"That was garbage. Seriously, did someone swap the team I assembled in the Emerald Forest with a bunch of junior trainees? A team from Signal would have done better than that!"

Coco spat on the floor of the Bullhead as she steadied herself with one of the handles on the ceiling. She looked back up and glared at each of her team members in turn. They had technically completed their assignment to eliminate part of a pack of Beowolves and no one was seriously injured, but the mud, cuts, and scrapes covering their bodies spoke to how close they had come to failure.

Coco's eyes flicked to the opposite wall where the other team on board was looking out the windows or at the ceiling with remarkable focus. Their leader, a girl with flowing royal blue hair was trying so hard to ignore them she was actually blushing. Your loss, Azul Coco thought. You'll be missing Class-A instruction in how to deal with your team. Her head snapped back to the closest member of Team CFVY.

"Yatsuhashi!" He met her eyes, his face unreadable. "Your technique was good, but you let the pack bait you out of position. They got within a meter of the bullhead's perimeter. If this had been a real mission without a teacher waiting to kill anything that got past our lines, that wouldn't just have meant a failed mission. It would have meant dead civilians or destroyed evac. Don't let it happen again."

"Understood," He replied.

Coco nodded, satisfied, then walked in front of the boy with the gauntlet blades.

"At least Yatsuhashi made a smart mistake. You could have gotten killed."

Fox glared back at her, arms folded, leaning back in his seat. "You mean I could have stolen your spotlight."

"My Aura reserves are four times the size of yours. After Yatsuhashi, I'm the best suited to frontline combat. You're lucky you didn't overtax your pathetic stamina, because if you had slowed down you'd be dead."

"Whatever."

Coco grunted and slapped the back of his head. He looked up, ready to pounce on her, but Yatsuhashi laid a hand on his shoulder and shook his head. Fox puffed and resumed his languid brooding.

Coco looked over to her last teammate. And then there's this loser.

Velvet sat hunched over, her head drooping. The Faunus girl had done such a good job making herself inconspicuous that Coco wryly mused if she had an invisibility semblance. She crouched in front of the girl, so she was at eye level. Velvet looked up. She hadn't been crying, but it looked like she would start bawling if Coco so much as breathed on her the wrong way.

"Did you even try to fight?" Coco asked. "I don't know why you think you belong here, but you seriously need to reconsider your life choices."

Velvet whimpered and stared at her feet. Coco stood up, walking past the empty seat on her team's bench towards the seat against the wall that separated the cabin from the cockpit, her cavalry sabre knocking against her right hip, punctuating her steps. She collapsed into it in a controlled manner, wincing inwardly at the cold, squishy feeling of mud oozed under every thread of clothing. A pea-sized dollop fell from her beret onto her nose.

Merde.

…

Beacon's courtyard was silent in the early morning, save for a steady puff-clap, puff-clap, sound like a tiny steam engine. Coco sprung up from a push-up, clapped her hands together beneath her, caught herself in the starting position, and repeated the exercise over and over. After a few minutes she paused and reached over to touch the back of her hand to the pair of boots sitting off to the side.

A few more minutes, she thought.

After arriving back at Beacon the previous night, her weapons had required only cursory maintenance, but her clothing had needed a thorough regimen of pre-treatment and hand washing, and her beret had been ruined. She had managed to get the mud off the boots, but by that time she had been too tired to properly polish them. So she rose an hour earlier than usual to treat them between sets of push-ups and crunches.

Coco would have been hard-pressed to pick a favorite accessory or piece of clothing, but if you asked her to only buy one type of expensive apparel for the rest of her life, she would have said boots. 'Cheap boots are a sin,' Papa Adel would say. 'But buy the right pair of quality boots, treat them with care and love, and you'll never need another set of shoes.' Aside from a pair of slippers, Papa had only owned a set of black Chelsea boots, with steel in the toes and deceptively thick soles. They had gone everywhere, protecting his feet at the construction sites of houses for rich Mistral citizens and shining like polished onyx when he discussed contracts in the construction company's office.

So when Coco had started earning money in small Mistral tournaments and impromptu bouts at Sanctum, she saved and saved until she could afford a custom pair of knee-length boots. Kevlar plates in the shins; steel toe, sole and heel; covered in rich dark leather; and lined with an incredibly soft insole material that, though she wouldn't admit it, even she couldn't pronounce. The spike heels had been a questionable flair of vanity, but Coco had watched the Schnee heiress compete in a broadcast of some regional Atlas tournament. If that pampered twit could prance about in that ridiculous outfit and still perform with grace, surely she could as well. And they hadn't failed her yet.

Coco sat up from a set of crunches and felt the boots again. Satisfied, she picked up a rag and started buffing them, contentment spreading across her face as they began to shine.

"Mes beaux amis," she cooed.

