A/N - Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth. I own nothing.
It was a nervous three members of Team RWBY who came together in their dorm room one morning for a team meeting - called by none other than their team leader, Ruby Rose.
"All right, team RWBY," Ruby began in a grave tone as she prowled around the room, "We've always had other stuff going on, so I've overlooked it so far, but this is a serious issue that I just can't ignore any longer!"
Yang, Blake and Weiss shared a confused look.
Ruby started to prowl in front of the trio, each muttering 'please not me, please not me' repeatedly under their breath.
She finally stopped in front of one of the team members. "Weiss!"
"Oh no."
"Phew!"
"Oh thank heavens."
Ruby pointed at the Schnee Heiress with an angry frown. "Weiss Schnee! You need to answer one question of the utmost importance, right now!"
Weiss winced. "What question?"
Ruby took a deep breath.
"Why isn't your sword also a gun!?"
There was a moment of silence.
Blake and Yang turned their heads to look at Weiss, who, for her part, now sported her trademark look of supreme disappointment.
"Well Ruby, I would hazard a guess that it is because my fighting style doesn't require a gun," Weiss explained, as though she was talking to a small child.
"Nonsense!" Ruby declared, "There is no fighting style that can't be improved with bullets!"
"Yes there is," Weiss retorted, "There's plenty. For example, look at Fox and Yatsuhashi,"
"And maybe Velvet," Blake interjected.
"We'll can't prove it, though," Weiss shook her head, "Regardless, there's those two from Team CFVY,"
"That's different. That's logistics!" Ruby dismissed the example, "There's no way a team with Coco on it could have another gun in regular use and not burn through their month's ammunition allocation in a day."
Weiss conceded the point. "Fine then, there's also... Professor Goodwitch and Doctor Oobleck!" she declared triumphantly.
"Not really a great choice either," Yang interjected, barely hiding her amusement at the situation, "Unless you think you're as badass as the Professors to the point where you don't need bullets any more."
"No," Weiss became frustrated as she looked for another example, "How about... there's... Jaune?" She then thought about what she had just said. "You know what, now that I think about it, bullets sound great. I'll get Myrtenaster."
"Yes!" Ruby cheered, "Team RWBY, it's time to design a gun-sword!"
She ran out of the room after her team partner.
Blake turned to Yang hesitantly. "Has she always been this excited about guns?"
"You should have seen what she did to the soup ladle."
They decided that each team member would design an improvement for Myrtenaster, and that Weiss would test out each of these improvements in the training field and decide which she preferred.
"All right, Team RWBY!" Ruby began happily, holding a small check-list, "Our first design belongs to none other than Yang Xiao Long! Yang, if you'd like to explain the improvements you've made to Myrtenaster, please?"
"All right, Ruby!" Yang stepped forward with a grin, "I added a powered shotgun attachment to the hilt of the blade, like my own Ember Celica," she hefted the weapons in question proudly, "It'll fire out a powerful shot in the same direction to your blade. You have a ranged option that doesn't need a dust vial, and you can use the recoil to get more momentum!"
Weiss looked at the somewhat bulky addition to her rapier unsurely. "I don't know... it doesn't look right."
"Bah! Just give it a try! Try running forward and firing it behind you to speed up," Yang prompted her.
Weiss nodded in determination, and began running forward. She held the blade directly behind her, facing away from her body, and pulled the trigger.
Blake, Ruby and Yang stared in shock as Weiss went flying over the fence of the training ground and towards the school building, her screams quickly getting more distant. All three winced when they heard the screaming stop with a loud crash.
"Ah," Yang held her head sheepishly with one hand as the other two looked at her, "Hehe... I, uh, forgot that it takes a while to get used to the recoil," she shrugged, "What can I say? My baby's got some kick."
Ruby crossed off an entry on her list. "Nope, I can't see her going for that one."
The only thing that saved Yang from the furious Weiss, who had apparently managed to crash through a window and land cleanly on a passing Jaune, was that she was unable to properly use her weapon. Eventually, Ruby and Blake managed to calm her down enough to try another design, this time from Blake, the reasoning that Blake, like Weiss, was far more of a finesse fighter than Yang, assuaging Weiss' at this point justifiable concerns enough to give it a try.
"Now then, we have the entry from Blake Belladonna!" Ruby said somewhat less enthusiastically than before, "Blake, if you'd like to tell us about your design?"
