The world shuddered. Black and purple, the sky swirled and cracked. Twisting roars echoed unceasingly across the land and shook the Earth beneath her feet.
Weiss didn't allow the rain to distract her anymore. At first is had pelted against her, hammering against her skin with cold sharper than a harpy's screech and drenching her clothes to her back. It weighed her down, soaked her to the point where would could barely see where pale skin stopped and damp cloth began. But now, it didn't matter, the thousands of splitting razor shards hampered her, they matted her hair to her face, stung at her exposed legs, and dragged her down with added weight, but it would not distract her.
Blinding light burst from the clouds. A bolt of lightning cracked against the ground far away. Weiss blinked hastily, dispelling the hovering blue echoes of light from her vision. She exhaled sharply, tossing a slick jet of water from her lips with the breath.
She tightened her grip on Myrtenaster. "Professor Goodwitch!" Weiss could scarcely hear her partner's cry of protest through the roar of rain and timely thunder. Had she not been so focused, it would easily have gone unnoticed. "It's a thunderstorm, how come everybody else can stop training?" She yelled again.
Weiss cast her gaze across to Ruby. She was equally as soaked as Weiss; but she let it weigh her down. She let it distract her. She wasn't focused. Weiss turned to their teacher. Not a drop of water touched her as she stood, an umbrella of projected aura protecting her, at the edge of their training ring.
When she spoke, her voice was always soft, yet somehow it carried far further than Ruby's distressed and high-pitched whining, as though the sharp chastising tone could turn down the volume of the world when she spoke. "Because, Miss Rose, everybody else has managed to work in tandem with their partners appropriately. You however, have not."
Ruby's shoulders slumped, the blade of her scythe slopping down into the muddy ground as she did so. "Can't we wait for it to stop raining?" She yelled again.
Professor Goodwitch didn't even shake her head. She dipped her vision ever so slightly, peering over her glasses at Ruby. "The creatures of Grimm do not wait for it to stop raining, Ruby."
Weiss could almost hear the sharp whining of Ruby's internal monologue, and rolled her eyes instinctively at it. She kept her own objection that they should be training for the Vytal Festival Tournament to herself, recognising, unlike her partner, that protest would merely see them kept out in the storm to train longer.
"Run your third pattern again." Glynda commanded. Weiss shifted her stance appropriately, flicking her eyes to Ruby to check that she was ready. Ruby hopped around from on stance to another before stopping. She scratched the back of her head through her hood, shuffling her feet in the mud sheepishly.
"Uh… which one was that again?"
Weiss groaned. How could she be partnered with her? With somebody so incompetent they couldn't memorise six patterns so she could actually fight effectively with her teammate.
Weiss slid her feet back to a comfortable standing position, flicking her damp hair over her shoulder and twirling the chamber of her rapier as their professor reminded Ruby what she should have memorized by now. Weiss and Ruby had definitely had their ups and downs, Weiss was well aware of that, and sometimes, Ruby did appear to be a competent leader, perhaps well she was, but she certainly had a long way to go to being a competent partner.
"Ready?"
Weiss glanced back at the training dummies. They were placed in a vague shape close to three lines, like a loose representation of the head of a trident, with Weiss and Ruby waiting at the shaft. She dropped back into her stance, sliding the white chamber into lace and holding the rapier in the correct position. "Ready." She confirmed.
"Begin." Glynda commanded. Ruby dashed forward – out of turn – again. Weiss was growing used to her haste, but it was not always easy to adjust for it.
Ruby swung wide in the first action of their maneuver, striking down the first two dummies on the left flank, as the pattern dictated.
Weiss sprung forward a moment later. The opening was supposed to be synchronised, but she would not allow that slip-up to hinder the remainder of her performance. If Ruby couldn't complete the pattern effectively enough, Weiss would just have to drag her to the end of it on her own skill.
She drove Myrtenaster through the heart of the central dummy, swept back, and slashed forward, slicing into the next target as the first fell and blasting it with her spell.
Ruby darted between the two targets during Weiss' momentary retreat, running forward to dispatch the two dummies on the right flank with a circular strike.
Weiss heard the sharp metallic sounds of Ruby's weapon transforming, and moved her chamber to the next colour – Yellow.
Placing a glyph beneath her feet, Weiss burst forward with enhanced agility, slicing at targets are Ruby fired a hail of bullets into them. They fell, one y one, to sword or shot, as Weiss danced between them until but a row of them remained.
She twisted her chamber 180 degrees, and with a sweeping slash, shot forth a sleuth of ice that pierced the chests of the targets and pinned them. As she flicked her blade clean of the straw remnants of her slain foes, Ruby sprung forward, shattering the ice with a slash from her scythe to finish the pattern.
A dull patting sound issued from behind them, sharper than the rain. Breathing heavily, Weiss turned. Their Professor was clapping.
"That's the first time you two have managed an entire pattern without hitting one another." She said through a thin sliver that could almost be considered a smile. "I'd say that's enough improvement for one day. Dismissed."