Note: Sweet biscuits, this year has been nuts, eh? This whole coronavirus thing, people loosing their minds, fires, giant wasps, I mean c'mon, what's next? The Death Star? In all seriousness, I hope that everyone is staying safe and happy. I apologize for not uploading to any stories in a while, I've just had a lot on my plate. Pair that with working nearly everyday and that makes barley any time for me to do anything I used to do for fun. Anyway, I hope you like the chapter and I'll have another out as soon as I can.

Okay, begin!

In the magnificent kingdom of Atlas, sits a village named Kyioshi on the farthest point west of the territory, where a somewhat busy outdoor market conceals a ten-year-old Weiss from the view of the world. The young girl, with a poorly healing cut on her cheek and bruises on her legs, hides around the corner of an alleyway and looks out into the crowd. Not far from her location sits a fruit vender with his back turned. As he asks a passer-by if there is anything she would like, Weiss takes a stone and knocks a hanging basket of oranges off it's stand. As he didn't see the incident, the vender begins to yell at another passer-by who he believes had caused the mess. While the two argue, the little wolf girl slips behind the stand and begins to take several apples, storing them in her shirt. She walks away from the unsuspecting vender and turns back into the alleyway. At lease she would have if some younger kid with silver eyes didn't grab her by the wrist and yell towards the vender that Weiss was taking his profits. In return for the pest of a being's deed, Weiss bites her on the arm, clamping hard enough as to draw blood, making the kid let go and begin to cry. A girl with blonde hair then started to run at the faunus and looked as though she was going to punch her, at least until the wolf girl threw one of the apples into what seems to be the older sister's eye. Weiss turns back to the salesman and thank goodness he didn't hear the annoying brat yell out to him. Speaking of, upon hearing the kid's cries become muffled, Weiss sees her being hugged by a blonde man as he begins to put a cloth on her injury and the blond having her eye examined by a woman in a white cloak. The woman notices her looking their way and tells the blonde girl to go to her father and turns to watch the kid grumble and leave.

Weiss however, didn't stick around for the woman to look back as she had taken off down the alley. The faunus doesn't look back as she continues to run, tears escaping her eyes as she's afraid of what will happen if the woman catches her. She's been caught before, and most of the time it ended with her going hungry and in physical pain. One man even threw her face down in the mud. With living on the streets for months now, there were going to be a good portion of fails. Weiss ducks behind a dumpster and breaths heavily. After a few seconds, she peers around her cover to look for the woman. Not spotting her, Weiss releases a sigh of relief and goes back to her original position... only to see the woman squatting next to her. The wolf faunus lets out a gasp and tries to stand, but releases the grip on her shirt, allowing the apples to tumble out and make her trip over them in her hurry, where she covers her head to wait for the woman to hit her

Instead, no hit comes and she hears the woman say: "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you."

Weiss slowly uncovers her face and looks up at the woman with teary eyes. "You... not?"

"No." the woman replies with a smile before picking up one of the apples and cleaning it with her cloak. "Although, I would like to know why you were taking from that man." she adds while handing the wiped off fruit to the girl.

"I-I..."

"You have any family?"

Weiss' eyes grew wide at the mention of the "f-word" and quickly shook her head. This reaction makes the woman raise a brow, knowing that something was up. Choosing to not pry, the woman asks another question.

"How long have you been out here?"

"D-don' know. B-been few month."

"What's your name? I'm Summer."

"I... uh... umm..."

Weiss' gets spooked upon hearing a rock move, looking out to see that the rest of Summer's family had been standing close by, and the noise came from the blonde girl, who had taken a few steps towards her mother and the faunus. When she sees her, Weiss once again hides behind the dumpster. Summer looks at the scared child for a second or two before standing up.

"Hey," she says sweetly. "I'm going to go talk for a moment. Don't worry, no one's going to hurt you, but can you just sit tight until I come back?" After hearing no reply, Summer once again smiles at her. "It's okay. You can trust me."

Unknowing of what else to do, Weiss slowly nods. She listens to Summer walk away saying "Come here, Yang." shorty after.

"Well, what do we do?" Taiyang questions.

"We bring her back with us. We can't just leave her out here." answers Summer.

"I know that, but what if she really does have family out here?"

"Well, I was thinking, I take her and the girls back home and you look for any other wolf faunus and tell them that we found a child if they're missing one."

