~ Quick, dance! Time is running out ~

Narrator POV:

After classes, Team RWBY, minus the B, Blake disappeared somewhere right as the class ended, walk inside the cafeteria, only to pause and look weirdly at the situation going on in the middle of the large-spaced room.

They spot Grimmerin again, but at least it's not her finding them this time. The 'weird' thing is that she's surrounded by a few dozen male students, younger and older ones, pining over her. More or less worshipping her.

"What the?" Slips out of Yang's mouth, as the trio sees the two-tailed Faunus command a few of the men to bring her food, clean and shine her footwear, one boy for each leg, and the rest are in a line of sorts, feeding Grim various kinds of berries one after another. While the Faunus has her head craned up looking at the ceiling in a relaxed manner. All of the men have gloves on their hands as well.

The three girls look at each other for a bit and together without a word spoken out loud, decide to go and investigate what's going on.

They tiptoe closer sneakily, even if there's no actual need to do so, but because they were doing that, they are forced to pause in place when out of nowhere they hear Grimmerin's raised voice. It was seemingly directed at one of the students that fed his choice of berry to the Faunus. The boy had already moved on as he started walking back to the end of the line to let the next in line feed Grimmerin.

"You there, stop" The boy stops and turns around, to see who he assumes to be Crystal looking at him with an indecipherable expression.

"Yes, M-mistress?" He stutters out the word. Not only it being weird for him to say, but he's also not used to it in general. However, he can see that it was a mistake to do so, as the moment he failed in properly saying it the mood of the Faunus has visibly deteriorated.

So the poor lad starts opening his mouth to apologize for his mess up, but the Crimson-tailed Faunus gets to it first as she starts to speak to him.

"What was it that you fed me? The name of the berry and nothing else" Grimmerin puts extra emphasis on 'nothing else', effectively shutting down whatever apology the man was about to spew out of his mouth.

"Uh... Cranberries" He answers, he also sees an unamused raised eyebrow from her, making him remember to finish with a "Mistress"

"Congratulations" Grim says with a small and charming smile.

The guy breaks out in a smile of his own and starts celebrating "T-thank you Misress!" But he soon finds out that that was the wrong action to take.

"On feeding me one of the more disgusting things I've yet to try while in my time of Beacon. You can go now. But at least now I know to never put 'Cranberries' in my superior mouth again, so that's a tiny plus" Grimmerin ruthlessly puts the premature celebration of the boy she's facing in front of everybody else who can see and hear it happening. The boy himself looks at the Faunus crushed, way more now that he was put on high first.

"So, as I briefly mentioned just now, you're out. Leave" She says and turns back to look at the ceiling while snapping her fingers to indicate for the others to continue.

"No, n-no, please Mistress, give me another chance, I know that I can please you! Please" The man wails at the Faunus.

"Your chance is over. Now listen, you pathetic whelp! When your Mistress tells you something, you are to listen to it accordingly and not go against it, otherwise, you might make your Mistress angry. And your Mistress told you to leave. So?" Grim says turning her gaze back at the man. The man gives up whilst swallowing a lump in his throat.

"Yes, Mistress"

"And?"

"Thank you mistress, for allowing somebody as pathetic as me to have a chance"

"Good" Grim looks back up again, while she does that though, she spots most of Team RWBY near the man. She doesn't pay much attention to them, since she's not bored right now.

The guy turns around and walks by the trio, devasted at the outcome and at the same time humiliated by the situation... But with a hardening secret below and some newly found, but confusing, knowledge about himself. He will have to search for some information about the topic.

And just like that the rhythm has returned to what it once was, well except for the little group of three watching the situation, prior and now, bewildered.

Team RWBY, shaking out of their stupor, finally make it near Grim.

"Hey" Yang calls it out first, getting the Faunus' attention and her eyes on their team, Weiss says "Hello" After her teammate and finally the captain, Ruby greets her too "Hi Gr-" Or tries to at least.

"Yes, hi, Ruby" But the Faunus cuts the smaller girl off. Ruby blinks a few times with a still open mouth, not having expected to be interrupted mid greet.

"So, what's all this?" Yang questions the two-tailed Faunus, after a silent pause between her and her sister.

The Faunus sighs and turns her head to one of the students who was shining her boot "You, answer and explain it to her" With that, she raises her head while pointing to the next man in line and then to her mouth, the man understanding the silent and obvious command, goes to feed the Faunus.

"Mistress Crystal" As the man starts his answer, Ruby jumps in to correct the boy "But that's n-"

"Ruby, don't interrupt him and just listen" Grim cuts the younger girl off again while not looking at her, instead her eyes are now closed, in preparation for the berries which should be fed to her shortly.

Ruby looks between the Faunus and the man somewhat confused, but nevertheless just nods silently.

The man seeing his opportunity to explain starts speaking again "Mistress Crystal has given us all of a chance to... Umm... Prove ourselves to her for a chance of being her date for the dance this weekend"

"Wait... You're the Fox Tail Sniffing Club or something" Yang says after hearing the short explanation.

"It's the Two-Foxtail Appreciation Club" Several guys correct the blondie at the same time with a frown.

"I thought that it got disbanded" She comments, not caring about the correction from them.

"That's what most think, we just relocated to a more secretive state of operations" Answers one of the men.

