Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Cold white sunlight from an equally cold and white morning streaked into a room no different, large enough to serve as a full on home for a small family. There was not a shred of home or family in the Schnee Mansion, only frigid, sterile stone that luxurious fabrics and beautiful gothic arches could do nothing to ameliorate. It felt like nothing short of a tomb, despite having not a speck of dust and the bright light coming in through the balcony, and its sole occupant would very well argue it was one as she looked into the eyes of a dead woman through a full length mirror.

Weiss Schnee, her name had been. As of this morning, she was dead, for all her body still drew breath and her brain held a treasure trove of memories neatly tucked away. As though she had neatly packaged everything before moving onto the great beyond. If only there had been anywhere near as much consent and time to come to terms as that notion implied.

Aura came at the call of the body’s new inhabitant, shrouding her fingers in a miniature whiteout, rippling and fading at the edges. Exactly as Weiss' memories recalled it, were it not for the glint of blue underneath, so faint she would have missed it if she weren't holding the light of her soul inches away from her eyes. She knew that shade. It was the blue of glacial ice, made from compressed snow, all air squeezed out until clear crystal remained.

Rayleigh scattering, it was erroneously attributed to.

That... yes. There was a certain poetry in taking that. She would still use Weiss' name, it would raise too many questions and obstacles if she didn't, but she didn't have it in her to truly claim it. Weiss Schnee was dead and gone, she was simply paying lip service to the role thrust on her. But this? This she could keep tucked under that mask. A new name for a new life, something truly hers, even if it wouldn't be spoken for the longest time.

She jolted as she felt something click into place, suddenly loosening a tension she hadn't noticed was there until it left. Not on her body, but the comforting chill of her Aura. She startled a second time when she caught sight of her reflection, glacial blue meeting her gaze. She couldn't help the sound that bubbled from her throat, somewhere between a chuckle and a giggle. It seemed the eyes were truly a window to the soul.

The shift in shade was subtle, Weiss always had bright blue eyes. Nobody would notice, much less understand the significance of the change, but for her- for Rayleigh, it meant the world.

Which made it perhaps unsurprising that, when she reached with that Aura-coated hand to touch her reflection, something caught . A set of snow white and ice cold fingers interlacing with her own, as her reflection daintily stepped out of the mirror by her hand, lacking all color but a glacial blue undercoat to her hair and shining from her eyes.

“Miss Schnee?” someone asked through the door, a gentle rapping accompanying the words. It was an accented voice- British, if ‘Weiss’ had to guess. As much as there could be such a concept in this world. Remnant , what a fitting name. “Your breakfast is getting cold.”

The specter gave her an encouraging smile, snapping her out of those thoughts far more than the man’s voice. A moment of rummaging through those tucked away foreign memories returning the name ‘Klein’; specifically his calmest personality (‘Doc’, which toddler-age Weiss had been very proud to christen as such), going by the cadence of his speech. 

“Sorry, I was lost in thought and did not notice the time,” Weiss replied as she wedged on the proverbial mask as well as she could, her bleached reflection deciding to show a bit of cheek by pressing her forehead into hers, stepping into her body with a comforting chill. She was still there, lurking right under her skin, a distinct presence in the background thrum of her Aura. “Or my stomach’s complaints, for that matter.” 

The attempt at injecting a bit of humor into the conversation felt a little hollow, sitting awkwardly on her tongue, but what was said was said. She was simply glad that she had already taken a while familiarizing herself with this new body forced on her, dressing up following nothing but pure muscle memory. It was what had caused this current spot of awkwardness, but at least she didn’t have to send Klein with apologies to the staff and a request to reheat breakfast while she figured out how to properly clasp a bra.

“That’s perfectly alright, Miss Schnee,” Klein said through the door, making no comment on that attempt at lightheartedness. Probably for the best for all their sake’s, frankly. “I will let the staff know you are coming.”

A door which opened not a second later, the subtle sway Weiss’ heels imposed on her gait coming as naturally as breathing. What did not was having to hold Huldra - that'd work as a name for the summon - back from making her Aura bloom out into a Glyph and reach to open the door for her, the show had really undersold how willful the Schnee Semblance could be. Didn’t stop her from offering her butler a genuine smile, refusing to let this rotten day get in the way of basic courtesy. The way her cheeks felt out of place with the expression, though, said absolutely nothing good about the real Weiss’ life, “Thank you, Klein.”

“Of course, Miss Schnee,” he said, falling in line behind Weiss as the two of them walked through the long, empty hallways that made up the Schnee manor. He blinked, just for a second, and his eyes changed into a mint green (‘Dopey’) before he smiled widely at her. How she could tell without line of sight, she had little clue, perhaps the sixth sense Aura conferred? “It is an exciting day, after all! You’ll be showing off your talent to your father later.”

Thank god for the real Weiss having gotten PR training drilled into her goddamn bones , otherwise she would’ve tasted the carpet right then and there. As it was, the revelation that apparently today was the day of the Arma Gigas fight according to a frenetic rifle through Weiss’ memories ‘only’ meant that Huldra was no longer taking ‘no’ for an answer. A Glyph engraved with masks and mirrors spilled out from the soles of her feet like ink on paper, the pale specter peeling herself off her back and draping herself over her shoulders. It was only by the dint of that steadying presence that Weiss managed to roll with the proverbial punch, actually making it look like she had meant to do that by replying, “I certainly have something to show off now, no?”

Klein’s eyes widened (even if Weiss couldn’t see him) and he sneezed in surprise, his eyes flickering to a light blue and then a light brown before settling on a yellow color. “Miss Schnee!” he said, beaming in excitement. “Is that a breakthrough with your Semblance I see?”

“That you do.” Weiss replied with a smile to match - studiously ignoring how her cheeks ached at the expression - deciding to show off a bit by spinning on her heel, Huldra splitting off of her with the motion like they’d practiced the choreography for their whole lives. There may be great many things to be upset about the current state of affairs, but having what was effectively magic at her fingertips would never be one of them. Her smile still dimmed a touch as a thought hit, “Although I can only hope it is in time to make a difference.”

Huldra, of course, took that as her cue to flick her nose with a brilliant blue nail.

“Okay, okay, no moping before breakfast. Honestly .” Weiss grumbled with a long-suffering huff, the smile still tugging at her lips putting the lie to that. She could hardly be upset at one of the better parts of her soul.

Klein smiled at her again before his eyes flickered to brown. “We are always growing, Miss Schnee,” he said, ‘Doc’ back in the forefront. “You are stronger than you were yesterday, and stronger still than the day before. I have no doubt you will rise to the occasion.”

It wasn’t growth, what had happened. But she had risen to the occasion and she would be damned if she let the reality of the situation drag her down into the muck. “And if I fall, I will simply have to get back on my feet and try again. Good thing there’s helping hands pulling me up.” 

A meaningful look, there, at both Klein and Huldra. She may not be the little girl the butler had all but raised, or the dead woman the specter wore the face of, but they were there for her. Weiss may be gone, but her legacy and her dreams were anything but.

“Well, Miss Schnee, I hope to see you continue that determination on the battlefield,” Klein said, stepping forward and opening the door to the dining room. “But for now, your breakfast awaits.”

____________________________________________________________________________

The dining hall - the one they normally took their breakfast in, at least - was… large. A long table with several seats upholstered in blue, two massive double-doors on either end, one wall taken up by windows into the courtyard and the other dominated by a portrait of Nicholas Schnee himself. High arches slope the ceiling into something almost cylindrical with a chandelier dangling down the center, illuminating the immense displays of wealth.

As Weiss entered the room, she found herself beaten there by Whitley, who was polishing off the last of his meal. A glance at her own place at the table showed her a now-slightly-cold soup of cabbage and carrots, a crisp looking bread roll, and an array of sliced cheese and selection of jams for her to make use of. A tiny glass of white wine and much taller glass for water was next to this, though she noticed Klein’s eyes pinching ever so slightly at the sight of Whitley gulping his booze down.

Weiss couldn’t rightly fault him for it, given the household they were all stuck in.

As far as the youngest Schnee was concerned, he appeared… a little disheveled, today. Uncharacteristically so, as she took a precious two seconds to access the relevant memories while Huldra pulled the chair for her to take a seat. White shirt, slate gray vest and pants, and a black necktie as normal, but just a tad off . The necktie was a little crooked, the vest a bit wrinkled, even his hair wasn’t as neatly combed as it should be. If any of the servants she only belatedly noticed lining the hall, so still as to be mistaken for statues, had noticed too they sure weren’t about to comment on it.

Despite seeming for all the world to be as normal and apathetic as ever, Whitley was off balance by something .

“There you are, sister.” The teenager said, voice as smooth as silk, a sneering half-smile curling his lips. At least that seemed normal enough, after another tiny lapse in focus to dive into the real Weiss’ memories. “I almost thought you weren’t going to come- but that won’t do for both the Heiress and a Huntress. You’ll need to learn to wake up early again if you’re going to find time for it all.”

“It was not a matter of when I woke up, but what kept me in my room.” Weiss replied evenly as she grabbed for the bread roll, slathering a thin layer of butter on it while her doppelganger poured her some water. As if nothing was out of the ordinary, but Huldra’s mere presence was a statement in and of itself. “I would say good morning, but that would be a lie for the both of us, wouldn’t it?”

“You realize that flaunting your mental instability will only make Father disinherit you faster.” Whitley pointed out with a raised, thin brow, as he slowly smeared his roll in some sort of berry jam. Cold blue eyes tracked Huldra’s every movement, and although he hid it unfortunately well, the boy’s unease was rather clear. “Really, sister, being so distrustful that you’d rather have a copy of yourself than an actual friend? What will your team say when you go tromping off to this… Beacon backwater?”

“Now, Master Whitley,” Klein interjected, stepping forward with a flash in his eyes. Weiss didn’t have the right angle to see what color they had shifted to, but the tone of his voice alone was telling. “Beacon is no backwater. It’s a premiere Huntsman academy-”

“Far away from her kingdom, her family, and her responsibilities.” Whitley sniped back with a roll of his eyes. He was far more… direct than in Weiss’ memories, as she used the little back and forth to check them once again. The Whitley before she woke up would have maintained his passive-aggressive bullying for far longer. “Honestly, sister, at least Winter had the good sense to stay in Atlas when she went off on her rebellion. How are you expecting to learn to manage the company and train as a Huntress when you’re across the ocean?”

Weiss arched an eyebrow, a silent ‘are you done?’ conveyed flawlessly in a half beat before she finally deigned replying, “By proxy, as always. It is not like Father has the time of day to show his face to either of us, even through a screen. Today’s little test to see if I am ‘worthy’ of leaving his shadow will be overseen by his secretary, that speaks for itself.”

A squeeze of bracingly cold fingers on her shoulder, there, and she relaxed minutely. Taking a split second to breath and step back from the brewing argument. With that restored clarity, she looked the brother she inherited dead in the eyes, dropping all the masks and simply saying point blank, “Whitley, I am fully aware I have no right whatsoever to call myself your sister or impose anything on you, not with how I have failed you. But I will no longer just shrug, say ‘that’s how life is for Schnees’ and move on.” 

Neither of them were acting quite like themselves today, it seemed. She wasn’t sure if she hoped it was for the same reason, but there was something she was certain of. The shoes she had stepped into were weighted down with regrets and it was about time something be done about it.

Faintly, she registered Huldra melting into her, collapsing like powdered snow into her shoulders. It didn’t matter, right here and now she only had eyes for Whiteley. “What do you want from me? Heirship of the company? For me to stay here and for us to try and rebuild something between us? That I leave your life and never show my face to you again?”

There wasn’t a single sliver of accusation or judgement in her voice or face, just someone owning up to the mistakes they inherited. The servants lining the walls remained in their places, yet just a brief glance could make it clear that they were woefully out of their depth and pay grade when it came to two arguing Schnee scions. Whitley himself, meanwhile, seemed to be… lagging. Stuck processing, looping the conversation through his head, as though disbelieving that Weiss would even dare mention the thought of handing over ownership of the company, most likely, or show an interest in mending bridges.

Or burning them down for that matter.

In the time they had spoken, the teenager had remained in his seat, but there were tells for his agitation beyond his tone. A tremor in the hand. A twitch to his lips as though unsure whether to sneer, scowl, smile, or frown. These came to a halt when he closed his eyes and leaned back in his seat, pressing fingers to forehead as though trying to ease a headache.

“Father will doubtless move to disinherit you regardless of our intentions.” He finally said, looking up at the high roof of the dining hall rather than at his sibling. “You are no longer a mere ballerina that he can turn a key to make dance. Acknowledging this, the most likely option is to wait for you to make some sort of scandal in Beacon, point to that as evidence of your lacking, and either force you to return or cut you off.”

It was laid out clinically. Coldly. Methodically. Coming from a child who had fifteen years to learn how his father worked. Those had not been gentle lessons for any of the Schnees.