"I don't know, Summer..."

"Come on, Tai, she's hurt, stealing food, and smells worse than you after you do your morning workout."

"Alright, fine. You take the girls back, I'll keep an eye out for any potential family members."

With that response, Summer kisses Taiyang on the cheek and tells him "thank you" before turning back towards the girl and walking around the dumpster.

"Okay, sweetie, let's..." she begins to say, but stops when she notices that the girl is gone.

Summer begins to look around for the faunus, but never finds her.

Present day...

Ruby Rose awakens early in the morning with her newly appointed team's wake up call in mind. She bought a whistle just for the occasion. However, upon siting up, Ruby finds Weiss to be awake and sitting in the corner by the bathroom door as she looks at her scroll. However, what Ruby doesn't know, is that Weiss chose that spot as to give her a safe area if... when she needs it. Ruby also notices that her partner is still in her clothes from yesterday.

"Weiss?" whispers the black and red-haired girl.

Weiss says nothing and looks up at her new "leader."

"What are you doing up already?" continues Ruby.

"It matter?" the faunus responds as she looks back to her device.

"O-okay. Uhhh… want to help me prank Blake and Yang?"

Weiss looks back up to the younger girl with a confused face.

"So... is that a yes?"

"What a prenk?"

"You don't know what a prank is?"

Weiss just continues to look at the scythe-wielder.

"A prank is something that you do to other people. Ya'know, for fun." Ruby explains.

A memory from several years ago flashes in the wolf faunus' mind.

"Let's have some fun." a teenage boy says as he cracks his knuckles, two more older boys standing behind him, one of whom is holding a bat. This takes place as an nine-year-old Weiss is looking up at the three in fear from the ground that she was shoved onto.

"No." Weiss responds as soon as the memory ends.

"You sure?"

The white-haired girl says nothing else and just looks back to her scroll.

Ruby releases a small, sad sigh and hops out of her bed to go get ready. When she gets out of the restroom in her new school uniform, she makes a pouting face as she sees that Blake and Yang now awake as well.

"Ah, noooo!" whines Ruby. "I was going to prank you guys!"

"Welp, ya should have done it earlier." Yang responds before sticking her tongue out at her little sister, who retaliates in the same way.

The only attention that Weiss has been paying to the other three girls is the sound of their footsteps to make sure that they aren't approaching her. She could not care less about anything else they do. The only interactions that she's had with any of them this morning was with the annoying black and red-haired girl when they had their earlier conversation and when Weiss moved from her seat to go sit by the front door when Ruby got up to head inside the bathroom. However, not paying attention to the girls turns out to be a mistake because Ruby decides to use the whistle to get Weiss' attention when she notices her opportunity to do so as the faunus is ignoring them.

TWEEEEEEEEEEE!

The sudden an unexpected high-pitched sound causes Weiss to literally jump to her feet and immediately throw her scroll at the source of the sound, knocking the whistle from Ruby's mouth and onto the floor.

"Nice throw." Yang comments as she gives the faunus a thumbs up. However, after taking notice of how fast the girl is breathing, the brawler teases: "What's wrong? Puppy doesn't like the whistle?"

Obviously the blonde didn't mean any harm by it and was just trying to make a joke, but the question earns a disapproving look from Blake and a death-stare from Weiss as her heart continues to beat rapidly in her chest.

"Awww. Her tail went stiff." Yang announces in reference to Weiss, whose tail is now sticking straight up.

"Yang," starts Blake "that means she's angry."

"I know. We have a corgi back at home so I can tell the differences in tail posture. I was just trying to tease her a little bit." the brawler says with a shrug.

First she insults Weiss and now she compares her to a corgi? So she's going to be one of those people huh? In response to Yang's statement, Weiss lets a growl escape her throat.

"Come on guys, don't fight." Ruby begs. "It's our first day, let's enjoy it!"

"Aww yeah! Let's get this show on the road!" Yang voices in excitement, completely forgetting about Weiss being upset... which only ticks the girl off more.

In her mind, it's Yang's way of saying: "Meh, you're not even worth my time."

"But first, let's decorate!"" the leader yells.

"What?" asks Weiss in confusion.

"We still have to unpack." Blake states as she lifts up her suitcase, which then flops open and everything inside falls onto the floor. "... And clean."