One of the male students walks around the three girls, to go back to the line, as he has had his turn feeding Grim, so now a new one comes close to her and he's just full of energy.

"Mistress, Mistress, have you heard? The Atlesian Nemesis has struck again last night" He speaks out without a problem.

"Atlesian Nemesis?" Grimmerin asks. while stopping her relaxed gazing at the ceiling, turning instead to look at the over-excited lad.

"Yes, Mistress, that's what the people are calling the criminal, a lot of them theorize that the killer has something against the soldiers of Atlas because they are the only victims" The man explains, team RWBY and the other men obviously hear it too, because he's almost as loud as one very special girl with short orange hair.

"Atlesian Nemesis, huh?" Grimmerin muses to herself, quite liking the name she has gotten for herself "So? Why are you telling me, instead of feeding me as you were ordered?"

"To tell Mistress to not worry! For I will protect her from any danger that may arise, small or big, even if the Atlesian Nemesis turns out not be all that 'Atlesian' about it" The man says confidently.

"Uh-huh... How very... sweet. Ahem, now... Get back to your job" Grim deadpans, not only not being impressed, but actively having to stop herself from rolling her eyes at the 'chivalrous' statement from the boy.

"Yes, of course, Mistress, sorry, Mistress from not doing it sooner"

"Yes, yes" Grim lifts her gaze back at the ceiling, closing her eyes and finally rolling her eyes behind her closed sockets.

As the man feeds the berries has chosen for his Mistress... Temporary Mistress. The young Ruby after some thinking opens her mouth to speak again.

"Wait... Did you say date? But she doesn't like men" And this happened so fast and unexpected that the relaxing Faunus has had no time to interfere this time.

"What?" One of the shoe shining men let out, every other man also now looking at the captain of team RWBY, as well as the energetic one that's now frozen solid in the pose of when he let the berries drop from his gloved hand, right above the Faunus' head.

Grim opens her eyes after hearing what Ruby said and she can't but loudly sigh. She finally stands up from her comfortable position and looks at Ruby just as everybody else is doing.

"Way to go, little girl... haaah, I was having so much fun too" Grimmerin comments after passively berating Ruby.

"Uh... Sorry?" She says even more confused.

"W-what does she mean, Mistress? And what do you mean you had fun?" The energetic lad finally unfreezes and asks out loud what every guy wanted to ask, but didn't have the guts to do so after a few of the examples she did on fellow 'club' members.

"Well, I am not obligated to answer any of your questions, but this eventually would've been part of my plan of fun anyways, so why not? To the second question, I was having fun, leading you all on, making you all pets to my superiority, and allowing you to do things for me, for a measly promise of being my date for one night... Which even if you won and got that chance, nothing would ever happen between us, since as a Mistress I'd decide what we would do, and most of the time you'd have no say in it. So trust me when I say this, you'd be at least two meters away from me the entirety of our so promised 'date' night, meaning we wouldn't even come close to holding hands and all of you fell for it, like a bunch of jokes" Grimmerin finishes her answer, with every word all of the expressions of all the men getting worse and worse.

"And this is what little Rose meant" Grim says and quickly turning around, grabs Yang's wrist with one hand, Yang letting out a shallow and unfinished "Wha-" as Grim throws her on the nearby table in front of everybody's eyes, gets on top of her, while Yang is still getting her bearings, Grim now grabs both of her hands by the wrists, raises them both above her head, with her other hand, she puts it on Yang's right leg and raises it up by her calf with a ninety-degree angle.

Grim's mouth gets close to Yang's ear, as the blondie finally gets her bearings.

"This is for your fun spoiling little sister and as payback for Crystal" Yang hears the Faunus whisper in her ear and before she can react with any words, her eyes widen as her mouth gets captured by the Faunus' lips on top of her, effectively and physically shutting her up.

All of the men look at the scene with ridiculous expressions and Weiss is pretty close to one as well, as she's looking at what's happening with an open mouth with the only thought in her head right now being 'What is going on?'.

Grim freed one of her hands to grab Yang's face, her fingers curling around Blondie's chin as she tilted her head and recaught Yang in a searing kiss. Yang moaned softly, due to the surprise from the intensity of the kiss, against Grim's surprisingly soft lips. Thus allowing the Faunus's tongue to slip into Yang's mouth and start exploring the inside of it as she pleases.

Yang was getting red, but not in her eyes, but on her face, it started burning with arousal as she and her mouth were pinned by Grim and her tongue. Blondie's breathing came out in short, heavy rasps as Grim just continued to feast hungrily on Yang's mouth, Yang felt that this might end badly due to the fact that it seemed like the Faunus was trying to completely devour her.

Because of that feeling inside of her, she tried to fight against Grim and started to struggle, but it was all in vain because no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't muster up any strength as she continued being toyed with. She was far too inexperienced to handle such an onslaught.

But at least Yang knows that the Faunus at least enjoys some of what she's doing due to hearing Grim moan herself as she continued unabashedly smothering herself against Yang's mouth.

While Yang's mouth gets obliterated, she feels the Faunus's hips touch her own, which causes the Blondie to subconsciously move her hips up and down trying to grind against Grim. But the Fox isn't having any of it, she's the lead, she decides when the intensity rises and when it goes down, so she pulls away from Yang slightly, making Yang hump the air instead, a pathetic sound whine coming out of her throat.

