A buzz from Weiss's scroll breaks her out of sleep. After reaching over and grabbing the scroll, she rubs the sleep from her eyes and opens her scroll.
Do you even know how to rob a train?
While in hindsight she should have predicted a response like this, Weiss genuinely didn't expect that this line of conversation would occur. She was accustomed to her grandstanding being unchallenged, and others putting up with her haughtiness. But Neo is correct, Weiss does not have much experience in railroad larceny, and she is not such a fool to presume herself clever enough to execute a successful heist without any experience.
I may have not robbed anyone before, but I'm sure some of the dinner parties I've had to plan are more complex. There isn't much that evades me if I put my mind to it.
That didn't mean she had to say it though.
I bet there's not much that evades your tutors either ;)
It's not like I could get a tutor for theft.
Actually, I happen to be available for teaching. And for you, my heiress, the lessons are free.
I do hope your hours are not in the middle of my beauty sleep again. The last time we met up, I had a ruinous day.
Don't worry about it, I'll come to you this time.
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Weiss stares at her scroll for five more minutes, waiting for a response. With no response forthcoming, she turns her scroll to silent and tosses it back on to the nightstand.
-Weiss was in a decent mood.
"Ruby Rose, there is no need to rush! The cookies will be there when we get there!"
Halting her run, Ruby turns around to face Weiss, and walks back over with a huge smile on her face. As much of a pain in the ass she is sometimes, Weiss can't help it when her face moves to match her partner's.
"Thank you, thank you, thank you sooooo much Weiss! I've been dying to try these cookies, but between school supplies and modifying Crescent Rose, I've not really had the money to get any!"
"It really isn't a problem Ruby, I owe you a lot after all."
This wasn't a lie. As much as she found fault with the way Ruby acted, Weiss was grateful that the young leader never gave up trying to become her friend. Even now, she lived a little bit through Ruby's boundless energy and endless enthusiasm. Though it wasn't a replacement for the childhood Weiss herself had lost, it will make up for her upbringing in the meantime. And what good was the wealth of her family if it wasn't spent making someone happy?
As the pair walk down the stalls, Weiss notices a short girl at an ice cream stall, tapping away at her scroll with one hand, and doing unspeakable things to the ice cream held in her other. Her gaze drifts down to the girl's midriff, but a buzz in her pockets prevents her from continuing her visual expedition.
Coming to a stop, she reaches her hand in to her pocket.
Neo
Her stomach turns. This was supposed to be quality time with her team leader. Something to help make up for all the time Weiss has spent avoiding her for the past few days.
-Weiss had to lie, again.
"Ruby, can we stop for a second… My father has sent me a text I cannot put off this time. I'm going to need a moment to deal with it."
Slowing down, Ruby's expression goes overcast, the light in her eyes fading a little bit. As if the act of letting Ruby down wasn't enough, seeing the pain in her partner… Well it wasn't something she would ever do intentionally, anymore.
Hey lovely, time for training. So ditch the little chickie and come on over.
Realization strikes her. Neo is manipulating her again.
Neo is forcing her into yet another tough situation. But Weiss can't just keep forsaking her team every time Neo has a whim. Ruby's already on her case about all of her recent absence, and Yang is about to get involved. If Yang gets involved, well... Nothing good will come of that.
Wait a second. She sends her response.
Weiss looks up to see the girl she was examining before staring back at her. The blood drains out of her face as everything clicks into place. She's being treated like a toy, a show just put on for the enjoyment of her tormentor.
She stops for a second and takes a deep breath.
This needs to end, she can't continue expending this much energy dealing with fallout. Weiss will have to put her foot down, and set up some boundaries. Her face flushes a bit. This sounds like a good plan. From what she's dealt with so far, Neo isn't the kind of person to just kill her in broad daylight. Especially since she's still so useful.
I'll let you know when I'm ready to train. I have other things to attend to at the moment.
With a smirk on her face, a necessary show of bravado, Weiss looks back at Neo, watching her as she reads the message. A frown covers Neo's face, her fingers dancing across her scroll. Weiss's own buzzes again.
Do you think you're in a position to be telling me what to do?
Of course not.