“Anticipating this, I will siphon some of my generous allowance into a secondary account. Should the worst come to pass, these funds will be transferred to you to spend or invest as you see fit. Else, it will be a pleasant little gift if you manage to make it a school year without ‘disgracing the Schnees’.” Whitley stated, though he rolled his eyes at the last phrase, pulling himself up to sit prim and proper again. Cold eyes leveled a gaze on Weiss with the weight of an economic behemoth behind it, prior sneers bit back with a quiet sigh. “The Schnee Dust Company provides nearly ninety eight percent of Remnant’s Dust needs, sister. Energy, munitions, materials, research, technology, and beyond. We have our fingers in every flavor of pie you can think of-” He smirked, then, “and some cakes, as well. I harp on you not because I desire the company, Weiss, but because I want you to be prepared to carry the burden of an entire planet’s expectations on your shoulders.”

Whitley turns his head slightly, allowing him to glance towards the portrait of Nicholas Schnee on the wall. His and Weiss’ grandfather, though they’d never met the man in person. Only stories from their mother before she became a recluse.

‘A breathing corpse’ something bitter hissed deep, deep in Weiss’ mind. A mark left there by the original so strongly even this switch of souls could not keep it contained with the rest of the original girl’s memories. Rayleigh, the person behind Weiss’ eyes now, simply let it go as easily as it had come. One step at a time, however many it took.

“Honor our name, sister.” Whitley eventually said, chair sliding across the floor as he got to his feet. “Just be ready to mantle your responsibility upon your return. I will manage the homefront until such time.”

As, seemingly, he believed he always had.

“I will, brother. That is a promise.” She replied, with all the implacable, indefatigable weight of a glacier. All packed into just seven little words that she would sooner lop off her legs than recant on.

A short nod is all she got in reply as Whitley turned to leave.

Then stopped, tilting his head to regard the servants lining the walls. The very same servants who had listened in on everything, having blended into the walls to become part of the scenery.

“A word of this to Jacques and you’ll be thrown to the cold.” The boy stated flatly, tone as frigid as the winter wind. “Disavowed, discredited, and blacklisted from every job listing within Atlas and Mantle.” His eyes narrowed, then.

“Dismissed.”

They were all too eager to hurry through the servant doors, now that the order had been given. Only then did Whitley resume his walk, waving a hand over his shoulder in the process.

“Enjoy your breakfast in peace, sister.”

And the doors closed behind him.

____________________________________________________________________________

Weiss stepped forward into a massive arena, vaulted ceilings stretching high enough as to be lost in the shadows. The room itself had large windows baked into the walls, though a split-second check into her predecessor’s memories told her it was all some sort of fibreglass, rated for Manticores and worse. She paid them little mind, instead turning towards the viewing box jutting out of one end of the rectangular room. While the one-way glass didn’t let her properly see inside, she didn’t need to with the feeling of eyes on her, Huldra shifting under her skin as her Aura sensed the presence examining her.

Isolde Weirdmann, the secretary of Jacques. A loyal and reliable woman, her inherited memories told her. There were also some extremely unflattering opinions from the real Weiss laying around in there, but the same could be said of most people not named ‘Klein’ or ‘Winter’.

“Ms. Schnee. You truly are a credit to your family,” Isolde said by way of greeting as Weiss stepped out into the centre of the arena. Those same words could be very easily construed as an insult, depending on who spoke them. Rayleigh had no doubt the real Weiss would have snapped at all the implications in that sentence.

“Thank you.” This new Weiss she now acted as, though, simply took the words in the spirit they were given. “I certainly intend to carry the name well and add to its legacy, even if Father and I may have our disagreements on the how.”

Isolde nodded, or at least that was the impression Weiss got through her spiritual sixth sense. “But your current skill alone is not enough. At Atlas Academy, your studies will increase in difficulty tenfold and your father expects that you will not lapse in your skills.”

“That is rather the point of Academies, yes. Although I stand by my decision to go to Beacon. My personal preferences aside, I believe we could all do without the inevitable cries of nepotism Winter’s position would cause, if I were to join Atlas’ military in any fashion. Never-you-mind the SDC’s military contracts.” Weiss riposted with an arching of her eyebrow, “Better for me to learn Valish doctrine and spread out our influence just by a Schnee being there and excelling as a Huntress, no?”

“Vale is quite far, Miss Schnee, and the facilities at Beacon won’t have anything different than at Atlas,” Isolde countered. “But because of the distance, we won’t be able to respond quickly if something happens to you. The president is just concerned for your safety.”

“The facilities may remain the same, but the way they are used? The cultural zeitgeist of what it means to be a Hunter and how they should comport themselves? The only ones more different from us in that respect are Vacuo, and the less said about their ridiculous survival of the fittest and every man for themselves mentality, the better.” Weiss replied with a bitter chuckle. She had in fact spent a few minutes on her Scroll to confirm that, and indeed, while maybe not as egregious as in the show, Shade Academy remained a heaving abomination. “As for my safety, Beacon may not be Atlas Academy, but there is something to be said for rooming in a castle atop a sheer cliff filled to the brim with Hunters in training and veterans. I expect some attacks of opportunity from local White Fang cells if I tour Vale proper, but some basic precautions like staying armed and bringing my teammates with should more than handle whatever they can afford to bring forward.”

“Then you should have no problem proving that you can handle yourself.” The secretary pointed out mildly.

“Mhm. Onto business, then?” Weiss asked as she unsheathed Myrtenaster, Huldra’s Glyph seeping into the ground underneath her heeled shoes. Aura sure was a convenient thing, negating pretty much all the disadvantages of that kind of fashion statement in combat.

There was no response from Isolde; instead, with the hiss of some unknown mechanism, a door opened up in the wall just below the viewing box. Hideously, terrifyingly fast for something its size, a sword longer than some apartment buildings were tall shot out through. If that thing had made contact, Weiss would be an indent on the opposite wall at best.

How fortunate that she and Huldra pushed off of each other the moment they had seen the glint of metal and felt their Aura scream out in alarm, landing at either side of the massive blade in a perfect mirror of each other, their own swords up and at the ready.

Slowly, a Grimm lurched forward from inside the chamber, completely unlike anything that should exist. Because that right there was a Geist animating a custom-made suit of armor, the sort of warmachine that should never leave the history books. It did not seem to care about ‘should be’s, lifting its sword off the deep divot it had carved off the ground, with one hand and not a speck of effort to show for it.

Huldra and Weiss traded a glance, the silent conversation that passed between them in a heartbeat best summarized as a single word.

Fuck .

____________________________________________________________________________

It had been two minutes of heart-scrambling darting and twirling, Aura and abilities rationed like they were under siege as they bled the Arma Gigas for information from a thousand proverbial cuts. Its speed, its reach, its flexibility, its situational awareness, its ability to split attention, its reflexes.

Isolde had blithely commented that this bespoke monstrosity was on par with Atlesian Paladins. Not the prototypes jerking along in a lab somewhere, but the projected specs the project had. Weiss believed the secretary, the dozens of gouges carved into the arena’s floor and walls were a testament to that. 

The issue, of course, was that a warmachine lived or died by its pilot. A Grimm would remain a Grimm, it may not be mindless, but it was not old enough to overcome its instincts. There were bright souls in front of it and it couldn’t help but attack them relentlessly, even if the strikes changed each time, even if it could lurch and rotate its joints in unnatural ways– 

This was a fight they could win .

Because if it would always take the chance to advance and attack, that made it predictable. If you were predictable, you could be controlled.

Huldra danced at the very edge of its range, skittering away from a downwards chop on the propulsion of a White Glyph, but lagging just enough the monster lunged forward. It succeeded, using the full extension of its body and weapon to skewer the phantom and disperse her into a shower of powder snow.

It had also just smashed its boot onto that same White Glyph from before, and leaned all of its weight on it while over-extended. The light of the soul sang a high note and its footing turned more treacherous than ice over mud, the monster’s mass and momentum turned against it as it was forced into a leg split with a screech of tortured metal.

Weiss practically teleported to the now-exposed mechanisms on the hips, Myrtenaster on an icepick grip as she allowed powdered Fire Dust to suffuse the blade. It struck like a runaway truck, Aura-reinforced steel of the finest alloying money could buy punching half of its length into vital internals. Then, a glowing white fist smashed into the pommel as a hammer would a chisel, ramming the weapon home to the hilt and triggering a fiery explosion entirely inside the confines of the monster’s shell.

She still paid for it, that exacerbating strike adding enough time to her attack that when she threw herself back with a Glyph, the retaliatory backhand clipped her on the nose. If she lacked Aura, she would be lacking a nose right now, turned into a spray of gore. As it was, there was blood streaming like a faucet down her front.

Dainty fingers clutched the broken bone and snapped it back into place with a disgusting wet crunch. It felt like someone had stuck red-hot nails up her sinuses, but that didn’t stop her from grinning at it with blood-stained teeth.

It couldn’t get back up, not even on a knee.

She would heal, it would not .

With the unholy screech of metal on metal, the creature threw itself onto the ground as it lunged forward for Weiss, its sword thrusting at her abdomen like a freight train.

Adrenaline singing in her veins, she leapt onto the sword, trailing White Glyphs over its surface as she shot for its hand. The Arma Gigas was no slouch when it came to speed, but a Huntress using her Semblance to essentially turn herself into a railgun projectile was not something it could respond to in time. Once more, a burning red blade drove itself into a seam between plates, all of Weiss’ momentum dumped into a singular explosive attack that turned the monster’s inner mechanisms into useless slag.

Then, the White Glyphs on the sword activated again , violently ripping the sword from limp fingers and into the far wall. Thankfully not the one Isolde’s viewing box was in, she didn’t want to kill the poor woman.

This time, when the butcher’s bill came in the form of a massive hand trying to splatter her like a gnat, it was Huldra who paid it. Springing out of her body of her own volition and twirling her into a throw straight at the crippled monster’s head. Huldra smiled in the split second before she was crushed, watching her Master conjure a White Glyph under her feet as she reached the apex of her jump.

For a third and final time, Weiss became a living projectile, aura burning white and bright around her body as she tore through an eyeslit and the optics housed inside of it. White light began to seep out of each and every seam in the warmachine, White Glyph after White Glyph laid down in the monster’s guts as Weiss tore through them, until finally–

BOOM.

All of those repulsor pads triggered at once, taking the internal damage she had meted out and using it to turn the Arma Gigas into a fragmentation bomb writ large.

Amidst the wreckage, Weiss stood wobbly and thoroughly bruised but triumphant, raising her rapier in salute at the viewing box.

____________________________________________________________________________

Unknown Number (possible spam):  

Greetings strange person I’ve never met in my entire life!

You do not know me, and neither do I know you!

The only reason you’ve received this is because, in a bout of complete boredom, I’ve used a d10 (10 was a reroll) to assemble a scroll number.

I am bored, temporarily bedridden (I’ll get better tomorrow) and forbidden to leave my house by my father and my uncle.

Therefore, I ask of you stranger I’ve never met, nor ever will.

Would you like to be friends?

(PS: My dad and uncle would ground me forever if they knew I did this. So if you want to be my friend, we’ll have to use super secret codenames! Mine shall be… Evoluder.)

You:

I would say it is against my better judgement to reply, but I have a literal clump of my soul who I’m 90% sure is my Will To Stand Up Straight and Hope To Be A Better Person shoving the Scroll in my hands and giving me a thumbs up, so fuck it. 

Sure. 

Call me Rayleigh.

Also, your alias sounds like the villain of a campy Mistrali show. 

Tokusatsu? I always mess up the spelling.

Evoluder:

Pleasure to meet you Rayleigh!

And I will have you know that my name is taken from the bravest of man!

Someone that was ready to stand against evil and corruption!

He was the bravest because he didn’t hesitate to rely on others BTW.

He fought and beat all of his opponents, but the King of Braves was never alone.

And I don’t believe I’ve seen a Mistrali Tokustsu?

I am… rather sheltered. My house is large, and there are many people, most of them quite friendly!

But I only gained access to a scroll some two months ago.

Could you send me a picture of these ‘Tokusatsu’s?

You:

Uhh, give me a sec. I only ever heard about them from cultural osmosis.

Aaaand nevermind, Huldra found something by puttering around on my desktop.

Here .

Evoluder:

He looks quite cool!

…I can’t tell if he’s the villain or not though.

I will have to watch it to discover if he is not!

Thank you for making tomorrow more bearable friend!

You:

No problem.

Huldra seems to like you and I can’t say I disagree with that part of myself.

…God, my Semblance’s mechanics make me sound deranged sometimes.

Evoluder:

Oh, I thought they were your significant other. But it is a semblance?

This means you have aura too, yes?

I have aura too! 

I would be dead if not.

But no semblance.

I wonder what mine will be.

You:

I hope yours doesn’t manifest like mine did.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Huldra, but the fact that my soul budded off an independent actor made out of my determination and optimism should tell you a lot of the sort of thing I was pushing through at the time.

It is nice having an anonymous chat like this if only to just out and out say that .

But yeah, I just hit the breaking point, refused to break and my soul reacted.

Evoluder:

That sounds…

Unpleasant.

But, well. Mine hasn’t manifested while I could see my naked skeleton.

So I hope it’ll manifest thanks to a happy event.

I do not need another panic attack.

Fuck !

ohgoditsallovermyhands 

You:

Breathe in for five seconds, hold it there for five seconds, breathe out for five seconds, breathe in for five seconds.