…

By the middle of Port's class, Coco's mood had soured. His latest story had given her time to dwell on everything that had happened since arriving at Beacon. Things had started off well. She hadn't been shy in spreading her reputation from Sanctum, but she had made sure to do it without boasting too much. She circulated enough to figure out the prime candidates for her team, either by speaking directly to them or listening for promising rumors, then turned in early in a secluded corner of the great hall to research their backgrounds on her scroll before going to sleep.

Then things had started to go pear-shaped ever so subtly. Soon after landing in the emerald forest she encountered one of her prime candidates, Yatsuhashi Daichi—but not soon enough to partner with him. No big deal. Fox was one of the few students with little public information available, certainly not a first or second-tier pick. But between their common laconic natures and contrasting fighting styles, he worked well with Yatsuhashi. Not a detrimental wrinkle in the plan.

But then they heard the ursae and someone shouting for help. Coco had charged in, slashing with her blades before one of them got a lucky hit in and sent her flying. Her aura let her take the brunt of the hit, but then she heard a squeak of fear and looked up. Without even seeing her in action, Coco's heart sank. She had just been partnered. With little. Velvet. Scarletina.

Coco broke from her reverie to stare down her nose at the Faunus girl two seats away, hunched over like she could sense Coco's scorn. Velvet was smart, and quick enough to outrun a slow grimm, but she hit like a cotton ball, took hits like wet paper, and anything faster than a deathstalker would catch her in all but the shortest pursuits. Coco had told her to spend extra time sparring and building strength, but she disappeared at almost every moment she wasn't required to be with the team.

Despite Coco's suboptimal partner, finishing initiation hadn't been a complete disaster. Velvet had required near-constant protection, but she had been somewhat useful when they reached the relics. Coco had sent her to grab two matching pieces while the rest of them held off two massive grimm. Fox and Yatsuhashi killed a deathstalker while Coco had singlehandedly defeated what Professor Port later confirmed to be the largest ursa ever recorded in the emerald forest. Afterwards, CFVY was formed, Ozpin had assigned Coco to be their leader, and stories of her ursa fight were already buzzing around the school. Maybe she had overreacted to Velvet.

But Velvet had only been the beginning. Coco glanced at the massive boy between them, then up at the orange-haired one three seats over and one row back, reclining in his chair.

Yatsuhashi was okay. He was a competent fighter and strong. His speed was lacking and he occasionally made poor strategic decisions, but he dutifully worked at improving these weaknesses and took criticism without hesitation. Best of all he also obeyed without hesitation on and off the battlefield. After their first post-initiation defeat he immediately agreed to Coco's suggestions of extra training.

Fox was another story. He had acted somewhat aloof following initiation. But aloofness turned to mild irritation, which turned to full-blown scorn and rebellion when Coco raised the subject of physical conditioning. He frequently disobeyed orders and resisted criticism, responding to the simplest of requests with sarcasm and brooding, if not outright pretending he hadn't heard. He was more capable than Velvet, but ultimately less useful. Velvet at least tried to obey orders most of the time.

Coco rubbed her temples, frustrated. The building blocks were there, but half her team would never become competent huntsmen if their current situation didn't change. They would run the gauntlet with the other first-year students after today's classes. Maybe she could make it a turning point for her team.

…

"Move it CFVY, let's go!"

Within two minutes of starting the gauntlet, Coco's idle hopes had evaporated. Nothing like a race through an obstacle course to make you miss sparring.

As they crested the hill towards the final stretch they came across a winding downhill trail with targets lining either side. At the bottom, far off in the distance, was a tall smooth wall separating them from the finish line. A long open space bordered with upperclassmen lay between the wall and the bottom of the hill. Coco quickly took it all in, barking orders without slowing down.

"Velvet, Fox, take the targets on the left; Yatsuhashi you're with me on the—"

Fox dashed ahead, taking the destroying every target on the right. Coco grit her teeth, cursing. She switched to the left side of the trail, striking the targets Velvet missed or couldn't break, which was most of them. At the last target she leapt and clenched her fist, converting the rings on her right hand into the brass knuckle portion of her trench knife. Flaring some stored dust, a blade of pure flame erupted from the bottom of her fist, shattering the last target into charred splinters as she struck it.

Now the fun really began. Officially none of them had been told what would happen, but they'd heard plenty of rumors. Plus, you'd have to be dumber than a sack of bricks to not figure out why there were crowds on each side of the final stretch.

Coco made it a quarter of the way to the wall before the first projectile hit, the tomato hitting her ribs. "Oh, be original!" she shouted over her shoulder. A second later a hard rubber ball the size of a tangerine struck her shoulder blades, and she immediately cursed her temper.

A blur of motion caught her eye coming from behind and to her right. Velvet shot forward, ducking and weaving enough to avoid most of the projectiles. When she neared the wall, she hopped, landed in a crouch, and leapt just high enough to catch the top edge. Even with an aura assist, the jump still made Coco slow a bit out of sheer amazement.

