminiscent of a nod. There was a series of glances exchanged between the rest of the group, and the only thing Lima was sure of was that he didn't have the context to really understand what she was alluding to, something that didn't seem all that uncommon amongst the others—there was a shift in the lighting behind him, his shadow on the table abruptly changing direction, and informing him that someone had come to stand behind him.

"Lima?" Jaune said. "Can I borrow you for a few minutes?"

#

Training Room A9, Beacon Academy, Sanus.

The training room was entirely unoccupied, and the sound of their footsteps seemed to carry oddly in the empty space. Lima had been entirely unsuccessful in goading the boy into revealing his intentions before they got there, but he was pretty sure he'd narrowed it down to a fight to the death or—

"You've fallen madly in love with me," Lima decided, "This is a confession, isn't it?"

"What?" Jaune said in alarm. "No, it's not—I just—kind of need your help with something."

"It's not about your project, or we'd be in the workshop," Lima wondered. "Well, that, and I don't really know anything about jetpacks in the first place."

"I gave up on the jetpack idea; it was way too complicated," Jaune said, shaking his head. "But it's not that either—it's about Pyrrha."

Lima tilted his head at the words—so this was a continuation of the conversation they'd had a while back.

"What's the problem?" Lima asked.

Jaune seemed to take a moment to figure out exactly how he was going to say it and then a few more to check on whether or not anybody else had managed to sneak into the empty room without either of them noticing.

"Look, no matter what I do, I can't beat Pyrrha—it's not even that I can't beat her, really," Jaune said, stumbling a bit in his explanation. "I can't seem to—it's like, every single day she helps me practice, it's pretty much the exact same thing, and it feels like I'm not making any progress at all—or, or like I'm getting worse."

Lima leaned back against the wall for a moment, content to hear him out.

"Maybe I am getting better, but even if that's true, I can't even see it—because she's so far ahead of me that I can't even tell the difference," Jaune said, putting his face in his hand. "Any time I feel like I've managed to make a breakthrough, it does absolutely nothing to help me win."

Jaune stopped for a moment, looking flustered and as if he was about to shut down or attempt to steal back everything he'd said in an effort to contain his rising embarrassment.

"Keep going," Lima said, "I'm listening."

"I—I've tried fighting her with weapons. I've tried fighting her without weapons. I've tried using my height advantage to keep her away. I've tried tricking her and fighting dirty. I've tried overwhelming her with brute force, but none of it works." Jaune said, deflating with each one. "I went to Ren for advice, and he told me to be patient, that in time I'll grow to better match her—I made the mistake of asking Nora, and she spent three days smacking me around with her hammer to 'strengthen my body' like I'm some kind of hero from a book."

Lima was having some difficulty reconciling Jaune's general good nature with what was, at first glance, looking like a bizarre and unhinged desire to win against an opponent he outright knew was superior in just about every metric—it was an attitude far more appropriate for someone like Lux, then him.

"Why do you want to beat her?" Lima asked.

Jaune flinched a bit at the question.

"To show that all of this hasn't been a waste—I guess I'm still worried that if I don't start getting any better, then she really is just wasting her time on me," Jaune managed, struggling with it all. "If nothing ever changes, or it turns out I really am just useless after all, then she's going to be trapped helping me forever because she's too nice to ever say anything."

It was all of the same anxious thoughts he'd expressed the last time, only magnified by several months of getting the gap between them shoved in his face once a day, every day.

"Jaune, not to kick you while you're down or anything, man, but you're not going to beat her any time soon," Lima said without sugarcoating it. "Ren's advice is one-hundred-percent the truth here; you're going to need to be patient about this."

"That's what I was afraid of," Jaune murmured.

"I think you've been staring at the sun too long, and now you've become completely blind to how much you've grown since the start of the year," Lima said, "Do you even remember the first time we had to duel each other in class? It was so bad that I was pretty sure you'd had zero experience with fighting—"

"That's because I didn't have any experience," Jaune groaned, rubbing at his eyes in obvious frustration. "I know that rationally I must have gotten better since then, but—"

Lima paused, halfway towards making a joke about it, when the first half of what he said finally registered. Jaune had gone to Signal, at least; that's what Lima recalled from the conversation, which meant that he'd had at least four years of combat training—only, from what he remembered, Jaune had almost been as bad as Teak, a boy who hadn't gone to a combat school at all.