Repeat.

That’s all I can do for you short of pulling a nonsense Semblance breakthrough out of my ass and sending Huldra through an internet connection.

…Fuck, I hope you’re still there and were able to read that.

…Please tell me you’re still there.

Evoluder:

I AM FINE!

Sorry for being gone for ten minutes!

I have mentioned the fact I have seen my skeleton, yes?

You might have guessed that is no longer the case, I now have mechanical limbs.

They are great!

Being able to see the pistons and magnetic rails is- it makes me hot under the collar as it we

…

I tried to delete that.

I want to curl up in a ball now.

Plz ignore that

I beg you

You:

Ignore you having impeccable taste?

(Also, yes, this is now a topic change unless you want to talk about the other stuff )

May I suggest transparent synthskin, so you can enjoy the view without any gunk getting in?

Evoluder:

Maybe.

But I don’t think dad and uncle would be okay with it

For many reasons

But I am glad that you too are an enjoyer of slick, perfectly engineered, mechanical perfection~

Here

It’s really cool.

I couldn’t stop touching myself with it.

…Wait, no that came out wrong.

You:

I mean, I’m not judging.

Add some brass accents to that and I wouldn’t be able to help myself either.

Evoluder :

How lewd !

But unfortunately, I do not believe they are available as such.

thank you for answering a message from a complete stranger Raleigh.

unless there is anything you wish to say, I'll leave you to have a night's sleep.

It is four in the morning after all.

You:

That it is.

I’ll tell you tomorrow about how I fought a giant robot today, maybe.

And how it broke my nose.

Evoluder :

Do not do that!

Either of these! Broken noses are painful, and replacement ones with senses as good as a human’s don’t exist, no matter what people trying to sell you on body conversions might tell you.

My uncle said as much an

Shit, dad’s here.

I must go, he’ll revoke my scroll privileges if he sees me texting

I will send you more messages later. Maybe next week? The rest of the opperatin is gona tak awhil

____________________________________________________________________________

Next morning, Weiss found Willow inside the lady’s private room, laying back on a leather couch; there was a one-quarter empty bottle of vodka in her hand and the stench of high-proof alcohol and other things best left unmentioned was like a punch to the nose. At least Willow had the common decency to straighten herself and her outfit up once she saw who was visiting, setting the bottle down on a coffee table. Not much that could be done about the stains here and there, but it was heartening to at least see an attempt .

“Oh! I- I didn’t expect to see you this morning,” said the Schnee matron, smiling faintly at her daughter. “You don’t normally come to visit this early.”

“I think my tutors would have my head if they saw me try to go through the usual morning training routine after what I put myself through yesterday.” Weiss replied with a wan smile as she slid herself onto a single-seater couch. Aura did absolute wonders for one’s recovery, but there was still a faint impression on her nose and hands of what she had gone through. She really should get herself some armor, even just some leather and chainmail would do wonders until she could get Arma Gigas overlaid on her. “Besides, I would rather make the most of the time we have left for meeting in the flesh. It will be a while until Beacon has a break long enough for a cross-continental commute.”

Very pointedly, Weiss did not directly ask Willow if she was well. Both of them knew the answer to that, it was sitting on the table between them with a fancy top-shelf label.

“I heard that went well,” Willow offered faintly. Heard it went well, Weiss noted - she didn’t see it. She didn’t expect Willow to attend, but still. There had been recordings, she was sure.

“Bloodied my nose in a very literal way, and it raised some questions of what, exactly , the company has been getting up to in the background to make a mechanized Arma Gigas like that without anyone the wiser. But yes, it went well.” Weiss replied softly, taking heart that while far, far from ideal… things weren’t as bad as she had initially feared them to be. “Hopefully I will be able to get the new Summon functional enough by the time of Beacon’s entrance test, but it doesn’t really seem to want to downsize, and I don’t really have the Aura to bring out more than maybe an arm. Not as wilful as Huldra, but also nowhere near as happy to accommodate me.”

Hearing her name, the specter peeled off of her, just enough to rest her chin on Weiss’ shoulder. The Schnee Heiress chuckled indulgently, ruffling the wraith’s hair as unnaturally cold arms draped over her, their foreheads tapping together playfully, “Yes, yes, you are the best. Smug little thing.”

It meant that Weiss wasn’t facing her mother when Willow gasped, looking back she found the lady of the house with eyes blown wide and her entire bearing frozen still. Like she may shatter at the slightest touch.

“...Mother? Is something wrong?” Twin looks of concern from identical glacial blue eyes scanned over Willow, Huldra going as far as to fully step out of Weiss to slowly, gently reach out to their mother.

“Is that… I…” Willow stammered. As Huldra reached towards her, she flinched, looking for all the world like she had seen a ghost. Not wrong, by any measure.

“...I made a breakthrough.” Weiss said softly, after a few moments of searching for the right words. Finally, she gave up, and simply lanced the boil and bled the poison out. As much as she could, with how she had to couch her explanation. “In the full sense of the term. Yesterday I barely could get out of bed, it was like there was a slab of stone over me as everything sunk in. I don’t know how long I spent in front of the mirror, either. Just that I didn’t like what I saw, much less everything behind me.” Her eyes tried to drift down, to stare at her hands on her lap and let her bangs cover her expression. She allowed no such thing, holding Willow’s horrified look. “I felt like I was drowning, and… I’m not sure what I did. But something in me snapped, said ‘ no ’, and I managed to pull myself back up.”

Huldra smiled softly, drifting back to Weiss on silent steps full of floating grace, draping herself over the soul that had spawned her. Weiss leaned into the touch, letting the supernatural cold ground her, “As far as I can tell, Huldra here is that part of me, that little something that had me pull through and stand up straight. But I don’t… I don’t really know how this aspect of our Semblance works, what this really means . I never got it to work before this, so I just lost myself in Dust Casting and what the Glyphs could do for that.”

Willow refocused, looking at Weiss like she was someone new and unfamiliar- like the fog had been lifted from her eyes. It wasn’t perfect clarity, but it was better than it had been before; better than it had been for ages, according to Weiss’s memories. “I- I see.”

Weiss breathed in, closing her own eyes for a moment, feeling Huldra melting into her. Filling her bones with implacable, indefatigable glacial ice. Her was spine straight and strong as she stood up, walked forward and–

Hugged her new mother, burying her face into her shoulder. 

She was not the real Weiss, she was not this woman’s daughter, not truly. But Rayleigh would be damned before she let the Schnee home remain a frozen tomb, if that meant becoming a changeling child to a grieving mother, then so be it.

She would do right by them and the true Weiss’ aspirations, no other outcome was permitted.

Slowly, softly, like she was made of glass, her mother returned the hug, her hand gingerly placed on Weiss’s back. Which one of them was made of glass at this moment, Weiss wasn’t sure, but it was a first step.

And it fell on them both to continue down the path together.

____________________________________________________________________________

As it turned out, planning a farewell concert cum charity event with only a week to spare before the flight to Vale? Not easy . Thank God for the power of delegation and competent help.

Even if over the course of said week, when she wasn’t busy mending bridges with Willow and Whiteley (and texting with who was almost certainly Penny, either that or Watts had made a robo-daughter of his own), she got entirely too many disturbed side-glances. Rayleigh knew that the change in her character was obvious, but the reason behind it was simply so fantastical nobody would really think she was a changeling wearing Weiss’ face and name. She could have kept up the act, but frankly?

It wasn’t any more pleasant being a truculent bitch than being on the receiving end of one. Weiss, from her inherited memories, has been frigid at best with anyone not named Klein or Winter. Too much seething vitriol under her skin for anything else, so she couldn’t rightly blame the teen, but at the same time she saw no reason to continue the trend she had set.

Now, the greater masses would see the change, after a fashion. There was a thread of trepidation shivering up and down her spine, but she didn’t even need Huldra’s steadying presence to keep her back straight and shoulders squared as the curtains parted and she stepped onto the stage proper. Already, there were murmurs, her iconic dress was still there, so were the tiara and the sideways ponytail.

They were all in black. Mourning clothes only missing a veil, for all nobody but her knew who this was an elegy for. Huldra peeled off of her between one step and the next as she made for the piano at the center of the stage. She was her perfect mirror, ponytail to the opposite side and everything done up in white stark as death and brilliant glacial blue.

Black gloved fingers stood out against the ivory keys, as she took her seat in front of her instrument. All the more as Huldra draped herself overtop the piano, her two-toned hair and clothes spilling freely over the glossy black finish.

Then?

Then Rayleigh played . Not a word spoken but the ululating tones of Huldra accompanying each piano piece she had practiced. Just her and the keys, tapped with wistful playfulness, pounded with anger and grief and passion, caressed with gentle mourning. Flowing from one song to the next without pause, from one emotion to the next without break, simply letting everything pour out clean and pure.

Until, finally–

“ Fly, broken wings. I know you are still with me. All I need is a nudge to get me started. ” She sang, so, so softly. As though raising her voice would break something. “ Fly, broken wings, to somewhere we can be free. Closer to our ideal. ”

“ Teary eyed, once-gentle soul, I watched as you rotted away. ” That ‘something’ may very well shatter, because she was done mourning, and this was both her farewell and her final attempt to reach out to Jacques. For a week everything had been ignored or rebuked, so this was the last chance. The last olive branch she would hold out. 

“ The mirror says that I still remember hope . ” Her voice interlaced with Huldra’s own at that final word, before they heterodyned in melodious hums. The very first word Huldra had ever spoken since she was forged from Rayleigh’s turmoil.

“ You’re doing what you love. Isn’t that enough? Isn’t that enough!? ” Weiss gritted out, allowing her voice to rise in full, raw with emotion as she demanded . “ A genius, perfect job! Isn’t that enough!? Isn’t that enough!? ”

“ Again and again you locked me down! ” Weiss railed, only for all the fire to wink out with the next verse, her shoulders slumping as she leant into the piano. “ I locked me down. We staked me to the ground… the soil gave me warmth… ”

“ Please die, little dreams. Kill the camellias in me. ” Pouring out every last drop of emotion and remembrance she could hold in her body for the real Weiss, for that poor young lady whose dreams and life were strangled to death in her sleep. 

“ Wouldn’t it be easier to give in? ” Rayleigh sang, and this time it was HER emotion, not Weiss’. The sheer crushing weight of despair that had greeted her on that bitterly cold morning a week ago. “ Why are my hands chasing dreams out of my reach? ” 

She took a breath, in perfect sync with Huldra. Her spectre rising smoothly to her feet with weightless grace, loosely wrapping her arms around Rayleigh’s neck.

“ Fly, perfect wings. ” They sang as one, voices layering together in eerie, echoing perfection, “ Show them who I can be. For the last time, if you will. ”

“ That’s all. ” They spoke more than sang, Huldra melting into Weiss as she raised to her feet.

Faced the audience.

Bowed.

Then turned and left, not a single look thrown back.

____________________________________________________________________________

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: 

Junior’s ’ was a surprisingly short and stocky building, made of dusty red bricks with arched, stained windows that turned the dance lights inside into an impressionist painting for those looking from the outside. The white sliding entrance door was flanked by a pair of henchmen in the Xiong family’s black suits, red ties and sunglasses, and black bowler hats. Classy stuff, for all it was a bit at odds with the venue and the time of day. The two men acting as the bouncers gave the incoming club-goers quick glance overs to appraise them but didn’t seem to be actively stopping anyone. They also had their axes openly hanging from their belts, a detail that no one commented on or paid much attention to, just another pleasant taste of Remnant’s culture. Weiss had to give props to whoever had designed the sign above the door, as while understated it cast the entrance and its guards in a baleful red glow that glinted off their shades and weapons, a perfectly unobtrusive intimidation tactic.

The bouncers scanned her form, gazes lingering on the Dust-loaded rapier hanging from her hip, appraising the weapon before one of them raised his eyes back to her face, taking in her glasses in turn, squinting a little bit before turning to his coworker. A moment of silent communication followed, before the one who squinted at her shrugged. Both stepped aside to let her in without much of a comment.

Weiss had, of course, done her homework and prep. That meant ensuring the venue didn’t have too poor a reputation and coming in with her hair let down in a very literal sense. Together with a sharp set of metal-rimmed glasses and a nice black turtleneck and set of slacks, she had broken away enough from her usual presentation that nobody had given her a second look. Nobody before these two, anyways, who had definitely recognized her face despite her glasses breaking up the pattern a bit.

No matter, she simply offered them a small polite smile with a matching nod of acknowledgement and stepped right through. Junior ran a tight ship, from everything she could tell, so it should be fine. Even if something leaked, there simply wasn’t much mud the paparazzi could sling about her stepping into a respectable night club to have a small chat with the bartender.

Nothing else would be allowed to seep out if Junior had anything to say about it, beyond maybe her intent to purchase a spar with the Malachite twins, assuming he wanted a bit more publicity on that side-gig.

