24

Chapter 24

Sunday was mostly spent on schoolwork. Weiss' had dragged Ruby to the library and spent around three hours teaching her the basics of dust usage. Ruby's knowledge on dust was just so specialized that Weiss had decided that it would be easier to start from the beginning. Pyrrha joined them as well, saying that she wouldn't mind to refresh her knowledge. Her fighting style didn't use dust so while she knew the theory, she never really applied it and gradually started to forget bits and pieces. Yang chose to work out in the morning and after she was done, she left Beacon to have a joyride with Bumblebee.

-BBW-

The first week of September passed and Ruby's birthday was slowly drawing closer. And she didn't have a present yet. While Ruby would most likely not care and count her latest gift as one, for Yang it was a matter of sisterly pride. And she wanted it to be something special.

The yellow bike was once again parked in front of a seedy club. She considered whether or not to start smashing heads. These fools dared to raise their arms against her little sister and it demanded retribution. Sadly, she still needed their boss to do his job. Maybe if he did it well enough she would leave them only with a small scare.

When she entered, a few of the bouncers tried to approach her. Letting in a visibly armed person was against the rules of the establishment but Junior quickly sent them away. She was a good customer so far and it's not like she was the only guest with weapons.

"Hey there blondie, what can I do for you?" Junior greeted her with a smile.

Yang looked at him with an emotionless expression. He had a split-second to think whether something was wrong before her hand shot out and grabbed him by the throat.

"You don't even know how much you fucked up, do you?" She sneered and let a generous amount of venom seep into her voice while dragging him down so she could look him directly in the eyes.

The guards got alarmed seeing their boss manhandled but they couldn't exactly start shooting when they were so close to each other. The twins, who were their top bouncers, were rushing down from the upper floor to help their honorary uncle out.

In the meantime, Junior was completely lost. "It wasn't my fault!" He defended himself. He was sure that he didn't cross her in any of his personal venues and whatever happened during the time when he rented out his boys to someone else wasn't on him.

At least he hoped he didn't cross her. He found surprisingly little on her, and he would definitely not snoop around her ex-huntsmen of a father.

Yang decided that smashing his head through a wall would be meaningless if he didn't even know why it happened. "About a week and a half ago, Torchowick-" Junior barely resisted signing and rolling his eyes. Of course it would be his fault."- and some of your mongrels tried to bite someone very dear to me." Yang's semblance activated, the pressure on Junior's neck became barely below suffocating and the crimson eyes stared directly into his soul. "Now, while I would be more than happy to turn this place into rubble, I am willing to give you a chance to redeem yourself."

He was in no position to decline and already resigned himself to doing her bidding if it meant not being set on fire. He would give her a nod of understanding but he was sure that if he tried to move, she would snap his neck.

With her free hand Yang pulled out a photo from a pocket on her shorts. "Find this man. You have two weeks." She let go of his neck, the handprint still visible. There would definitely be some minor bruising even with Junior's aura doing its best. Afterwards she left without a word.

Junior signaled his goons to go back to their work, all of them except the twins did so. The two of them were being torn between fretting over him and going after the blondie.

He left them in charge of the counter while he retreated back into his office to take a look at the photo. After a quick search he knew this would be one of the more headache-inducing jobs. Looking for the dead was always a pain.

-BBW-

"Yang, can we have a word?" Weiss approached her teammate shortly before the start of the first class.

Yang didn't answer verbally but she did turn to her.

"Well, I asked Ruby how well you did in your old school." Weiss started out. "And I'm sure you can aim for better marks."

Yang raised an eyebrow at the statement. "And why is it that you are so interested in it?" Yang may have let her treatment of Ruby be, mostly because Weiss did become a bit less of a bitch and actually offered to help Ruby catch up on schoolwork.

"Because your marks reflect on a whole team! You may think that getting by is alright but you are dragging us down as well. And having low average scores will mean that we will miss out on the missions." The first-year missions may be several months away but Weiss would not be trying to catch up at the last moment.

Yang continued to stare at her, waiting for her to say something that would be actually important.

