Okay, really quick before I get to the main story: I actually illustrated this, but FFN doesn't let me use images, so if you want to see those feel free to hop over to Spacebattles. Both I and this story will be under the same names. If not, well, read on.

Hang on Tight

The Beowolf lay motionless on the forest floor, head lolling in the dirt, neck severed almost completely by a massive axe. A massive axe which was, at the moment, stuck. It was starting to look like it would stay that way until the Grimm finished dissolving.

Sky tugged ineffectually on the haft of his halberd, grunting with the effort. The monster's head jerked, but the blade still didn't budge. He wasn't sure what exactly it was stuck on, probably a bit of skull or a vertebra, but it was really starting to annoy him.

"Come on," he muttered under his breath, giving the axe another yank.

The problem, Sky thought, was that he didn't have any leverage. If he could just angle the axe head better—

His train of thought was cut off abruptly when a brown boot planted itself on the Beowolf's throat. Looking up, Sky saw Dove standing over the Grimm, leaning his weight on its neck.

Berating himself for not thinking of that sooner, Sky gave his weapon a final tug. It slid free with a gross plopping sound. He immediately overbalanced, landing on his ass with a grunt.

Face burning, he tilted his head back up to look at Dove. At least his partner wasn't laughing. Not openly, anyway.

"Thanks," Sky mumbled grudgingly, pushing himself back to his feet and dusting himself off.

"No problem," Dove replied, shifting his foot off the downed Beowolf.

Sky glanced around at the remains of the clearing his team had fought in. He let out a small sigh of relief when he saw that Cardin was leaning on a tree on the opposite side, not looking in his direction.

"So," he said, eager to move on to any other subject. "Do you think we passed?"

Their professors had sent their team, along with RWBY and JNPR, to defend a village that had reported an unusually high number of Grimm in the woods. The mission was to ride an airship to the drop point, spread out a little into the forest, and kill all the monsters that had been grouping in the area. Not that difficult, as it turned out, but this was supposed to count as their practical exam for the semester, so Sky was a little worried he'd missed something.

"I killed fifteen, maybe twenty," Dove replied, shrugging. "A few Ursai, too."

Sky winced. The Beowolf that had caused him so much trouble had only been his eighth, though he decided not to mention that. It wasn't like they'd be graded for quantity, right? Just completion of the mission. Besides, with all twelve of them fighting in the same place, there really weren't that many Grimm to go around. Not when the other teams were such hogs, anyway.

"Probably passed, then," he mumbled, poking at the dead leaves beneath him with his toe. Dove wasn't that good with small talk, and Sky himself had already run out of things to say. He could feel the silence growing more and more uncomfortable by the minute. Sky had just started getting desperate enough to consider commenting on the weather when he was rescued by their last teammate.

"Hey!" Russel called out, from somewhere in the woods.

Sky glanced around, tightening his grip on his halberd until Russ came crashing back into the clearing with both his daggers sheathed.

"What?" Cardin called out from his tree, straightening himself up to his full height.

"Come check this out," Russ replied, gesturing at the forest behind him.

"Check what out?" Cardin insisted, crossing his arms in front of him. Russ just grinned.

"Something weird," he said, waggling his fingers in their direction.

Cardin snorted and marched off into the brush, pausing only to give Russel a hard punch on the arm. Sky couldn't tell if that was supposed to be friendly or aggressive—usually with guys it was the former, but Cardin was Cardin. Shrugging to himself, he followed the rest of his team into the woods. Russ had obviously strayed from the main group, which made Sky a little nervous—safety in numbers, and all that.

"Right here." Russ stopped several dozen paces away from the clearing. There was another dead Beowolf on the ground, black mist drifting off it as it dissolved into nothing. Sky supposed it was slightly above average sized, though there appeared to be absolutely nothing interesting about it.

"Seriously?" Cardin drawled, turning to glare at Russel.

"Look at the smoke." He pointed at the decaying corpse.

Sky did—and saw it almost instantly. Instead of rising up and dissipating like it normally did, the dark vapor was actually moving down, curving in the air and billowing along about a foot or so off the ground.

"Okay?" He nudged the Grimm with his foot. "I guess that's kind of weird."