The inside was an interesting contrast - the dance floor itself was stark white, with the lights reflecting off of the mirror ball hanging over it painting it, and the crowd occupying it, in a dazzling array of colours. In contrast, the rest areas and tables, the walls and a hall leading to the restrooms were put in black, with the bar mixing both colours. The music, too, was loud, as was customary, but clearly carefully tuned to be just loud enough that one couldn’t eavesdrop without making a visible effort. Weiss wasn’t exactly a fan of the chumba-chumba type music being piped through the establishment, but she could definitely appreciate the care that had gone into using it as a noise cancelation in disguise. She’d recognize that underlying buzz to it anywhere, and it sure as hell wasn’t a stylistic choice on the part of the DJ.

The owner of the establishment, one Hei Xiong, appeared hunched over the bar, back turned to the floor as he chatted quietly with a hench manning the counter. His ensemble ran similarly to that of his employees, save that instead of a full suit, he wore a simple vest over his white shirt and his glasses rested in the breast pocket of his vest.

“You seem a fair bit away from Atlas, Miss.” The man commented idly without turning to face Weiss, voice naturally rough but distinguished through simple confidence and control.

“Vale is a nice place to stretch one’s wings in, what can I say?” Weiss replied with a small curl of her lips, black-gloved fingers interlacing under her chin, “Speaking of wings, I heard some chirping online from Hunter-hopefuls about spars for sale.”

“Fight clubs are everywhere if one knows where to look.” The man commented idly. “The internet rumours exaggerate the amount of revenue you can pull that way, but yes, I can find you dance partners if you are looking. Minimal paperwork, but the records need to be there, you understand?”

“Crystal.” Weiss replied simply, pulling a little data-shard from her sleeve in a bit of sleight of hand which was pure fun and just a touch of Aura trickery, sliding it across the counter, “Here you go. I did my homework.”

The man accepted the shard without a word, instead motioning at the bartender who fished out a Scroll from under the counter and handed it over. Junior idly slid the shard into the appropriate port and opened the folder, grey eyes calmly scanning the information. Eventually, he set the Scroll down in front of him, face down, and nodded.

“So you did.” He noted amicably as he announced the price for the services rendered. Honestly, compared to some of Weiss’ tutors, it was cheap. “I will leave the negotiations regarding time and place to the girls. Could even negotiate for an extra dance partner, if you are interested.” The man added, tapping the counter close to the edge, pointing at himself.

“That sound lo–” Weiss said with a pleased smile, only for it to freeze on her face as she was interrupted, a mass of yellow tresses swinging into view in her peripheral vision as their owner plopped her ass on the stool next to her.

“So. I hear you know everything in this city, huh?” Yang asked abruptly, taking a seat with a smile. Behind her was another woman - red hair, green eyes, bronze armor, iconic - who gave a wave in response to Weiss looking her over.

Cloaked by the strobing, colored lights of the night club, the mirrors and lights making the masks Glyph of Huldra stretching out under Weiss’ feet was nigh-on impossible to spot. All the better, it was already a struggle to keep the wilful thing from peeling herself off of her body and glowering at the blonde.

Junior blinked, thrown off his rhythm just a touch, before composing himself and giving Weiss a respectful nod she returned before the man turned his full focus on the interloper. His house, his rules, she wouldn’t interfere. 

No matter how she tasted meltwater on her tongue and felt invisible, ice-cold fingers on her shoulders just begging her to be let loose.

“So they say, except for the fact I seem to have opened a daycare.” Junior snarked. “Parents didn't teach you to wait for your turn, blondie?”

Yang just ignored him and barreled on. “I’m looking for someone,” she said, opening her scroll and pulling up a photo of a woman that looked remarkably like her, if she had black hair instead of blonde and red eyes instead of purple. Same face, same natural hair shape, really they could be palette swaps of one another once Yang got a few years and some more meat in her. “Tell me where I can find her and I’ll get out of your way.”

Junior took a glance at the photo, so quick it could be mistaken for him brushing it off, before fixing the blonde with a flat stare. “Sure. As soon as you pay , blondie.” The man snorted as he leaned against the counter. “ Surely you’ve heard about that too.”

Yang crossed her arms. “Before you’ve given me anything? Yeah, sure, I’ll just throw away the rest of my lien while I’m at it. Information first.”

Junior’s lips curled into a smirk as he crossed his arms. “You come into my club, flirting with age restrictions, you interrupt my conversation with another lovely lady without so much as ‘by your leave’. How do I know you won’t try to skip on the bill once you’ve got what you wanted, sweetheart? Besides,” he waved his hand dismissively, “getting what you want after you pay is how it works everywhere else, isn’t it?”

Yang waved him off, rolling her eyes. “We both know you don’t care about age restrictions, Junior , and there’s a difference between buying a drink and throwing a few thousand lien down the drain for information you only might have. Information first.”

Weiss' eyes flickered between the two as she watched things begin to heat up, a wordless tilt of her head when she caught Mr Xiong’s eyes silently asking him if he would mind a little… intercession. God knew Pyrrha wasn’t doing anything about this brewing disaster, just standing there awkwardly. 

Unfortunately for Weiss, Hei Xiong was more interested in his verbal spar with a teenage girl. Particularly as they got further company in the form of Malachite twins meandering towards the counter with bored expressions. And, a real surprise there, behind them was trawling the bulky form of one Cardin Winchester. The already armoured man stopped a fair bit away from the growing group, clearly surprised by Pyrrha’s presence if the passing uncertainty on his face was indication.

“Boss, is the bimbo bothering you?” Miltiades drawled, voice thick with Mistrali accent as she brought up her gauntleted hands. Her jade-green eyes lit with something undeniably dark as she ran a finger against the blade of one of her claws. Her sister remained silent but stepped around her to box Yang against the counter. “We can show her the door if you want?”

Huldra chose that moment to decide enough was enough, the spectre peeling off of Weiss’ upper body and draping herself over her shoulders, ever the white and blue mirror. Blessedly, she did not do anything further, simply laid there with eyes like chips of ice watching this disaster unfold. Smiling, waiting, like the smug shit was a looming threat instead of ready to bolt away to start evacuating the civilians the moment things took a turn for the worse.

Of the two of them, it was Weiss who could take anything resembling a hit, so it would obviously fall to her to keep this cavalcade of fuckups vaguely contained. Huldra knew this perfectly well, with how much amusement the damn wraith was radiating.

Yang looked the two twins down with a snort before tilting Ember Ceclia back and cocking her gauntlets, the shotgun rounds sliding into the chambers with an audible thunk. “You can try,” she said, her tone making it clear that the twins wouldn’t be getting much further than that.

“Could you be as kind as to not begin spraying buckshot in a venue packed wall to wall with civilians?” Weiss drawled icily, “If you are that hard on cash and high on frustration, I will happily rent a sparring room from Mr Xiong here and we can sort you so some actual negotiations can happen.”

Pyrrha nodded, putting a hand on Yang’s shoulder - though the blonde immediately shrugged it off. “Let’s not resort to physical violence before we’ve exhausted our other options,” she added.

Yang frowned and crossed her arms but didn’t make any more threatening moves, Weiss would count that as a win. “And you still owe me that drink,” the blonde said to Pyrrha.

“Which she won’t be getting here , blondie.” Junior snorted as he stood up from his seat, looming over the Huntress-to-be. “Now scram and ask your daddy why mom hasn’t come back with the cigarettes yet.”

There was a beat - a hanging moment in the air, for just a second - that Weiss had to register just how bad of a comment that was to make to Yang. Huldra, bless her unbeating heart, had already bolted to start evacuating civilians. Then, the Huntress was in motion, slamming a fist into Junior’s chin in a form-perfect uppercut that actually thrust the man into the air before he came crashing back down.

Then the fighting started.

“Ah, fer fuck–” Weiss bit down on a curse, baleful blue eyes turning towards the wildcards not quite spoken for yet, Aura-enhanced diaphragm and lungs splitting with thunder, “CARDIN, YOU’RE WITH ME, WE’RE EVACING THE CIVVIES! PHYRRA, KEEP THIS CONTAINED! LOOK ALIVE, PEOPLE!”

Weiss didn’t deign looking back to see if they were following her commands, she would simply hand out beatings as needed after everything was said and done if they failed to minimize the damage. For now, she laid down a cage of White Glyphs around the bar proper to hopefully keep the ensuing clusterfuck momentarily contained before Pyrrha got to work and beat feet for the crowd. Some orders bellowed here, some White Glyphs ready to spring up to block stray shots and falling ceiling decor, and she may just manage to keep anyone from ending in the hospital.

Or the morgue.

Junior’s twin bouncers didn't seem to even notice her consideration as they sprang into action immediately, both capitalising on the bartender showing absolutely no hesitation in smashing a bottle against Yang’s head, for all good it did against Aura. At least Cardin seemed to at least somewhat listen to her as he grabbed a pair of henchmen and got them to start moving people out before he pulled his mace off his back and awkwardly tried to wiggle inside the Glyph barrier, hindered by both his size and armour.

As Melanie aimed a high kick for Yang’s head, stepping protectively in front of Junior, Militia ran to Yang’s left- the two working together to seamlessly pincer their opponent against the bar. Seamlessly, if Pyrrha hadn’t stepped in, her shield smoothly drawn from her back and interposed between Militia and Yang as the girl’s claws skittered off of it. Melanie’s high kick found just as much success as Yang ducked under it, popping up afterwards to fire a shotgun blast at the girl that she was forced to tank with her aura, lest it fly past her and hit her boss.

The Twins barely took the time to regain their bearings or plan before they went on the offense again, weaving their paths to swap opponents. Melanie rushed quickly at Pyrrha to get her occupied while Miltia was once again being the one charging Yang. The bartender, so far forgotten by the two interlopers, reached over the counter and grabbed the blonde’s arm. A single punch to the face sent him crashing into the shelves of liquor but his task was accomplished - Miltia got the free hit in. Behind the twins, Junior was slowly coming back to his senses as he scrambled away from fighting. Cardin, in turn, seemed to be more invested in getting behind Yang and Pyrrha before committing to a course of action.

Pyrrha blocked Melanie’s flurry of kicks on her shield, angling Akoúo̱ to deflect the blows instead of tanking them head on. There was a momentary respite as Melanie spun around, building up the momentum for a stronger kick- only for Pyrrha’s javelin to shoot out and force the bouncer to twist around the spear before it could skewer her.

Pyrrha smiled, raising her shield a little bit higher and retracting Miló back to a more tenable position. “We’re not done yet, are we?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. The girl in white didn’t answer, instead sourly eyeing her. To their side, Yang and Miltia’s blows rang with the clash of metal against metal.

The only real warning Pyrrha got that Cardin finally made up his mind was when Melanie’s gaze strayed over Pyrrha’s shoulder, clear surprise flickering across her face before the bouncer set her lips in thin line and charged Pyrrha again, clearly aiming for a leg sweep. Pyrrha leapt over it, her body twisting in the air as she did so, and Cardin swung to hit her- only for Pyrrha’s shield to snap out, her arm twisting below her to block the mace’s strike with the thunderous clang of metal on metal. She crouched as she hit the ground and rolled out of the way of Cardin’s vertical follow up swing, her back touching the sides of the cage as she raised her shield once more, smiling. 

“Now, before we properly get started,” she said, letting Miló shift back into a sword, “I would like to say that I hold no ill will towards either of you; I just find it important to support my friends in their extracurriculars.”

Melanie’s eyes shot back that it absolutely was personal for her, but the girl didn’t say anything, just stalking to Pyrrha’s left as Cardin hefted his mace and walked towards her right.

“For the moment, just think of this as an incentive not to be racist, okay?” Pyrrha directed towards Cardin. 

The young man blinked at her owlishly, head tilting, before he snorted. “Consider me a changed man.” He drawled dryly as he hefted his mace with both hands, the crystal inside of it lighting up. “This will be over in four blows,” he added with a strangely confident nod.

Behind the two of them, Milita hit the edge of the cage, shattering the glyphs and hitting the ground with a groan.  Sharing a glance with Cardin, Melanie moved to engage Yang before she could recover. With a grunt, Yang caught the twin’s kick on Ember Celica and fell back into battle, Melanie’s assault pushing her back temporarily. 

Pyrrha nodded, raising her shield back up. “First to aura break?” she offered.

“Or knockout, whichever comes first.” The guy agreed easily.

There was a beat, for just a moment, before Pyrrha was on the move, charging in and slicing Miló across Cardin’s chest. The man pretty much let her, instead answering with his own thrust of his mace’s head that Pyrrha casually deflected with her shield, her other arm braced behind it. As Cardin stumbled past her, the mace meeting less resistance than he expected, Miló flew back around and struck his back, knocking him back- and giving him a chance to breathe. With a frustrated sigh, the bulkier teen rolled over to his back and pushed himself up, eyeing Pyrrha for a second during which Melanie’s body hit the counter of the bar and slumped over it.

Decision made, Pyrrha’s opponent charged her again, mace held above his head. As he got closer and the Dust crystal in his mace shone with the rightness indicative of Aura priming it for detonation, a thick, black smoke seemed to waft around his form at the same time as she was hit with the general sense of her motivation simply… dropping. Her eyes dulled, a frown crossing her face as the mace started to come down- only for her to drop to a knee and raise her shield up, bracing it with her sword hand, and block the mace at the last minute, the Dust crystal detonating on impact with a roar.

There was a moment - a brief moment - where Cardin wondered if he got her.