Try not to say anything stereotypical later, she thought.

But her cynicism soon rushed back. For a moment, it looked like Velvet's upper body strength would fail her, but she managed to pull herself up all the way and toss the rope down. She waved her arms in encouragement, but that only served to draw fire from the upperclassmen. She tried to dodge atop the wall for a second, before disappearing down behind the wall to finish the course.

Coco spared a glance back. Yatsuhashi was shrugging off everything they threw at him and moving fast for a person his size, but he still presented a large, comparatively slow target. As for Fox…

She cursed again. Fox was reasonably strong, displayed polished technique in combat, and might have been the fastest huntsman in their year—but they would never find out for sure because his stamina was so low he had burnt the last of it up dashing down the hill when he defied Coco. Now he was stumbling along half-hunched, gasping for breath, the little air he inhaled getting knocked out of him by the heavy volume of projectiles striking him.

Coco reached the wall, with Yatsuhashi following close behind. She climbed the rope until she was just over his head, and looked back. Fox was deflecting some of the things thrown his way with his blades, but it looked as if he was moving even slower. Coco growled, frustrated, and dropped back to the ground.

"You go first!"

"But—"

"Do it!" she shouted, running back from the wall.

They met just past the middle of the clearing, Coco turning and skidding to a stop under Fox's left shoulder in a single, if awkward and lurching movement. She wrapped her right arm around his waist and brandished her sabre with her left. Half-running, half-dragging Fox, Coco made her way back to the wall, deflecting as much as she could with her sabre, though much of the incoming fire struck true.

"Can you even climb?" she asked, once they reached the rope.

"Can you give me two minutes or so?" Fox said, his ragged breath slurring his words.

Coco grunted, sheathing her sabre. "Just follow my lead and wait here."

She took the rope and coiled a few feet of it around his right arm, placing the end of it in his hand. Then she scaled the wall, climbing the rope with her feet planted on the wood, trying not to lose her grip as she was pelted with more mud and fruit. Near the top, what felt like a frozen lemon nailed her in the temple and she flinched, her feet slipping off the wall. She dangled for a moment, swinging like a drunken pendulum, almost losing her grip. But she clutched the rope harder and pulled herself the rest of the way up. When she reached the top, she flinched as a large arm grabbed her wrist and yanked her up. Yatsuhashi was still at the top.

"Where's Fox?"

"Taking a breather," Coco said, irritated. "How's your aura looking?"

"57 percent."

Coco grinned. "Perfect. This'll be easier than I thought. Think you can jump down from up here?"

Yatsuhashi blinked, confused for the briefest moment, before nodding, an understanding smile spreading across his face. He wrapped the rope around one arm, took in the slack, and jumped to the ground below. Coco turned, ready to grab Fox, when he neared the top, only for his body to fly over the wall and crash into her. They tumbled back off the top, falling. Coco flared her aura, bracing for the impact, but stopped six feet short of the ground when Yatsuhashi caught them around the midsection, one in each arm. Coco gasped, pain flaring through her ribs and gut. They both struggled to catch their breath as Yatsuhashi carried them another ten yards to the finish line, setting them down in the shade of a tree once they had crossed it.

Fox moaned, managing to flash a thumb's up in gratitude to Yatsuhashi before curling in a loose fetal position. Coco sprawled on her back, panting and trying very hard not to black out.

"Nice job big guy," she said, then muttered to herself "Son of an ass, that hurt."

…

They watched five other teams take their turn as they rested, drinking water and eating rations provided to help them recover. Then Professor Goodwytch announced the results before she left. CFVY was last.

"This is bull," Fox said, as they trudged back towards the center of campus. "I didn't expect us to come out on top, but Velvet made the best time on the final stretch out of any of the others. Unless you saw someone else vault the ten-meter wall."

"We're only as fast as our slowest member," Yatsuhashi said stoically. "I will do better next time."

"We'll all do better," Coco said. "We'll be faster, stronger; we'll listen better—"

"Why?" Fox asked.

Coco stopped, then turned around slowly.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me," Fox said. "Why should we listen to you? So you can grandstand and be the big shiny hero at every opportunity? Because that's how most of our plans end up unfolding."

"I'm sorry, I wasn't aware that carrying half the team—literally at some points—was considered grandstanding."

Everyone had stopped now. Velvet looked nervously between her three team members, while Yatsuhashi watched them unmoving. The other teams of junior huntsmen had paused in a loose crowd around them, rooted by the tension in the air.

Ignoring them, Fox continued to stare down his leader. "It is when you don't let your teammates do the jobs they can do better than you."

"ARE YOU SERIOUS?" Coco shouted. She stomped over to Fox jabbing a finger into his chest. "Have you forgotten how the time-trial just ended? How the last three missions ended?"