"Who cares?" Cardin asked, sounding annoyed. "We killed it, we passed the exam, we're leaving in a couple minutes. Case closed."

Sky squinted at the spot the smoke seemed to be pointing to, a mid-sized crack between two large boulders. "Uh, guys?" he said hesitantly.

"What?" Cardin snapped, exasperated.

"I think that's a cave, or something." Putting his theory to the test, Sky skirted around the dead monster on the ground and crouched down to peer into the hole. It went on for a few feet, before becoming too dark for him to see any farther. He shivered, hopefully not violently enough for his friends to notice.

"We should report that," Dove decided, eying the opening with deep mistrust.

"Let's not," Cardin said flatly. "They're only going to make us do extra paperwork. And by us, I mean me." He turned and smirked at Sky. "And by me, I mean you."

Dove gave their leader a sharp look—not that Cardin seemed to notice. A sharp look from Dove was hard to tell apart from his regular expression. It was probably something to do with his squint.

"We might as well check it out," Russ insisted. "Then book it if we find any Grimm."

Cardin just grunted. "Whatever."

Sky shifted nervously as Russ and Cardin led the way into the cave. He himself went third, with Dove at his back. The safest part of the formation by far, but he couldn't help the cold feeling in his stomach. Then again, if all went well the four of them wouldn't even be able to fit in such a small cave.

They kept going a little farther—it seemed like there was a narrow space in between the rocks, just large enough for Cardin to squeeze through if he turned himself sideways. For a moment, Sky inched forward through near-total darkness, trying to ignore the cobwebs and insects clinging to the stone above his head.

He fully expected each step to be the last, until Cardin shifted so that he was standing fully upright. The beam of Russel's flashlight shot through the space between his back and the rocks, revealing nearly thirty feet of craggy stone floor before it was swallowed up by the darkness. There was a moment of silence, as the four of them stared in disbelief at the massive cave they'd just found.

"Okay," Cardin said finally. "Maybe we should report this."

"Yeah, and let's get some backup," Russel added.

"What?" Cardin turned his head to stare at them. "Why? It's completely empty."

Sky gaped back at his leader, mouth actually falling open.

"If that doesn't have Grimm in it," Russel said, scanning the shadowy tunnel with his flashlight, "I'll propose to Scarlatina."

"We have no idea what's down there," Sky agreed.

Cardin glanced back at the wall of darkness. "Yeah, so we message the teachers and go in by ourselves."

Are you insane?! Sky did not ask, though he suspected Russ and Dove were thinking the same thing.

"Dude," Russel said, waving the flashlight back and forth as if to emphasize the heavy gloom that swallowed the end of the cave. "Look at this! Do you want to go down there alone?"

"We don't need their help," Cardin insisted. Sky had to fight the urge to groan.

"There is safety in numbers," Dove pointed out.

"Yeah," Russ said, nodding emphatically. "Better them than us." Cardin glared at him for a moment, before relenting.

"Fine," he grunted, seeing that he was outvoted. Sky suspected that he wasn't all that eager to go down in that cave alone either, even if he wouldn't be caught dead admitting it.

Honestly, Sky wanted to suggest that they call it in and let the teachers deal with it, or their crazy classmates. Instead he just sighed, knowing that he'd never hear the end of it if he did. Besides, it wasn't like there would be more Grimm in the tunnel than there were outside—the entrance was way too small for even a Beowolf to get through, and there wasn't any reason the monsters would pack themselves into an underground cave instead of staying in the forest where all the tasty villagers were. It was fine.

Finally, with a lot of shuffling around in the dark, and yelling for Russel to maybe shine the light somewhere useful for a second, they managed to turn themselves around so that Dove was at the front of the group. After that it wasn't long before they emerged back into the forest.

"I'll get the other teams," Russel offered, as soon as he was past the entrance. Cardin scowled, obviously annoyed, but waved him off. He then started dialing the headmaster, putting his scroll to his ear and seating himself on a nearby log.

"Professor Ozpin?" he asked, after a moment.

"This is Cardin Winchester." Another pause, as something muffled was said on the other end of the line.

