"Hey Weiss?"

"Yes, Yang?"

"Fuck Atlas."

Weiss nodded, then cursed as the motion let the frigid wind catch her hood and tear it back. Windborne sleet whipped at her face until she replaced it with numb and fumbling fingers. The gloves could only do so much. Setting up a tent should have taken five minutes, tops, but that assumed they weren't trying to do it in a damned blizzard. The forecast had been clear for the next week and yet here they were, chilled to the bone by cutting wind and nearly soaked through.

"Alright, I think I've just about got- fuck!" Yang was barely visible through the swirling maelstrom, and with the cloud cover they had perhaps a half hour before the last scraps of sunset faded.

"Oh, give me that."

"No, look I've got it- shit!"

"Yang Xiao Long you give me that right this instant."

Minutes later they were huddled inside the blessed sanctuary, warming their hands over a small dust-fueled heater. Portable, smokeless, and as expensive as it was effective.

"Totally could have got it," Yang grumbled as she shrugged off her sodden overcoat, "Just hard to… y'know, numb fingers."

"They'd have been gangrenous by the time you got done." Weiss slipped her parka off in turn, laying it as flat as possible on the floor of the tent. She'd need it as dry as possible when they set out in the morning; she didn't fancy taking on a sleuth of Ursas - assuming their intel was reliable - in a soggy coat.

Yang tongued her cheek as she rolled out her sleeping bag.

Weiss pointedly avoided looking at her teammate as she did the same.

"Weiss, listen... about last night, I-"

"It's fine."

Yang flinched. "Right. Well. That's… good."

From the cozy confines of her bedroll, Weiss sighed. She propped herself up on an elbow, finally meeting Yang's eyes. "Yang, I didn't say no."

Yang shrugged. "Yeah, well you sure didn't say yes."

"I- I know that! It's just… a lot to think about." And you sprung it on me on the first night of a week-long mission together, you utter dunce. "I admit that… dating… you… could be nice, but I still need time to think about it."

"Right, well…" Yang flashed an uneasy smile as she fished their rations for the evening from her pack. "Keep me posted on how that thinking goes, yeah?"

She passed a plastic-wrapped meal across to Weiss, who ripped it open with a frown. "Ugh, dinner rations. Why do they always try to make something elaborate? A ham sandwich would be perfectly fine, but no, they have to try and figure out how to freeze-dry manicotti."

"Hey, th' man'cotti was alrigh," Yang mumbled around a mouthful of dehydrated pasta salad. She swallowed with a slight wince. "Once you got past the texture, anyway. And the flavor, I guess."

Weiss gave her a dubious look before digging in. Taste aside, the rations were carefully designed to keep their energy up with only two, maybe three quick meals over a long day of combat and trekking through untamed wilds. She would just have to tough it out.

The frigid wind howled around their refuge as Weiss and Yang settled in for the night. Weiss had set up a simple network of sentry glyphs around their clearing, designed to trigger a flare should anything attempt to cross the invisible boundary. Doing so saved them the trouble of taking shifts on watch, and thereby allowed them to sleep longer and more soundly. Yang flicked off the small light in the tent and they slept, huddled close around the heater.


Deep in the night, a chorus of ragged howls swept through the woods. Yang jolted awake, listening intently until the sound repeated, closer this time. Much closer.

"Weiss," she hissed, leaning close to the dozing girl, "we've got company, wake up!"

"Nguh- Yang? What the hell are y-"

Another batch of howls, mixed with low snarling, answered her question succinctly.

"Beowolves? There weren't supposed to be any damn Beowolves!"

"You want to tell them that? I get the feeling they aren't gonna be super interested in-"

The sentry flare doused the clearing with blinding crimson light, accompanied by furious snarls and roars.

"Coat on now! We need to get out of here, Weiss," Yang growled, hastily throwing on her still-drying overcoat, "We signed on for a group of Ursas, not Ursas and Beos! And definitely not in a midnight blizzard!"

Weiss threw on her parka and retrieved Myrtenaster, dashing through the tent flap behind Yang just as the light of the flare began to fade. A veritable sea of glowing red eyes lurked just beyond the trees, bony faceplates glinting in the dying light.

The flare sputtered out, and a wall of teeming darkness surged forward.

Bursts of light like camera flashes lit the battle in vivid stills as Ember Celica poured forth explosive death. Rending claws encroached, time and again, only to be beaten back by pummeling fists and detonating shells, precise thrusts and glowing glyphs. A flare of red dust finally caught on an unfortunate tree, casting just enough light to reveal the rows upon rows of Grimm surrounding them. Too many to count, and definitely too many to kill.

"Yang…"

"I know, Weiss. I know." Her eyes outshone the firelight, burning crimson, and the steely determination in them was enough to send a chill deeper than the cold through Weiss's blood. "I've got a plan."

"No offense intended, Yang, but your plans are usually just telling someone to throw you at something. Or you throwing someone… at…" She whipped her head up to meet Yang's eyes, panic and pleading dancing in her own. "No- Yang, you can't."

"I have to."

"Yang no! There's no way you'd make it out and- and-"

"I'm sorry, Weiss. I just…" She smiled, and Weiss's heart broke. "I wish we'd had more time. Tell Ruby…" She looked away for just a moment, blinking rapidly. "Shit, I'm no good at this. Tell her something good, okay?"

"Yang please, don't-"

A snarl cut through her words, deep and powerful. A hulking figure strode through the assembled horde, looming huge even on all fours. A Greater Beowolf, no doubt the leader of the group. It rushed them with a roar, and Weiss was wrapped in Yang's arms in an instant.

Time slowed to a crawl.

The beast raised a claw, cracked and blood-stained talons glinting in the dancing firelight.

The ground dropped out from beneath her.

Yang's semblance flared hot enough to sear a handprint into Weiss's shoulder, burning clean through her coat.

She flew.

The beowolf's claw fell like an executioner's axe, onto the extended right arm that had held her only a moment before.

Weiss screamed, but the wind stole away her words.