During this whole time, Grim hasn't released Yang from the pleasurable nightmare of making out, Yang is starting to lose herself into a daze, due to her oxygen intakes becoming smaller and smaller, and her arousal climbing higher and higher.

Grim, however, wasn't close to being done, she figured it was time to up the steam, so she casually and unashamed started slurping the contents of Yang's mouth. The sweet taste of Yang's saliva danced on the tip of both tongues as Grim played with it between their tongues and after some time it finally settled in the back of the Faunus's throat.

The Faunus herself doesn't need to come out and intake air as her poor childhood assured her of it, but she relents finally due to feeling Yang slipping away into fainting territory, so she gently bites Yang's lip, then increasing the power, making a little injury and drawing blood and moves away for the first time since she started the kiss. Both, the drawn blood and the new arrival of oxygen allows Yang to return to some of her brain functions.

Yang breathes in deep and breathes out hard, she pants unable to stop. This was way out of her expertise, it's the first time she has experienced something like it, yes, she had make-out sessions before, but this? This was completely one-sided, she had no participation in it whatsoever.

But to the Blondie's dismay, it wasn't over, as her mouth gets recaptured once she has regained some color on her face. Yang tried to pull away this time, she doesn't know if she can continue, but when she tried to do that, Grim increased the intensity yet again, by simply extending her tongue as far in as possible.

Grim's tongue is long enough to be able to touch some people's uvula if their mouth is structured properly enough, in fact, she loves to try it with everybody she gets to kiss... And it's the most enjoyable when she can do it, so she smiles into the kiss when she realizes that she can get to Yang's little mouth bell, so in between kisses, saliva slurping, twisting tongues, Yang has to survive the Faunus hunger when she licks her uvula.

All of this assault, causes Yang's lungs to burn for air yet again, her mind dizzy from the thick cloud of arousal, nay, lust that blanketed over her. Yang tried to the best of her ability to gasp for air when Grim would give her enough free space to do so.

Grim has had enough, for now, so, she lowers her hips again, allowing Yang's and her bodies to touch again, Yang feeling the touch instinctively starts grinding herself into it.

"Uh... Ruby, shouldn't we help your sister?" Weiss asks while looking at the scene, hearing no answer, she breaks her gaze from it and instead stares at the captain of their team... Only to see Ruby staring at the scene transfixed and bewitched, not even blinking, she completely didn't Weiss's question, as her mind is so far away at the moment.

"Well... Don't blame me when Yang shouts at you later for not saving her" Weiss comments and gets her eyes back at the ridiculous event.

The Faunus finally stops basically sucking down precious oxygen from one-quarter of team RWBY. The two's lips stop touching, as Grim instead goes to Yang's ears to whisper something. As she has felt something peculiar poke her.

"Oooh? Somebody's getting a little excited, hmm?" Grim grinds against the bulge for a show, getting Yang's attention on the fact that she's getting hard.

"All that just because of a little kiss? Honestly, it's quite sad" Grim resumes her mocking with a cruel smile.

"Huh? What?" Yang still dazed after their make-out session, can only let out confused sounds.

Grim lowering her head, nibbles a little at Yang's bottom lip, leaving it a little bit bruised, well more than it was already. Yang opens her mouth a bit subconsciously, thinking that they will resume kissing, Grimmerin instead raises her head back up, and with the same cruel look, she continues on with her mocking.

"Or maybe it's because you know where you belong and that's below me, like a good little doggy, maybe you love getting taken roughly and being on the bottom? Frankly, that's exactly kind of a place where somebody like you belongs"

Yang being let to take a pause from all of it has gotten some air to breathe, thus letting her think a bit clearer, so she goes for a rejection to that accusation, for an answer, but as she opens her mouth, Grim roughly presses herself at her boner and all of the harsh rejection instead turned into a stuttering mess of select few words "N-no, that's not t-true"

"Ah, is that so? Is the doggy so certain?" Grim asks with a laugh at the end of it.

"I am sure of that" Yang says with some bite behind her words, not realizing that she just played into the Faunus' hand and replied to being a 'doggy'.

"Hmm... Then it must be simply because you're a virgin, one huge virgin, not being able to hold yourself back from a simple action such as a kiss and getting aroused, that's what you are, aren't you? You... Pathetic... Virgin dog" Grimmerin finishes the four last words slowly with a whisper at Yang's ears.

As Yang hears Grimmerin whispering to her those words, her eyes snap open completely, with red hues in them and she pushes the Faunus off of her, with as much strength as she could muster up at the moment, which is not much, but it's enough to do the job.

As now Grimmerin gracefully lands on the ground after being thrown in the air for a bit. Yang gets up and glares at Grim with red eyes. And Grim only smiles innocently back at her and says so only she could hear "So, the weakling finally had enough?" And right after stops paying any attention to the blondie as she turns to the still ogling men.

"And there you go, that's what Ruby meant by me not liking men, none of you had a chance, to begin with, you were just used by me as a form of entertainment, as I am bored most of the time, nothing but playthings"

"B-but... That's just cruel" The one energetic man says to Grim, well 'energetic' as in past tense since now he's brooding, very close to crying as his eyes can be visibly seen tearing up.

