The crunching of leaves underfoot could barely be heard beneath the sounds of exploding paintballs, a clacking typewriter, whipping wires, and fully automatic pistols. Each attempt to strike the target ended in some different iteration of leaves rustling. Four students ran after their objective, a small black rabbit covered in bone plates. This, though seemingly not a threat, was in fact a Creature of Grimm.

"Hey, Burne, are we just gonna keep hitting leaves, or are we gonna put a bullet in this thing's head?!" Roland shouted to his leader. He ripped off a trail of paper, morphed it into a spear, and then lobbed it at the creature. It missed by millimeters, "I hate this thing!"

"Just don't let it out of your sight!" Arty yelled, "Last time it got away we got confused and started chasing after Team ANTE's Tuu!" he shot a few yellow paintballs. The rabbit Grimm zigzagged to avoid the bolts of lightning shooting up from the paint blotches.

As Roland, Arty, and Sepia ran on foot after the creature, Timbre swung from the branches of the crimson trees by her wires. "I don't think I've ever seen a Grimm move this fast before!" she called out, thrilled by the rush of their current assignment. If it had been a couple of weeks earlier when Team ARTS was still dysfunctional, or rather completely against one another, they'd have given up a long time ago and accepted the failing grade. Now that they'd actually gotten used to each others' quirks and unique fighting styles, they were able to put their powers to use, "Sepia," she called down to her partner, who stopped firing her twin guns at the call of her name, "need a boost?"

The brunette smiled knowingly. She launched up to the swinging girl and grabbed onto her black combat boots. Timbre used the momentum of her next swing to throw the director down the rows of Forever Fall's iconic red-leaved trees.

Sepia launched like a missile between the trees, far ahead of the rest of her team. Had she had her equipment, she would have loved to film their whole chase.

Arty yelled after her, "We have to corner that thing! None of us are fast enough to take it out while it's moving!"

"Hold up! I've got an idea!" Roland shouted. He watched Sepia shoot ahead, "Moviemaker! Catch this and throw it ahead of the thing!" he yelled whilst pitching a live ink grenade towards Sepia.

She held a hand back and caught the explosive without looking, Nice throw, Author, she thought to herself. The fuse dwindled down inside the black casing. It was pitched once again, and soared over the Tuu's head.

"Perfect!" Roland shouted to her. The ink grenade exploded, then condensed into a black web between two red trees. The plan was foolproof.

Joy washed out of the cowboy's eyes as the Grimm hopped through one of the holes between the sticky strands of ink. Sepia slammed into the web hard enough to shake leaves off of the two trees, then Timbre came crashing in behind her. If only Arty and Roland were given enough time to react, otherwise they wouldn't have found themselves joining the girls of Team ARTS. Their combined weight ripped the bark off of the trees that supported the trap, wrapping the team up in the process. Red leaves puffed outwards when they slammed into the ground as one tightly bound team.

"Roland…" Arty grumbled as the feathers on Sepia's bustle tickled his face, "when does this plan work?" He sneezed, sending dirt up in a small cloud as the ink liquefied and flowed off of them.

"Probably not next time, but they say the third time's the charm," Roland stifled a laugh, "By the way... where is my hat?"

"Roland," Timbre interjected, "nobody cares about your stupid-"

"MY HAT!" he roared and sat up. His eyes narrowed on the tan cowboy hat resting on Timbre's head. One tackle and a tumbling Timbre later, the hat was returned to its rightful owner.

"You could've just, y'know, asked…" Timbre grumbled as she brushed the dirt off of her shoulders.

"Looks like ya let your little friend get away there, loves," a familiar shrill voice rang out through the trees.

Arty groaned, "Not in the mood, Alice," he turned to the aristocratic-looking girl, who was twirling a playing card around mindlessly between her fingers as she batted her eyes at the team before her.

Sepia shot up to her feet and glared at the redhead. Despite her silence, she managed a convincing snarl at the leader of Team ANTE.

"Woah there," Roland latched onto the back of her sequin shirt, "Down girl," his efforts to hold her back were only minimal. It would have pleased him greatly to see her rip that bigoted invalid to shreds.

