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Chapter 59Notes:

BLACK ROSE IS NOW THE NUMBER ONE MOST COMMENTED ON NUTS N DOLTS FIC ON AO3 WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO YEAH SUCK IT BABEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

Chapter Text

"And one! And two! And three! And four!" Ruby called out, moving in time with her words as she went through the motions of her spear fighting training, her practice weapon swishing through the air as she guided Weiss through the basics of using a polearm- Weiss would have to make up her own style eventually, but for now just being able to use Myrtenaster's upgraded form at a basic level coupled with a slight adjustment to her normal rapier style would do- at least, until they could get a lot more practice in.

The drills were also good for getting Weiss to bulk up slightly- oh, she'd never be a musclebound goddess like Yang was, but the fact of the matter was that Myrtenaster was now quite a lot heavier than it was before. Honestly, the fact that Weiss hadn't dropped it by now was kind of a feat- with how the mechanisms in the blade and extended shaft worked, it was honestly almost three times heavier.

Because Ruby was nothing if not enthusiastic about over-engineering a weapon to the point that it became a lethal grimm killing machine. And… Myrtenaster was a lethal grimm killing machine. By now, the old rapier blueprints had been largely thrown out- oh sure, most of it still looked the same but a lot of the components had been swapped out and reforged and supplemented with alternative materials. Penny had been very helpful with allowing Ruby some insights into the proper usage and creation of Atlesian proprietary weapons grade steel- a whole lot of Dust went into the creation of it, and the precision made metrics were insane … but then again…

As it turned out- Atlesian proprietary steel might have been so much easier to machine to micrometer levels of precision, but… it wasn't… actually as good for combat as some of the material she used in Crescent Rose and Augury- heck, some parts of Myrtenaster were actually held back by being made of the stuff instead of the mix that Ruby used in her weapons, her family's weapons, and even Blake's Gambol Shroud. 

Something about being forged in the Dust infused blue flames of a grimmstuff kiln made metals so much stronger than they should have been- especially now that she'd refined her process over so many years. Myrtenaster (and, to be honest, all of her family's weapons) benefited from the new processes Ruby used and pioneered with Penny's help. 

Speaking of Penny… wow. Floating Array sure was great. And really technologically advanced! The swords were actually two halves full of Dust circuits and channeling pipes and all sorts of microgravity control surfaces that let Penny use the control signals through her cables to move them as she pleased. Also, they even had variable energy emitters that let her make giant lasers too!

Hm.

Ruby hummed quietly, stepping back as she observed Weiss run through the repetitions she'd been shown. 

Maybe she should add a few of those emitters to Crescent Rose's barrel… powering them might be a pain, but having a giant laser… wait.

Hm.

She'd eaten a few Sea Feilong in the past… what if… hrm…

Ruby shook her head and focused back on Myrtenaster, all of her eyes tracing over the elegant lines as Weiss collapsed it back down with a smooth, nearly instant movement, twirling the rapier in her hands before shifting it back to its full spear form, spinning the shaft around in an artful flourish that left glimmering lines of Dust shimmering through the air before she seamlessly swapped from rapier stances to spear forms.

Truly, Weiss was amazing at adapting to her new weapon. And it only took a week and a half to stop stumbling over herself! Mostly! Even if only because she'd attuned so well to Myrtenaster's new form by infusing it with her Aura!

Ruby was actually pretty proud of that. Mostly because Myrtenaster's engineering was just… whoof. And she thought Crescent Rose had been difficult- having an expanding blade with a collapsible shaft plus a deepened reservoir of Dust made for an interesting design challenge when she still had to make sure the blade could channel and fire its Dust out through the specially designed barrels on the flanges. Said flanges also rotated from their cross shape of four to an in-line pair as the weapon shifted, the trigger moving along with the shaft so it'd be within easy reach of Weiss' hands at all times.

It was, in all likelihood, her finest work- especially since she'd based the actual shaft mechanism on Augury's expanding shaft, plus the expanding blade was based on the same extending mechanism that Hush had in the rapier (just… horizontal instead of lengthwise), and a bunch of the other mechanisms were copied directly from some of the other weapons she'd worked on in the past. Precision forged and filed, CNC engraved, hand bored Dust channels and machine precise gearing…

Oooh, what a wonderful weekend project. Honestly, Ruby could have spent a month or more working on it, but she'd had to hold off on making it as ungodly complex as Gianduja (because… wow Gianduja was pretty and Coco was weirdly happy to show it off to Ruby? Weird how the older girl blushed a lot while Ruby was talking about her weapon, though…) because, well.