"Ha! Do I look like I care?" Grim throws a question at him with a blank look.

"No..."

"Oh, no more 'Mistress' huh? And you were so enthusiastic about it too... Sad" Grim fake pouts for a moment, before turning around "Well it was fun while it lasted, bye" She says and starts walking away, making out of the cafeteria shortly. Leaving some of the men angry, some humiliated, but all of them defeated.

Yang, however, isn't done with her yet, and with her eyes still red, she runs after her. Not caring about the group of men around her.

"H-hey, Y-Yang, wait up!" Ruby shouts and runs after he sister, leaving Weiss behind.

Weiss looks at the dejected-looking group of guys "Uh... Good luck?" She says as sympathetically as she can, wishing for them to move on, even if she finds the situation somewhat hilarious herself, after that she starts running after Ruby and Yang. But she doesn't have to do that for long, as the moment she leaves the cafeteria, she hears Yang's voice shouting.

"You. Wait!"

Grimmerin continues walking.

"I said, wait you annoying thief"

The Faunus does stop, but not because of the lame attempt at an insult, but because she thought that it will be amusing to see what the raging blondie has to say.

So, Grimmerin turns around to face Yang "So the doggy can actually bark" She adds when she was turning around. Yang's eyes are still red and now even more so because of the Faunus' words.

Yang lets out an angry growl.

"Ooh, and it can growl too, unfortunate that its bite is just so weak" Grim says with an over-exaggerated shake of her head.

"Take that back" Yang finally speaks, the words coming out with pure venom.

"Take what back?" Grimmerin asks, both from wanting to play around with the madwoman, but also wanting to know what specific thing she means. She has said a lot of things after all.

"That I am a virgin"

Grim's eyes widen for a moment, she definitely did not expect that to come out of Yang's mouth. But her expression soon goes back to a playful one.

"Are you not a pathetic virgin?"

"Stop saying that, I am neither pathetic nor am I a virgin" Yang states angrily.

"Wait, you're not?" Both of them hear another familiar voice from behind Yang.

Yang turns around to see Ruby looking at her with big open confused eyes, Weiss is also there.

"What? How? When? Why? Huh? What? Why?" Ruby repeats over and over, her mind shutting down in sheer confusion from such a revelation.

"Oh, look, you broke your sister, she's repeating herself" Grimmerin states to Yang.

Yang's eyes turn back to their original lilac color after a long sigh.

"Rubes" She calls out to her sister, but Ruby doesn't hear it as she's mindlessly repeating one-word questions.

"Ruby!" Yang calls out louder, this time Ruby snaps out of her reverie.

The two sisters now look at each other.

"Look, it happened before Beacon, while you and your friends were hanging out... Well, it was more like fantasizing over different weapons together. Since that's what you and that group would do most of the time, I don't think you even ever talked about anything else"

"Hey!" Ruby interrupts, slightly offended at that change-up.

But Yang continues "I was with my friend group and because I was going to Beacon and some of them were too, we've had a send-off party of sorts. That's where it happened"

"Oh... Was it fun?"

Yang looks befuddled at her sister, surprised that her little Rubes actually asked such a question with a straight face. Has to be the influence of that annoying fox, she's corrupting her.

After a tired sigh "If you have to know, it was passable" The big sister answers, and not wanting to continue with this conversation, she turns around instead and tries to continue the other, much more important, conversation at the moment.

Only to see nobody there, no Grimmerin, no Faunus, nothing. Just a random tumbleweed rolling on the ground, but not any tumbleweed... A pink tumbleweed, made out of bubble gum.

"SERIOUSLY?" She shouts out, eyes turning red, she turns back to face her sister and her teammate "Why did you two not tell me she was walking away?" She questions them angrily.

"I wasn't paying attention, sorry" Answers Ruby awkwardly, she was in a conversation with Yang, after all, so Grim slipped her mind.

"And I don't care" Weiss answers simply.

"...Ugh, whatever! I'm going to try and find Blake" And with those words, the fiery blonde leaves the other unhelpful two alone as she goes off on her search. She needs to unwind... And think up a way to get her payback, there has to be a way.

Ruby and Weiss both look at their teammate in silence, only for that silence to be broken by the leader.

"Weiss, are you a virgin?"

Weiss chokes on her saliva at the suddenness of such a random and outta nowhere question.

Flustered, she smacks Ruby on the head "Of course I am, you dolt" She shouts louder than she probably should've.

"Oww!" Ruby cradles her head with her hands, however, after a moment, she cryptically comments "Good" And starts walking off back to team RWBY's dorm room.

"Huh? Wait, what do you mean 'good'?" Weiss gets ignored as Ruby continues on walking.

"Hey! Don't dare ignore me!" Weiss shouts after the captain as she follows after her. Not receiving any kind of response, no matter how many times she shouts after the captain of dolts.

The following day.

A glum Ruby rests her head on her hand and stares into the distance of nothingness before she is startled by someone slamming their palms on the table she sits at.

And her silver eyes lay their gaze upon a smiling Weiss, which is kinda off-putting.

"I need you to pick a tablecloth" Young Schnee slides two squared cloths over to Ruby, both seeming to be similar shades of white.

Glum captain of Team RW is not, not confused "Aren't they both the same?"