"Jaune," Lima said, interjecting. "Why didn't you have any experience fighting when you went to Signal for four years?"

It seemed to take a moment for him to register what the question actually meant, but the second he did, it was obvious something was wrong—his shoulders tightened up until he looked like he was about to collapse in on himself, his face paled, and he opened his mouth, but no words seemed to come out. It was such a sudden, visceral reaction that Lima almost wanted to rescind the question entirely and tell him not to worry about it.

"I did have experience," Jaune said after a very long moment. "I'm just not very good."

If it hadn't been for his pale face and the complete tonal transformation he'd just undergone, Lima might have actually believed such a casual answer. There were people like Ruby running around, after all, who had spent at least two years at a combat school and still couldn't throw a punch—but Ruby had a level of mastery over her chosen weapon that put her squarely at the top of their class, whereas Jaune seemed to be starting from just about zero on all fronts.

"You just lied to me," Lima said with rising interest. "Now, why would you go and do something like that?"

"I'm not lying," Jaune tried.

"If I went back and asked Claire, Ruby or Yang if they ever saw you at Signal," Lima said, searching the boy's face. "What would they say?"

Jaune covered his face with his hand again, clearly struggling.

"They will say no because I didn't go there," Jaune managed after a long pause. "I didn't go to a combat school at all."

"So you're like Teak?" Lima said, furrowing his brow. "Why wouldn't you just say that?"

"I'm not like Teak," Jaune said, "I didn't take the NCS."

"That leaves the one-day recommendation exam for trained fighters that have never attended a combat school," Lima said, tilting his head. "You definitely didn't pass that—no offence."

"None taken," Jaune sighed.

"You didn't go to a combat school, you didn't take the NCS, and you didn't do the one-day recommendation exam," Lima said, summarising it. "Don't tell me you just wandered into the airship by mistake and then accidentally passed the entrance exam—are you actually the girl from the Accidental Huntress?"

"I'm pretty sure I'm not a girl, and I'm definitely not a comic book heroine, so no," Jaune said, rubbing at his face. "I didn't do any of those things to get in, Lima—I cheated my way into Beacon Academy."

"How the heck did you do that?" Lima said.

"It's kind of a long story," Jaune said, swallowing. "The short answer is that I paid someone to forge my transcripts—"

"Paid someone?" Lima said, "You're skipping over way too much—give me the long version."

Jaune looked like he was unsure whether he wanted to do something like that, but Lima just crossed his arms in expectation.

"I tried to get into Signal when I was thirteen, but I failed the written exam," Jaune murmured, "I hadn't hit my growth spurt yet, so I was skinny and still only about as short as you are now—so I couldn't even make it to the end of the obstacle course either."

The long version was in need of some serious improvements, starting with far fewer comparisons to his height—he was also overcome with the need to punch thirteen-year-old Jaune in the face for having the audacity to be so tall.

"I'd spent so much time running around and telling everyone that I was going to become a Huntsman, but I never really did anything to make it happen," Jaune said, shaking his head. "I didn't study. I didn't practice—I wasted all that time just saying words and ended up doing nothing to make it real."

"I'd been so confident about getting in, and then I just—didn't," Jaune said, staring at the floor with a kind of distant but still present disbelief. "I stopped talking to everyone from school, and I enrolled at a civilian school on the other side of Vale to make sure I didn't run into any of my old friends—I felt so humiliated, and I couldn't stand the thought of them seeing me after I—"

Jaune trailed off, now scrubbing at his eyes with the side of his hand.

"But even after all of that, I still wanted to be a Huntsman," Jaune said, "I kept going through periods where I'd start exercising, but it never seemed to last for more than a few months, and then I'd be back in my room, doing nothing at all."

Jaune gritted his teeth for a moment and then blew an explosive breath out of his nose.

"Before I knew it, four years had passed, and I was exactly where I'd been at the start of it all, with the burning desire to be a Huntsman and without having done any of the work to get there," Jaune said, with a tortured, self-deprecating laugh. "The enrollment for Beacon Academy was coming up; I didn't have transcripts from a Combat School, and I knew I couldn't pass the NCS or the one-day recommendation exam."