Then a hand reached around the shield and touched the head of Cardin’s mace.

From there, it was a one-sided slaughter. Effortlessly, Pyrrha dismantled Cardin’s defense, his mace working against him to miss attacks at the last minute and leave openings as it yanked itself to the ground. Miló and Akoúo̱ both flowed around Pyrrha more like water than weapons, fluidly shifting around in her hands to strike at Cardin where he was least expecting it - and least prepared to block. Finally, Cardin was knocked down - and with an almost contemptuous final shot from Miló’s rifle, his Aura broke.

Pyrrha blinked and winced as her emotions flooded back into her, Miló still pointed directly at Cardin’s unconscious form - just as Yang finished choke-slamming the final one of Junior’s thugs to the ground. “Is that all of them?” she called over to Yang, her rifle shifting back into a sword as she sheathed it on her back. The Glyph cage around them was already winking out of existence at this point.

“Should be,” Yang responded with a quick head count. “Got all of these assholes, bartender’s still out cold, the wonder twins are down for the count…” Which was, of course, the perfect timing for an entire barrage of rockets to fly screaming in their direction.

Mostly at Yang, but given their proximity…

Pyrrha sprinted forward, her shield held behind her as she did the calculations in her head. There was a reason she was touted as a prodigy when it came to combat, even with her semblance hidden, and she demonstrated it as she hurled Akoúo̱ at the cluster of rockets. It impacted the first one, knocking it off course and Pyrrha held a hand up and flicked the shield upwards into the next rocket, then the next, then the next, and like a conductor she pinballed her shield into each missile, detonating them before they could reach any of the unconscious combatants.

“Guess we were missing one, huh?” Yang asked, stepping next to Pyrrha and cracking her knuckles as the shield flew back into Pyrrha’s hands. Up in the DJ Booth, Junior’s face rapidly paled as he realized exactly who he was dealing with - if the scores of unconscious goons weren’t enough to indicate it already.  

Pyrrha shrugged. “A blessing in disguise, I suppose, if you’re still looking for that information.”

“Let’s do it.”

Then the two sprinted forward, crossing the dance floor in a blur of motion. Pyrrha had the edge on Yang, outstripping her by just a little as the two sprinted forward. Another salvo of rockets flew out of Junior’s weapon, tracking both huntresses but unable to keep up with the sheer speed that either could output as they split wide, dodging the rockets and reconvening just under the booth.

“Boost me!” Pyrrha shouted, leaping into the air and crouching onto her own shield. Yang grabbed the rim of the shield and, like the world’s most unwieldy frisbee, hucked it at Junior before running for the stairs.

Junior, to his credit, managed to shift his weapon in club form and raised it above his head before Pyrrha could reach him. As she flew through the air, however, Pyrrha twisted so that she was parallel to the ground, Akoúo̱ interposed between her and Junior. His club came down, slamming into Pyrrha’s shield, the girl in question almost hanging for a moment as the sound of metal on metal echoed throughout the empty club.

And then she was backflipping away from Junior, Akoúo̱ flowing over her legs and back into her right hand. With a snarl, Junior was on her, swinging his massive club back and forth like it weighed no more than a child’s toy. Pyrrha just grinned and blocked each attack, the club deflecting off her shield with its own momentum working against it.

And then Junior overextended and Pyrrha slipped to the side, letting the club slam into the ground as Pyrrha slid to the man’s left, Miló forming into a javelin as she slammed its shaft into Junior’s head. The mob boss staggered backwards, dropping his club- straight into Yang Xiao Long, who kicked the back of his knees, knocking him down.

“Now, about that information…” she grinned, her smile widening at the look on Junior’s face.

“ What a mess, what a mess… ” A voice drifted up from the stage, Weiss idly tightening her gloves as she scanned through the emptied venue. At least damages had been a hell of a lot more contained beyond what Junior had done with all those rockets once her job as a Huntress was done, nothing liable to crumble or collapse as far as she could tell. Still, she threw a glance up at the DJ stand and the standoff going on there, “Ms Yang, please do not do anything that will force me to get involved, whatever business he does in the background Mr Xiong is currently defenceless and you were ultimately the aggressor. There’s only so much I can overlook in the name of being an unrelated third party and I would really rather not end the evening with a trip to the hospital and multiple broken bones.”

In the background, Huldra dutifully checked over Cardin, looking for signs of concussion, contusion and other fun things you could still get through an Aura forcefield. A stark white thumbs up thrown her way said he wouldn’t need an ambulance, at the very least.

“Believe me, I’ve got nothing against him,” Yang said, grabbing Junior by the collar and lifting him up. “As long as he gives me what I’m looking for, I’m happy to just get the hell out of here.”

“Screw you, blondie…” The man hacked as he tried to crawl back. “No idea who that is, and at this point there’s no money you could pay me to dig for it.”

Yang blinked and shook Junior a little. “Are you sure ? No idea?”

“ Look, I know, or can learn, everything that happens in the Vale .” The man stressed out, apparently just eager to get the violence happy teens out of his property. “All I can tell you right now about your mother is that she is Mistrali which is, last I checked, not in the Vale. ”

Yang sighed and unceremoniously dropped Junior, the man crumbling to the floor in a heap with a groan. “See, was that so hard?” she asked rhetorically, brushing her hands together. Stepping over Junior, she strutted towards the door, Pyrrha following behind her with her sword and shield returning to her back.

“This is the risk of doing business, I assume.” Weiss said quietly to Junior as those two started filing out - Pyrrha giving a brief nod in acknowledgement to Weiss as she left before she took out a reporter’s notepad and pen, checking something off - before checking him over for the same battery of potential problems as Huldra had Cardin. Blessedly, there seemed to be nothing worse than some bruising as she finished checking the poor man over. “No civilians were injured and none of your people have any damage that’d merit an ambulance, so I will leave you to address things from here as you see fit.”

Her piece said and met with a nod, she slung Cardin over her shoulder with nary a complaint from anyone present and took her leave. Best not to have the poor man incriminated in all this, which Junior seemed to agree with.

____________________________________________________________________________

Cardin had, unfortunately, not woken up while she carried his insensate ass over her shoulders like an armored sack of potatoes. Nor did he have an address anywhere in the documents on his person, after Huldra’s head and hands had taken a gander. Which led them to the high-rise apartment she had rented for the week, the sort of place Hunters pingballing around Remnant liked to hole up in, priding itself on its privacy without being the sort of cockroach motel she imagined Qrow favored.

It meant she had a nice commanding view of Vale’s night skyline without all the paparazzi problems of grabbing a penthouse proper in a fancy hotel. Much as she would’ve personally enjoyed the experience - nevermind the convenience of room service - this was better.

Among other things it meant she could crack open a nice and cold beer can while waiting for the man of the hour to wake up already without starting a scandal. Between that and the lap pillow he was getting completely for free, she may even avoid being identified!

Crack-tshhh.

Glug, glug, glug.

“Ahh, that hits the spot.” She sighed happily. New palate, new wonders! Also, it was a pressure point for Willow to ease down on the alcoholism, although how much it would stick without her around–

Her thoughts were interrupted by Cardin stirring awake with a groan, a hand shooting to his forehead before he relaxed slightly. The faint, momentary shimmer over his form informed her that he activated what he recovered of his Aura to ease his body back after the beating Pyrrha gave him.

“Hey, you. You’re finally awake.” Weiss greeted with an amused curl to her lips and voice, glancing down at the ginger on her lap even as she leaned back on her sofa. Bit of a long shot, using that line, but where there was one there could be more. It’d sure make it easier on her if the guy still remembered that she’d known him by name despite all logic, after that concussion he’d gotten.

There was a silent beat before Cardin wheezed with a short laughter. “ God , please don’t tell me I will have to go excavate Mount Glenn to receive sustenance from now on.” He joked before slowly opening his eyes. He blinked a couple as he stared at her face before he raised his head just enough to get a good look around before collapsing onto her lap again. “I think I’d have an actual panic attack if I woke up in a library.” He added idly.

“It’s just seven thousand steps, you big baby.” Weiss snorted, shooting Huldra a thumbs up as she chucked her another beer can straight from the fridge, pressing it against the bump on Cardin’s head, “Sure beats being turned into a popcorn machine man.”

God bless incomprehensible fandom in-jokes, if need be she could just blame any nonsense on the beer and having taken a few hits during that fight in trying to minimize damage. She hadn’t had to, just made sure there was no crowd crush while she kept an eye on the battle, but Cardin wouldn’t know that with how he was knocked out halfway through.

“I don’t think I’ve heard that one so you win the reference-pong.” The man acquiesced. “Don’t really need the compress, tho, Aura sure is convenient.” He added before looking Weiss in the eyes. “So, now that I’ve confirmed you won’t turn me inside out to get a matching summon with Weiss over there,” He pointed vaguely in Huldra’s direction, “Which way, western man?”

“Western woman right now. Unless changelings don’t count?” Rayleigh replied with a wry grin, draining the last of her beer can and crumpling it into a neat little aluminum cube as though it was made of putty. May as well have been, when Aura-enhanced strength came into play. “Don’t suppose you had an exciting morning a week ago?”

By now, she was confident enough that this poor fucker was in similar straits as her, she just needed to see if she was lucky and it had happened at the same time. That’d sure make things a hell of a lot easier to figure out.

“If by ‘exciting’ you mean ‘woke up younger and healthier and also racist’, then yes, I suppose it was a pretty exciting morning.” Cardin confirmed her suspicions, as dutifully as his tone was dry.

“At least you didn’t have to square up against a giant Grimm-powered robot within eight hours of waking up.” Rayleigh grunted as she set the unopened can of beer on a nearby coffee table, not caring a whit about how that meant bending over Cardin’s head. Not like she had enough up top for anything unfortunate to happen. “God, that fight was fun, but I could’ve gone without learning what it’s like to get your nose broken. Would be lookin’ like Voldemort right now if it wasn’t for Aura.”

“Nothing so exciting, no.” He admitted, waiting for her to lean back before sliding off her lap and sitting next to her. “Managed to dodge Cardin’s family until today. Otherwise, I just got in debt with the mafia.”

“Well, Junior cares enough that he gave me a silent go-ahead to carry you away so you wouldn’t get incriminated, so there’s that.” Rayleigh replied with a shrug, “And good on you. I just bit the bullet and somehow, through some miraculous alignment of planets, managed to get Whiteley and Willow to pull their heads out of their asses and actually start rebuilding some bridges. Jacques is a lost cause, tho, and Winter has yet to answer any of my texts. Although her I figure is just ‘cause she’s on some mission or other out of CCT range, or forced on full radio silence. Dunno how close to glowies Atlas Specialists are.”

God, but it was nice to truly let loose in person. Her online chats with Penny were nice, but hanging out and bitching like this was scratching the itch something sweet.

Cardin gave a low hum as he stared off into Vale’s skyline, arms resting on his knees, back slouched. “Good to know my initial assumption you were that one semi popular fanfic addiction of literal family black sheep was wrong.” He admitted eventually. “Not sure how your bullshit Semblance managed to keep Weiss around, but Glyphs is hot nonsense enough I can believe it can do that. At least you just have dysfunctional family dynamics, that can be fixed with good old regular interactions, and you have a cheat sheet for them.” He continued grumbling before facing her with a lost expression on his face. “Did you know Cardin has a younger brother?”

“About the only one of them I feel comfortable even trying to connect with, and I am still not sure him being salvageable isn’t just him stumbling on the wrong parts of the CCTS after hearing ‘fuck faunus’ a little bit too often.” He added with a chortle as he leaned back without touching the beer she abandoned on the table.

“Incredibilis.” Rayleigh drawled out, before shooting a smile at Huldra as the wraith took the beer back to the fridge. Cardinal wasn’t one to drink, it seemed. “At least he probably knows what kind of ear and tail touching is third date stuff better than either of us.”

Cardin didn’t say anything for a few moments, simply leaning back on her sofa before he finally spoke again. “Actually, satisfy my curiosity, what were you doing at Junior’s? Yang, we all know. Pyrrha, I think might be another one of us, in addition to just trying to get in Yang’s pants, but you?” 

“You know how Weiss was great at Dust Casting, especially with her Semblance, but microwaved dogshit with the summoning aspects? Yeah, that got flipped around when I got shoved in. I just have Huldra there and Arma Gigas’, well, arm . Sword included.” Rayleigh explained with a languid flip of her wrist, “Was trying to buy myself a spar or five with the twins, see what tricks I could nick to play waltz in black and white.”

“Was she, though? You already passed her peak with better results.” Cardin replied with a smirk before huffing. “Not that I have much room to criticize. I’ve managed to get the same, just to try and fix Cardin’s absolute dogshit ability to coordinate with people in a fight. Or keep aware of what’s happening. Heh, wonder how the Twins will set up their lessons now that they have two customers.”

“We may as well ask if they’re down for a two-on-two, my summons notwithstanding. I’m going to be aiming to partner up with you at Beacon.” Rayleigh replied with all the grace and delicacy of a sledgehammer to the teeth, “Don’t want to end up with someone I need to put a facade around even when we’re in private, y’know?” 