Unfortunately for her, Weiss had an argument that would definitely work. "Also, if the team performs badly, it will reflect on the team leader, who is supposed to make sure everybody does their best." It was cheating but she spent enough time with the two of them to know how close they were. Also, if it was Winter she would be tearing herself apart to do her best.

"Hmp." Yang frowned at her before turning on her heel and leaving for the class. While she didn't give her any confirmation and was definitely slighted due to her using Ruby's position in that way, she was actually taking notes during the lessons.

Great success.

-BBW-

Watching Ruby and Nora fight in the arena was rather funny. Both girls were rather short and used very big weapons. Despite the similarities, their fighting styles were completely different. Nora was like a charging bull, always trying to close the gap and smash Ruby with her giant hammer. Ruby would instead try to keep the distance and only closed in to land one or two heavy blows before zipping away again. Nora did try to fight her at range but the grenades were so slow that she would either escape the blast zone or even shoot them down mid-air.

After yet another exchange Ruby had lined up a proper shot and with a painful jerk of Nora's head as she received a bullet directly into the forehead.

Nora, while pissed about the shot, was even angrier about the sheer disrespect Ruby was giving her. "Are you using rubber bullets?!"

Ruby decided that the fight was on an unofficial pause and stopped running around to have a chat. "Well yeah. If I used live rounds it would be too dangerous!"

"Miss Rose, I thought you had already resolved your issues." Glynda chastised her as well.

"It's not an issue!" Ruby turned to Goodwitch and started shouting. "If I used proper bullets you would scold me for being too triggerha-"

Ruby's tirade was interrupted by a grenade explosion, courtesy of Nora, who decided that while she would be fine with Ruby shouting at her but if she wanted to have a word with Glynda, she should have waited until after the class. What she didn't except, was that after the smoke cleared, Ruby was still standing in the same place.

With her head and most of her torso missing and her arms still being mid-gesture.

Absolute silence settled over the arena. Nora was wide-eyed and rapidly paling, Goodwitch mimicked her.

In the seats situation wasn't that different. Ren was about to run down to help calm everyone down while Blake and Ilia were sitting like statues, their brains slowly trying to understand what happened.

Weiss was terrified. She may have had her differences with their childish leader but this was an impossibility that she just couldn't understand. But her body's co-inhabitant had a slightly better understanding.

"Calm down. Everything is alright." A calm, melodic voice echoed softly in her head.

Pyrrha, who covered her mouth with her hands in horror, did her best not to look at it. She tried to convince herself that Ruby would definitely be fine. Then she remembered that Ruby's protective sister was sitting right next to her.

She expected a shock, a pained grimace or absolute fury.

Instead Yang was the calmest person in the entire room. Oh, she wanted to give Nora a beating for attacking her sister while she was distracted but she liked Nora enough to hold back her retribution. Also, if Ruby got distracted during an ongoing match it was her problem. Brothers know she had the problems with attention span unless it involves grimm or weapons.

Soon enough the fear and worry were replaced with confusion. Ruby may have been missing a significant portion of her body but there was no blood. Instead the insides of her body looked as if somebody stuffed it with petals. The same was happening behind her. There was supposed to be a shower of gore and a pool of blood, instead bright red petals lazily floated in the air.

In a move that caused a lot of people present to become very nauseous, the body moved on its one. It was now facing Nora, its arms crossed in front of where the chest used to be.

The petals swirled and returned to its place while the red mass was being pumped out of the remaining parts of the body.

Barely two seconds after being blown apart, Ruby Rose was back as if nothing had happened and was giving Nora a flat stare.

"Rude."

The projectors continued to display their aura reserves. Even after having received a grenade to the face, Ruby's aura was well in the green. Seeing that even a direct hit did little to tip the scales in her favor, Nora did the only reasonable thing and forfeited the match.

Instead of going to the changing rooms she decided that weather outside was quite nice for a long calming walk.

Ruby returned back to her team with a beaming smile, another victory and nobody was hurt too badly. She was tired of chastising Yang for sending people to the medical wing with heavy bruises and cracked bones and the best way was to be a good example.

Yang gave her a nod and a small smirk, while Weiss and Pyrrha were openly staring at her.