The 'wannabe captain' of said team sighs in frustration "I don't even know why I asked!"

Weiss walks away pompously, as Yang comes in carrying a massive sound speaker on her shoulder, which bounces her sister and the table she's moping on yet again to jump in the air when she drops it on the ground.

Yang brushes her hands in a job well done and directs her attention to her sister "So, have you picked out a dress yet?"

"What's the point? Who cares about the dance if Blake isn't going?"

"Oh, don't worry; she's going" Yang replies back with full confidence and then looks over to the side, exasperated "Weiss! I thought we agreed: No doilies!"

Weiss walks up to Yang, pointing her dainty finger right in her face "If I don't get doilies, you don't get fog machines!"

The girls are interrupted by the sound of doors opening.

Two side characters, one of whom is unlikable, make their way towards the third of team RWBY "Your dance is gonna have fog machines?" Speaks out the blue-haired one.

Weiss steps up to Neptune, becoming too overly sweet "We were thinking about it..."

"Blegh" Ruby lets out right under her nose, witnessing the scene, and then goes back to moping.

"That's pretty cool"

Sun, coming into the scene, acting suave to the dismay of Weiss "You ladies all excited for dress-up?"

"Pfft... Yeah, right!" The younger sister bellows out.

However, the older sister is not having it "Laugh all you want. I'll be turning heads tomorrow night!"

Weiss addresses the two guys "What are you two wearing?"

"Uuhhh... this?" The golden monkey gestures to his current shirtless outfit, as if it were obvious.

Neptune steps up and holds a hand in front of his friend's face "Ignore him for he knows not what he says"

Sun knocks Neptune's hand away "Hey, I may have moved to Mistral, but I grew up in Vacuo. It's not exactly a shirt-and-tie kind of place"

Yang, Ruby, and Weiss, all three of them mirror the look of being told the most extremely obvious thing in the known universe. And Yang adds "Yeah, we noticed"

Sun rubs his neck awkwardly in preparing to ask a question "Soooo... what does Blake think of all this? Is she still being all, y'know... Blake-y?

"Obviously" Answers Weiss disapprovingly and she shows that by turning and crossing her arm in displeasure.

"I still can't think of a way to change her mind" Ruby adds.

"Guys" Everyone looks at Yang as she starts walking away from the group "Trust me, Blake will be at the dance tomorrow"

The Faunus, who, unknowingly to her, has just been targeted by an insidious plan by her own precious teammate, is sitting at one of the library tables with a holographic screen in front of her.

She is oh so so obviously sleep-deprived, more than ever before, barely having the cognitive function to even focus on what she's seeing... until a small, bright red dot appears on the screen, catching her attention.

The dot starts moving around, up and down, Blake's eyes follow it down to her hand, in which the red dot disappears entirely She looks behind herself, ultra irritated, but none is her culprit, that her sleepy eyes can detect walking among the tables

Turning back to the computer, she starts typing on the beeping keyboard before the laser dot appears on her hand briefly, prompting her to look around again and still find no one.

The red point shows up on the screen, moving around in circles until Blake scowls and pounds her fists on the table. She stands up from her chair and finds the dot on the floor, following it blindly through shelves of books until both the dot and its pursuer turn the corner, only for Blake to bump, shocked and shaken out of her more "animal" instincts, into... Yang, who has just the most annoying smug look on her face at the moment.

The blondie, waves with her left hand as her right holds the laser pointer and practically sings out "He-lloooo!"

"What are you...?" Blake tries to question her comrade. But she had no expectations that the comrade has no want to hear it, as her arm gets grabbed by Yang and then her hidden cat ears pick up a serious sentence of "We need to talk"

And with that, amid Blake's single cry of surprise, Yang whisks her partner out of the library and before Blake gets her bearings back, they seemed to have stopped... In a random empty classroom of sorts.

"Yang, if you're going to tell me to stop, you may as well save your breath" Blake states irritated.

Yang sits cross-legged on the central desk of the empty classroom they're in. Orange light shone across her calm features, only showing more of her beauty "I don't want you to stop. I want you to slow down"

Blake continues to pace with her arms crossed, just as irritated as ever "I don't have the luxury to slow down"

"It's not a luxury; it's a necessity"

"The "necessity" is stopping Torchwick"

"And we're going to. But first, you have to sit down and listen to what I have to say" Yang calmly, but softly says and pats the part of the desk across from her.

Blake looks away for a moment until she relents and drapes her legs over the desk's edge, but not wanting to seem like she has lost, drops a 'pathetic' "Fine"

Yang sees her teammate finally being somewhat... Only somewhat reasonable starts with what she wanted to say "Ruby and I grew up in Patch, an island off the coast of Vale. Our parents were Huntsmen. Our dad taught at Signal, and our mom took on missions around the kingdom. Her name was Summer Rose, and she was, like... Super-Mom: Baker of cookies and slayer of giant monsters. And then... one day she left for a mission and never came back" Yang looks down as she says this, pausing for a moment. And Blake looks visibly sorry for her, though she doesn't interrupt and waits for her friend to continue.

"It was tough. Ruby was really torn up, but... I think she was still too young to really get what was going on, y'know? And my dad just kind of... shut down. It wasn't long before I learned why. Summer wasn't the first love he had; she was the second. There was another and that was my mom" Blake looks amazed at this information as Yang keeps talking.