"Well," Blake began, "First of all, I went for a smaller pistol instead of a shotgun like Yang. With you being a light fighter, I thought that was the best way to get you started with bullets. I also included an extendible ribbon like Gambol Shroud that should give you the same kind of utility, you have a grappling hook, you can easily return Myrtenaster back to you if you lose your grip on it at any point, and you can attack from different angles."
"That does sound useful," Weiss admitted reluctantly.
"Give it a try, Weiss!" Ruby said in excitement.
"No, wait, you really shouldn't try without-" Unfortunately, Blake's warning came too late.
Weiss threw the rapier forward, giving the line a sharp tug by jerking her arm to make the attached pistol fire a shot.
That was when things started going wrong.
The recoil from the shot sent the modified Myrtenaster flying uncontrollably in a very different direction to the one Weiss intended it to go. The rest of Team RWBY desperately dived to the ground and covered their heads as the rapier-pistol combo started flying all around the field, spraying bullets all over while a hapless Weiss desperately tried to get it under control.
Finally, the magazine ran dry and Weiss managed to get the sword back in a firm grip. She gave it an appraising look. "That was pretty bad for a first try, but I could probably get the hang of it. What do you think, Ruby – Ruby?"
Ruby, Yang and Blake collectively groaned from their position, curled up on the ground, smoke rising from their near-unconscious forms. "Let's cross that one off the list as well," Ruby got out weakly.
"Okay," Ruby said glumly, "So this has been... pretty much a dismal failure so far. But," she tried her best to look cheerful, "We still have a design to try out!"
Blake and Yang shared a horrified look. "So... what, exactly, did she do to the soup ladle?" Blake asked Yang in a desperate whisper.
"Dad still has a phobia of laser-guided broth," Yang whispered back as she desperately tried to dig out a foxhole.
Blake gulped, and joined her.
"So... here's what I came up with!" Ruby said enthusiastically.
Weiss held her newly-modified weapon tentatively. The blade from Myrtenaster now formed the bayonet of a long, scoped rifle, with the original sword's dust mechanism forming a separate attachment on the side.
"In close combat, it's a spear," Ruby told her team-mate, "I thought that since you're a fencer, a thrusting weapon like that would suit you better than something like Crescent Rose. You can also use the recoil to speed you up – the recoil isn't as bad as Ember Celica, though, so you should be able to stay on your feet! Try shooting it!"
Weiss, who had been giving the bayonet a few experimental thrusts, hesitantly raised the rifle and aimed down at one of the training grounds targets, directly away from the other members of Team RWBY (much to the relief of Blake and Yang). She lined up her shot, and pulled the trigger.
Weiss was fairly inexperienced at firing rifles. Her own training focused primarily on swordplay. She was also very, very preoccupied by her experience with Yangs design, and had used her semblance to ensure she stayed rooted firmly to the ground.
As a result, when she fired the rifle, the recoil threw it clean out of her hands. By some miracle, she managed to twist out of the way of the weapon as it rocketed back toward her team-mates. Blake and Yang had hit the ground before she even pulled the trigger, so only Ruby had to dive out of the way – managing to avoid the flying gun by inches.
As she stood up, Ruby sighed in disappointment at yet another failure
"Uh... Sis," Yang began hesitantly as she and Blake got to their feet, "Your, er..."
Ruby tilted her head in confusion. "What is it?"
"Your cape," Blake supplied, "It looks like the blade caught it on the way past."
True enough, Ruby's favoured accessory had been bisected neatly across the middle, with one half lying on the ground and the other still attached to her back.
She stared at it.
Yang and Blake stared at it.
She stared at it some more.
Weiss walked over, and also stared at it.
Finally, Ruby fell to her knees, clutching the remains of her beloved item of clothing. "I don't want Weiss to have a gun any more!" She wailed miserably as Yang and Blake knelt down and awkwardly patted her back.
"There, there, Ruby," Yang tried to comfort her crying sister, "We'll stitch it up, good as new, okay?" She turned to Blake with an urgent whisper, "Can you sew?"
"No," Blake whispered back, "It's one of those things I never learned."
"Damn," Yang cursed under her breath, "How about you?" she whispered to Weiss.
"No, I always had servants to do it for me," the heiress replied in the negative.
"Damn it!" Yang frowned, before she got an idea, "Blake, I need you to find Professor Goodwitch! Right now!"
"On it," Blake nodded, before running off.
"So, ah," Weiss began a bit louder, "Does this mean I can change Myrtenaster back to normal now?"
"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh!"
"For the record, I'm taking that as a yes."
"Damn it, Weiss, not helping."