The urge to kill burned in Sepia's gut. It took just a few moments for it to fizzle down to a simmer, 'Are we going to hurt her later?' she signed.

In the short time that he'd known her, Roland picked up at least a few words in sign language, or a few by his standards. Luckily, language came easy to the cowboy, "Yeah, we'll teach her and Navy who's boss later."

At the mention of Alice's crony, Arty noticed something, "Hey, Alice. Shouldn't you be helping the rest of your team catch your Tuu?"

Alice scoffed, "They're managing just fine. I just wanted to stop by to see how gloriously Team FARTS was failin' this assignment. And I have to say, it's been a riot."

Timbre pushed her soiled hair behind her shoulders, "Yeah, well, if you excuse us, we'll get back to actually working together to catch Professor McGouran's stupid bunny." Timbre shot a wire into the tree canopy and quickly flew off of the ground down the path where the Tuu they had been chasing dashed off to.

Arty watched as she zipped off. "Can't help but to agree with her," he gave Alice a quick two-finger salute, "See you later Queen of Farts!" His boots slammed against the ground as he dashed after Timbre.

"It's Queen of Hearts! Hearts!" She corrected him as he disappeared between the trees. She'd grown fond of the new nickname, and she refused to have the likes of Arty Umber defile it.

For a moment, Roland debated giving Sepia the okay to attack, but didn't want to get a lecture about respecting leadership. One thing did stand out in his mind, and he believed that he and Sepia could catch up to the other members of ARTS without an issue.

Alice began to turn around to leave.

Roland kept a hand on Alice's shoulder to halt her advance, "What are you trying to accomplish by being a total…"

Sepia signed a word referring to a female dog, but it didn't seem that Alice knew sign language.

"Yeah," Roland nodded, acknowledging the validity of the title that Sepia gave. Sadly, saying it to Alice's face might have taken away the effectiveness of his line of questioning, "Being a butt. What are you trying to accomplish by being a total butt?"

Alice narrowed her eyes at the pair, but her expression slowly shifted back to her cocky smile, "Nothing major," she gave them a quick glance, "just trying to show everyone how much better I am than them."

"Alice!" A voice shot out from down the path. Ebon was shooting towards the three students on a torrent of ice that seemed to magically form underneath him. The black and blue snowboard attached to his boots ripped across its surface. "We found the Tuu! Navy and Turf have it cornered, but they can't hold it long. We could use some of that eagle-eye of yours!" he reached out a mittened hand to her.

"Well," Alice chuckled, "looks like I'm off." She was snatched up by Ebon while he zoomed by. As she rode off with him on the track of snow, she wagged her fingers towards them, "Ta-ta losers!"

"Hey!" Roland shouted after her, bits of ice pelting his face, "Send Navy my regards! I love that jar-headed jerk!"

As they faded off into the distance, Sepia signed a message to Roland, 'I really hate them.'

"Got that right," he set off to catch up with the others, "Let's get a move on. We're going to have to explain to Arty that we didn't so much as hit her."

Right, she thought, like he's gonna believe that.

.

"About time you two caught up!" Arty yelled back to Roland and Sepia while they ran up next to him.

"I just wanted to ask Alice a question. That's all," Roland didn't so much as look at Arty, but instead looked around for the Tuu.

'Alice isn't dead. I promise.' Sepia sent through the group text.

Timbre landed on the ground and pulled out her scroll. "That's good to hear, er, read!"

"Yeah," Arty laughed, "where would the fun be without someone like Alice around?"

"Probably everywhere," Roland rolled his eyes, "Ever hear of the Fun Police? Well she's like the Fun Atlesian Military."

'Got that right!' Sepia texted. She had already made it clear that she advocated for chaos as much as possible, but she still wanted to get the lesson wrapped up and over with in this case. Killing one Tuu was taking way too long. Their new professor had given them a quick rundown of Grimm tracking.