“There is Pyrrha. I am pretty sure she is in the same boat as us as well.” He pointed out. “You sure you want the top of the bottom runners tied to your neck?”

“Firstly, she’s waaay too busy making useless lesbian noises at Yang, and no way in hell I can butt in there if that’s her type. Secondly, just imagining the sheer paparazzi concentration of an Atlesian idol and a famous Mistrali gladiator partnering up is threatening to give me a stress ulcer, Aura or no Aura.” Rayleigh replied, raising a finger with each point, “Thirdly, I can use you as an excuse to armor up even more, this turtleneck is actually a modern gambeson type thing with stab, slash and bullet resistance, but I’d like to slap on some chainmail and whatever bits of plate I can make play nice with layering Arma Gigas over me. Fourthly?”

Her extended fingers closed into a fist, “I am a fucking spar fiend and making sure you get some extracurricular double trouble on the reggie sounds like a great time. I’d rather parcel out Pyr taking me to the cleaners so I have time to ponder on where I fucked up and work on improving it for next time.”

Cardin had been nodding along her initial points, almost managing to convey his appreciation for the idea of a fully armoured woman through facial expression alone before Weiss’ final point registered. The other teen snorted as he shook his head. “ Of course. Seems my luck with women is holding up. Really wondering about him provoking Coco now. Aight, I don’t think we’re going to be able to indulge your sadism kink tonight and I could use a proper nap to recover, so how about we call it a night and I’ll give Twins a ring in the morning?” He asked after muttering something under his breath.

“Sounds like a plan. You staying the night, or footslogging home?” Rayleigh asked with a tilt of her head before waving her hand lazily, “This place’s pretty private and I’m signed up under an alias, so don’t worry about causing me rep trouble.” 

“If you’re offering.” He agreed easily. “That way I don’t need to explain to my folks why I am back a bit earlier than for the entire rest of the week. Don’t worry, I find couches perfectly agreeable sleeping spots.”

“Good, ‘cause this is a single bed apartment. Pretty sure the couch is a foldout, though. Huldra, mind figuring it out while I go fetch some spare sheets and pillow from the bedroom?” Rayleigh asked as she climbed to her feet with a cat-like stretch, Aura rippling up and down her body as it worked out all the kinks in her meatsack. 

The wraith gave her a stark white thumbs up and that was that.

____________________________________________________________________________

“So, how good is your Aura reinforcement?” Cardin asked her as the two of them made their way through the Vale’s commercial district the next afternoon. The portion of it closer to the industrial portion of the city, if just for the convenience of the various combat gear-focused businesses. Not like Dust, which was so ubiquitous and essential to every aspect of society one could find shops selling it wherever one went in any of the cities.

“Good for enhancing my body, above-average for enhancing my gear, mediocre at best when it comes to the forcefield.” Rayleigh - given that she wasn’t playing the Schnee changeling right now, hair down and dressed in the same black outfit as that night at Junior’s - rattled off immediately, “I will be putting as much work on that as on my Semblance, speed is not armor. Damn Arma Gigas nearly took my head off with a backhand, and even so broke my nose like a pencil with a graze.”

Not against endless hordes of Grimm, at least.

“You could argue the problem was simply not enough maneuverability and speed, if we are talking modern Huntsman trends.” Cardin pointed out. “Mostly asking because even just what’s in the noggin’ tells me a proper armour is already an investment of Aura. Both to bass boost your strength so it doesn’t slow you down and strengthen the metal.”

“Mhm. I’m currently thinking some serious-face gambeson rather than the for civvies stuff, plus some real deal chainmail thrown on top to help those meshes some more.” The changeling idol hummed agreeably. “Don’t have the time to get used to a different range of motion, and my combat style is acrobatics and precision heavy. Not being able to twist or bend my torso freely would trip me up at Initiation. Once we’re in Beacon for real I can take my time working out the kinks and training my Semblance until I can cast ‘summon magic power armor’.”

“Good, that means I will stay as the only guy in a five thousand mile radius in actual full plate.” Cardin grinned happily as he led her through the bustling streets, the only glances sent her way of perfectly mundane jealousy and want. “Well, once I have enough cash to finish the suit.” He added after a moment in a more subdued manner.

“I’m sure Beacon has something in place for giving students stipends for repairing, replacing or upgrading wargear. Failing that, well, a lot I can spin as ‘cultivating connections’.” Rayleigh snorted, hooking her thumbs on her pockets. 

“Truly, I will become immortal solely on the back of the debts I take.” Her companion sighed goodnaturedly before he stopped before a fairly unassuming storefront. The simple, purple neon sign denoted the shop as ‘Harrison’s Armoury’, with the logo being a circle surrounded by a trio of triangles. There was a pair of mannequins on display on both sides of the door, one clad in typical ‘tactical’ body armour with a (likely) prop gun stuffed into its hands, while the other had an actual suit of armour and a downward pointing two handed sword. 

“Anyway, here’s the place I got my stuff from. Not exactly a Schnee’s tab material quality, but it does the job.” He added with a snark.

“Maximum rampage for minimum lien.” Rayleigh wasn’t able to stop herself. 

Then Cardin replied with, “Discounted destruction for deducted sums.” and they were off to a game of who would run out of D4C jokes first.

____________________________________________________________________________

“Well, nothing has exploded so far, so I will count that as a win.” Weiss hummed happily as she strolled by Cardin’s side towards Beacon’s auditorium, fully bedecked in armor sans an open-faced helm hooked to her belt on the opposite side of Myrtenaster. Nothing extravagant, at least at first glance, just gleaming white chainmail sewn atop some decently thick gambeson which provided a nice black background across her entire body. The way it shifted as she moved gave away that there was more to the cloth than just some modern meshes, though, small but overlapping metal ‘scales’ covered on both sides by the gambeson to serve as a jack of plate. That plus a nice gorget meant to overlap with the helm so her neck couldn’t get hit beyond a hooking strike aiming more for the underside of her jaw was about as much armor as she could pack in without really affecting her mobility. Sure, it was extra weight, which had its pros and cons. But Aura meant there were more of the former than the latter.

Not exactly going to make her sluggish and easily tired when she had the literal light of the soul reinforcing her body to superhuman standards, after all. Or be a problem to maintain when she could enhance it enough wear and tear would be nonexistent.

By her side, Cardin, finally walking in a full suit of gray plate and without much problem regarding all that weight despite not using his Aura, shrugged. Unfortunately for their little games of references, he had yet to repaint it black. “Unless you count Miss Protagonist’s heart rate. The poor girl definitely entered her popular phase.” He pointed out with a snort.

“I don’t think she’s realized quite yet she’s socializing.” Weiss chuckled quietly as she watched over her shoulder the weapons nerd among a cluster of her people, looking five seconds away from starting to field strip some of their gear as they all gushed about the wonders of mechashift. “Ten lien say it doesn’t hit her she made friends until she’s laying down in the auditorium tonight.” 

“Fifteen that Yang will detonate her as soon as they are back together.” Cardin took it without hesitation while using his bulk to secure them a route ahead, closer to the front of the auditorium. Which, considering he was intertwining his conversation with apologies and grunts at people to let him pass made for a hilarious show. “They are not subtle.”

“YOU!” someone shouted across the platform, shoving her way through the crowd towards them. The two turned to see Yang, a stormy look on her face, Pyrrha following behind her and offering apologies to the hunter-hopefuls that the other girl nudged out of the way.

“Me.”/“Me.” They replied in perfect sync, glanced at each other and nodded before turning back to Yang. ““Us.”” Cardin even threw in a smirk to be blatant about what they were doing.

“What are the two of you doing here?” Yang asked, ignoring the little comedy skit and crossing her arms. “Looking for round two?”

“From what I have heard, that’s how combat classes work, yes.” Cardin immediately replied, the only energy in his voice present on account of haste to be the first to reply.

“We have an eeeevil plan to infiltrate Beacon by passing their exams and then all their courses so as to get Hunter Licenses. For nefarious deeds, naturally.” Weiss added without missing a beat, switching between corny over-acting to deadpan professionalism and back like she was dancing a tango.

Yang rolled her eyes. “Ha ha. Don’t you have, I don’t know, civilians to be shaking down for protection money?”

“That’s Thursday nights, rest assured.” The changeling replied with a customer service smile.

“I would never dream of infringing on the IRS' turf, I like my bones unbroken.” Cardin, meanwhile, took the less direct approach. 

“The IRS?” Yang blinked. Right, it had a different name around here, even if the taxmen were about the same no matter the world.

“Let’s take a couple of steps back,” Pyrrha said, shaking her head. ““Yang hasn’t interacted with either of you outside of the two of you siding with the mob, after all,” she pointed out. “Even if you-” a nod at Weiss, there, “were present as more of a neutral party.”

“I’d like to point out that Junior’s is a perfectly legitimate night club.” Cardin pointed out dryly. “It has CCTV reviews and all, if you care. I was just inserting myself into what looked like a brewing situation. Since, you know, about to do that for a living.”

“Hunters are about as close as it gets to professional busybodies. More of very literal trouble-shooters, though.” Weiss snorted in agreement. 

Yang crossed her arms and glared at Pyrrha. “I’m not apologizing for fucking up some literal mobsters that came at me with axes, if that’s what you’re angling for,” she argued.

“More power to you.” Cardin shrugged without a care in the world. “So, besides some friendly slander, what’s up?”

Yang paused, like the point of the conversation had somehow escaped her, and Pyrrha stepped in. “Well, I would like to suggest that what’s up is that we’re here to say no hard feelings on either side?” the red-haired girl suggested. “If we’re to be working together at Beacon, it would be best to clear the air, right?”

“While I’m not exactly enthused with how both my interactions with Yang here have gone so far, I am perfectly happy to stay in my lane and keep things professional, so long as the courtesy is returned.” Weiss settled on after a moment of flicking her eyes between Pyr’s and Yang’s, letting her whole bearing loosen minutely.

“I have already forgotten any feelings on the matter I might have had!” Cardin announced cheerfully as he crossed his arms across his chest.

Yang sighed. “Fine. At least, for now,” she acquiesced.

Pyrrha beamed. “I’m glad to hear it,” she said, but before she could add on to that, Ozpin and Glynda stepped onto the stage of the auditorium.

“Ahem,” Ozpin began, the everpresent mug of hot brown fluids present in his hand even during formal address. “I'll try to keep this brief, everyone. Each and all of you have traveled here today, some further than others, in search of knowledge. You wish to hone your craft, to acquire new skills. And when you have finished, you plan to dedicate your life to the protection of the people. But I look amongst you and all I see is energy in need of purpose. Energy that needs to be honed. You assume that with knowledge will come direction, but your time at this school will prove to you that knowledge can only take you so far on its own. It is up to you to take the first step.”

Yang blinked. “That’s it?”

“Would you rather spend an hour hearing him pontificate?” Weiss chuckled wryly. Honestly, she appreciated the briskness.

“I could always use a little bit more shut-eye before the big day.” Cardin riposted, which considering he managed to also fall asleep on the Bullhead flight over would actually be an achievement.

“I guess not, but I thought it would be more… exciting,” Yang said. “He almost seems like he doesn’t want to be here.”

Pyrrha shrugged. “If you get to be that old I doubt you want to spend all day around a bunch of random teenagers,” she pointed out. “He may warm up once we’ve proven we’re actually competent tomorrow.”

“How old is he, anyways? Aura’s passive healing makes it pretty much impossible to eyeball a veteran Hunter’s age.” Weiss asked, genuinely curious about how old this incarnation of Oz was. She hadn’t thought to look it up online, and it was decent enough conversation fodder.

Yang shrugged. “He’s been headmaster for what, fifteen or twenty years? Something like that?”

“Fourty something is perfectly respectable age for an active Huntsman.” Cardin pointed out with his own shrug.

“Do you figure he takes an enthusiastic walk through the woods every time he needs to vent steam from being in charge of educating hundreds of superpowered teens?” Weiss snickered softly, “Really don’t envy him or any of the staff, especially with the cultural zeitgeist around here meaning uniformity is the devil and being as loud and flashy as a stun grenade on and off the battlefield is a virtue.”

It was just a little difficult to teach literally hundreds of people each with unique weapons, outfits and superpowers beyond the baselines of Aura and Dust. Academia broke down when you couldn’t standardize things, at which point you were better off with a tradesguilds system of masters and apprentices and journeymen.

“Careful there, Weiss, your storied Mantle heritage is showing.” Cardin warned her with a wry grin as he held his arms up to stretch.

“Says the man in full grey plate.” Weiss snorted as she nudged her partner to get them walking already, “Can’t wait for you to give it the Blackguard paintjob. What heraldry do the Winchesters even have, anyways?”

“I hate to disappoint you Weiss, but not all of us have generational heritage which can serve as our emblem off the bat.” The only guy in their group answered. “The supposed eagle was just something I came up with on the fly because I had to have something. ”

Pyrrha held up a hand. “I think we’re going to try and track down Ruby and figure out where dinner is- we’ll catch the two of you later?”

Weiss waved them off, much more preoccupied with making sure her partner didn’t neglect his armor fashion. No historical livery or heraldry simply meant they could make shit up. Would rampant beasts be considered in poor taste here in Remnant?