"No," Fox shouted back. "And every time I'm astounded that this little princess from Sanctum who can't fight manages to come back without any serious injuries."

"I can't fight? I've been defeated by one person at Sanctum in the last three years. You think you could do better?"

"Yeah! My technique is way better than yours, I'm faster—"

"Speed means jack when you can only perform for five seconds!" Coco cut in.

"If that's why you're so bitchy all the time, I know some guys who can last longer."

The crowd around them hooted and jeered at Fox's comeback. He folded his arms, grinning. Coco gave a short, barking laugh, her mouth hanging open. She hung her sunglasses from the neck of her shirt, then said; "You wanna go, Fox?" She didn't shout, but danger was woven into every syllable.

A crooked grin spread across Fox's face. "I do actually. Hand-to-hand or fully armed?"

"Your choice. But I am partial to weapons."

"Well golly-gee, we can agree on something."

Coco smirked back at him. She handed her sunglasses and beret to Yatsuhashi, formed her trench knife, and drew her saber. Fox adjusted the straps on his blades and squeezed tight on the grips.

"Kura, care to judge?"

A girl in the crowd with messy black hair stepped forward between them. Fox and Coco stepped into fighting stances. Kura looked between them to ensure they were ready, then shouted "Fight!" jumping back.

Fox and Coco charged at each other, Fox making contact before Coco could even reach the middle of their impromptu ring. She deflected a few blows with her weapons, but for every successful block or parry Fox landed twice as many strikes. His knee flew under Coco's arms into her stomach, causing her to drop her guard. Fox back-flipped, kicking Coco backward as he flew through the air, landing on his feet and raising his arms to the crowd's cheers.

A burst of heat cut his celebration short, knocking him to the ground. He sprung back to his feet to see Coco brandishing her trench knife in a forward grip, its dust generating a thin bright tongue of flame as long as Yatsuhashi's sword.

"Now who's grandstanding?"

Coco advanced, flicking the knife back and forth, keeping Fox from closing in close. The blade's incorporeal nature allowed her to move it far quicker than she had any right to, allowing her to shepherd Fox as she pleased. Fox spared a glance back as he flipped away from the blade's strikes. He had managed to avoid any major blow, but she was successfully herding him towards a ditch.

Well, he thought. Take the chance with the low ground or... He grimaced. This would probably sting.

He feinted two paces to his left, drawing Coco's strike to her right, then charged forward, ducking under the dust flame. He winced as it grazed his back, then lunged at Coco. Coco tried to swing back towards Fox and block with her sabre but he knocked it away with his right arm and struck hard with his left.

The dust flame died out leaving only a brass knuckle with a small nib where the blade had been and Coco stumbled, falling onto her back. Fox stood, intending to strike again, then doubled over, panting from exertion.

"See, that's why—"he stopped as he looked up.

Coco climbed to her feet. Her movements and breathing were labored, but she was standing. And she wasn't nearly as winded as Fox.

Fox gave an animal shout and started to swing at her. Coco flared ice dust to make a wicked blade for her trench knife and parried each blow. They moved more like knights in heavy armor battering each other rather than unarmored fighters, each strike a forceful, but slow and ponderous movement. With each blow Fox delivered or received, some of the vigor drained from his movements. Coco tired as well, but at a far slower pace.

Fox made one final lunge, arms extended, but Coco sidestepped the attack taking the strike on her right arm—then slammed the hilt of her sabre into Fox's head. Fox went down, sprawling in the dirt. He groaned and rolled onto his side, but he didn't stand up again.

"That's the match!" Kura shouted. "Coco's aura is at nineteen percent; Fox's is three percent." Coco sighed, her shoulders sagging. It hadn't been the toughest fight she'd ever won, but it would be memorable. She looked over to Fox, who had managed to climb to a sitting position. Comebacks ranging from pithy to outright venomous flowed through her head, each begging to be heard. Then Coco shrugged, sheathing her weapons.

No point in kicking him when he's down, she thought. She walked over and extended her hand.

"I have to admit, you were pretty impressive a couple times back—"Fox swatted her outstretched hand away.

"Piss off."

Coco glared at him. She opened her mouth to harangue him, when Yatsuhashi stepped between them. He handed Coco her belongings, then helped Fox to his feet before the two of them set off towards the school. Velvet looked between Coco and the rest of her team, then scurried off to walk behind the two boys. Coco stood dumbstruck for a moment, then grimaced, following her team back towards the dorms ten paces behind.

Notes:

Hey! I hope you enjoyed the first chapter. This story started out as my submission for the September MonCon over on the RWBY subreddit, but between other life obligations and a general dissatisfaction with the state of my draft, I was unable to complete it in time.

However, this ended up being a great thing because now I can devote the time necessary to smooth out the overall story and not rush the ending. More to come soon.

-Sungrass