'Look for a trail of crushed leaves. This is Forever Fall, so the leaves will allow us to see where it went. A Tuu will hunker down when it feels safe,' she texted. Her eyes in the sky scanned the area. Finding a thin strip of misplaced leaves would mean finding their Tuu.

Arty saw Sepia pointing up the hill off to the left. He followed the direction her finger was pointing to find a series of large metal and concrete arches. "Oh great…" He looked back to his team, "It's under the rail line," he paused, the gears in his head turning, "wait… no no no… this is perfect. Guys, I have an idea," He pulled a sketchbook and pen from his backpack and gestured for his team to come closer. Holding it open for them to see, he began drawing a series of lines and symbols as he explained the strategy for killing their target. He slammed the book shut, "So, that's the plan. Any questions?"

Timbre raised her hand, "Yeah, did you seriously come up with all that just now?"

Arty nodded proudly.

Timbre's eyes widened a bit, "Wow. Okay. So, why were you kicked out of a military academy again?"

"That had nothing to do with my strategy skills."

"Right."

"Yeah, that all had to do with arson," Roland chimed in.

"Shut up, Roland." Arty put his things back in his bag. "Let's just get this over with."

.

The black rabbit-like creature milled around in the tall grasses below the train tracks twenty feet above its head. It's spiked black paws crunched the dead red leaves as it explored the shady knoll.

Arty and Sepia were at their places on top of the rail line. Luckily for them, there wasn't a train to be seen in either direction. They looked over the siding, making sure the Tuu hadn't run away from its spot underneath them.

"Okay, Sepia. You ready to cut that thing off?"

Sepia nodded. A golden light flickered in her eyes.

The Tuu began to panic as golden orbs of light flashed into existence. More and more popped up, forming barriers between the arches on either side. It tried to get as far away from the strange orbs as possible, running in circles in the middle of the space, but there wasn't an escape to be found. It was trapped.

"Tuu don't like bright lights and noises," Arty recited part of Professor McGouran's lesson, "Cut it off and make it panic. They won't do anything when they're scared," he pulled out his scroll. His team's portraits showed up in the voice call, "Okay, Timbre, you ready to try out Modernism?"

At the bottom of the hill, Timbre and Roland sat together, watching the orbs and listening to the panicked cries of the monster.

"You got it, Painter-boy." Timbre stood up and aimed her hand towards the metal structure. A length of silver wire shot forward and latched onto the metal beams. She propelled herself upwards, "Arty! Now!"

The leader aimed his gun downwards. Two yellow paintballs launched downwards while Timbre arced towards them. He watched as she retracted her wire.

Timbre flew freely through the air up the hill, aiming both of her wrists in front of her towards the yellow orbs shooting downwards from the bridge. With a slight flick of her fingers, both wires shot forward and pierced the paintballs, coating the cords in popping arcs of electricity. The wires wrapped around the two support arcs to aid her in coming to a stop. Arcs of power jumped from the now yellow wires. The Tuu, now completely surrounded by light and buzzing noises, panicked even more.

"Roland! Now!" Timbre yelled at her teammate.

A trail of paper contorted into a blade, "Got it!" Roland sprinted towards the flashing lights that immobilized the Tuu. A few stray sparks made his skin crawl when he dived over the electrified wires, "You're dead!" he shouted with the freshly typed sword raised to strike.

A white and cyan colored club slammed into the side of the Tuu, propelling it through Sepia's wall of orbs and into one of the metal supports. Only the fading legs of the Grimm could be seen twitching around the edges of the impact crater.

The cowboy slid across ground face first. Grass, mud, and dead leaves caked up in his between his jaws. He rolled onto his back once he finally stopped, but a wad of nature still squirmed in his mouth. Spitting the wad out, Roland found the source of the squirming: a six-inch-long earthworm.

"Oh, come on…" he covered his mouth and wretched.

Sepia held her head and let out a silent scream as she crumpled and fell off of the side of the bridge. Her brain was overloaded with dozens of vague fields of view shattering. Her head throbbed. It felt as though an arc of lightning pulsed between her temples. She slammed down into the dirt only a few feet away from Roland.