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: 

“So, should we warn Ozpin about the details of the dark and imminent plots against his school looming on the horizon?” Cardin asked her once the dinner was finished and the students-to-be released into the auditorium to mingle and prepare to spend the night before initiation together. The guy dutifully put his weapon away in the assigned locker but refused to strip off his armor and didn’t seem to have pajamas on hand.

Weiss supposed that was a way to acclimate to it, even if it would need a good wash afterwards. Skin oils were insidious bastards. She had simply taken a nice hot shower and gotten in a sinfully soft set of pajamas. Utterly plain shirt and pants with nothing to them other than a very rich indigo dye job, had been a minor headache to get something where the money had gone towards comfort rather than looks, but damn if it hadn’t been worth it. “Yes, just in case bystander effect has kicked in with all the other changelings, but let’s save it for after Initiation. Let’s say a day or two after, we’ll just head on up because we want some advice on a troubling personal thing, maybe imply it’s family related. Doubt he’ll turn us away then we can touch base and actually get some advice because God knows he’s the only one with anything resembling experience on this.”

“And this way we will dodge the implications of trying to use it to get in regardless of the results of the Initiation.” Her partner-to-be agreed as he clanked quietly in his spot drawing some looks from other applicants, most of whom followed Weiss’ route, if on a saner budget. “Hopefully Pyrrha had done the heavy lifting already anyway, because otherwise I will be very disappointed with whomever landed in that head.”

“Mood.” Weiss snorted, idly grabbing her Scroll from a tiny, almost imperceptible fold on her sleeping bag and getting to work typing a few messages. Just routine ‘hello, I’m at Beacon proper now, everything is going well, I made a friend who decided to sleep in his armor to get used to it’. Well, okay, that last part wasn’t exactly routine, but it made Penny laugh and Whitley respond with a message so dry it could re-enact Vacuo’s desertification all on its lonesome. 

…Winter still wasn’t responding. None of the messages had even reached her. Weiss was starting to worry.

____________________________________________________________________________

After a good breakfast with Cardin and a quick videocall with her family – vexingly, Winter was still out of contact, it took Huldra’s support not to let that worry sprout into anxiety – it was off to the armory badly pretending to be just a highschool lockerroom. 

Weiss hummed a merry tune to herself as she went about the businesslike motions of fastening and triple checking everything on her armor and gear. Jack of plate, check. Myrtenaster, sheath and belt with the straps set up right for a quick draw, check. Spare dust cartridges in metal-plated ‘pouches’ on that same belt, check. Gorget, check. Helmet, check. Boots, check.

That last one had been an experience. A proper artisanal cobbler would basically make and break a set of test leather around your feet multiple times on top of taking every measurement imaginable until they had a complete mapping of your feet to make something that felt like you’d been born wearing it. Only reason it didn’t take multiple weeks was that she’d paid a premium and gone to a place with plenty of scanners in use to reduce the drudge work.

While she mused on that, Huldra did her own checks, a second pair of eyes and hands fluttering all around her to ensure everything was as perfect as it’d get anytime soon. Couldn’t skimp out on preparation when dropping into a deathworld forest infested with indefatigable murderbeasts with no goal in life other than ruining people.

Musings which were cut short by a finger of ethereal snow and ice tapping on her shoulder, Huldra pointing to the side. There was a black-haired wolf faunus, she noticed faintly, but her eyes were on their weapon – if such a word could encompass the hulking monstrosity of killing steel.

If one were to ignore the three bulky lengths of steel midway up the haft, one could be fooled into thinking that it was merely the combination of a hefty naginata and a heavy-caliber rifle. The complex mechanisms revealed as the Faunus shifted the weapon through its forms put an end to that idea, however. The bulky parts in the middle slid up all the way to the top of the spear and opened up, made completely of steel and weighing nearly eighty pounds. At the same time, the blade split in two and shifted aside to allow a thick metal spike to come out of the spear’s haft—a spear that was seemingly hollow.

As the Faunus continued unfolding and then retracting the arms of the weapon, the spike extended even further out, nearly doubling the weapon’s already considerable length. As the wolf-person went through the process in reverse to retract the spike, she noticed all the Dust capsules scattered around the weapon—one on each of the small cylinders connecting the arms to the main body as well as six more situated slightly behind the most complex parts. In comparison, the unreasonably long rifle barrel running parallel to the haft, the heavy rifle components and the fact that the butt of the spear could shift into a rifle stock were barely worth mentioning.

Weiss couldn’t help herself, she let out a low, appreciative whistle. The Faunus nearly jumped and sharply turned their gaze her way, light green eyes wide from being startled out of their task. Their eyes roved over her entire form as well as Huldra’s – who threw him a cheeky smile – before finally focusing on her face. 

Deciding it was better to keep going than recant, she added a rough-as-sandpaper, “Going giant-killing, are we?”

The Faunus visibly shivered at her tone – making Weiss’ smile match Huldra’s – before eloquently attempting to answer her question with a confused “Uhhh–”

“What was– Giant-killing? Uhm, well, it is meant to take on larger Grimms, yeah,” they finally answered haltingly, voice just androgynous enough that it wouldn’t help in determining their gender. “Although… if it’s based on something used to destroy giant mechs, does that count?” They asked, tilting their head slightly to the side, much like a dog would.

“You said it yourself, ‘destroy giant mechs’,” Weiss chuckled, leaning forward to ogle the warmachine some more, Huldra half-melting back into her. A pallid spectre splitting off of her at the waist and tittering behind one hand while the other rested on her summoner’s shoulder, “I’m no mechashift engineer, but that’s some fine work. What’d you do with the cartridges to prevent a lucky hit turning into a detonation? Myrtenaster here uses some Dust-tempered glass, not perfect but being on par with lower end steel alloys before Aura reinforcement is good enough for my purposes, and having easy visual on what is slotted and how much is left in the chamber is worth the compromise.”

The Faunus’ gaze had closely followed Huldra’s form as she went through her usual antics, only focusing back on Weiss’ face after she’d mentioned mechashift.

“Um, thanks,” they replied, their face having gone red from the simple compliment. Huldra whispered a quiet ‘cute’ that made the blush outright incandescent, although the Faunus trucked along… decently well, “Uhh, umm– for uhm– for the cartridges, the– the fire and wind ones there are Dust-tempered glass,” they said, pointing at the six cartridges sticking out from the main body of the weapon.

“These ones aren’t, though. I didn’t have enough time to custom-make them, so I’ll be replacing them as soon as I can. At least they aren’t too exposed from the front, so I should be fine with just reinforcement for now,” they added as they gestured to the much smaller cartridges that were half-hidden behind the bulky arms of the weapon.

They then frowned as they thought back on Weiss’ exact words.

“Myrtenaster?” they asked in a confused tone as they once again looked over her body, this time focusing on the weapon at her side.

“Weiss!?” they loudly asked, incredulous. Then their gaze settled on Huldra’s partially manifested form and they stumbled back half a step, their visage rapidly losing color.

“I think you’re the first to recognize me by my weapon since I decided to switch up my wardrobe two weeks ago.” Weiss chuckled, knowing perfectly well that her weapon’s name and appearance wasn’t exactly common knowledge. Someone sufficiently dedicated could probably dig up a video or two of her fighting, at the most. SDC cared more about social functions and her musical career when it came to PR games.

Huldra, for her part, simply melted fully into her body. Best not to spook this one more than they were.

“Two weeks? Specifically two weeks? You–” they asked, cutting themselves off and shaking their head before continuing. “That, umm… Her, she’s from two weeks ago, too, isn’t she?” they asked, their tone apprehensive, as if dreading the answer.

Huldra, the little turd, took that as an excuse enough to peel off of Weiss’ right hand at the wrist to throw a thumbs up. Then the spectre was gone again. Shit like this was why she knew that Huldra wasn’t the original Weiss in any shape or form.

“Yes, although she isn’t quite what you’re probably thinking. Just my will to stand up straight and hope to be a better person put into a rather hyperactive package, far as I can figure out.” Weiss replied with a wan, crooked smile, “The Schnee Semblance just keeps pulling out surprises.”

Their expression grew somber as they listened to Weiss’ explanation and thought about some of the implications.

“Yeah… surprises. Unfortunately, I’m getting the feeling that some of the targets of that surprise weren’t as fortunate as others,” they said, a mix of pity and sorrow in their gaze. They let themself fall back against their locker as they began thinking, their expression far more serious than before.

“This isn’t how I expected this day to start at all,” they complained to themself before turning back her way. ”We aren’t the only ones, are we? There must be others, things are too different already.”

Weiss– no, Rayleigh’s smile was an expression of pain, “Fortune is sometimes a breaking wheel and all we can do is pick up the pieces.” She commiserated bitterly, before adding much more quietly, “Cardin and Pyrrha. Former’s a changeling like me, unsure of the latter’s arrangement.”

“Right… I’m pretty sure I saw Pyrrha with Yang yesterday, when I met Ruby and Lio,” they said, thinking back on the previous day’s events. “That explains that divergence, at least…” they muttered. 

“For Cardin, I’m guessing that was the big dude in armor that was with you yesterday?” They asked before frowning, “Wait, how did you even end up meeting him?”

“We both ended up signing up for spars with the Malachite twins.” Weiss replied with an easy shrug, casually sidestepping fifty pounds of context. The locker room was largely deserted for now and they were keeping things quiet, but still.

“Riiiiight, that sounds like a story,” the Faunus replied with a slow nod. 

“What were we talking about, again? Weapons and equipment, right? Uhm, I really like your armor!” they said, breaking the silence that had followed with forced cheer, obviously trying to change the subject to something less sensitive than their respective circumstances.

The mood didn’t really manage to pick back up from where it had started, but they at least traded names and now Weiss knew that this was Schwarz and that he was a guy. She also offered to spot him the money for those cartridge upgrades if he could set up Myrtenaster with a robust extending shaft to turn it into an ahlspiess at will, but before they could shake on it the bulk of the Hunter hopefuls came through like a stampede and that was that for any sort of quiet conversation.

____________________________________________________________________________

“Alright, I think we can safely assume Ozpin knows.” Cardin commented as they arrived at the cliffside from which the initiation would start. The utter confidence of his statement was backed by the presence of one Coco Adel, Beacon second year - or was she still technically a first year until after the initiation was over? - observing her prospective underclassmen mill around while standing next to the Headmaster and Professor Goodwitch. “Which means I can completely put worries about Cinder out of my mind and focus on worrying about Grimm instead.” He added cheerfully. “Well, that or us ending up on the same team as Neo.”

Because yeah, once he pointed that particular girl out, she was pretty recognisable in spite of colouration.

“She’s competent enough I have half a mind to get her on-side if she ends up with us. At least assuming our knowledge holds water.” Weiss replied quietly, not a whisper – the hissing quality of those were easy to pick up – just a lowered voice that got completely lost in the background noise of anxious teenagers trying to socialize. “Anyways, if you get launched first, I’ll dive to where I see you disappear into the canopy. If I go first, I’ll either hang in the air with a Glyph until it’s your go or send up a plume of fire so you know where to aim yourself, aight?”

“Works for me. I don’t exactly have great aerial mobility, so my landing strategy has been geared towards the finest trebuchet projectile larp.” Her future partner joked with a dumb grin on his face before he shook his head and clicked his tongue. “Really, about the only way for me to navigate myself up there is to detonate my Dust, which is kinda one time only, and I would prefer to save that for if we run into one of the giant Grimm.”

“I reserve the right to snatch you out of the air and ride you down like a surfboard if our launches are close enough together.” Weiss chuckled softly, only half-joking. Mostly because in that case she’d use some Glyphs to make sure their descent was relatively smooth.

“I’m not sure that’s what people mean when they say they want a spitfire of a woman to ride them till an explosive finish but I will take it.” He snorted as they moved towards their assigned launchpads.

Which, as it turned out, were right next to each other.

Weiss grinned like a fucking shark through her open-faced helmet, only really stopping when she noticed that guy with a weapon fit for cyberpunk Ahab – Schwartz, right – settling in to her right and waving at both of them. She had enough common decency in her to offer him a small, crooked smile and a quiet, “Good luck and happy hunting.” 

Huldra wasn’t anywhere near as reserved, peeling off of her upper body to give him a beaming grin and a thumbs up, before turning around to spiritedly smack Cardin on his armored back to try and give him some encouragement too.

Weiss listened with half an ear to Ozpin’s speech. It was as expected, get launched into the forest, collect the Relics, whoever you lock eyes with first is your partner. Although she reckoned that if a pair were incompatible enough there would be avenues to break off a partnership and shuffle things around, there was pushing people out of their comfort zone and there was forcing two people who caused nothing but problems on and off the battlefield to work together for four years straight.

Then, before too long, she could feel the launching pad fling her into the air. Ahead of her, Cardin seemed to stay true to his word - that is to say, the man curled up on himself into a vague approximation of a boulder and simply sailed through the air at the mercy of either her or the gravity. Not the most impressive flight path, especially compared to several of her potential classmates.

