"Rise and Shine!" As usual, Ruby was the first to wake up. She was naturally a morning person, so she took it upon herself as team leader to be her teammates' alarm clock. Yang's only reply was a loud yawn. She hadn't slept well. She began to pull her blanket over her head, only to earn a playful kick from her sister Ruby.

"Oh no you don't!" Ruby knew just how to motivate her sister. Yang jumped from her bed swinging a pillow. Ruby dodged her sister's swing and replied in kind, grinning from ear to ear. Soon the sisters were in a full contact pillow war. Feathers quickly filled the dorm. Splintering wood joined the mix as Ruby and Yang tripped over a chair, breaking its legs. With a loud crash their sisterly brawl came to an end at the foot of Weiss's bed. Her eyes snapped open as a pleasant dream gave way to the weight of her teammates still sprawled across her.

"Save it for the Grimm you dolts!" Weiss hurled her pillow at Yang's head. Her pillow sailed in an arc and hit Blake, waking up the last member of Team RWBY. Weiss was not a morning person to begin with, and the pre-dawn chaos only hurt her disposition.

As Weiss and Blake got dressed, Ruby and Yang worked to fix the trail of destruction their pillow fight had wrought. The chair was beyond saving. A few minutes later, Ruby stuck the last feathers back in her pillow. She turned to face Weiss, whose mood had been lifted by a warm bath. "How's that airship coming Weiss?"

"Let me see…" Weiss activated her scroll. A screen appeared bearing the Schnee Dust Company logo, and a prompt for voice recognition played. She slowly enunciated "Weiss Schnee," and the logo dissolved into a dizzying array of symbols and charts. To her teammates they were a foreign language. To Weiss, they were second nature. Weiss was the heiress to the largest company in all of Remnant. She had been trained in all aspects of the business both formally and by experience since the age of six. It only took her a few seconds to find the proper icon. A list of flight plans appeared. "Here we are. If you don't mind riding a cargo airship, there's a flight from Beacon to Atlas leaving at noon today. The Amber River Bridge is a scheduled stop." Her teammates gave their consent. "We are now officially on the roster. If anyone asks, you're all taking me sightseeing." A few more swipes and the interface disappeared.

The girls began packing. They had been too tired the previous night to put away the bags of gear from Blake and Yang's shopping run. Now it was sorted and distributed between teammates. Among the new purchases were four rucksacks. They were sturdy models, made from heavy tan canvas and trimmed in tough brown leather. Each girl's pack carried a sleeping bag, their respective ammunition, and dehydrated food. Heavier equipment, like the group's first aid kit, was split up between packs so no one had to carry extra weight. Finally, they each packed a paper map and old-fashioned magnetic compass. If their scrolls broke, those maps could mean the difference between life and death.

Blake had been quiet since becoming an accidental casualty of the pillow brawl. A quick glance at the dorm's clock made her speak up. "I almost forgot-Yang and I reserved the training ring for this morning. Can you and Weiss finish packing?" Yang raised a questioning eyebrow, but said nothing. We weren't planning to train today. What's my Blakey up too?

Sergeant Ochre paced absentmindedly around his duty station. He knew he should have felt honored to be trusted with managing the Vytal Festival's northern air defense grid. At his old post in Atlas, he had been just an armorer, responsible for keeping the artillery of one of Atlas's many border fortresses maintained. A strong recommendation from his commander had earned him a coveted billet with General Ironwood's fleet, just weeks before they deployed to Vale in advance of the Vytal Festival. His new post as not nearly as glamorous as he had expected. In fact, it was downright boring.

There had been a flurry of excitement in his second week, when Ironwood's forces moved to stop the largest Grimm attack in over a century, the Breach. Now, he was just an over-trained secretary. With no hostiles in Vale's sky, his job consisted of watching a screen for twelve hours a day, logging each flight into Vale. In theory he could scramble a small squadron of the finest Atlesian gunships, but the dreaded flying Grimm known as Nevermores had not been spotted over Vale since the Breach. He was grateful when a knock at his office door broke the monotony. Sergeant Ochre put on his uniform coat and rose to greet his guest.

"Officer on deck!" Ochre snapped a stiff Atlesian salute to the Colonel who now stood in his doorway.

"At ease soldier." The Colonel looked surprisingly young, and his uniform was a bit sloppy. Oh, the benefits of rank! Ochre thought.

"What can I do for you, Sir?" Ochre was careful to keep his bearing. He'd heard horror stories of Ironwood's surprise inspections.

"Drop that sir business, would you? Name's Colonel Kuro, Atlas Intelligence. I'm here about your logs. Specifically, any flights headed to Mistral from Beacon. There appears to have been a theft of military secrets. I'll wait here while you pull those records." Kuro took a seat by the door.

