~ Date plans ~

Narrator POV:

Here we see, a blond monkey Faunus standing outside with Neptune and the rest of his team and he sees Blake walking slowly behind her team while reading a book, so he catches up to her, for a try at her.

"Hey, Blake!" He says as he grabs the cat Faunus by her shoulder "You uh, doing okay?"

Blake shuts the book she is reading and says while facing Sun "I'm fine"

"So I hear there's this dance going on this weekend... ah, sounds pretty lame, but you and me, I'm thinking, not as lame, huh?" He asks somewhat awkwardly.

"What?" Blake inquires tiredly.

"The dance! This weekend! You wanna go, or what?"

"I don't have time for a stupid dance. I thought you of all people would get that" She says with conviction and starts walking away from him and past her team.

Sun sinks and slumps his shoulders from his rejection.

The rest of team RWBY stand in place looking worriedly back and forth between the dejected Faunus and the other one walking away.

Suddenly, there's slow clapping behind Sun and a mocking chuckle along with it. As he turns around and team RWBY looks at the new arrival, Grimmerin starts speaking.

"Way to go Sun, you just managed to get rejected harder than the effort it took me to break Pyrrha's shield"

"It w-" As Sun was about to argue back, but he gets interrupted by Ruby slightly yelling out "That was so... COOL!"

There's a brief pause in the conversation as everybody glances at the leader of her team "Indeed it was, Ruby" Grimmerin breaks it, now normally people would say 'thank you' or express some kind of gratitude when somebody compliments them doing something 'impressive' and show their modesty but Grim isn't one of those people, besides if she were to thank somebody it'd be herself since she's the one that did it, anyways she looks at Sun "Now, you were saying?"

"... It wasn't that bad" He lets out weakly, having lost all of his spur because of that interruption.

"Right... her saying 'you of all people would get that', it definitely was not that bad" She states in a mocking tone "Well at least she didn't say no because of who you are... Or maybe she did, who knows" Grim chuckles and starts walking past him.

"I don't see you having a date yourself" Sun says, making Grim stop and face him again.

"Perhaps, however, there's a difference between asking somebody with a pinch of rejection on the side and not caring about this entire event, therefore not needing a date... Besides, I could get one if I'd felt like it"

"Oh yeah? Prove it!" Sun challenges Grimmerin.

"I am not Crystal... Knowing it is good enough for me. So, no" Grimmerin says nonchalantly.

"You're only saying that because you're scared, out of fear of not succeeding" Sun keeps on insisting.

Grimmerin only looks at him in silence, so Sun continues.

"I don't hear a rejection, so I am correct, you're scared"

"... Be honest with me, did you really think that your attempt on calling me a 'coward' to get me to agree with what you want, was going to work?" Grim asks the monkey Faunus with a blank face.

"Uh..." Sun scratches his cheek "I might've thought that, yes"

"Well, you were wrong" She says and then turns to look at team RWBY who were silently watching their interaction and she zeroes in on the blond one.

"Hey Yang"

"Hi?" Yang greets back slightly confused on why Grim called out to her specifically, but that confusion was short-lived as the next words made it clear.

"I appreciate you leaving your ride to me on that bridge, I took great care of it, I even thought of a few names to call it, what do you think of the 'Grimm Reaper'? What about 'Monster Bike'? There was also 'Death Machine' and one more, a simple one... 'Ashes', like any of them?" Grimmerin asks for an honest opinion of the original owner.

However, she doesn't receive an answer, as Yang looks at her in silence.

"What? Dislike all of them?"

"... It has a name already"

"Oh... It does? What is it?"

"Bumblebee"

"Hmm..." Grim puts her hand near her mouth in a thinking posture "Well that won't work, but in 'honor' of you being the beauty's owner, I won't rename it completely... So, from now on its name is going to be 'Killer Bee'... No, wait, 'Blood Bee', yes, that's better. Call me when you need it. Anyways, bye" Grim says with a barely noticeable smile, quite proud of herself, and continues on her walk, finishing the small conversation between everybody.

And Yang is left standing in place, watching as the crimson-tailed Faunus just walks away, having taken both her bike and changed its name... Of course, she will never call it that, but it still leaves a sour taste in her mouth.

"Wait..." Weiss says slowly, getting the rest's attention "So that's what it was that day when we, along with Blake were left confused? You know, when you lead us back to the bride after we destroyed that Paladin and your eyes turned red for a second before you sighed, said 'nevermind, it's nothing' and continued to walk back to Beacon. She took your bike"

"Stole it... She stole it" Yang corrects the Schnee, then turns to Sun says "Bye, Sun, we'll go to our room and have a talk with Blake" And the blonde starts walking away, Ruby and Weiss follows her after a moment, they also say their farewells to Sun.

