A Fear Cold as Ice
(A/N: "A Fear Cold as Ice" was my entry for r/RWBY's September MonCon and WINNER of said writing contest. The theme was "Fear" and had to include at least one villain. I hope you enjoy, and God bless)
Cold sweat trickled down the back of Weiss' neck as she spun around the darkened warehouse scanning for any plumes of warm breath frozen in the air by her aura. Either her target was incredibly gifted at holding their breath for long periods of time, or as she feared her mind was once again playing tricks on her.
In an adjacent room she couldn't help but overhear Yang cursing and knocking over anything that got in her way, taking a more direct approach to finding their little trickster.
"Come on out, Emerald!" she bellowed, her demand downed out by her fist colliding with something metal. "I know it was you! And when I find you I'm gonna put a slug in one of your kneecaps this time! How does that sound!?"
The entire warehouse shook and dust filled the air as steel could be heard bending in the other room, and Weiss swallowed a lump in her throat wondering if Yang's plan involved taking the entire building down thereby killing everyone inside. Instead of considering an escape plan however she continued her search with Myrtenaster outstretched in front of her and her finger on the trigger ready to unleash a torrent of flames that'd make even her pyromaniac roommates jealous.
A blanket of snow covered the floor courtesy of her aura, but she couldn't find footprints or any other tell-tell signs of where Emerald was hiding. Of course that didn't mean the footprints weren't there in plain sight, merely that the traitor couldn't move without compromising her mind altering semblance and giving away her position. A small comfort.
Weiss would've preferred she and Yang search together so that Emerald would have to work twice as hard to fool them, but with the smell of burning hair coming from the other room Weiss thought perhaps it was best to keep her distance. After all, just forty-eight hours ago Yang had fired a shotgun into an innocent boy's kneecap live on worldwide television, only to discover it had all been a setup and the boy's legs made of metal and the pool of blood having belonged to someone else. She'd then been forced to live out her very worst nightmare when dozens of Atlesian Knights surrounded her ordering her to surrender, but all she'd seen was Ruby mercilessly gunned down to the point Yang hadn't even been able to recognize her baby sister's smoldering corpse. It had sent her into a rage the likes of which Remnant had never seen, and Yang had very nearly killed everyone including her sister before she was finally brought down by a small army that more resembled an Atlesian firing squad, who would've kept shooting if not for three bodies jumping atop of her and getting shot themselves.
'For your sake, Emerald, I hope Yang finds you first,' she thought to herself, resisting the urge to massage her bruised backside. 'Because whatever she'd do to you won't even compare to what I'll do...'
Suggestions came to her mind each one more terrible than the last as she recalled all the reminders of torture from a bygone era in the dungeons of her family's castles, but in her imagination were worst ideas still.
Weiss continued pacing the warehouse mapping it out as though it were a large grid, spreading her aura out as she went to feel for anyone who might've been trying to hide under her nose, and left a small amount of aura lingering behind her in case Emerald was as cowardly as she believed and actually foolish enough to attempt a sneak attack while her back was turned.
At last she felt her aura come into contact with something just fifteen feet directly to her left that shouldn't have been there and she couldn't see. Carefully, cautious of yet another ambush or trick, and painfully aware of how dangerous the second year Haven Academy student was even without her semblance, she raised her blade and took an offensive stance.
For the first time since the chase began Weiss felt hesitation and a newfound sense of dread and malaise in her limbs. All this time her emotions had been buried deep and hadn't even come close to getting the better of her like Yang's had, who now seemed to be attempting to bring down the entire industrial district, but unease and uncertainty also began sinking in as she thought out her next move. Being the finest swordsman in her class and a prodigy with ancient glyphs hadn't exactly done her any favors in the first rounds of the Vytal Festival, and Weiss had never sung in front of an audience as large as this before and with all her friends and family watching...
Ruby was there playing with her chocolate coated thumbs in the front row alongside Yang and Blake, and even her brother and sister were there sitting with them. Her gorgeous mother held a small corgi in her lap instead of her usual cocktail glass, and- Weiss' heart skipped seeing her Papa wiping away tears beside Nana who had her face buried in a silk handkerchief and was blowing her nose like a trumpet.
From behind the curtain Weiss' knees would've buckled if not for the man with snow white hair holding her tightly. He hummed a familiar tune that caused her to look up at the towering figure. "Father?" she asked, startled by his gentle, youthful appearance that she hadn't seen since she was a little girl back when the White Fang were little more than a nuisance. "Y-you're smiling! You're actually smiling! I haven't seen you smile since-"
Too late Weiss remembered what had happened after the concert. Her father was suddenly holding her by the hand as she skipped along swinging their arms on their way to greet some of the most powerful men in all of Remnant who Jacques Schnee couldn't wait to boast to regarding his precious daughter.
His humming was as jolly as she'd ever heard, a little tune and habit he had picked up from her Papa, but Weiss could barely hear it over the sound of her heart threatening to explode in her ears. She couldn't turn or so much as lift the heavy blade that for some reason was in her hand, and could only watch in horror as two dark figures emerged from the shadows wearing Grimm masks.
They ran as if in slow motion both wielding red dust infused knives, and for the very first time since her nightmares first began the monsters didn't tower over Weiss nor did they even really look like monsters. They were just kids, a boy and a girl both roughly about her age, though the boy perhaps a little older, wearing clothes that more resembled filthy rags. Their masks were oversized and almost comical-looking, and Weiss might've even laughed if not for the knives they held with white knuckle grips.