"So you paid for forged transcripts," Lima said, in understanding. "How did you figure that part out?"

"I had a friend at school who had some pretty shady relatives, and he gave me the name of someone who might be able to help me—I ended up having to go to this night club in downtown Vale," Jaune admitted, "I spoke with a man named Junior, and he told me he'd help, but that I'd have to pay a lot to make it happen."

"Where did you get the money?" Lima asked.

"My parents have a bank account for my sisters and me, one for each of us, with money they'd saved up to pay for our secondary education," Jaune said, turning to lean against the wall beside him. "I took everything out of mine without asking for permission and went back to the club—then I just handed it over to him."

"Holy—talk about a leap of faith," Lima said, "What would you have done if he'd just taken it and then kicked you out?"

"Nothing," Jaune admitted. "I was desperate."

"What did your parents do when they found out you took the money?" Lima asked. "I'd have given you a surprise, on-the-spot circumcision if you'd done me like that, J-dog."

"Remind me never to steal from you," Jaune said, wincing at the words. "They didn't actually find out until I was already at Beacon—and I've kind of been avoiding their calls ever since."

"That can't last forever," Lima asked. "You going to go see them over the break?"

"I can't," Jaune said, furiously shaking his head. "They know I didn't go to Signal, and they know I'm not good enough to get in here on my own—I can't go home until I've actually earned my place here."

"I'm pretty sure parents can request to come up here over the break," Lima warned, "What are you going to do if they show up at your door with a pair of little scissors?"

Jaune didn't seem to enjoy the mental image or his attempts to mime it out in all the horrific detail he could manage with his fingers—snip, snip, snip.

"I'm going to stay with one of my sisters," Jaune said, "She lives in Argus, so there's no way they could just turn up there without me having some kind of warning first."

"Argus, huh?" Lima said, nodding. "You taking the train?"

"Yeah," Jaune said, "On the first day of break—Pyrrha is leaving on the same day as well, so she's coming with me."

"Looks like I'll have some company then, at least until I get off at Mistral," Lima said, reaching out and smacking his fist into the taller boy's bicep. "Jaune—you've already earned your place here, dumbass."

"You're talking about the entrance exam," Jaune said, covering the spot where he'd been struck. "I only passed because I had Pyrrha with me."

"The only reason anyone passed that exam was that they had somebody else with them," Lima said, rolling his eyes. "They designed it that way for a reason—and they were watching us through the security feed, so your own abilities were being judged as well."

"Then I got lucky," Jaune said, "Because I don't think I did anything except get in the way and look like a fool."

"Fine, scratch the entrance exam," Lima said, "How many Grimm do you think the average civilian has killed in their life?"

Jaune looked more than a bit off balance at the sudden change in direction the conversation was taking.

"Zero?" Jaune guessed. "One, maybe?"

"You've killed more Grimm in Port's lessons than anyone else in the class, with the singular exception of Teak," Lima said, "I know this to be true because Port's funnelling them towards the least experienced members of the class, which is why I've got to kill exactly zero of them since I got here."

"Anyone could—" Jaune started.

"If you're about to say that anyone could kill a few Grimm like they aren't dangerous or that it doesn't mean anything at all," Lima said, glancing up at the boy. "I'm going to kick the shit out of you, for real."

There was a long silence between them as Jaune took in the seriousness of the threat, and Lima attempted to push away the flash of anger that Jaune's words had caused within him.

"I didn't mean to say anyone," Jaune said with far more care. "It was more like—the people in our class can all do that."

"You can do it now as well, so don't forget that you're training to be a Huntsman alongside the rest of us—you haven't failed any of the practicals yet, none of us has," Lima said, "Besides if the instructors didn't think you were worthy to be here, you'd have been back in Vale by now."

"Maybe," Jaune said, still sounding a bit uncertain. "I just wish I wasn't so far behind—ugh—sorry for dumping all of this on you, Lima."

"Don't be—if you ever want to talk about this stuff, you can always come to me, so don't worry about it," Lima said, shaking his head. "Whatever happens, keep working hard, and eventually, you'll be able to ride back home a hero—parents aren't allowed to stay angry if everything works out in the end; I'm pretty sure that's part of the rules."