As Ruby and Weiss catch up with Yang, Ruby starts speaking "So, Grimmerin followed the pair of you and Neptune, what happened?"

"Nothing, one moment Neptune was riding with me and the next moment she appeared and jumped on the backseat after the guys got knocked away by the Paladin and while Weiss was fighting it or something, I didn't pay much attention to it, sorry, well, more like I couldn't because she was just poking me for no reason while telling me that she's going to take Bumblebee and because of the time, I had to jump down the bridge, I left it in her hands... Now I don't know when I'll see my motorcycle again"

"Didn't she say that you should call her about it?" Weiss asks.

"Do you trust her to just give it to me? She would've not taken it in the first place if that were the case"

"Yeah, I suppose that's true" Schnee agrees, but Ruby stays silent, her sister not receiving an immediate answer from her, calls out to her.

"Rubes, you don't agree?"

"No, no, I do, but..."

Ruby trails of, slowing down in her steps, the other two doing the same and turning to face their leader.

"I don't really understand this whole, Crystal is Crystal, Grimmerin isn't Crystal business or this multiple personality thing in general, but Grimmerin is still a part of Crystal, is she not?"

"... What's your point?" Weiss inquires.

"Well, even if she's more arrogant and way more mean and many other things, I have a feeling that they share their honesty, it comes in different forms, Crystal would just say anything, while I think, Grimmerin would refrain herself from saying the same thing, but it's more or less the same, they don't tend to lie to others"

"Even if that's the case, even if she was honest about it, even if Grimmerin would give Bumblebee to me if I called her as she implied, I don't see myself walking away freely, there has to be more to it, as you said, little sis, she refrains from telling the full picture"

"Yeah... I guess"

"Anyways, I'll figure something out, let's just go, Blake's more important right now" Yang says as she resumes walking.

"Okay!" Ruby says smiling and passes her sister, Weiss following after the two, while thinking about several different things.

As Grimmerin was walking away, the thought of what she should do now, was in her head.

Now that, she saw Sun getting a big no from Blake for the dance, she wonders if she should actually go to it, Cinder has her mission, so she can't ask her and she also tried asking her if she should help, since she can be pretty stealthy if she needs to be, but Cinder crushed that hope with one sentence and it was 'tails, they will give you away if somebody happens to see us'. And with that, she was out of the mission and Emi is going with that grey man for a 'distraction', so that's not an option.

She could ask Glynda, she would 'fake' being Crystal, try to say that maybe they could reset their... Whatever their relationship was. If she were to accept, she'd continue being 'Crystal', then when she'd least expect it... Perhaps in a middle of a dance, just randomly drop that she's not Crystal, that could be entertaining. But there's a low chance that Glynda will pull a rule of 'A student and a teacher can't go as a date' or something like that, so it's doubtful that she'll agree.

However... She could ask her if she can bring in non-students, that way she'd be able to start on the twins... But Grim feels there's even less of a chance of that happening than going with Glynda, to begin with.

Who else could she ask... None of the people from the teams, that's for sure, Crystal might go with them, but none of them are to the fine taste that Grimmerin has.

As she was thinking about the topic further, she saw something, or rather 'somebody' that made her movements pause for a moment and right after that pull out a mean grin, that sadly nobody was there to see.

And so, she started stealthily following right after that person to his and now her destination, after a few minutes of that, the person entered a room, she also heard him say a code, a password to get inside.

And now Grim is standing in front of the door, which is decorated in honor of a certain Faunus, the same Faunus that's right here, right now, she looks to the side, seeing a sign that says 'Two-Foxtail Appreciation Club', Well this would be wholesome if Grimmerin didn't know that most of the people inside that very room are there not for 'appreciation', but rather to talk about other things... Lewd things involving Crystal, tails, and probably other things.

"Well, this is going to be fun... For the time" Grimmerin says to herself and knocks on the door and not any longer than a second, she hears 'Password' shouted at her behind the door.

Grimmerin stays silent.

"Password?" She hears the shout again, but yet again, she stays silent, she waits for a bit and doesn't hear it again, so, she knocks on the door again.

"Password!" There it is again, time to stay quiet "PASSWORD" This time, Grim can hear the irritation.

And so, there's more knocking to be done, that's just what the two-tailed Faunus does.

"PASSWO- You know what! Whatev-" She hears the guy behind the door start saying in annoyance while also opening the door, but he goes quiet once he sees who it is.

"Hello" Grimmerin says, with a fake Crystal-like smile, while laughing inside her head.

Last Weekend.

"Cinder" Mercury called out to his boss, who slowly looks at him and away from her scroll.

"Where's Emerald? She should be here for the upcoming mission briefing" After Mercury asks her, she resumes looking at her scroll, checking and changing little details so that it'd be perfect.