Weiss just looks at the other girls until Ruby jumps in her face from seemingly nowhere and blows the whistle again, making the former's eyes go wide and jump back. This in turn makes her trip on a suitcase that's laying in the floor and she falls, hitting the back of her head on the floor.

"Ack!" screeches Ruby. "Are you okay?!"

Weiss just continues to lay on the ground and tries not to cry from pain, anger, and embarrassment. Her getting knocked over better not be a regular thing.

"Maybe uhhh… we should go ahead and get started so that doesn't happen again." Yang suggests, getting nods from both her partner and her sister.

"Alright! Weiss, Blake, Yang, and their fearless leader Ruby have begun their first mission. Banzai!" the red reaper exclaims as she puts a fist into the air.

"Banzai!" Blake and Yang yell as they throw their fists into the air as well and each stand next to Ruby and the three girls then do some sort of pose.

Blake feels a little strange for acting a differently than she usually does, but she has a second chance at living her life and she can at least try to have fun. On top of that... she's hopeful to actually have some friends. The cat faunus glances over to a laughing Ruby and Yang and let's a small smile show. Ruby seems like a brave and kind girl, Blake would be happy to call her a friend. Yang is fun-loving and has a deep care for her sister, and she didn't really seem to mean any harm in teasing Weiss; although Blake hopes that she doesn't keep it up. Speaking of Weiss, the cat-girl's not really too sure what to think about her. Yes, she's happy to have another faunus on her team, but there's something about Weiss that just makes her feel uncomfortable. She can't really explain it, but she doesn't like that she feels that way. However, unlike every other student she's seen, Weiss seems to have no enthusiasm for being at Beacon. Then again, if Ozpin is her grandfather, she's likely used to being here... but why does she seem so upset all the time?

Blake is thrown out of her thoughts as Weiss picks herself up off the floor before grabbing the suitcase she tripped over and hurls it at Yang, who catches it with no issue to the faunus' disappointment as she was aiming for the blonde's face for revenge from leaving the yellow bag there in the first place. A minute or two passes as Weiss watches her new teammates in confusion as to why they are "decorating" as they called it. From the looks of it, decorating is completely useless as there doesn't seem to be any sign of benefits from doing so. They don't even take notice of her lack of participation as they each set up their own items. Once Ruby, Blake, and Yang are done, every member of Team RWBY looks on at the newly arranged dorm and notice a crucial problem... the beds are just stacked atop each other in the center of the room.

"Fail." Weiss states.

"It is a bit cramped." Blake agrees.

"Maybe we should ditch some of our stuff." Yang suggests.

"Or we could ditch the beds... *gasp* and replace them with bunkbeds!" Ruby exclaims as she throws her arms into the air.

"What bunk bed?'" questions Weiss.

"It's basically one bed placed over another, but it has supports keeping the top one up so one person can use each bed." explains Yang.

"Sound stupid and risky."

"And super awesome!" Yang shouts.

"It does seem efficient." Blake states.

Wiess doesn't say anything else as she realizes that this is a loosing battle. Why should she even care anyway? It's not like she's actually going to sleep if anyone is in the same room as her. She can just rest in a tree stationed in a secluded area during their "breaks," whatever those are.

The white-haired girl is removed from her thoughts when Yang asks: "Hey, Weiss, you going to help us put these together or what?"

Apparently, the majority of Team RWBY had already begun on the project immediately after they finished their conversation about the creations as Weiss just continued to stand there. However, in response to the question directed at her, the wolf girl shakes her head and walks out of the room.

"Where are you going?" questions Blake as her teammate was just exiting the doorway.

"Class." is the dry reply from the wolf-girl. She's never been to a "class," but Ozpin said that she was required to go as part of their agreement so whatever.

"Class?" Ruby repeats in confusion before the meaning of her partner's bland statement registers in her brain. Ruby hurriedly pulls out her scroll and lets out a yelp. "Oh crud, class starts in five minutes!"

"Wait!" calls out Yang. "What about Weiss?! She's not wearing the uniform!"

"She can probably get away with it! Let's GOOO!"

Ruby, Blake, and Yang then get up and run out the door, leaving Weiss behind them with a startled look on her face at the unsuspected action. Immediately after, she hears the door to her left open, revealing Team JNPR.