"The mission was a success, but we found an anomaly in the woods.

"One of the Grimm was dissolving, and the smoke it made seemed to be going into a cave.

"Yes sir, it was a lot deeper than it looked." Sky suppressed the urge to chuckle at the idea of Cardin calling anyone sir.

"Understood.

"Yes, Russel is going to get them now.

"Understood."

Cardin hung up, and grunted again. "He told us to get the other teams and investigate, and that we should be careful and not go too far in." He rolled his eyes.

Sky definitely didn't mind any of those orders, other than maybe the investigating part, though he didn't say that out loud. It wasn't long after that before Russel returned, leading the rest of their class behind him. Their fellow first-years stood in a loose semi-circle, looking at him and Cardin with varying levels of distaste, discomfort, and soul-crushing awkwardness.

They're good in a fight, Sky chanted to himself. They're good in a fight, they're good in a—

"Uh, hi!" Ruby chirped, bouncing slightly on her heels. Sky squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed a groan.

"What did Russ tell you guys?" asked Dove, ignoring her embarrassing greeting entirely. Dove tended to do that, which was one of the things Sky liked most about his partner.

"Not much. Just that there was a cave over here, and he was waving his arms around a lot, and, uh..." She trailed off, glancing behind her at her team.

"See that Beowolf over there?" Dove pointed. "The smoke it's making isn't going up like it usually does. It's being pulled into this cave, somehow."

"Uh, what?" Jaune blurted, craning his neck to look at the cave. "Is that normal?" Russ snorted derisively.

"No," Nikos replied. "It's very odd, in fact. I've never heard of something like this happening before."

"I called the headmaster," Cardin said curtly. "We're supposed to look around a little, then come back up and report what we find."

"How much is 'a little'?" Russel asked. His partner shrugged.

"Until we see something weird, I guess."

"Sounds simple enough," Ruby's sister said, cracking her knuckles.

"Who's going first?" asked Jaune.

"We found it," Cardin asserted. "So, me." Sky swore viciously under his breath.

Some of the others looked like they were about to protest, but Cardin was already ducking into the cave entrance. The rest of team CRDL followed, though Sky was less than happy about being near the front of the group.

To his surprise, he found that it was kind of funny hearing the rest of their year gasping in shock as the space widened. The feeling was dampened considerably as they continued forward, especially when Russ moved to walk side by side with Cardin and Sky found himself right behind the front line.

His halberd shook in his hands as he walked, eyes scanning from left to right, and his nerves were fraying rapidly. It was just the dark, really. There wasn't any sign of the Grimm, but it was so oppressively creepy in here, he couldn't think straight. Especially when there were so many bugs on the walls, crawling around and making weird shadows when Russel's light passed over them. He was tempted to start humming, just to lighten the mood, but he stayed quiet. There was nothing to be scared of, he wasn't going to run away crying just because it was dark.

They walked in relative silence for what felt like an eternity. Occasionally someone, usually Ruby, would make some random comment or joke. But for the most part, all conversation was swallowed up by the gloom.

And slowly, almost imperceptibly, the cave widened. Sky first noticed when he realized that Cardin, the tallest of all of them, had nearly a foot of empty space over his head. The walls were father apart, as well, so much so that Dove had moved up next to Russel, so that any Grimm they fought couldn't slip past him and Cardin.

Instead of easing his nerves, the new space made the tunnel seem somehow even more claustrophobic. Russ was still the only one with a flashlight out, and the dark seemed to press in on all sides, driven back only in a pale cone in front of them. Shadows clung thicker than ever to the walls, and he started wondering if maybe there were other passages branching off of this one, going entirely unseen as an unlucky twitch of Russel's arm moved the light away for just one second...

Sky shuddered. He'd never liked being underground, or the dark, really. Still, he didn't seem to be the only one feeling uncomfortable. Belladonna was looking pretty tense, so he couldn't be the only one.

He'd barely even finished the thought when the girl in question spoke. "Something's coming," she said abruptly, raising her weapon in front of her.

Before Sky could demand to know how she knew that, he started to hear it too. A long, low, scraping noise, like heavy furniture being moved over concrete. It came from somewhere in the cave ahead, hidden in darkness.