"He wouldn't tell me everything, the few scarce times I had to ask him of her, ended with him being angry, for... Certain reasons. But I had managed to learn that the two of them had been on a team together with Summer and Qrow. My dad was vague, very vague about the details he would slip when he was in a 'better' mood around me and I am certain that my mom left me with him right after I was born. No one had seen her since"

"Why did she leave you?"

Yang sighs, then turns to the chalkboard "That question... Why?" She gets off the desk and walks to the chalkboard, picking up a piece of chalk "I didn't know an answer, but I was determined to find out. It was all I thought about. I would ask anyone I could about what they knew about her"

As the reminiscent blonde starts drawing on the board, she starts speaking her story "When I was younger, one day by luck, I found something. What I thought was a clue that could lead me to answers, or maybe even my mother"

As Yang continues drawing on the board with the chalk, her calm movements, turned more erratic, as her story continued.

"I waited for Dad to leave the house, put Ruby in a wagon, and headed out. I must've walked for hours. I had cuts and bruises, and I was totally exhausted, but I wasn't gonna let anything stop me. When we finally got there, I could barely stand, but I didn't care; I had made it. And then I saw them. Those burning red eyes..."

Yang's hand ceases its actions, the chalk falling out of it and hitting the ground.

"There we were: A toddler sleeping in the back of a wagon and a stupid girl too exhausted to even cry for help. We might as well have been served on a silver platter. But, as luck smiled upon me and Ruby again, our uncle showed up just in time"

Yang's hand touches the board, smearing some of the drawn chalk "My stubbornness should've gotten us killed that night"

"Yang... I'm sorry that happened to you, and I understand what you're trying to tell me, but this is different. I'm not a child, and this isn't just a search for answers! I can't just"

Yang gets slightly irritated, while still facing the board, her hand clenches into a fist "I told you: I'm not telling you to stop! I haven't! To this day, I still want to know what happened to my mother and why she left me, but I will never let that search control me. We're going to find the answers we're looking for, Blake. But if we destroy ourselves in the process, what good are we?"

"You don't understand! I'm the only one who can do this!" Blake tries to fight back.

"No, you don't understand!" Yang turns around sharply to reveal her red eyes and a sound of flames follows her move "If Roman Torchwick walked through that door, what would you do?"

"I'd fight him!"

"You'd lose!" Yang states mercilessly as she pushes Blake away.

"I can stop him!" The Faunus tries to do the same to Yang, but she doesn't even budge, as her tired attempt had barely any strength behind it.

"You can't even stop me!"

She pushes Blake again, knocking her to land on the desk. Yang, still angry-eyed, walks toward Blake as she gets up, but then does the unexpected and embraces her in a hug, her eyes going back to their normal purple.

"I'm not asking you to stop. Just please, get some rest" Yang pulls back to look at her partner "Not just for you, but for the people, you care about" Then she steps away and starts walking past the startled Blake, who turns when she says over her shoulder "And if you feel like coming out tomorrow, I'll save you a dance"

Yang winks down at Blake, and Blake stares at Yang as she leaves before sighing heavily and walking away,

But before Blake could actually walk away and leave the room, she is stopped, by the one and only Grim. Who let Yang walk away free as she doesn't have anything to say to the blondie.

"Hiya, friend" Grim says, in a sickeningly sweet fake voice.

"Hello, Grimmerin, what is it?" Blake asks tiredly, she really doesn't want to do whatever this is.

"Don't sound so happy to see me, I don't know what to do with such enthusiasm"

Blake rolls her eyes, which was quite hard to do... She really needs to take a rest, she will have to tank Yang later for waking her up.

Grim stops for a bit, it seems she won't be getting any entertainment from this sleepy cat, so she just gets straight to the point.

"You two should just fuck already"

But even so, no matter how tired Blake is at the moment when she hears what Grim says her eyes just explode wide open.

"What? Don't look at me like that, all that tension between you? Especially at that moment, hooowie! Just prime for some release"

Blake sighs "Grimmerin, I don't have the time nor the energy for this right now... Is that all?"

"Careful, you might not satisfy your future partner in bed if you say such things, no energy for sex? That's just not good"

"I... That's not what I meant... I'll just go, bye Grimmerin" Blake says and turns to the side to walk around the Faunus.

Grimmerin seeing her first point not work out gets to her second one.

"So, still can't find anything about Torchwick, eh?"

Hearing this, Blake stops and turns to face Grim again.

"Can you stop spying on us?" She states blankly.

"Not spying, just happen to be at the right time, at the right place... Well, this time at least. Anyway, how about we make a little fun deal between us?"

"And what is this deal?" Blake asks, even if she didn't like that Grimmerin described it being 'fun'.

"It's simple really. You do something for me and I get you Torchwick" Grim pulls out her scroll "Six minutes to be exact. Now I know that he might just not answer any of your questions, so I'll sweeten the deal, the first question I will ask for you. Any that you want and after that, I will hand you over my scroll so you can keep talking to him"

Blake squints her already tired eyes and suspiciously asks "Why are you proposing this to me?"

"Hmm..." Grim looks to the side thoughtfully "Probably because the time's running out"

If Blake wasn't tired and her brain worked at full capacity, she might've caught Grimmerin's words and thought about it more clearly. But right now, with her 'goal' insight, only the deal and Torchwick are on her mind, so she didn't even register Grim's cryptic answer.