The dark haired girl was faster and the shadows trailed behind as she ran, but when she reached Weiss' father she hesitated to strike. The redheaded boy however was just a moment behind and he didn't hesitate even for an instant...
Weiss screamed as blood poured down her face and fire erupted from her left eye socket. She swung Myrtenaster but the boy and girl must've snuck back into the shadows they'd been spawned from just like the Grimm whose faces they wore. She couldn't see, couldn't feel anything except unspeakable agony. Her blade collided with something solid and so she stabbed, cut, disemboweled, and cursed the shadows over and over and over again until another dark figure tackled her to the ground.
"GET OFF OF ME!" she roared, flailing herself and her blade at whatever monster had her pinned. They said something in a language she didn't quite understand and it was only after they repeated themself several times that she finally understood and recognized the familiar voice.
"WEISS! STOP! IT'S OVER NOW! IT'S ME YANG!"
The nightmare dispelled and Weiss stopped struggling. Her eyes were kept tightly shut until the pain finally receded and became somewhat manageable, and when they reopened she saw the concerned face of Yang inches away from her own.
"Could you please kindly get off of me," Weiss asked, her voice cracking on every other word. She then let out a small whimper and wrapped her arms around the larger girl before she could so much as make a move, and who in turn quickly embraced her back.
Weiss didn't care if her spine was being broken or if she was doing the breaking for a change, but eventually she realized she was now being carried and asked to be set down. Back on her feet but still in Yang's arms and their auras intertwining she glanced up confused when all she could see of the radiant blonde in her left eye was darkness, and almost immediately buried her face in Yang's chest sobbing.
"It's okay now," she cooed, tickling Weiss' back and playing with her tangled, slightly singed hair. "I know how you feel right now but it was just an hallucination. Just a bad dream..."
Weiss let out a couple more sobs and when she had finally regained her composure retreated away from the embrace hiding her face and wiping away her shame with a dirty sleeve.
"Where's Emerald!?" she demanded, humiliation turning into wrath and indignation.
"She got away," Yang said brightly, sounding humored by her own response. "Sorta..."
"Got away!? Then what are you still doing here!? Go find her and make her pay!"
"Weiss," she said gently, walking over and stooping down to embrace her again. "When I heard you screaming bloody murder I ran in and saw you waving a flaming rapier around trying to set everything on fire and creating literal icebergs, thunderstorms, and tornadoes with your glyphs, a-and it looked like you were trying to gouge your eye out..."
Without a word Weiss flicked her wrist causing a cold wind to extinguish the warehouse, and looking at the blonde she found singed clothing and hair and discolored skin that her normally fire resistant aura would've normally ignored but was struggling to mend, and looking down Weiss saw herself equally as disheveled if not worse. Again she hid her face in shame but Yang forced her to look straight ahead. She was beaming, and looking into Yang's lilac eyes that were brightened by her aura Weiss found them to be like a mirror and saw that her own left eye no longer shined like the right.
Yang went to touch the side of her face but without warning sparks shot out causing them both to retreat back.
"I'm fine," Weiss said between gritted teeth, holding a hand over her eye and attempting to rub the pain away. "Just please leave and go find Emerald."
Yang silently gestured to their left. "Alright, found her. Emerald got away through that broken window over there-" she pointed again- "but she left a little something behind. Something kinda important for making a fast getaway..."
Weiss struggled to see in the darkness with just the one eye, but even when she found the object Yang was referring to it didn't make sense to her. There were a million tiny crimson ice cubes currently in the process of melting on the ground, and Weiss gagged and nearly vomited when she realized what they were.
"Not sure if it was an arm or leg," Yang said humorously, "or both, but even with aura I don't think she's get very far."
Weiss turned her head and covered her mouth. "W-we need to follow her. Even so she's still dangerous." She retrieved Myrtenaster off the ground, noting the fingerprints on the blade, and glancing back at Yang with a long look at her tattered gloves she scowled. "Well, what are you waiting for?"
Yang crossed her arms looking her over. "As much as I'd like to take another limb or two myself we- I need to get back to Beacon. Ruby and Blake still are there, and I've got a bad feeling that Emerald and Mercury are the least of our worries..."
It took several moments for Weiss to think of anything other than finishing the job she'd started, and silently began wiping her blade with the last remaining clean strip of her combat skirt and when she was satisfied started refilling the chambers with various vials of dust.
"Not without me you're not." She gave the cylinder a spin and squeezing the trigger it stopped and Myrtenaster turned a bright blue and frost began falling from the blade. "There's someone I'd like to have a word with and ask them if they've ever heard the phrase 'eye for an eye'..."
(A/N: Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed. This story was actually inspired by a scene in a potential Volume 3 pseudo-novelization that I've outlined and been planning for a long, long time, but seeing how that's still a long ways away I thought I'd use this particular scene as my entry. Whether this story actually takes place in the same universe as my other fics is entirely up to you and was originally written anonymously for an audience who'd have no idea about my particular RWBY universe. Also, I just want to say that having the ability to manipulate a person's mind and make them see whatever you want would be pretty useful for getting someone off your tail, huh? Just a thought for all you Emerald fans ;)
I hope you enjoyed, and as always all credit goes to my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who has blessed me with this story and so many wonderful readers like yourself. Thank you and God bless)