His halberd was shaking again. "What is that?!" he demanded, flinching as his frightened voice reached his own ears.

Cardin glared at him. "A Grimm. Need a diaper change, Sky?"

"Not now," Dove snapped, without taking his eyes off the passage ahead. "Russ, can you give me some more light over here?"

The boy obliged, angling the flashlight so that it pointed straight down the tunnel. And, just like that, Sky could see two gleaming points of white in the dark where the light reflected off the creature's eyes. As they came closer, and the scraping sound grew louder, he could see the color deepening to its true red hue.

Calm down, he chided himself. You already knew it was a Grimm. This isn't news.

"You want some?!" Russel called, crouching in place with a dagger in each hand. Behind him, Sky could see the others practically champing at the bit to get at the mysterious and possibly deadly creature hiding in the dark. Ruby's sister was actually smiling.

Lunatics, he thought frantically. All of them are complete lunatics.

The eyes drew closer, and yet closer—and then, just like that, they were gone. Sky had never in a million years thought he'd be in the position of wanting to see a Grimm's eyes in the dark.

"Where'd it go?" asked Nora, sounding almost disappointed.

Russel flicked the flashlight wildly back and forth, making the shadows jump and writhe.

"Russ!" Cardin shouted. "Stop moving the damn light so much, we can't—"

"It's on the ceiling!" Belladonna cried out, and shot her weapon up above them.

Sky jerked in place, craning his neck to see a pair of gleaming red eyes hovering above him. Russel caught up with the light a second later, revealing six legs with far too many joints, a bone-white mask and a pair of slavering mandibles.

Weapons began discharging almost at once. Sky fumbled with his axe, finally managing to find the trigger for the rifle part of it. There was a loud click as it chambered a round, and then he was pointing it up above him, and gunshots were going off in the cave and the noise was deafening, he couldn't think.

"Wait!" someone shouted, though he couldn't pick out who it was. Russ was doing his best to keep the light trained on the Grimm, but that also meant that Sky could barely see his classmates.

There was a mighty crack, probably Ruby's insane weapon going off. Then Belladonna screamed, "Look out!" which Sky thought was extremely unhelpful since Russ was useless with a flashlight and he couldn't see anything.

It became obvious, though, when he heard something screech right behind him, and as he whirled around he was nearly deafened by a series of wails and screams that were so horribly inhuman that he could feel his insides turning to mush from fright.

Then, all of a sudden, the noise stopped. For an instant all he could hear was the heavy breathing of his classmates all around him. Then, Russ finally got his shit together, and found the Grimm's slowly dissipating corpse. It looked quite a lot a giant ant, and for a while they all just stared at it. Port had never mentioned anything of its kind, before, and his class was supposed to cover every known type of Grimm native to Vale.

"Russ," Cardin said, eventually. "Would you mind pointing that thing down the tunnel, and not at the ground?"

"Hang on," Ruby muttered, rifling through her pack. "I think I have one too, right... in..."

"Here," her partner said flatly, clicking on her own flashlight and passing it over.

"Or that."

"Guys, look," Ruby's sister blurted, bending down to peer at something on the ground. Sky walked over to see what she was pointing at. The vapor flaking off the dead Grimm was acting oddly, just like it had on the surface.

"It's going down the passage," Belladonna observed. Sky blinked, then noticed that it was true. Her partner even stuck her hand in the smoke's path, and it billowed around the obstacle and continued further into the cave.

"I vote we go check out what it's heading towards," Ruby decided.

"Can we not?" Sky asked, a bit shakily. "I'd really rather avoid dying horribly in the dark."

"We can go a little farther, at least," Belladonna agreed, ignoring him entirely. "As far as we know, no one has ever seen Grimm essence moving in a specific direction like this before. There could be valuable information about them in this cave."

"Yeah," Russ said. "Or some giant uber-Grimm that tears us to pieces."

"We are training to be hunters," observed the Schnee. "It's our job to investigate anomalies like this."

"I would like to find out what is causing this as well," Nikos chipped in. There were murmurs of assent from some of the others.

"I hate all of you," countered Russel obstinately.