"Class?" Jaune asks in fear. He can't be late his first day! However, before he can even begin to run, the rest of his team fall on top of him. Jaune is the first to get back up and runs off as the others follow closely behind him.

However, Pyrrha stops for a moment. The redhead looks back towards Weiss, concerned about the faunus who has her hand over her heart and her head laying against the door frame.

"Pyrrha, come on!" Nora exclaims from up ahead. "If you're late, we're all late!"

Pyrrha is conflicted about what to do, but selects to run after her team when she sees that Weiss has calmed down somewhat.

"You've allowed four questionable students into the academy." Glynda announces to Ozpin. "I just think you're pushing your luck is all."

"Oh?" the headmaster questions before sipping from his signature mug. "And who might those be?"

"Ruby Rose, age fifteen, Jaune Arc, questionable transcripts, Blake Belladonna, very recent history of being in the White Fang, and Weiss, a criminal who has some clear psychological issues."

"Miss Rose has shown promising skill and in all honesty, with the way things are going these days, we need her. As for the other girls, I am a firm believer in second chances. Blake wants to turn her life around and Weiss... she just needs someone to care about her for once. I have hope that we can show her that there is more to life than what she has experienced."

"And Mister Arc?"

"Him, I just have a good feeling about." Ozpin replies casually, causing his assistant's eye to twitch. "Try to have a little more faith, Glynda."

The two then stop walking when they see teams RWBY (minus Weiss) and JNPR sprinting to their first class of the day. The blonde professor looks down at her watch to check the time while her companion takes another sip of his mug. Glynda looks to her left in order to see Weiss walking behind the rest of her team and out of uniform as well as still having her weapon on her side. Glynda Goodwitch then directs her eyes back to her boss as they peek over her glasses, giving him a disapproving look. Ozpin's only response is to simply close his eyes and shrug before walking off again, leaving his assistant behind to facepalm.

Ruby, Yang, Blake and Team JNPR run though the halls of Beacon towards their first ever class of their time at the academy, they so do not want to be late. Upon reaching the door of the class, Ruby fails to stop fast enough and just slides past the door while looking inside... with everyone else not making the same mistake. After finally stopping, Ruby runs inside the classroom and happily yells: "We made it!

"Indeed." a voice says to their left, revealing their professor. "And with seconds to spare. Well done. Now if you take your seats, I will begin the lesson."

As the seven teens walk to their seats, the professor speaks again.

"Excuse me, but aren't you missing a member, Team RWBY?"

Ruby, Blake, and Yang all turn to one another and realize that he's right. Weiss isn't here yet.

"She was out the door before we were, wasn't she?" whispers Yang.

"I think so." Ruby replies. "What happened then?"

"Next time you might want to make sure she's with you when you depart for classes." their professor announces.

After he says that, the subject of the conversation walks into the room with no concern evident on her face. However, she freezes when she sees how many people are inside.

"Nice of you to join us." the professor says without sarcasm. "If you would go sit by your team, I will once again attempt to start the lesson."

Weiss cautiously looks around the room at all the people and hesitantly walks to her team, not looking forward to having to be so close to them. Why did Ozpin have to make that a rule? It's bad enough that she has to share a room with them. The wolf faunus awkwardly sits at the end of the row, in the seat closest to the door, a nervous look on her face all the while. Port tells a story of his youth and many of the students stop paying attention in return, but Weiss continues to listen just because she wants to see exactly what this school thing is like... and she has nothing better to do right now.

After approximately forty minutes of Port talking, Ruby holds up a very poorly drawn version of the professor with streaks representing stink rising from his body, causing her and her sister to snicker a little too loudly. They are immediately snapped out of it as Port forcefully clears his throat, letting them know he's displeased. He then continues to wrap up the story as he explains how he captured the beast and returned proudly home before bowing to the class. As he does this, Weiss picks up sounds from Ruby's direction. Turning to the girl, the faunus sees her doing something ridiculous as Port lists off the ways of what a huntsman should be. Weiss doesn't really understand what every word he said meant... but she's certain that Ruby is none of them. Why? Of all people, why did she have to be stuck on a team with that girl? Literally everything she does gets on the faunus' nerves. After being told that they can leave when the class finished watching Ren kill off a Boarbatusk when Nora had stuck his hand in the air as a volunteer, Weiss is the first out of the classroom and keeps a fast pace while walking down the hall to the next class.