"What do I have to do?"

The two-tailed fox Faunus looks back at the sleepy cat Faunus "Simple. Tomorrow night, at the dance, find the time to be alone with Yang and kiss the girl"

"W-what?" Blake lets out confused and flustered at the same time.

But Grim doesn't give her time to say anything more, as she walks closer, puts her hand on Blake's shoulder, and whispers into her ear "Remember, six minutes with Torchwick, just for a kiss" And after that she quickly walks away, leaving Blake alone to stand confused, flustered, thoughtful and now even more exhausted, both mentally and physically.

Even later, in another part of Beacon.

The white rose in Jaune's hand bounces up and down as the smiling doofus walks through Beacon Academy until he stops at the entrance of a hallway with the sound of a certain voice, causing him to duck behind the columns outside.

"Neptune!" And that voice, of course, belongs to Weiss, the target of his affection and the rose in his hand.

"Oh, uh, hey, what's up?" The unlikeable blue-haired specimen answers with a question.

"I know this is a little unorthodox, but... I wanted to ask you something" Schnee girl puts her hands behind her back trying to look innocent as Jaune, who's hiding out of sight, drops his smile and recoils at the oncoming words to come out of Weiss's mouth "Would you... like to accompany me to the dance tomorrow?"

While Neptune rubs the back of his head and smiles with raised eyebrows, Jaune loses all of his confidence and drops the rose on the ground before walking back from where he came from.

But if only, the man in early love, would've stayed for a little bit longer... If only... He would've seen something that was completely unacceptable to even think about for him. And that's the awkward rejection to come out of the blue-haired NPC.

"I..." Neptune's eyes shift to the side, not looking at Weiss... Weiss feeling something wrong loses half of her put-up confidence. And the other half disappears as soon as Neptune says "I'm sorry, Weiss" After that he walks past her to get away from the situation as fast as possible, in turn leaving the Schnee girl alone.

A few minutes pass, as Weiss finally gets out of her daze, her fist clenched hard and a displeased "Ugh" comes out of her mouth. she also turns around to go back to her dorm room, but her eyes widen in surprise, she thought that she was here alone, she thought wrong. As the team's captain, Ruby freaking Rose stands in front of her looking at her, with an expression that Weiss can't read.

"Wha-" Weiss starts to say something, but Ruby unexpectedly interrupts her.

"You got rejected" Young Rose says blankly.

Weiss opens her mouth again to tell Ruby off, but she doesn't get the chance again.

"It's better that way, now you can go with me" She continues blankly.

Weiss's mouth is open again, but this time not because she wants to say something, it's due to the shock of her friend's words. She quickly shakes her head and her expression changes into her normal haughty "why would I go with you?"

"Because that's what the captain wants" Ruby answers and continues being as blank as possible.

Weiss squints her eyes at her 'captain', and Ruby doesn't back down. The Schnee continues doing so, while also beginning to tap her foot impatiently, Ruby starts sweating, her blankness falling apart. Weiss raises one of her eyebrows and with that Ruby's act just vanishes and she scratches her head's back with one hand while awkwardly chuckling.

"Hehe, sorry. For both the rejection and me trying to do whatever I just did, I saw Grim doing something similar before, so I thought I will try it out and you know, it would work on anybody else, but for somebody like you, it had no effect and now I messed up and now it's awkward and I have no idea what to do an-"

"Stop, stop, just stop talking" Weiss intercepts Ruby, otherwise she would never stop talking in the nonsensical apologetic way that she's doing now. The Schnee chose to even ignore the 'somebody like you' remark, even if she really wanted to shout about it right about now.

Ruby effectively shuts up when spurred on by Weiss and now both of them look at each other. The owner of the Silver-eyes looks on awkwardly, barely keeping eye contact. While the owner of blue eyes looks on annoyed.

Weiss sighs and softens her expression "What is this about, Ruby?"

"I... Uh..." Ruby scratches her cheek with her index finger "I was in our room when Yang came in all happy, I don't know why, but then Blake appeared an hour later and something unexpected happened. Blake asked Yang out for the dance tomorrow, which also shocked my sister, I thought Yang will say no because she had a lot of boys trying to ask her out, but to my and Blake's surprise, Yang said yes... So then I thought, why don't I ask you to go with me, so that team RWBY could be together as friends in tomorrow's dance. So I ran out of the room, looked everywhere for you, and found you here, standing and waiting for something, and for some reason the way you looked, all fidgety like, like I tend to do a lot of time, it made me stop. So I waited in shadows, just like Grim and after some time Neptune showed up and then I saw everything... And here we are now" Ruby coughs into a fist a few times "Ahem, Weiss Schnee would you... like to accompany me to the dance tomorrow?" Ruby repeats the same line as Weiss did for Neptune.

"I..." Weiss blinks and pauses, she was about to shut down Ruby's 'proposal' and call her a dolt or something along those lines. But then she remembered the way she felt when Neptune rejected her and how Ruby explained about being together as a team, so she changed her mind and simply answered "Okay, Ruby" Though she will have to question Blake and Yang, something strange must've happened between them because just yesterday they were at each other's throats.