"She's with Grimmerin, I am a little surprised she didn't mention this to you" She answers without looking back up at him.

"Well, now that makes both of us... Why is she with... her" Mercury can't help himself but mention Grimmerin with some venom in his voice.

And Cinder doesn't care about their problems right now, nor would she bother with it in the first place, so she doesn't say anything, she knows that Grimmerin won't be killing her lackeys anyways... Unless they mess up.

"Training" Is the only thing that Cinder tells him and ends the conversation, or that would've been the case if not for the door to their room opening and Emerald stepping inside with a blank face.

"Well, look who's back, how was your 'training'?" Mercury says the first words.

Emerald in silence goes and sits down on a bed and after a few moments sighs out loud.

"Are you going to say something, or am I talking to a wall?"

Emerald snaps her eyes at Mercury for a moment, but slightly smiles right after "It went... went... Good?"

"Why is that a question?"

"I ca-" Emerald goes to explain that she can't speak of what went on on their training, yes, she'd like to, but she doesn't want to risk it, of course, she doesn't get to say anything as Cinder cuts her off.

"Wait, stop talking"

Emerald stops, of course, but looks at Cinder confused, Cinder stands up and walks closer and looks intensely at her, Emerald gets slightly uncomfortable, Cinder has never looked at her like that.

And the intensity only intensified as Cinder conjured up a flame "Activate your Aura" She said, waited for a few seconds, and then used the flame to engulf Emerald's entire body, after Cinder heard some breaking noises, she stopped the fire and looked down to the ground, seeing three burnt microphones on the ground. So do Emerald and Mercury.

With that Cinder turns around, walks to the bed, and sits down "Now, you may continue"

Emerald looks at the ground for a few seconds, then raises her head and thanks Cinder for doing that, who doesn't acknowledge it, by simply saying "If Grimmerin touches a person several times, that means she put a microphone on them, so, just know for the next time"

"Oh... So that was why she randomly poked and got touchy with me when we finished our training" Emerald thinks out loud.

"Mhm" Cinder makes a non-committal sound.

"Okay, so the girl's paranoid, whatever, now will you tell me how and what this training is?" Mercury says, bringing Emerald's attention to him.

"Shouldn't you know? You were there when she talked about it" Asks Emerald.

"... Right, maybe you should try listening to others talking while ROLLING ON THE GROUND IN PAIN, I promise you, the only thing you'll be able to hear is your heartbeat and groans" Mercury states as if it was obvious.

"Oh, right..." Emi trails off, that may or may not have been a thing she slightly forgot about, Mercury squints his eyes at her for a few seconds, but quickly lets it go, because he still didn't get an answer about the training.

"Whatever, anyway, the training, tell me about it"

"I can't, Grimmerin made a rule for me not to speak about it"

"... And you're going to follow that? Really?"

"Well, I think that only one of us rolling on the ground in pain is enough, don't you think?"

"Not funny"

"Emerald, you can tell him" Cinder interrupts their bickering.

"Bu-"

"Even if Grimmerin will have a 'hunch' that you told us, she won't be able to prove it, therefore nothing will happen"

"Okay, well, the training went 'well' for me at least. The training itself was for her to see if her semblance can throw mine back at me" She quickly shortens it for Mercury, who nods understanding "Anyways, she gave me a dilemma, for every time I succeed at failing her, I get a pass from one of her orders"

"Grim actually said that?" Cinder asks.

"Yes, I was surprised too"

"Crystal must've had something to do with that because Grim usually just forces people to do whatever she wants them to do, she doesn't... Negotiate. But even so, that's not all, right? There still must be something to it"

"If she were to succeed over my semblance, as punishment she will apparently 'force' me to do something to you and you won't be able to refuse"

"Of course... So, what is it?" Cinder inquires about this 'punishment'.

"That's the thing, I don't know, she never told me, you see, she never succeeded in breaking the hallucination out of five times she tried, so now I have the same number of 'noes' to her orders, this 'game' of ours will go for as long as it takes for her to negate my semblance"

"That way you can get a bunch of additional rejections to her 'orders', that's neat, maybe you'll have thirty of those" Mercury interjects.

"I wouldn't say 'thirty', she was getting closer and closer to succeeding with every try" Emerald says.

"Still, it's better than nothing"

"It is, by the way, she... Off-handedly mentioned that she doesn't care for you, Cinder, if it weren't for Crystal..." Emerald stops herself from continuing, but even without it, Cinder can understand what she was trying to say.

"Mhm, I know" Cinder looks back at her scroll "Anyways, since you're here now, let's go over the mission"

"Okay" Both Emerald and Mercury say at the same time.

~ End of Chapter 25 ~