"Did you kill it?!" Arty jumped down from the rail line. He found the very familiar club still protruding from the freshly bent metal frame, "Oh crud..."

"I commend you on your efforts, Umber, but uh, you should have looked a bit closer at the paint job on that rabbit," a calm female voice came from down the hill.

Team ARTS turned to find Frost Aurora walking up the hill, chuckling. A rare deviation from her usual deadpan expression. Rime and Zero trailed close behind while Everest went to retrieve his club.

"That was seriously… your Tuu?..." Timbre said in despair as she clipped the electrified wires from her gloves. They fell to the ground, the electricity fading away from the lack of aura to keep the Dust activated.

"Yeah, didn't the bright blue mark on its head not give it away?" Rime said, smiling as she poked the middle of her forehead with her finger. "That was Team FREZ's bunny." She looked over to the mess of shining glass shards and yellow wires. "Nice strategy though."

"Thanks..." Arty mumbled.

Roland wiped mud and ink off of his face, "Funny… I thought something was off about it," he coughed and made his way to Sepia, "Moviemaker… you gonna make it?"

Sepia came to and nodded slowly, 'I don't like falling very much. Bad memories,' she signed.

"Right…" he helped her up, "so, FREZ, how is everyone? Frost, are you still being all stoic? Rime keeping the meathead on a leash? Everest eating… everything? Or how about Zero? He still giving you guys the cold shoulder?" There was some attempt to be friendly, but it didn't come off as very genuine.

"Yeah…" Frost replied with a slightly judgemental look, "Pun aside, you can say that." She looked over her team, "We're not as… dysfunctional as we were when we first met."

"Well," Arty began, "I guess it kind of helps that you're all kinda… cool." He paused, waiting for somebody to laugh at his joke.

Timbre pinched the bridge of her nose before punching her leader in the head. "No more ice puns, Painter-boy."

"Ow!… but Roland did it…" He said, rubbing the new welt on the back of his head.

Roland shrugged, "I was pretty chill with mine. You made yours too obvious."

Rime stood by, grimacing. "We've only been here two weeks, and I'm already sick of the puns." She looked to Frost, "Should I just like, start wearing red or something? Would that fix things? Would that make everybody stop with the stupid puns?!"

Roland leaned against the metal arch closest to the group, "Then I'd just say that you had freezer burn," he forced back a wave of laughter.

Rime went to say something, but just stood dumbfounded. She held her hands up in defeat. She turned and began walking down the hill. "I'm done, Frost. I'm done. I'm going back to the school. I feel like if I hear one more ice pun, I'll end up killing somebody."

Frost rolled her eyes and chuckled, "Sure thing, Rime."

"I don't want his blood on my hands, Frost!" Rime yelled back as she disappeared into the trees.

"Yeah! Go cool down for a while!" Roland shouted after her. There was a high-pitched whizzing noise. The color faded from Roland's smiling, frozen solid face. Impaled in the metal only a few inches to the right of his head was a spear made of ice. The chilly mist rolling off of it sent shivers down his spine.

"Point taken…" he murmured, "I think I found her freezing point…" he whispered, hoping that Rime wouldn't hear.

Arty shook his head, "You keep that up, and she'll put you on ice, dude."

Frost held her hand up, "Okay you guys. With that, we'll be on our way. Good luck completing your assignment." The three remaining members of Team FREZ turned to start their trek back down the hill and to Beacon, but Frost stopped, "Oh, Umber."

Arty looked down to her. Her dark grey eyes looked back at him.

"According to McGouran's messages, the Queen and her court haven't killed their Tuu yet," she gave a sly smile, "so why don't you and your friends go beat them to the punch?" She waved farewell as she followed Zero and Everest into the trees.

Sepia shot up with guns at the ready. Once again, she brushed off the aching in her bones to fight with her team. After the last encounter with Alice, she was rearing to go if it meant embarrassing her.

"Yeah, and this time, Arty," Timbre said as she spun one of her wires around, "make sure it's actually our Tuu."

"Well, ours and ANTE's," Roland went on typing out a new weapon.