"Guys? You are being really weird…" She commented. The stares she felt from all the other people made it even worse. She really wanted to simply hide in her cloak.

Suddenly Pyrrha stood up and walked over to her. Ruby was a bit surprised but waited for Pyrrha to say anything. Instead she grabbed her head from the sides. Then her shoulders. She slowly traced her hands over the part of her body that was destroyed.

"Pyrrha stop! It tickles!"

Not even a scratch. Maybe this was finally her chance to get rid of that stupid nickname. If anybody could live up to the moniker of an Invincible Girl it would definitely be a person who just shrugged off an explosion to the face without any consequences.

"Ruby," Weiss began, still a bit rattled from the sight. "What was that?"

"Oh, it's nothing big, really. I just thought that blocking everything with my aura would be too taxing. This is much more efficient!" Ruby smugly explained.

While Weiss lamented her decision to come to Beacon instead of staying somewhere where logic still existed, Blake and Yang were called up for the next match.

This was the big moment Blake was training for during the weekend. Both her and Yang were so far without any losses and Blake wanted to keep it that way. She had a rough plan in her head about how to win. In a sense, Yang was like Nora on steroids. Slow but strong and absolutely devastating when angered. She was sure she could do this. It would be hard but Yang didn't even use her weapons most of the time so she would need to get very close to be an actual threat and even if she managed to do it, her semblance was a perfect escape tool.

"Begin!" Professor Goodwitch shouted out.

Unfortunately for Blake's master plan, Yang spent years sparring with Ruby.

Blake could run but Ruby was bordering on teleportation.

She tried to keep Yang away by shooting at her. The semiautomatic pistol was meaningless when compared to the monstrous rifles her sister put her through over the years.

And now that everyone saw Ruby dissolve herself to avoid damage, Blake's ability to make smoky clones of herself amounted only to giving Yang a few annoying flashbacks from when Ruby would always escape her rightful wrath, at least there wasn't a forest for Blake to hide in.

The fight was clearly turning into Yang's favor. No matter how many bullets Blake was able to get in, one single glancing blow from Yang cost her an unreasonable amount of aura. The distance approach clearly wasn't working and trying to get a fast hit in was too dangerous.

The only thing left was to try and fight face to face.

Both her katana and cleaver lit up with dim purple light.

For the first time during the combat matches Yang deployed Ember Celica in full.

Blake leapt onto Yang and soon the room was filled with the sound of clashing steel.

"She can't be serious." Pyrrha commented while glancing at their instructor, expecting her to interrupt the match at any moment.

"What do you mean?" Asked Weiss.

"The aura boosting. It's against the rules to use during tournaments."

Weiss may have started her training quite a bit later compared to the rest of her team but she was familiar with the term. While in its usual state, aura acted only as a shield and a minor physical boost. Aura boosting referred to the technique when the person would overcharge their body from the inside. Essentially it was an exchange between offense and defense. One would need to sacrifice a portion of their reserves for added attack power.

"I don't see why it would be a problem, everyone is doing it to their muscles. It's a gamble but it's her choice." She said back, completely missing the point Pyrrha was trying to make.

"I'm not talking about strengthening. I mean using it for direct attacks. It can pierce through aura even if it is not depleted, Blake has to be very careful." It was banned for a reason. People have died because of it and even if some tournaments haven't banned it, it was frowned upon. She noticed Ren giving her a nod, knowing the dangers as well.

"Relax, they will be fine!" Ruby cheerfully interjected.

She would focus on the fight for now but if the professor let any of them get hurt she would be having some choice words to say. Seeing one of her friends get blown up was enough and even if Yang could do the same, she didn't want to see her cut open.

This was getting her nowhere, Blake realized. After the short but intense melee she understood what kind of fighter Yang was. Her assumptions of her being of the same cloth as Nora were completely wrong. Yang was almost entirely a reactionary fighter, she just was good enough at reading the tells that she would be countering them barely after she chose the angle of attack. She had hoped that dual-wielding would make it easier to get a hit in; it was very hard to focus on two places at once. Yet Yang kept parrying and blocking her strikes as if she spent hours on end dealing with dual-wielders. One time she even had to throw in a clone because Yang saw through the pattern of the attacks and tried to give her a shoulder-check for her troubles.