"The feeling is mutual," Belladonna snapped back, her amber eyes flashing in the gloom.

"Okay!" Ruby interrupted, before they could start arguing in earnest. "All in favor, say aye!"

To Sky's complete lack of surprise, all three of her teammates and team JNPR agreed almost at once. Cardin chipped in as well, somewhat reluctantly.

"Aye," said Dove. Sky shot his partner a look of betrayal, to which the other boy just shrugged. "I feel it's our responsibility to try and learn all we can about the Grimm. It's humanity's lack of knowledge that often puts us at a disadvantage against them, after all."

"Well, I'm not going down there," Sky insisted.

"Don't be such a wimp," said Cardin snidely. Sky bit his lip, hoping it was too dark for the others to see his face burning with shame.

"Fine," he grumbled. "You're all crazy."

"Not me," Russ said. "I hate this plan."

"You're welcome to stay behind while the rest of us investigate," Schnee offered, though her tone was anything but pleasant.

Russel bristled. "Like I'd let you get the glory."

Idiots, Sky realized. We go to a school for idiots and lunatics. Then again, he was going with them, so he didn't have much room to talk. Not that hanging around topside in a possibly-still-Grimm-infested forest by himself was any better. Even if he could somehow convince Dove and Cardin to abandon their duty and suicidal pride respectively, he didn't like the idea of splitting the group. So, Sky was along for the ride—and besides, he was curious about whatever was going on with the dissolving Grimm. He just didn't want to die trying to find out.

A few dozen steps down the tunnel, and Sky started digging around in his own backpack for a flashlight. Being able to point the light wherever he was looking did wonders for his nerves, as he scanned any spot that the other two may have passed over for cave branches or lurking Grimm.

His hand was shaking, though, badly enough that he could see the light bouncing back and forth. He played it off, whipping the light around to make circles on the walls. If he moved fast enough, the trail of light would form a glowing picture. Sky drew a little light star on the floor in front of him, then morphed it into a hexagon. Granted, his hexagon looked a lot more like a lumpy circle than anything else, but that was more the flashlight's fault than his own.

Suddenly daring, he tried pointing it at Cardin, and found himself grinning despite the creepy atmosphere when he saw that the light had bounced off his polished armor and landed on Russ's chest. Changing the angle sent the reflection sliding off of Russel and onto Dove's shoulder.

Pointing the beam at Nikos produced similar results, though the light went cherry red and made the tunnel look somehow even eerier than it already was. He moved on quickly, pausing to make a figure eight around Dove's ankles. His partner turned to glance back at him, and Sky thought he could see the ghost of a smile on his face. The sight spurred him on, and he started chasing some of the others.

He found that Belladonna was less interesting—her clothing seemed to swallow up the light. Her partner, on the other hand, got these awesome highlights in her hair. It looked a little like her head was on fire.

"Would you stop that?" Schnee scolded him, and he nearly jumped right out of his skin. "You're wasting the light." Sky pointed his flashlight at her.

Honestly, he'd just wanted to annoy her. But when the light hit her, and her white jacket, white skirt, white skin, white hair... her whole body practically glowed. With how small and willowy she was, she looked like a ghost. Obviously the others could see it too—Russ didn't hesitate at all in bursting out laughing. Her face flushed an angry red at that, which sort of ruined the image.

For a second, Sky thought that would be the end of it. Then, Jaune spoke up.

"See?" he said, as if he'd just proved an irrefutable fact. "You totally look like a Snow Angel!"

That was all her teammates could take. Ruby at least tried not to laugh. Her sister cackled. Sky himself kept a mostly straight face, because the Schnee's expression had morphed from embarrassed to downright apocalyptic.

He turned the flashlight to face forward again, though he couldn't resist adding a little flourish as he passed Dove. It wasn't shaking anymore, either. He was still scared stiff, but the momentary distraction had helped settle his nerves.

The other two teams started chatting a bit after that. Sky imagined he could sense an undertone of nervousness in the banter, but he was probably projecting.

As he walked, he shifted across the cave so that he was standing at Dove's elbow, and shot a glance at his partner. Dove seemed to understand, which was pretty impressive since Sky himself had no idea what he was looking for at the moment. He gave him a reassuring smile, and a light thump on the arm. Grinning, Sky rested his halberd against his shoulder, determined to milk this new confidence boost for all it was worth.