Sergeant Ochre went to work at his terminal, busying himself with the Colonel's task. Over the clattering of keys he failed to hear Kuro approach. The assassin silently drew his dagger. Death was an art to Kuro. He sized up his victim, debating the merits of a stab or slash as he drew closer. With a practiced elegance his dagger pierced Ochre's spine. As he twisted the blade, Kuro triggered Black Kiss's dual barrels. Sergeant Ochre fell limp, dead before he could gasp.

At the sound of the gunshot, two Black Talons entered the office. The first was a technical expert. He wiped the blood from Ochre's terminal and immediately set to work. His goal was to create a gap in the aerial defense perimeter of Forever Fall without alerting the Atlas Military. Ironwood's choice to rely on mechs made it all too easy. Sympathizers in Atlas had provided the Black Talon with master admin codes to most Atlesian mechs prior to the arrival of Ironwood's fleet. A few keystrokes left the flight of Atlesian Lancers bordering Forever Fall blind, their cameras turned off.

Of course, hacking was never that simple. The technician needed to cover his tracks. That's where a clever piece of code came in. In twelve hours, the cameras would turn back on. In the meantime, a prerecorded loop of data would be fed to the Lancer's onboard memory. Ironwood's forces would never suspect a thing.

The second man held a pair of disembodied Faunus claws and a flag. Taking the claws, he made a trio of gouges in the dead sergeant's chest. The flag he quickly unfurled and draped over the body. It bore the emblem of the White Fang. Their tasks complete, the trio departed, leaving no trace of their presence. When the body was discovered, it would be a clear-cut case of Faunus terrorism. Kuro frowned as he left, clearly upset by the thought that a Faunus would soon get the public credit for his masterpiece.

In the pre-dawn mist, Yang followed Blake across the expanse of Beacon's gardens. She had long since passed the training room, though Yang doubted that had ever been her destination. After walking for half an hour, Blake stopped beneath a stand of cherry blossom trees. She took a seat at the base of one and beckoned for Yang to do the same.

Blake sat quietly for a few minutes, seemingly admiring the pink blossoms above her head. Yang sat beside her. She soon began fingering her hair, finding it impossible to match Blake's near meditative stillness. Blake began to speak, and Yang was surprised at the ice in her tone. "Yang, yesterday we shared something…something wonderful. Something unique. Something passionate. Yet I also felt a shadow of fear."

"Blake…I" Yang looked confused.

Blake's voice began to soften "Yang, please, let me finish. You don't know how hard this is for me. You have always been kind to me. When I arrived at Beacon, I had no one. I abandoned everything and everyone I'd ever known the day I swore to leave the White Fang. You and Ruby have become my family. Even Weiss…I never thought I'd live to call a Schnee a friend. I've seen how protective you are of Ruby. And I've come to see that same protectiveness shown towards me. Yang, I am terrified that what you showed me yesterday was only a kindness. That you sensed my pain and tried to protect me in your own way, as my closest friend. I've been so lonely, so empty, for so long! I'm not strong like you, Yang. I can't bear any more pain. I am willing to leave myself defenseless for the first time in my life. I'm willing to take a risk I can't run from, to face a danger I can't hide from. But first, I need to hear it from you Yang, in your own words. I need to hear what you feel about me. I am begging you, Yang, tell the truth! What was yesterday?"

The anguish in Blake's voice was almost too much for Yang to stand. She wanted to embrace Blake, to hold her and tell her everything was alright. But Yang realized that would send the wrong message. She took a moment to collect her thoughts. There was her one chance to get things right. "I've been drawn to you for months, Blake. I…I don't know what to call it. But I have these feelings, these intense feeling for you unlike anything I've ever felt. Damn, there confusing. I look so tough, huh? Well here's my secret: I'm a good liar. I've tried to hide how I feel from you, hell, from everyone, Ruby included. I was afraid that I was alone in my feelings, that If I opened up to you, I'd scare you, you'd run, and I would lose not only my teammate, but my friend. Then yesterday I had a revelation. In that alley, I saw how close we danced with death. Our lives as huntresses are dangerous. Summer Rose died just five years older than I am now. My mom disappeared, not much older. I don't want to die regretting that I never lived. Blake, my Blakey, I want to be yours. Please, open up to me. I will protect you, and I will comfort you, because…because" Yang fought the knot in her gut. This was it. The abyss. The leap of faith. The point of no return. Yang gathered the last of her fading courage. "Because I love you, Blake Belladonna!"

The force, the passion behind those words left both speechless. Blake was clutching her heart, jaw agape. She'd heard those words in a hundred dreams, but never imagined quite how heavy they'd feel. Yang's head slumped, as if ready to accept her inevitable defeat. Blake clasped Yang's hands and looked into Yang's violet eyes. Tears flowed freely from Blake's face. She had waited so long for this moment, and now, here she was, frozen. Yang was right. She was so close to running. No running this time….For the first time in her life, Blake spoke with no filter between her heart and her mind. The sound of her voice was the loveliest thing Yang had ever heard. "Yang Xaio Long, I love you too".