She changed her strategy. She was never the strongest, nor fastest or anything really. What she could do, was to use her opponent's strength against them and make them look like utter fools.

She reversed the grip on her cleaver and as soon as Yang punched out, she caught her wrist in the ribbon and held tight. Predictably, Yang jerked back and pulled Blake off her feet and was about to use Blake's hold on the weapon as a way to smash her into the ground.

Blake was exactly where she wanted to be. Just above Yang, who was quite open after pulling her in. She threw away the cleaver and the ribbon attached to it and held her katana in both hands.

The spiderweb pattern shone from the inside of the katana.

A bright flash of purple followed her strike. She thought it a decisive blow but Yang was still good enough to retaliate at the same moment and give her a backhand slap.

When she picked herself up after being thrown away she took a look at her handiwork.

She barely suppressed a string of curses. This attack was able to cut through reinforced steel with ease. The only things that were stronger were enormous military lasers and Adam's own attacks, who was a cheat because he was combining boosting with his broken semblance.

Yang was completely fine, hell Blake wasn't sure if she even broke a sweat.

The only evidence of her attack was a small cut through Yang's brown jacket. She then looked at the aura meter. With the amount of aura she used in her attacks and Yang's last counter she was under half.

Yang was at 84%. Dozens of bullets, relentless melee and a strike capable of killing ancient grimm in one blow and she was only halfway through green.

What kind of monster was she friends with? Pyrrha was easily living up to her title, Ruby could become intangible on a dime and Yang just took everything she had to offer head on and didn't even flinch.

"Do you have more?" Yang asked. That was quite a surprise, usually she wouldn't talk during a fight, unless it was mocking her opponent. This time she actually sounded somewhat impressed.

"Come and find out!" Blake forcefully said back. It was just bravado but she was rather proud of herself. Most of the time Yang would end the fight in one blow. Blake was able to last for over half of the time limit.

She still lost in the end but damn, it was one good workout.

-BBW-

Weiss wanted for the day to end. It was just her luck that the last fight was her against Pyrrha. She tried! She really did! But while Blake was able to get away from Yang's shoulder check, Weiss got a shield bash to the chest so hard that she literally flew out of the ring. At least she got her with a few dust attacks, although going for melee was a terrible mistake.

Thankfully she could get so rest and quiet now. Blake had come for Ruby and they left for their special class. Yang and Pyrrha decided to hit the gym.

So she was left alone in the dorm. She took a long relaxing shower and now was laying on the lower bunk of her and Pyrrha's bed. She should have been doing some studying but a small nap wouldn't hurt anybody.

Unfortunately, her ringing scroll had other ideas. She blindly smacked at it until she managed to hit the answer button.

"Yes."

"Hello Weiss." A calm voice with underlines of deep care answered.

"Winter!" Weiss almost hit her head on Pyrrha's bunk and started fumbling with her scroll. After a few moments she was able to open it into a proper video-call.

"I hope I'm not calling at a bad time." Winter said after taking a quick look at her sister and her surroundings. Her sister, while shyly smiling at her, had a rather disheveled look and she saw a noticeable bruise on her chest through the opening in her bathrobe.

"No! Of course not. The classes had ended some time ago." Weiss quickly answered. "Anyway, how are you doing? How has Whitley and mother been?" She knew that Winter would ask her about Beacon but considering how that was turning out so far she would prefer to deal with that later.

Winter visibly deflated at the mention of their mother. "She is… as usual." Which meant spending way too much time in the basement and perusing her wine collection. "Whitley was alright last time I called him. He started studying computer sciences and is making quite good progress."

"Oh, sounds nice. At least somebody won't have to deal with all the insanity of military training." Weiss tried to crack up a joke. She hoped her brother would be able to survive their father on his own.

"Speaking of insanity." Winter sharply glared at her and Weiss felt a small shiver travel down her spine. "Can you explain to me, what were you doing on Saturday?" She demanded and even sent Weiss the article she found.