It was nice, having the other teams talking in the background. Silence technically would have been better, since it was harder to listen for threats, but the murmur of noise in the background did a lot to ease the tension. Sky had always been the type to sit and listen to other people pal around, and this was sort of the same thing. He wasn't eavesdropping or anything, it was just that when people talked around him, he liked to listen. Like reading a book, only there were real people involved.

They were discussing the Breach, of course. It seemed like that was all anyone could talk about, recently. Cardin was still bitter about not getting back from their mission in time to participate, though Sky himself was secretly grateful. Vale was supposed to be safe, and then a horde of Grimm breaks right into the center of the city? Not to mention the fact that team RWBY had apparently been there, as in on the train, fighting Roman Torchwick. His classmates really were insane, sometimes. He was a bit surprised they were still alive.

With that morbid thought, he found his morale boost had been thoroughly crushed. Instead of bothering Dove again, he tried to think of some way to distract himself. He didn't want to do the flashlight thing again and risk the wrath of Schnee, though.

Instead he used an old trick, and counted squares in his head. It was hard enough that it did its job distracting him, while still being comforting and familiar. The usual one, four, nine, sixteen, twenty five, all the way to two-twenty-five all went by in a blur, having been memorized long ago. Next was sixteen squared... he wasn't sure about that one. So he tried his usual method. Twenty squared was four hundred, and sixteen was twenty minus four. Any number minus another number squared would be the first number squared, minus two times the second—

Sky bounced off something hard, blinking and shaking his head to clear it. Cardin glowered.

"Sorry!" he blurted, stepping back so quickly he nearly tripped.

"What's your problem?" the taller boy demanded, still glaring. "Do you want to get eaten, or something?"

"I was just—" he tried to say, only for his voice to die in his throat.

"Some huntsman, spacing out in the middle of a mission," Cardin sneered.

"Cardin," Dove warned, stepping between them. "That's enough."

The others had broken of their conversation and were staring. Jaune in particular was giving him a look that fell somewhere between pity and empathy. Sky felt himself flush, and locked his gaze on his boots, halberd held tightly in his hands. He wasn't sure if what he was feeling was anger or shame. That expression... it was the sort of look you'd give a victim, like a kicked puppy or a crying baby. Something helpless and sad that you wanted to give a nice hug to cheer it up. Anger, then.

"What?" Cardin drawled. "The guy's going to get himself killed doing that." He and Dove were moving closer, almost within shoving distance. Russel glanced between them, like a spectator at a tennis match, fists clenching impotently.

"He already apologized," Dove insisted. His hand went to his sword, ready for a fight.

"Guys!" Russ broke in, a desperate edge to his voice. "There's a fork up ahead." He shone his light back and fourth, highlighting two separate tunnels branching out from the one they were in.

"Which way?" he asked.

Cardin gestured at the right-hand tunnel. "That one angles down. If there's some kind of Grimm magnet or whatever buried in this cave, it'd probably be pretty deep."

"We won't know for sure until we have a dead Grimm to check," Ruby said. "It's probably better if we just set up camp here until one of them show up." Cardin scowled at her.

"That's your plan?" Russ replied incredulously. "Wait for something to attack us?"

"It's going to happen anyway," Dove countered. "We've already seen that there are Grimm here. This way we can use them as... a sort of compass, I suppose."

"Not a bad idea," Schnee said, mostly to herself. "Though we should remember to mark which way we went, in case our professors need to find us."

"So... lunch break?" Nora asked cheerfully. The girl seemed to do everything cheerfully, and Sky was beginning to wonder how the rest of her team ever survived dealing with her early in the morning.

Cardin dumped his pack unceremoniously on the floor. They'd been ready to stay overnight, if the Grimm pack had proved hard to find. It hadn't, but that meant they still had their bedrolls and sleeping bags tucked neatly away in their packs. Or in Russel's case, crumpled up and stuffed in at the top so that it was hanging out a bit. Once spread out, they made excellent seats, even on the rough stone ground.