Weiss needed Myrtenaster to be relatively unchanged for combat practice and also she was working on a limited timescale with regards to how many things she could add in.

Too bad she couldn't throw in an actual gun, but Weiss was pretty adamant that she didn't need a gun.

Yet.

Still though- all in all, she'd actually managed to increase Myrtenaster's total Dust use efficiency by a few percent, made the blade so much sharper and easier to cut, stab, and slash with, and although the weight had increased, the actual balance of the rapier hadn't changed much- and the spear form was still about as well balanced as could be considering it was a spear.

"Okay! I think that's enough for now," Weiss sighed, slowing to a stop and breathing out a deep, tired rush of air as she stowed Myrtenaster at her waist again, sweating slightly as she walked to the side of the arena and retrieved a water bottle for herself, while Ruby just hummed and jotted down a few notes on her Scroll. "I think I've gotten as much out of spear training as I can for today- Ruby, thank you again for helping. I'd like to note, though, that a lot of the forms you went through are considered advanced based on the training videos I pulled up in between classes. And also that… Myrtenaster's new weight is… still somewhat distracting."

"Ah- eheh… sorry. I can adjust it and use some polymer blends to lower the weight instead?" Ruby suggested, chuckling a bit awkwardly as she ruffled her hair and wagged her tail gently, her cloak fluttering around her as she bobbed her head back and forth. "I mean, if you're okay with it! I'd have to figure out the right ones to use… um… I guess I could use that military issue stuff- I'm not sure how Beacon has so much of it when it's supposed to be proprietary to the Atlesian military but it's supposedly really easy to tool and super durable while being lightweight- I prefer an all metal construction usually cuz it makes everything more durable than the polymer blends can be even with Dust reinforcement but I get if it's not really your style- I had to change a lot for Myrtenaster so…"

"It's fine. I much prefer it this way, actually. I trust your machining skills. I just… need to bulk up a bit, I suppose," Weiss sighed, poking at her bicep with a bit of discomfort- sure, a strong Aura mitigated a lot of the need to bulk up and even without an active shield, just the passive reinforcement of an unlocked Aura made her far stronger than any normal civilian, but… well. Stronger muscles were easier to reinforce than weaker muscles and Weiss' muscles were… more elegant and swanlike than she perhaps needed in order to be able to swing around Myrtenaster's new form quite as easily as she'd have liked. "And relearn some of my glyph casting, I think. It'll be harder to direct where some of my glyphs go if I have a harder time aiming Myrtenaster…"

"Yeah… more muscle can't hurt, I guess- I mean, Yang's pretty strong, and so is Cinder… Emerald used to not want to bulk up, but she's changed a lot since she'd been at Beacon a whole year. She doesn't skip arm day anymore!" Ruby giggled, twirling a lock of hair around her finger as she thought about her not-quite cousin, who had visibly gained bicep definition in the year since she'd been at Beacon. "She's still not great at lifting heavy stuff though."

"I imagine nobody in your family quite matches up to you or Yang in that regard. Speaking of, did you actually allow her to start using Dragon Sisters as an epithet for the three of you? It seems so… childish…" Weiss huffed, rolling her eyes as she stretched out her sore muscles and wound down from her exercise, her coat and skirt swishing around slightly as she shucked her jacket to cool off faster. 

"Of course I did! And it's not childish, it's cool!" Ruby instantly shot back, bouncing in place as she got excited over being a dragon sister out of pretty much nowhere. "It fits too! Cinder learned how to use Scorching Caress to ignite her breaths, Yang is the dragon in our family, and I can turn into a Sea Feilong! We're all dragons!"

"I feel I should point out that out of the three of you, only Yang has an actual claim to being the dragon by way of her name. You, Ruby Rose, are a corgi." Weiss deadpanned dryly.

"Hey, I'm sometimes a wolf!"

"More of a puppy."

"I'm not that bad!"

"The last time you turned into your full grimm form as a training thing, you spent an entire hour playing fetch with Penny instead."

"... Okay, but in my defense, Penny is great."

"..."

"What?"

Weiss sighed, pinching her brow. "Nevermind. Go… run off to her already would you? I'm going to shower and study."

"Oh, well… if you insist! Seeya Weiss!"

And with that, Ruby vanished into a cloud of rose petals that trailed out into the hall.

Weiss sighed.

"They're so cute together it almost makes me want to throw up…"

[Y'all have no fucking idea how hard it is to freehand draw these engravings on god i'm so glad the symmetry line tool exists]