I woke to the sound of hushed whispers. I was still curled into Wolf's side, with his arm wrapped around me. Recherche and Bolt had woken up and saw us like that.

"Awww, they're so cute!" Bolt chuckled in a low voice.

"They do make a good couple," Rech agreed. I hadn't opened my eyes yet, but I imagined that she nodded.

"Should we wake them?"

"No, we can give them a few minutes more. We can go eat, and then come back if we need to," Recherche decided, and they left the room.

I smiled to myself and rolled over to face the wolf faunas. The movement caused him to stir and wake up. He blinked tiredly, still used to being asleep, until his eyes focused on me.

"Good morning," I told him softly, ruffling his red hair with my hand. He dropped his head and put it on my shoulder.

"Can we go back to sleep?" he groaned. I found his grumpyness adorable and let a soft giggle escape my lips before kissing his cheek gently. He blinked quick a few times before they widened and a wide grin spread across his face.

"If you do that a few more times, it might wake me up more," he said, inching closer to me. I laughed loudly now, and ruffled his hair.

"Get up you lazy bum!" I pulled myself out of his arms and gathered up my clothes before leaving to change. I dressed quickly, checked the bruises over my ribs, which were healing nicely. When I got back to the room Wolf had dressed and was ruffling his hair so it laid neater.

"Ready for breakfast?" I asked.

He flashed me a fanged grin and replied, "Always." He took my hand, which was a foreign to me, but nice at the same time, and lead me down to the dining hall. There we met Recherche and Bolt, who only teased us a little bit before we finished breakfast and continued to our classes. Despite everything, classes had remained mostly the same, as if nothing had happened. To be honest, the boring rants and long lectures were not nearly as horrifying as what came after our final class was done with. After classes was... training with Yang and the other members of team RWBY.

Before I fully understood what was happening or before I could stop her, Yang had convinced the whole group that I needed to practice taking control of my Scary Neo mode and that it just might be the only way to stop Nick Sleepslicer.

"Yang, this isn't a good idea," I tried to reason with the blond.

"What? Are we going to have to wait until its too late and you just snap one day?" She asked with attitude. I knew she was trying to do this for my own good but still...

"It is under control until I give it control, its just that when I do I can't get it back," I sighed.

"How many times do I have to tell you that holding it back isn't control?" She asked, rolling her eyes. I looked around to my friends, waiting for one of them to back me up, but they couldn't come up with any better excuses than I could.

"It's dangerous," I said weakly.

Yang scoffed,"I think all of us here can take you."

"I really don't think you can. I almost killed you Yang," I told her, trying to make her remember the night on the train. I could tell that she remembered well, but that just seemed to be more of a reason to control it.

"So then what? You don't control it, you don't get stronger, Sleepslicer comes back for us, and do you really think he'll just stop at maiming Wolf?" Yang demanded. My eyes darted to Wolf, who tried to act like my old mentor coming back didn't scare him, but the twitch of his ears gave it away. The brown and pink of my eyes switched sides. I hadn't stopped to think about it like that. I had assumed that the biggest danger to them would be Scary Neo, but if Sleepslicer did come back for me, then my friends, especially Wolf, would be his first targets. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply before opening them again and looking to Yang.

"Okay," I agreed reluctantly. "How do you want to do this?"

Soon enough I was squaring off with Yang, just like we were about to spar, only our friends circled us at a safe distance ready to jump in if I got out of hand. I prayed that they would be enough to stop me. Most of them had recovered. A few of them still had bandages, but each could still fight and hold their own. Yang stepped closer and raised her gauntlets.

"Maybe we should get team JNPR here too," I said cautiously, matching her pace only stepping backwards.

"Oh no, you are not wiggling your way out of this now," she smirked at me before she rammed her gauntlets together and lunged at me.

Yang and I clashed, with almost the same strength and determination as we had that day on the train, only with a bit less enthusiasm on my part. Yang attacked with a flurry of kicks and punches, and I defended myself. We had both improved since our first fight, Yang especially.

I stopped simply defending and went on the attack. I had to make sure that she could handle me before she tried taking on Scary Neo. Each of us landed our fair share of blows on the other. I fought close to her, before trying a similar maneuver to the one that I had used to knock her out before. I stepped up onto her and grabbed her arm, ready to use my momentum to throw her, but she saw this one coming. As I swung her up, she grabbed my leg instead of pulling back on my arm as she had before. As I brought my legs down to catch myself, she landed first, firmly planted her feet, and used my own momentum to throw me.

I opened my umbrella to slow myself and landed in a crouch a good distance away. She had almost thrown me into the cement wall. I stood, twirled my umbrella and smirked at her. Instead of getting furiously mad like she used to, she grinned back. For a brief moment we just looked at each other, impressed by the other's abilities.