It also turned out that Lie had brought hot dogs, in case their mission had run long. They didn't have any wood for a fire, but Schnee provided a bit of Dust—which was horribly unsafe, as she told them several times before being badgered into it by Ruby—and the brief but violent blaze let Lie produce an edible, though rather charred, barbecue.

Sky set himself up between Dove and Russ, hoping to avoid any more confrontation. Between dealing with Cardin and weird looks from Jaune, he just didn't have the energy.

Fuck it, he thought. After stripping off his armor, he dumped his sleeping bag on the floor and collapsed on top of it. He ate his food in three massive bites, wincing as the crispy skin burned his tongue and the cold, mushy insides slid unpleasantly down his throat.

A rustling noise beside him caught his attention, and he pushed himself upright. Russ was seated on his own bedroll, squinting at a text book he'd laid out in front of him and scribbling away on a sheaf of paper balanced on his knee.

"Are you doing homework?" asked an incredulous voice from behind them.

Sky craned his neck to look backwards, and saw the Schnee standing there, one hand on her hip. He wondered idly if she practiced that move in the mirror—it looked like something she did a lot.

"It's not like there's anything else to do," Russel shot back. Sky fought down a grin—Russ was sort of funny when he got defensive.

Schnee didn't seem to know what to say to that, so she just scoffed haughtily and turned to go. Then, over her shoulder, she said, "Number five is wrong, by the way."

Russel flushed, all the way from the tip of his ears to the base of his neck. "Who asked you?" he snarled, hunching over to hide the offending worksheet from view. The heiress just rolled her eyes and walked away.

Sky could swear his teammate was just moments away from having steam come out of his ears. "Give it here," he sighed. Russ handed it over reluctantly.

Number five was indeed wrong. It was something to do with the tendons in Nevermore wings, and Russ had responded with a bone only present in Creeps. Still, she didn't have to be a bitch about it.

"Check chapter six," Sky said quietly. "Section... nine, I think? It should have a diagram of the wing."

"Thanks," Russ grumbled back. He was sulking, but at least now he wouldn't have to lose points for it.

Sighing again, Sky settled back onto his makeshift mattress. It was times like this, the empty moments between flurries of action, where he felt himself... drifting. His eyes shut, only to slide open again. He wasn't tired. Not physically, anyway. Just... lethargic.

For a moment, Sky considered starting a conversation with Dove. It would make him feel better, he knew, but neither of them were really comfortable talking in front of Cardin. The guy was a dick, there was no denying it. Unless your name happened to be Russel, of course.

"You know why they're called stalactites?" someone said suddenly, shattering the silence. Sky looked up, and saw Ruby's sister leaning on one wall, staring up at the roof of the cave. She was wearing a strange expression, somewhere between pensiveness and a smirk.

"No." Belladonna drawled. Her partner ignored her entirely.

"'Cause they've got to hang on tight."

Did she just—

"Boo!" Nora called out, confirming that yes, she did just make that pun.

Sky felt a grin spreading across his face.

"I'd tell you to go to hell for that," he said conversationally. "But I'm pretty sure we passed it a few minutes ago."

Yang gave a theatrical gasp. "You're just jealous of the talent I've been granite!"

Her sister groaned.

"L'I'm so not stoned enough for this," he shot back.

Beside him, Dove made an odd noise somewhere between a snort and a grunt. Sky's smile widened.

"I think I'm marbleous," Yang crooned.

"Please stop," Belladonna said, trying and failing to hide a muffled chortle.

"So serious," Sky retorted. "Practically stonefaced."

"I hate both of you," Russ informed them, in the kind of tone most people would use to talk about the weather.

"I guess we do have a bit of a rocky relationship," Yang admitted.

"Everyone's a critic," Sky observed. "I think we're on a roll."

"You know what they say," she said airily. Sky smirked.

"A rolling stone gathers no moss?" They said, in unison. Their eyes met, both of them wearing identical shit-eating grins.

Then her face fell, and her eyes slid away from his to rest on the laces of her boots. The mood sobered up almost instantly, and Sky felt his own smile fading.

Right, he thought. She hates me.

He'd forgotten about that.