Timbre made her way down the hill with her team, "Would that count as an F or extra credit?"

The other three thought for a second before a ding came from their scrolls.

Sepia Hughes: 'Both.'

"Who cares? Pissing Alice and Navy off is enough incentive for me," Roland held up his arm and clenched his fist. The paper condensed into a razor sharp blade reaching towards the sky, "It's simple, guys. We kill Team ANTE's Tuu."

Arty folded his arms behind his head and considered Roland's plan, gazing up at the sky as they walked. "Eh, whatever. I don't have any objections," he pointed at Roland, "but we're killing ours first. It's already given us enough trouble."

'I'm totally down for that,' Sepia skipped along ahead. She was ready to get down to business. Her eyes slammed shut, and three orbs of light flashed to life around her. They all shot off in different directions. It was only a few seconds later when she opened her eyes once again. Already beaming, she pointed in the direction that they came.

The scrolls of Team ARTS all dinged when she sent her text.

Sepia Hughes: 'It's about a quarter mile ahead. Green painted markings, and nearby is one with red paint.'

"Right," Arty led the charge, "Good work, Sepia. Now let's go hunt us some rabbits."

Roland ran after his leader, "I'll flank left with Sepia and try to loop around them. You and Timbre wanna block them off from one end while we get the other?" he asked. A quick glance to Sepia told him that she approved.

Arty agreed, "We'll take the green and you two troublemakers take the red."

"We're on the same page." Roland snatched a grenade off of his belt, "Yo, Pop-star, that good with you?" he called back.

"Modernism worked back there. I'm sure without Everest there, we'll be able to manage," she looked towards the cowboy, "You two think using Screenplay can take out ANTE's Tuu?"

"More than that," Roland grinned, "I think it'll give enough stall time for ANTE to watch as we take it out," he looked ahead to Sepia, "Kinda sucks that I got paired with Arty originally, you know? Sepia's a heck of a lot more fun."

"Thanks dude," Arty added, "Let's just go kill those Grimm." He and Timbre veered off to the right, "Good luck you two!"

"And you!" Roland waved them off and caught up with Sepia. Though he didn't say anything, they began having a sort of silent conversation. Being around her taught him the true volume of silence. The lifting of an eyebrow or the shifting of the nose meant a lot from someone who couldn't speak.

It wasn't a break in the silence per se, but Sepia did make communication a little easier by signing. She made sure to only use words that she knew Roland had picked up, 'What was that about wishing that we were paired?'

"Nothing," he said quickly, "just that we have similar mindsets. You know, not afraid to rush into conflict, willing to bash a few skulls in, the basics," he listed off. If only she could have spoken, then he wouldn't have to look at her to know what she had to say.

'Right, totally,' she silently giggled, 'By the way, Alice and Navy are ahead. I think they're closing in on the thing. Care if I do something a little sneaky?'

Something sneaky? Of course he was down for that! He nodded in agreement, "Yeah! By all means, sneak away. You're real good at that, huh?"

Her smirk confirmed his theory, and before long they could see the redheaded wonder and her sidekick through the trees. She slowed down to avoid being heard while she made her way up behind the two.

Roland, having gained a vague understanding of the plan, kept going at full speed, "Hey! Queenie! Jack!" he slid past Alice so that they'd keep their eyes on him.

The Tuu huddled in fear within the hollow of the tree before the pair, and that was right where Roland wanted it. He tore off a sheet of paper covered in text from Writer's Block and threw it at the opening of the hollow. It sealed the rabbit Grimm off in its own little prison, "Oh, was that your Tuu?" he looked to the A and the N of ANTE, "Sorry, otters are colorblind... I think. My bad!"

Alice shook her head, wide-eyed from the sudden appearance of her biggest nuisance, "Ugh. Wells! I thought I left ya behind after you accidentally inked up your whole team? And if I remember correctly, color-blindness isn't a trait special to you Faunus." Her right arm was arched up next to her head, ready to throw a card.