Yang fired a few shots at me and lunged. I blocked all but one of the blasts, which knocked me back almost an arm's length away from the wall, giving Yang the opening she needed and not leaving me with a lot of room to move. She shouted and attacked. Fortunately, that gave me the opening that I needed. She aimed a fist at my face, quickly readying her other fist to follow. I leaned backwards to dodge. The same time, I grabbed her attacking fist and yanked myself backwards as if to do a handstand, narrowly avoiding the wall. While I did, I wrapped my legs around her hips and pulled her back with me, the only place for her to go was into the wall. I rolled away just as Yang collided with the solid concrete with enough force to crack. it.

"Yang!" Ruby called out worriedly.

I stood up, my eyes widening as Yang crumpled to the ground. For a moment I was terrified that I had overdone my attack, that I had seriously hurt the blond. Before I could move to her side to see if she was okay, she rose to her feet, facing the wall. With a snarl she turned to face me, her eyes burning red.

This was it, my chance to test myself. Yang was ready, practically on fire with rage. I took a deep breath, allowing those strange feelings and lust for blood to seep into me, to consume me, to twist who I was until I was practically someone else entirely. I changed the color of my eyes and allowed a wicked grin to creep onto my face. As I looked around with one pale white eye and one pink eye, I saw everyone but Yang shrink back a little with surprise or fear, or perhaps a mixture of both. To be honest, their responses delighted me, but I couldn't be bothered with them now. My eyes rested on my target, the blond with burning eyes.

Both of us had thrown out the parts of us that thought too much, that tried to figure out the opponents strategy, and acted mostly on instinct. Yang now had increased strength, much more strength than I had, but I also had increased speed and unpredictability. The next part of the fight was so fast and intense that it happened in a sort of blur.

Yang attacked with a powerful force, using a combination of blasts, punches, and kicks. I dodged most of them, returning each with an attack of my own. Even if one of her hits connected and sent me flying back, I always kept my balance and attacked right back. I grinned wildly at the fight. It was so intense! Such a rush! We were terribly well matched at this point. Breath was harder to catch, but we kept up the crazy pace, each waiting to see who would wear out first. But she had something that I really didn't at this time: a conscious.

I flashed her another grin and moved our fight just a bit closer to the circle of friends that was still around us as they tried to figure out what they would do if either Yang or I got out of hand. They hadn't realized it, but I was already past that point. As I glanced about the circle, they were a blur. I didn't see my friends. They just were. They could be potential targets, potential enemies, or in this case, tools to use against my opponent. I became excited as an evil plan drifted through my thoughts.

Then I used a part of my semblance that they hadn't really seen, and that I hadn't gained complete control of. The normal me was so used to trying to keep everything pent up inside that she didn't dare experiment with it when I wasn't in check, so it was something that I needed to practice. It was the power of illusion. As I flipped out of the way of Yang's next punch, I activated it. I left a mirror image of myself standing as I moved unseen out of the way. This mirror me rested her hand on her hip and her umbrella on her shoulder, antagonizing Yang with another grin. I didn't leave this copy of me just anywhere, I had strategically placed it, just as Sleepslicer had taught me.

Yang didn't notice the switch, and neither did the others. Yang growled again and aimed another powerful blow with her fist and her gauntlets at what she thought was my face. The illusion shattered and faded away, revealing Ruby standing directly behind it. Everyone, including the girl with the red hood, realized it too late. Yang's fist collided with her little sister's cheek, and knocked her down with a force that cracked the floor.

"Ruby!" Yang shouted, her eyes widening and turning into a horrified and confused lilac. She knelt down by her sister, who wasn't moving. Everyone was frozen in shock for a moment, and I had just started to realized what I had done. I could feel the guilt rising inside me as my pink eye began to fade to a white. I took a step towards the sisters, starting to come back to who I was.

The other's must have thought that my advance was meant to me another attack. They lunged towards me, and my Scary Neo part took over again, forcing my emotions way deep down inside of me as I defended myself.

Wolf and Blake were the first to reach me. Wolf attacked first, if I had been completely me, maybe I could have seen the pain that flickered in his eyes. But no matter what I was feeling, I knew that Wolf would never seriously hurt me, so I knew what his first move would be. He tried to stun me with the blunt curve of his ax, which I narrowly avoided. The force of it headed for Blake, the movement too fast for Wolf to pull back. Blake's amber eyes narrowed and she leaped backwards, leaving a rock copy of herself behind. The ax embedded itself into the stone. I jumped up onto the handle, and swung myself, kicking Wolf in the jaw and knocking him back. The stone Blake crumbled away and the real Blake attacked with her blades. I blocked her with my umbrella as she lunged forward to kick. I caught her foot and swung her into Weiss, who was trying to use one of her glyphs.