The next two introductory classes were roughly the same length in time and were taught by Mulberry and Peach respectively. According to Ozpin, there were three classes after this thing called a "lunch break," which is apparently a time to eat. Since students have to be in their dorms by 8:00, Weiss decides that she'll mark this time to sleep in the future. Two meals a day is already more that what she's used to anyway, but since she's already in the cafeteria, she might as well go ahead and grab something. After RWBY collect their meals, they head over to sit at a table with JNPR.

"Hey, guys!" Jaune happily welcomes as Ruby, Blake, and Yang sit down. "What's u..."

However, he stops mid sentence when Weiss walks past her teammates and sits as far away from them at the table as possible while the others just watch her. After Weiss sits, Ruby lets out a sad sigh and her sister pats her on the back.

"Did you all fight or something?" asks Jaune.

"Weiss is just kinda distant." Yang answers.

"That and she hates me." Ruby adds. "I haven't even been leader for a full day and I already have a teammate that hates me."

"I'm sure that's not true." Pyrrha says in an attempt to make the younger girl feel better.

"Yeah, she might just be agitated because of what you guys have been through together." voices Yang.

"Basically all of that is material for her to hate me, sis." Ruby states.

"Ruby, it's only been a short time since you've known each other. You're lucky to have already found friends by this point. Some people can go over a year in a new place before finding any." assures Ren.

"Heh, thanks." Ruby responds with a smile.

"Anyway, I have to say I'm impressed that you are leader, Ruby. Even being in an academy at your age is a great achievement." Pyrrha tells the girl.

"Well I'm not surprised." Yang stats with a triumphant grin. "Ruby's always wanted to be a hero. Even as a little kid, she would run around and 'keep her eyes out for evil.'"

"Yaaaang." Ruby whines as her face begins to turn red in embarrassment.

"I think it's sweet." Pyrrha tries to reassure the younger girl.

"Did she ever get hurt?" questions Jaune.

"A few times," Yang tells them. "but she always quickly bounced back. One time she fell down some stairs while trying to jump on one and do a 'superhero pose.' Another, she hit her face on the concrete from attempting to catch a frog that she was pretending was a monster. Oh, and she fell from a tree after trying to catch a squirrel that snatched a nut from another squirrel."

With each of Yang's stories, Ruby's face just gets redder and redder as she attempts to hide underneath her hood, making everyone but Weiss chuckle.

"Did she ever attempt to do anything to a person?" asks Nora.

"Dad used to pretend to be a villain for her to defeat, and there was actually one time she actually handcuffed him to a pole and was stuck there until mom came home and talked Ruby into giving her the key."

"Where did she get the handcuffs?" Blake asks.

"To this day, we have no idea. Although, our money's on Uncle Qrow."

"What about someone other than family?" asks Jaune.

"Not that I can think o... actually, there was this one time we were visiting Atlas and went shopping in a marketplace. She saw this kid take some apples from a vendor and grabbed her arm."

Upon hearing this, Weiss looks towards Ruby for a moment. The hair and eyes match up, but these aren't the same people from back then, right?

"Did you get in trouble?" questions Blake.

"N-no," Ruby announces, still slightly embarrassed from the other stories. "but she did bite me."

"She bit you?" Pyrrha wonders.

Weiss looks away from Ruby and down at her remaining plate of food. No. No no. These are really starting to sound like the same kids.

"Yeah, hard enough to draw blood too." Yang answers. "After that, she ran into the alley. Looking back, I think she was homeless. I mean, she looked a little worse for wear and was really scared of us... and we never found any family of hers."

"That's horrible." states Pyrrha.

Ren and Nora exchange glances, knowing full well what it's like to be alone. Blake sighs, having had friends who were orphans.

"How old was she?" questions Nora.

"Around Yang's age, I think." answers Ruby. "So five?"

The table falls into silence for a moment. Yep, they are definitely the same people. Okay, it's okay. As long as they don't put it together that it was her, she'll be fine. She'll be just fine. … She just needs to make sure they never know. Weiss looks towards Ruby and a picture flashes in the faunus' head. One of a woman with red and black hair and silver eyes in a white cloak as she smiles down at her. The image fades into a younger face of the woman with a slight hair change and a red cloak instead of white. Weiss just continues to stare at the girl until she tears her eyes away and quickly departs.