Navy stood by her side, drawing his glock and what appeared to be a stun baton, "Out of our way. McGouran wouldn't like to hear about you preventing us from completing our assignment. Not like someone like you would comprehend that though." He held the gun up, aiming it at Roland.

Having a typing speed of one thousand words or more a minute was useful in Roland's case, and it allowed him to have a new weapon at the ready. This time he went for a stubbier, wider blade, "Listen here, you two have got to stop with the whole prejudice thing. So what I've got a tail? It'll help me kick both of your behinds. In short, if you want the Tuu," he tipped his hat with his free hand, "then come and get it."

Alice sneered and turned to her lackey. "Navy, keep him busy for me will you, love?" She raised up her scroll, "I'm calling Turf and Ebon."

He held his stun baton at the ready, "With pleasure." He charged towards Roland, his combat boots kicking up plumes of fallen red leaves.

Although the gun might've been a threat, the stun baton seemed to be what Navy would lead with. Knowing this, Roland batted at it with his blade. His eyes traced his opponent's arm as it came up to level the gun at him. That might've hurt a bit, so he spun on his heels and used his tail to smack Navy across the cheek, "Learn your place!" he shouted, swinging his arm. He hoped to bash Navy's face in with his typewriter.

Navy ducked, sweeping his leg low and firing a few shots of his glock upwards at Roland's head.

Meanwhile, Alice was swiping through the menus of her scroll before holding it up to her ear. "Ebon! Turf! We found the Tuu! Get over 'ere righ-" she stopped, feeling her scroll being yanked from her hand, "What the- oi!"

Sepia stood behind her, taunting her by waving the stolen scroll in her gloved hand.

Alice stomped her foot, "Are all of you ARTS freaks 'ere?!" She spun around, throwing cards down at Sepia's feet. Explosions rang out, but the girl was nowhere to be seen. Alice whipped her head around, searching for her, "Navy! Get Turf and Ebon over 'ere! The little runt just nicked my scroll!"

Navy kicked Roland away, backing away for a minute to carry through with his command. He reached down to his belt, but found his scroll case empty. Surprised, he looked back to see Sepia hanging by her legs from a tree branch. She was waving his and Alice's scrolls in her hands, her tongue sticking out.

"They're toying with us, Alice! Just kill the damn rabbit already!" he turned back to Roland, hate in his eyes, "I'll hold these two off."

"Yeah, right, hold us off," Roland brushed himself off while he stood, "It's two versus two. You can't take us both," he winked at Sepia.

Seems like someone likes seeing a plot through too, huh? Sepia thought to herself. Messing with these two gave her the most joy that she had had in awhile. 'Screenplay?' she signed.

"Oh yeah," Roland tossed a black plastic ball into the air. This grenade was different. It had no fuse. It was simply a plastic ball full of ink, but that worked perfectly for this attack, "Sepia! Now!"

Right! Sepia cranked off a barrage of bullets into the black ball. It exploded into a mist of ink when the bullets made their mark.

Out of the corner of his eye, Roland saw Alice making a break for the Tuu, "Woah there, little lady," he flicked a wrist. The bullets left behind inky trails as they sailed through the air. Their trajectories shifted and curved, thus sending a few rocketing into the small of Alice's back.

"Alice!" Navy charged through the black mist towards his leader, who was still being barraged by the unrelenting bullets. He wrapped his arm around her and dragged her off to the side.

"Bollocks!" Alice coughed, "How the hell are they so bloody coordinated?!"

Navy let her down behind the tree lining and began charging back at Roland. He held his arms against his face, swinging his baton to deflect the bullets curving towards him. There were only two targets in his sights, a demon rabbit, and a dirty otter Faunus. When he got within a few yards of his rival, he jumped, his stun baton at the ready. That's when he felt the bullets begin slamming into his side.

"Man, I've wanted to do this since I saw your stupid face!" Roland grinned maniacally at the onslaught that he gave the two, "We're coordinated because we are equal, Alice! We aren't better! We are ARTS!" he held his hand to the air. The bullets left Alice and Navy and rocketed into the hollow that held the Tuu.

