RWBY: Black Cat

Chapter One

"Children are smarter than any of us. Know how I know that? I don't know one child with a full time job and children."
~Bill Hicks

A raven-haired Faunus lay curled up in the shadows of the bottom bunk of a bed, sound asleep. Her cat ears beneath her bow twitched as she dreamed, and she lay on her stomach, an unusually shaped weapon slung across her shoulder, resting on her back. Stacks of books with plain covers were piled up around the bed.

A loud thump sounded. Blake's amber eyes flew open as she snapped awake, and she pushed away her covers, untangled her face from her pillow, and swung her legs out of the bed. She and Weiss, who had also been woken, exchanged confused glances.

"What was that?" Weiss whispered, slowly getting up and making for her rapier. Blake shrugged and reached over her shoulder, curving one hand around Gambol Shroud's hilt.

Blake's ears pricked as footsteps sounded in the hallway. Weiss had heard them too - the intruder was making no attempt to be quiet. Weiss stood up and faced the door, holding her sword in front of her, and took on a battle stance. Blake drew her blade out of it's sheath, the quiet sound of metal on metal ringing in her ears.

Weiss switched on the light. Blake could see perfectly well before, but humans needed the aid of a light source.

The lock in the door clicked. Blake glanced behind her. The banging mustn't have woken Yang and Ruby - she couldn't see up into the higher bunks, but they must both have slept through the noise.

She swallowed and looked back at the door. It opened slowly. A hooded figure appeared from behind the door.

"Hey guys!"

Weiss and Blake jumped back, startled.

"Ruby!" Weiss exclaimed.

Ruby closed the door and smiled innocently. "I just went to the bathroom."

Meanwhile Blake had crashed into her bunk, and Yang's bed was swaying dangerously. Yang's face appeared from amongst her covers. She yawned lazily, stretching, and sat up, then her eyes flew open as the bed began to tilt, and she sprang out of it as it fell towards Blake's bookshelf, her yellow hair disappearing as she narrowly avoided being crushed as the bed fell, breaking in the middle.

"Good morning Yang!" Ruby said cheerfully.

Yang's head appeared from underneath the mattress, glaring. Blake guessed her eyes could have changed from violet to red in a moment.

Blake put Gambol Shroud away and inspected the mess as Yang tried to wiggle free and Weiss interrogated Ruby as to why she wore her cloak to the bathroom.

Everyone in Vale had been on edge for the past month or so. Since Grimm had overrun the city after the train accident, a new government had taken control, and had imposed new rules, which pointedly discriminated the Faunus.

Furthermore, Faunus had started disappearing all over all four kingdoms. There were many ideas and theories for how this happened, but the general consensus was that they were stolen away by the White Fang to train new recruits, due to the new segregation rules. Blake did not agree with this theory.

"They wouldn't want to risk an uprising within their ranks," she had argued just days ago to Weiss. "Besides, they fight for free will for Faunus. They wouldn't kidnap their own kind. They're for equality."

Weiss had given her a look.

"Ok, kind of for equality," Blake admitted. "But this still isn't like them."

"They fought for free will. They're not the people you left Blake. They're heartless tyrants with no-"

"Heartless tyrants are the people I left," the Faunus had snapped back. "Who no longer cared about the lives of others. Achieving their goal had become more important than the goal itself. Kidnapping humans, I wouldn't put past them. But Faunus? Just no."