Ruby breaks out in a huge smile, quickly dashes toward Weiss, startling her, grabs her hand, and starts running back towards their dorm room. While Weiss is mercilessly being dragged by Ruby, she screams at her "What are you doing, let me go"

"No, we have to get back to our room and go to sleep as fast as possible"

"Why?! You're always so energetic that you don't allow us to sleep until you wear yourself out" Weiss lets out as harshly as she possibly can, but it barely comes out like that, as she still gets dragged like an inanimate object by the captain.

"The faster we get to our room, the earlier we can sleep, the sooner tomorrow comes, and then the quicker the dance will happen"

"What nonsense is that? You dolt!" Weiss's insult goes ignored as Ruby cheerfully carries her back to their room.

Weiss stops shouting and lets it happen, while whispering to herself "Seriously, what is up with you lately..."

The night of the dance.

"Ooohh, you look beautiful!" Yang swoons over her little sister.

Ruby, however, only groans as she looks distressed in her red dress with black lace, belt, and pumps "Can we have a serious talk about how Weiss fights in these?" She tries to maintain her balance as she walks to the podium, much to her laughing sister's amusement.

Meanwhile outside, Sun is seen walking around and wearing a new black jacket, which is now closed up, with a white tie hung around his neck, which he proceeds to fight with before going inside.

"Stupid... dumb... neck trap!"

"I knew you'd look better in a tie" Blake says coming closer.

Sun stops his struggling and stares at the dark purple dress worn by Blake, now looking like she traded her dark bags for violet eyeshadow, as she steps forward and takes him by the arm.

"Sooo, I am glad that you're taking me as your first dance, but did you have to trade me for the other blonde person that you know? Though the second one is almost as handsome"

Blake chuckles at Sun's whining "You're a big boy, you'll handle it. And I'd say she's more charming than handsome"

Inside the ballroom, streamers are hung through glass chandeliers, pink and blue balloons are everywhere, and students in dark suits and bright dresses are stepping with each other to the music between the white-clothed tables. Blake is spun around by Sun.

"I told you she would come" Yang brags to the other two.

"Mission accomplished" Weiss says back.

Ruby turns to her teammates "Soooo, what do we do now?"

"Just have fun!" States Yang "And go dance with your date" She also winks at Weiss, who ignores her completely. Yang proceeds to walk away and goes to Blake

As Yang comes closer, Sun and Blake stop dancing, and they curtsy to each other, Sun leaves, after a gesture to Yang and Yang takes her date's hands.

"So? Why'd you ask me out? Did the kitty fall for my irresistible charms?" Yang asks with a flirty smile and a flick of her hair.

Blake looks at Yang's lips for a moment, before rising her amber eyes to meet with the lilac eyes of her date "Quite a confident date I have"

Meanwhile back with Ruby and Weiss.

Weiss is looking annoyed at the awkward Ruby.

"So? Are we going to dance or what?"

"Uh... Can we just continue... Having fun here? You know... Standing and not moving" Ruby answers her date's question stupidly.

Weiss clicks her tongue "No, I am getting us a drink and after that, I am dragging you to the dance field just like you dragged me to our room yesterday, do you understand, teammate?"

"Bu-" Whatever Ruby wanted to say gets immediately rejected as Weiss just leaves towards the drink table. "Aww..." She now understands something... "this was a mistake" Ruby says to herself.

"Not enjoying yourself?" A wild Ozpin shows itself unexpectedly, which surprises Ruby.

The young captain shocked to see the headmaster step up by her side, shakes her head and laughs "Oh, no, everything's fine! I'm just not much of a fancy pantsy... dancey girl"

"Well, you can't spend your whole life on the battlefield, even if you may want to" Ozpin states.

Ruby crosses her arms, looking annoyed "Yeah, that lesson's been floating around a lot lately"

Ozpin stares out at the dancing couples "If you think about it, fighting and dancing aren't so different. Two partners interlocked, although one wrong move in the ballroom merely leads to a swollen foot"

"Or a twisted ankle" Ruby adds looking down at her own feet.

"It's not every day that friends are able to come together like this. Time has a way of testing our bonds, but it's nights like these that can help keep them stronger than ever. Nights like these are ones we'll never forget"

Ruby smiles at the words of wisdom but turns her head at the sound of the doors opening. Yang is back behind the podium with Blake right behind her and smiles at the new arrivals.

"You guys are just in time!"

Mercury says "Wouldn't miss it for the world" As he and Emerald step in with their ballroom best on.

Ruby's attention snaps back when a glass full of something appears right in front of her face, the glass is being held by a pale and beautiful looking hand.

"There you go, now drink fast, the faster you finish, the earlier we dance, the faster we finish, the quicker we can have fun 'standing'" Weiss finishes mimicking Ruby with her fingers air quoting at the word standing.

"Rea-" Ruby wants to say something about her 'date' copying her yesterday's awkward interaction, she however doesn't get the chance.

"Yes" Because Weiss interrupts her, just like yesterday she got interrupted.

"Bu-" Ruby wants to try and postpone her dancing as much as possible.

'No" And with a second quick interruption, Ruby's hand gets grabbed, but to her surprise, it's really soft and not harsh as she expected. But never the less, she gets dragged onto the dance field by Weiss.

~ End of Chapter ~