She simply planted a White Glyph on her own launch pad, triggering it in the same lurching moment of the machinery flinging her into the air, sending her hurtling through the sky like a heat-seeking missile bound for Cardin. It took another two Glyphs to grab onto him like a peregrine falcon would a pigeon, but after that it was just a matter of bleeding their vertical momentum into horizontal with prop– 

Her train of thought got violently aborted as they got reminded that the Emerald Forest was teeming with the Grimm in the most unfortunate way possible - by having her human boulder ride slam into the side of a giant Nevermore circling over the forest, baleful red eyes turning towards her with clear, malicious gleam. Underneath her, Cardin clung to the monster’s side with one hand, while the other clutched his weapon.

“What’s the plan?!” He shouted over the vicious screech of the Nevermore and the howl of the wind as the bird-like monstrosity carried them off away from the cliffside.

“Pierce the eyes and blow up its brains!” Weiss yelled back, putting word to action as her rapier darted deep as her wrist into the nearest eye before letting it rip with Fire Dust. The massive Grimm screeched hatefully as it flew deeper over the forest doing its best to try and shake them off.

“Don’t… exactly have a good weapon… to pierce stuff here!” Cardin shouted from below her even as he dutifully managed to shift his grip on that mace of his. Which, given the turbulence, was quite impressive that he managed to keep his hold of. “Also! Just as I said, I have only one shot with this, so be ready to get blown off the damn thing!”

“You know this big fucker would’ve come for us later anyways!” She hollered and braced herself, Huldra stirring under her skin. 

Then Cardin swung, his mace impacting the bone-white plate with a dull thud and a little bounce. The bright red Dust crystal in its head shone as Aura was fed into it-...

*BOOM*

…- and the explosion threw the Nevermore’s head to the side as Cardin loosened his grip on the avian monster, letting the two of them fall down towards the forest.

And hey, at least she spotted the direction of the ruins from up here.

Now time to get back to their regularly scheduled aerial acrobatics. Just… with a bigger hurry to get into the treeline, that thing sounded distinctly alive and angry up above, as the handful of quills whizzing past her ear reminded her.

____________________________________________________________________________

The ruins in which Ozpin put the relics for his students to find were… much, much less impressive than the name implied. Definitely not part of the greater complex in which, at one point, eight prospective students would face a pair of giant Grimm - instead being a glorified podium with a number of pedestals and a lone, if impressively high, wall. A bit away and beyond that, Weiss could see the crumbling skeleton of the ruins proper jutting above the tree line.

She had to wonder if this specific section of the site was artificially made for the exam just so Oobleck wouldn’t throw himself off the cliff and into both Grimm and prospective students to keep them from damaging the real ruins.

The chaff Grimm - the roving packs of beowolves, an ursa here and there, for the most part - didn’t present much of an obstacle to the pair, either. Young Grimm truly only had numbers going for them, which made the presence of multiple massive ones in the Forest an interesting conundrum. Or perhaps they were carefully curated by Beacon’s staff to present their students with some form of challenge as they grew in skill and prowess.

Needless to say - the twenty minute trek from their landing spot towards the relic site lacked much in the way of excitement, save for one spot when Cardin decided to try and see if his Semblance worked on Grimm. The answer was ‘yes, in a way’. The black smoke it produced and which clung to him like a cloak didn’t exactly sap Grimm hostility - instead it redirected it squarely towards him.

Ahead of them, Weiss could spot three pairs having already made it to the structure - Nora, Ren, Blake, a guy she vaguely remembered as Cardin’s teammate in canon, Ruby and the suspected Neopolitan. The group’s attention was alerted to their arrival primarily by Cardin clanking slightly ahead of her as he jogged at the pace they set for themselves once they confirmed just how much force they needed to deal with the minor Grimm.

“Morning.” Her partner grunted once they approached the group. The green-black-white version of Neopolitan seemed particularly surprised by his appearance, if the way she just stared was any indication - or the hissed out exclamation.

“Hello!” Nora, on the other hand, stayed true to form, giving them a greeting with the energy fully matching her demeanour.

Cardin’s once-upon-time teammate gave them a strained grin. “Welcome to my humble abode! What brings you here at this time of day?”

Going by that particularly deadpan glance Ren gave the blue-haired boy, it seemed Nora’s clever plan to partner with her sweetheart didn’t pan out.

“I enjoy taking enthusiastic walks through Grimm infested woods.” Cardin replied dryly.

“Unfortunately not moonlit.” Weiss added without a beat of hesitation, giving the prospective students a crooked grin.

Further discussion - even to warn the others about the impending, irate Giant Nevermore which hounded Weiss and her partner’s steps - was interrupted by the arrival of a pair of Pyrrha and Yang in a fashion truly betraying the former’s nature as a transmigrant. Namely by way of using the redhead’s shield and Semblance to use the bronze disc like a floating transport, with Pyrrha kneeling on the piece of metal and hanging onto Yang’s arm in a death grip. The eye-catching duo flew out of the woods with enough speed to actually overshoot the ruins and thus had to circle back before they landed.

“Hello, everyone. Glad so many people have made it.” Pyrrha said, just a touch breathlessly and more than a bit awkwardly.

“Aw, dang- we’re not the first ones?” Yang mock-whined as she approached everyone before giving her sister a cheerful wave. “Heya, Rubes.”

“Yang! I was looking for you everywhere!” The other, younger, redhead flew into her arms for a sisterly hug. Unfortunately for her, that particular plan was always doomed to failure, it seemed.

“Less flirting with your girlfriend and more bonking Grimm next time if you want to be first.” Cardin snorted while he marched over to the podiums to snatch a piece for Weiss and himself - a Black Rook. Shame it wasn’t a Knight, there could be a fair few jokes made about that selection. Nearly as many as there were for how glued the amazing magnet woman was to the sunny blonde.

Yang, in turn, didn’t particularly try to beat the allegations slung her way, instead petulantly crossing her arms as she huffed. “Hey, we bonked a big one! That, um, might be coming this way.” She finished lamely.

“Lovely.” Weiss replied in what was meant to be a dry drawl but betrayed how excited she was at the prospect. Sue her, fighting giant monsters was fun. The only issue was that she had to ration out the uses of Arma Gigas, otherwise she would’ve just killed the Giant Nevermore then and there. Now that they had their relic and were on the ‘get the fuck out of here’ part of the mission, though, those self-restrictions were loosened a great deal.

“Between the eight of us, it shouldn’t be too hard to take down.” Pyrrha seemed to be confidently in agreement with her, although part of that may have had to do with not knowing it wasn’t going to be eight on one.

Which is where Cardin interjected her with a pretty sheepish expression on his face. “We, ughhhhh, we might have pissed off a really big Nevermore on the way here.”

“Hey, I saw that one flying around when we got launched into the forest!” Ruby piped in excitedly. Weiss didn’t recall the younger girl’s exact launch position, but given Ruby’s overall mobility and speed - even mid-air - she had no trouble believing the eager red missile overtook them and then passed by the Nevermore before it could react to her. Or maybe Weiss and Cardin distracted it immediately after.

“Awful airspace dispute, that. It’s missing its right eyes now, though, so it shouldn’t be a problem if someone with a proper ranged option can ground it. Any volunteers?” Weiss asked, hoping someone would step up to the plate. It’d be a genuine pain in the ass for her and her partner to fight that thing as it was, neither of them had a real ranged option. Best they could do was Glyph-assisted fastball specials and Arma Gigas having a very loose and generous definition of ‘melee range’.

Better for someone like Ruby to snipe its dumb ass with some Ice Dust rounds so it crashed to the ground where they could give it a right and proper round beating.

“You know, I might be able to do something about that.” Sky mused idly while he scratched his chin. She didn’t really remember anything about him having a Semblance, so he might have a decent gun form for that hammer of his.

The next one to speak - thus surprising Weiss with the occurrence - was the suspected Neopolitan. “I could get it grounded if need be. Can’t say I’m the best shot but if it hits then it’ll definitely bring it down.”

Alright, given canonically, Neo showed no predilection towards having a firearm built into her umbrella, Cardin might’ve possibly jumped the gun on their classmate’s identity. Even if she really looked just like palette swapped Neopolitan.

Any further planning was derailed by another pair of students running out of the trees - a pair of faunus girls, with the absurdly tall, redhaired one with… were those gills running down the sides of her neck? The first confirmed example of non-landbound animal type faunus bemoaned her and her partner arriving so late in comparison to everyone else.

“Not late yet - the party’s just getting started!” Yang cheered the two with a vicious grin while Sky tried to nonchalantly present the relics to the fish faunus, and the current tallest person around, which was rather amusing given the height difference between the two.

Two more boys - tall, blue-eyed brunet with an axe accompanied by Schwarz - were next to stumble out of the woods and towards their increasingly growing group. At this point they had a good three teams assembled between everyone present, if Weiss wasn’t wrong, so even with two giant Grimm…

Of course, that mental calculation was squashed thoroughly when Schwarz revealed that they, too, learned that older Grimm could be fuelled by spite - in the case of him and his partner, in the form of giant hate-fuelled boar.

Typical wild boar, then. Pity she didn’t have a spear mode for Myrtenaster yet.

“Me and Raxa got a rock golem chasing us.” That, however, prompted the tallest redhead in their group - the fish faunus - to admit that they were bringing entertainment along as well.

“Is everyone bringing angry Grimm here?” Ruby bemoaned accusingly - and rather poorly, given her own excited grin and a little hop.

“Apparently!” Weiss laughed, no longer able to keep a lid on her bloodthirst. To wit, Huldra popped out just to fist-pump at the hell of a scrap they were looking forward to. Now the question clearly had become who would get to fight what, and what gribblefuck would show up first. 

Around her, her future classmates started their own preparations, with a small debate erupting around some form of cool one-liner to kick the action off - truly heartening to know Sky had his priorities well in order.

She only paid it half an ear and far less of her mind, her eyes scanning the sky and treeline, gauntleted fingers rapping out a steady wardrum beat against the guard of her rapier. She wasn’t looking at people anymore, even as she threw an idle, “I’m partial to a good ‘die, monster, you don’t belong in this world’.”

Just for morale and to vibe-check any other changelings going around.

She didn’t seem to get any response, even from the people she knew should’ve gotten the reference, so either everyone was distracted by the prospect of violence, thoroughly uncultured or local. Before she could ponder the implications of that - or the Grimm could arrive - the forest spat out the last pair into their little gathering. A lightly limping Jaune Arc with the armguard on his right arm ripped off and the clothes underneath torn by a Grimm’s attack - and currently leaning over his partner, a short, gray haired jackal faunus carrying a spear and shield even more battered than her teammate.

“Oh look at that, we’re the last ones, shocking.” The jackal girl commented with dryness rivalling Vacuan desert and all the bedside manner of its natives.

“Frankly I’m surprised we made it in time to grab a relic.” Jaune replied somewhat optimistically as he and his partner moved towards them all, still leaning against one another. Or, more accurately, the shorter girl kept dragging the blonde towards the pedestals by his mauled armour while radiating grumpiness.

“Every knight needs a castle, right?” Jaune pointed out cheerfully as he immediately took the last piece left - a matching Black Rook, confirming him and his sour and possibly creamless friend as Weiss and Cardin’s teammates.

Who knew, Weiss might even learn the girl’s name before they got out of the forest.

“Knights are lame. Wearing armor doesn’t mean you can delude yourself into being a good one.” The Faunus snarked as she turned away from the now empty pedestals, clearly not sharing in Jaune’s idealism.

“That’s good, I’m hoping to be a great knight instead.” Instead, she was met by the blonde’s unceasing optimism, causing her to groan pitifully. So that’s who would be the source of team tension this time around, instead of the show’s Weiss towards Ruby and Blake.

Any further banter between the two, however, was interrupted by the screech of the Giant Nevermore somewhere above their head. For a flying monster, it definitely took time for it to find them again, Weiss noted with satisfaction at the crippling she and her partner had meted out to it. Then the massive, arachnid-like form of a Deathstaker burst out of the treeline, because of course.

Which was, naturally, why Nora decided to tempt fate. “Is that it? I expected-...”

Before she could finish the thought, Murphy struck hard and fast - taking the form of a Petra Gigas breaking down the last remaining wall of this ruin in an incredible display of stealth for a giant, possessed mass of boulders. At the same time, the ground rumbled even more as the Boarbatusk Schwarz mentioned earlier rolled out - literally - to the cacophony of trees breaking and being uprooted.

Finally, now if the people behind her would stop flapping their gums and start picking out deathmarks, that’d be lovel–

“Schnee, Cardin, Jaune- take your partners and take the Borbatusk. Lio, Ruby, Schwarz- you guys take the Petra Gigas. Yang, Blake, Nora- we’re on the Nevermore. And everyone else, take down the Death Stalker.” Like an answer to a prayer, Pyrrha decided to take the initiative and made herself heard over the background noise of the various superpowered teens nattering on, barking out orders to pair rough approximation of teams with one of the big Grimm while the others got ready to fight - including some last second blathering from transmigrators deciding now was the time to reveal themselves.

She had already forgotten whatever the hell they were saying before they even closed their mouths, more focused on the full course of pork put in front of her. She saw no reason to gainsay Pyrrha on this one, it would be cathartic to see how many injections of Fire and Wind Dust this fucker took to go down.