Shrill squeaks were barely audible over the sound of splintering wood. Then silence fell upon the four.

Alice stepped out from the treeline, cards at the ready. She seemed to glow with rage as she clenched her fists. "You flashy twits aren't equal. If either of our teams are truly equal, it's the one that doesn't have a bloody Faunus mucking it all up!" Her heavy boots slammed into the leaves with every venomous word.

The remainder of Teams ARTS and ANTE trudged up through the leaves, but their silence seemed to indicate that they heard Alice's comments. Roland looked dumbfounded, but Sepia seemed to be taking her words in a different light. Her fingers flew on Alice's scroll, and then it was tossed back to its owner along with Navy's scroll.

'Yeah,' it read, 'and it seems like the Faunus and the disabled members of Team ARTS just put you and your boy-toy on the ground. We did the job that you two couldn't: taking out the Tuu. You said yourself that we aren't equal, right? Well, I'm calling you a liar, and Roland and I just proved my claim. Now you can keep going on and on about how incompetent Arty is, or now disgusting Roland is for being a Faunus, or how disappointing Timbre is, or even how uncivilized I am, but now we gave you a dose of reality. Remember this, Alice. Remember the day that we put you two in your place.'

As for who the message was addressed to, it was sent to the entirety of both teams. Alice held her scroll up. Still keeping her eye contact with Roland and Sepia, she pressed the screen with her thumb. The chime of a message being deleted rang out. She didn't have to remember all of it if she didn't want to, "I don't care about what you two think of me. I don't care about whatever lesson you think you can teach me. I stand by what I said," she turned her back to them, "I don't 'ave ta listen ta anything you 'ave ta say, and I won't."

Another chime dinged when Navy deleted the message as well. Never once did he seem to leave Alice's side, be it physically or mentally. As expected, he began making the trek back with her.

She began charging her way back into the forest, keeping her head high and her shoulders flat. She walked between Turf and Ebon with Navy close on her heels. "Come on you two. Let's go tell McGouran how Team FARTS purposely made us fail this assignment. One of you can show McGouran the message as proof. I don't want that filth on my scroll."

Turf didn't budge from his spot. , "Hey…," he didn't even bother to look back at his leader, "I'm sorry that my leader sort of… yeah. It's sad to see someone go on a rant like that totally unprovoked," he also pulled up his scroll and deleted the message. The ding rang through the trees between them, "I don't know why Alice is so mad. She blew that Tuu to pieces with her cards, so… I guess we passed. Isn't that right, Ebon?"

The boy in the heavy down coat looked between the seven other students. He wanted somebody to tell him what to do. He wanted somebody to give him guidance. He felt his team's eyes dig into him as he hesitantly reached for his scroll.

"Don't you dare." Alice snarled. Without the message on Ebon's scroll, her account of what happened would come off as fiction. Turf and ARTS would just play coy. She curled her fists, "Ebon, I will make sure you regret it if you delete that message. Do you understand?"

Ebon looked down at the notification. He steeled himself, "No, Alice. That wasn't cool. At all," his mittened hand tapped down on the screen. The ding rang out. "Sorry." He looked over to Turf, who nodded in thanks.

"You cretins!" Alice shouted as she stomped into the trees.

"Hey," Arty said as he held up his scroll, "you were the first to press 'delete'," He tapped the screen, "We're just following your royal highness."

"Yeah, that was really something seeing that Grimm get killed by a card," Timbre smiled as she tapped her scroll.

"Really impressive. It was so nice to have our dear friend Alice demonstrate how a true Huntress does it," Roland tapped the delete button without so much as a moment of hesitation.

Sepia hopped down and joined her team. A ding came from her scroll as she too deleted it. Her hand was held high as she walked past Roland, and was met with the pleasing crack of a high-five.

Navy made sure to give everyone there a glare before turning to follow Alice.

Ebon followed closely behind. He looked like he wanted to say something to Turf, who was looking down at the ground as he passed, but he stopped and kept on walking.