They both fell back into the one that was was used to launch things, and they were thrown across the room. Bolt, the one who was originally meant to be launched was left defenseless. I knocked away his bow as he tried to draw it. We battled, each us using our weapons as swords though neither of them was a blade. He managed to knock my umbrella to the side, but I grabbed his bow and pulled him forward so his gut collided with my knee. He collapsed into me and I let him fall to the side. Rech charged me, holding her daggers in her hands instead of throwing them, not wanting to hurt me too badly. We collided too, but Recherche's fighting talent was usually from a distance. It wasn't long before I threw her to the ground too.

I stood over everyone triumphantly, my hand drifting to the handle of my umbrella as I debated what else I could do and who should be first. I looked over them, none of them wounded too badly and struggling to get back to their feet. Bolt was checking on Rech. Blake was holding up Weiss. I noticed that Yang, was still leaning over Ruby, who was starting to wake up. As I looked around at them looking after each other, the fire inside be began to die. I... didn't even want to hurt them. They were my friends. My eyes drifted to Wolf, back on his feet and clutching his arm, watching to see what I would do.

I turned to Yang and Ruby, who was coming back to her senses. I stepped towards them, not sure what to say. "Yang... I..." I trailed off. Yang helped Ruby into a sitting position.

"You're back to normal, right?" Ruby asked cautiously.

I blinked in surprise. She was right. I was me again. I had stopped. I looked around to make sure that I hadn't killed anyone. Everyone but Ruby groaned and got to their feet. They were a little bruised and sore, but everyone was fine.

"Yeah, I guess so," I said softly. "I-... I'm sorry about what I did."

Ruby chuckled, "Yeah, that was a dick move, but hey! you pulled through it! Good job!" She cheered like a kid and Yang pulled her to her feet.

"See?" Yang said, punching me not-so-gently in the shoulder. "I told you it wouldn't be a problem. Way to get some control." The groans and scoffs from the group said that they wouldn't say that there was no problem with what happened, but everyone was okay enough to joke about it, so it could have been worse.

"I don't know if I'd call that control," I told her, "but I'm getting there.

"You'll get it soon enough," Blake sighed.

"Who's up for round two?!" Yang cheered, fist pumping the air. The group collectively groaned. We gave it a small break before trying again a few more times. After each attempt, it took less and less of an effort for me to control myself. By the end of the night we had gotten to the point where I could safely call Scary Neo 'under control'. It was to the point where I was sure that even in Scary Neo mode that I wouldn't go after my friends. I wasn't quite sure if I would hold the same restraint against people that I didn't have the same connection with, but that wasn't something that we had time to do tonight. We did have class in the morning.

We were all headed back to our dorms when someone outside stepped in front of us. She was someone that I didn't know, but recognized somehow. She had raccoon ears and a tail. She was dressed in dark grey and black stealth gear and wore a mask around her eyes. Despite her suspicious outfit, she stepped onto the path cautiously, clearly not used to drawing attention to herself. Her long black hair was pulled back into a bushy ponytail.

"Neopolitan?" she asked, and I stepped to the front of our group. The others tensed, ready for trouble.

"Yes?" I asked her.

"I am Bandit," she told me, her tail twitching nervously.

"A famous thief," I remembered, taking on a business like tone. I had seen her score, and had nearly taken her on a mission back when I was a henchman, but I had chosen to take Wolf instead. "What do you want with me?"

"Not trouble," she assured me, "I have information for you." She pulled out a manila file and handed it to me.

"From whom?" I asked.

"The Librian sends thanks for handing over the man and woman that were following you. He found a bit more information than your your people did. He has done a bit more digging since then, and is repaying the favor with whatever is in that file," she reported. I looked her over. She seemwd innocent enough. The Librarian disnr get out much and sometimes recruited others to retrieve, or in this case send information. Plus the file was marked with his symbol.

"Send him my thanks..." I said, but when I looked back up from the file she was gone. The envelope was sealed, and everything seemed legit.

"Who was that?" Weiss asked, crossing her arms.

"Bandit. And from what I remember, she is as honest as theives come," I replied, scanning the file's contents.

"What is it?" Recherche asked as I froze.

I looked back up to the group, disbelief written on my face. "Sets of co-ordinates... One of them leading to a giant bomb, the one that the White Fang built... and the other to Nick Sleepslicer..."

"You're sure?" Wolf asked anxiously.

I nodded and showed him a photo of sleepslicer, obviously taken by a spy. Thw time stamp showed it being only a few hours ago. On it was a quick hand written message, saying that we probably didnt have a lot of time before he moved, and that the bomb was currently being movedto its target.

"And its the Librarian's handwritting," I confirmed. This was real, and we didnt have much time.

"What do we do?" Yang asked as the group looked to me.

"I think I have a plan," I told them, "but we have to mkve fast."