Weiss took a few seconds to quickly read through and get a basic understanding of the text. "That's not what happened! Yang only shot once into the air. This is written like she shot volleys into the crowd! Besides, it was their fault for trying to follow us into a clothes shop." Weiss cried out in outrage.

"You should have learned long ago that journalists tend to twist reality in quite interesting ways." Winter calmly replied.

Weiss could only snort.

"Now Weiss, how have you been? And before that, can you explain to me, what happened to your chest?" Winter pointedly looked at the bruise.

Weiss blushed and covered herself a bit more. "Our last class was combat practice." She dodgely replied.

"And?"

Weiss released a long sign. "I tried to fight Pyrrha Nikos up close. I lost."

Winter's eyes widened at the name. "So she really went to Beacon." She took a second to compose herself. Now that she knew who her opponent was, the single bruise seemed minor. "What about your team? I don't see nor hear any around and if this Yang is any indication they are quite… interesting people." She knew that one of them had proclivity for violence. It was used to protect her sister's modesty so she would tolerate it.

Weiss grew uneasy, not wanting to bring her failure into the open immediately so instead she started with the good news. "Well, Pyrrha is actually my partner. Very polite and an absolute power-house in the arena but also a perfect student. Then there is Yang… she is okay. A bit arrogant and with way too little modesty." She ignored the snickering in the recesses of her mind. "And Ruby, Yang's partner and sister. She is a bit behind in the schoolwork and…" She trailed off.

Winter quirked an eyebrow, she wasn't really interested in how good these girls-and thank brothers, her sister didn't have to share a room with some filthy neanderthal-were doing in school but who were they as people and how they treated Weiss.

"...and?"

Weiss took a deep breath. Remember, calm and collected. "She is the team leader." She ripped off the band-aid.

"And?" her sister was still not satisfied with the answer.

"What do you mean 'and'? I failed! Already on the first day. How am I supposed to lead a company if I can't even be a leader of a team?!" She raged. Admitting to her failing to Winter hurt, especially due to her being the leader of her own team during her stay at the Atlas Academy.

"Weiss… look at me." She softly asked. Weiss looked at her, the unshed tears trying to break through. "Let me tell you a story."

"I didn't become a team leader for my own qualities. Instead, even after disowning me, father refused to lose face by having a Schnee not being the best. So while General Ironwood wasn't swayed, other teachers who served advisory roles during the selection were. I became a leader simply due to nepotism and corruption-."

Weiss listened to the tale with wide disbelieving eyes. Her sister was alway the best at everything but hearing her struggles, having her open up was so heartwarming…

"-it wasn't until the end of the first year that I truly felt that I had earned the position." She gave Weiss a warm smile as she finished her tale.

"While I'm sure that you think that being a leader means being in charge and giving orders," she spoke with an edge in her tone. "It's not that easy. Those are the actions of a tyrant, a heartless commander. Leader is the one who takes charge from the front. You don't follow the orders because they came from someone superior but because you can trust both the person who gave them and the intent behind it."

Weiss cheered up considerably, although the lesson tasted bitter. Ruby never ordered anyone around and yet most of the people went along. She was socially inept, yet she was the glue that was somehow keeping them together. And when they faced the deathstalker in the forest… She was really their leader.

"It would seem I ran out of time." Winter commented. "I have a meeting soon. I wanted to ask you more but it would have to wait for later."

"Ofcourse." Weise blurted out. "I.. you can always call!"

They shared small smiles one last time before Winter disconnected the call.

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Replies

To NK02: I know that they are quite overpowered and it is intentional. Not every problem can be solved with force and they can't be everywhere at the same time.

To Kyunin9: You silly feeble minded little gay. I'm so beyond your understanding that you can't even see it! *evil laughter*. On a serious note, yes they will learn about it. On a more in depth note, the idea that i'm using is not my own and it has certain rules and conditions attached to it. Frankly within the available cast only Salem, Cinder and maybe Oz and a big maybe Raven, Adam and Tyrion fill out at least the majority of the conditions. Weiss and Pyrrha will get a power-up, it will be something else and you will just have to wait and see. Besides, if I gave everyone the same power-up, it would get boring.