Arty looked over to his team, "So… shall we get back and tell McGouran how we all annihilated our Tuu?" he smiled widely, the gap in his teeth showing. They began walking back to the cliff where Beacon Tower's spire jutted up into the sky.

Arty, Roland, and Sepia moved ahead, talking and laughing as they reflected on the past couple of hours. Timbre, on the other hand, straggled a few yards back. She walked up to the boy in the green beanie and put a hand on his shoulder. "Hey, that was really something. Standing up to her like that."

"Thanks, but it wasn't… really anything," Turf tried to brush off the compliment, but smiled anyway, "But… I suppose it was sort of cool. I just couldn't stand hearing her talk about Faunus like that. She and Navy got what was coming to them. Maybe this will help her… you know… try and work together a little bit more. Not just with Team ANTE, but other people, too, you know," he walked beside Timbre. It felt good to stand up for other people, and he guessed that Huntsmen had that feeling in everything that they did, "I'm just glad that you guys backed me up. I've got to thank, and I suppose apologize to, Ebon for helping me with that. I'm happy that I'm in a class with so many good people."

Timbre folded her hands behind her back, "Yeah! How else are we going to survive the next four years? I mean, imagine if you were surrounded by a bunch of Alices instead!" she shared a short bout of laughter with him, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be making so much fun of her. She's your leader after all, prejudiced or not."

"No, you're cool. I just reserve the right to call your leader scatterbrained," he shook his head as the last few giggles passed through him, "I'm so dead, though. I'll never hear the end of this," he thought on the idea of Alice berating him everyday for the next four years, "but I can't say that I regret it. I did the right thing, and that's it."

She nodded, "My dad always tells me that the right thing is the only thing worth doing. You'll never be happy with yourself if you can't do that." Her smile faded as her eyes drifted down to the leaves as they passed beneath their feet, "That's… kind of why I came to Beacon." Her cheeks turned red when she realized she was beginning to ramble, "S-sorry! Didn't mean to get preachy for a second."

"You're not. You sound like someone who really was meant to be a Huntress. They're your dad's words, but it sure sounds like you really took them to heart," Turf looked up at the massive spires that made up Beacon, "You know, I wouldn't even guess that you were famous had anyone not already told me."

Timbre was surprised by that comment. She had only been at Beacon for a couple of weeks and already her fame seemed to be slipping away. She smiled at the thought of not only having friends who saw her as one of them, but also enemies that hated her for just being her, not because they were jealous of her. She actually felt like she found a place where she belonged, with people with similar goals rather than stagehands and fans.

"Wow, Turf. Thanks," she realized they were really behind when her team appeared as small dots down the path, "Oh crud," she grabbed Turf's hand and began to drag him along. "C'mon! We need to catch up!"

"Right!" Turf hurried along while holding his beanie so it wasn't lost in the leaves. They ran hand-in-hand on their way back to the school.

A black cloak cracked with red fissures blew in the wind. Underneath the hood was the skeletal face of a kangaroo, broken up by the same crimson fissures as the cloak. Molten eyes glowed in their sockets.

"I can't believe it worked, Echo," the figure giggled from behind its mask. It knelt next to the decimated hollow of a tree to get a good look at the faint flashing of a red light. The glow was caught by the nest of paper and ink that had been left behind.

Crackling came over the earpiece tucked beneath its mask, then a voice broke through, "Told you. Did you retrieve the devices?"

"Yeah, yeah," the masked figure held a pair of black cubes, flashing red lights on each corner. One was coated in dried mud, the other splattered with yellow paint, "The cowboy busted this one up, though," it commented while examining the fragmented remains of the cube that was in the hollow.

"How well did the devices work, Oro?"

"The Tuu under the bridge huddled up right over the thing. The one that got picked off by the painter and the singer nearly nuzzled the leaves off of that device. The third Tuu curled up with the device inside the hollow. Each one worked perfectly," it giggled while gathering up the parts of the shattered cube. With all of the debris cleaned up, it turned to leave.

"Those devices worked perfectly on those dumb little Tuu," the figure ran deeper into the forest, "Let's try them out on something a little… smarter."