I have more obligations than just to you. If you need me so bad, why not just take me yourself?
Neo stares at her scroll.
And stares some more.
And smiles.
Sounds good princess. Rolling over like a dog doesn't suit you anyway.
With a flourish, Neo finishes her ice cream, and vanishes into the crowd. Shutting down her scroll, Weiss turns to face Ruby.
"I'm sorry to say, but business from my father requires me to cut this short."
"Oh come on Wei-"
"But don't worry, a Schnee is allowed to be fashionably late, regardless of what my father intends."
It takes a moment for Ruby to parse this, but when she does, she grabs Weiss's hand and drags her towards their destination. Not wanting to hold Ruby up, Weiss increases her speed so as not to trip.
"I want an extra cookie Weiss!"
A sigh escapes Weiss's lips.
"Yes, Ruby."
"Thank you for the cookies Weiss! But you're not completely off the hook yet. We're gonna talk about what's going on with you and your father!"
Dancing around Ruby's inquiries into Weiss's father's errands required an enormous amount of mental fortitude. She had a way with weaseling it into every topic switch and derailment that Weiss tried. And though she had once thought Ruby wasn't fit to be a team leader, it was moments like these that made her remember how wrong she was.
With Ruby out of the way, Weiss retrieves her scroll and begins to draft a message, but is interrupted when she feels a tap on her shoulder. Startled, she spins around to see Neo staring her in the face. Before she can utter a word, Neo takes her lips and gives her a small kiss. Stunned by the heat of Neo's seductive body pressing against her, she struggles to gather her thoughts as Neo grabs her hand and drags her out of the festival.
Once Weiss has recovered, her face flushes, and then she goes cold. The implications of Weiss Schnee and an unknown girl kissing in public. The cold anger of her father. The barrage of questions from her team.
-Weiss turned to unadulterated fury.
"What was that?! Do you have no morals?! Do you know who I am?! What kind of consequences I may have to face for your... your... your affections?! Did you even realize we were in public?!"
Neo pulls out her scroll, and begins typing on it with one hand. Weiss's anger subsides a bit, as the cool breeze of the forest passes over. The deft manipulation of the scroll captures Weiss's attention, until it's shoved straight into her face.
So its ok if its in private? :3
Weiss blushes.
"I didn't say that."
...
"Were you following us?"
A nod.
"Of course you were. There's no way I would get off so easy."
Weiss huffs. Realizing she's holding someone else's scroll, she returns it to Neo's free hand. Finally calming down, she looks around to see the beginnings of Forever Fall. Not the worst place to train, but not the best either. The training room in Beacon has a lot more amenities than a forest. But unlike the forest, it's full of people.
"So how long will this 'training' take?"
Depends on how long the initial spar takes. I'd say 4-6 hours though. There's a lot to go over.
Grimacing, Weiss groans. Ruby won't be happy with her returning that late yet again, and Yang will probably be pissed off by proxy. Blake won't say anything, but the look of disappointment generally says enough.
"I take it the topics we will be covering aren't suitable for the library or the training room?"
Another nod, and then they come to a halt. Neo lets go of Weiss's hand, and turns around to face her. Sliding her scroll in her pocket, Neo throws out a taunt at Weiss.
"So we start with a spar then?"
By the time Weiss finished her sentence, Neo had already disappeared. The spar has begun.
-Weiss was beaten down.
Looking up at the sky, Weiss wonders what she's done to deserve this. She got her ass kicked. The Neo she just fought was someone different than who she fought on the train. She had actually landed some blows on Neo then. Now, she had done absolutely nothing. Weiss began to comprehend how truly outmatched she was. She feels a scroll hit her stomach.
We've got a lot of work to do to bring you up to par. While you've got great form and somewhat smart movement, your lack of strength and endurance really prevents you from getting a leg up on your opponent. We also need to work on your unarmed and your unassisted by semblance fighting, as those aren't always going to be available to you.
Another buzz.
While you do play to your strengths, you need to get to the point where you don't have to think about your plan of action. Your reactions are slowed because you don't have the tactical memory that you might need. You also need to pay attention to how your opponent chooses to fight, and angle your decisions based on that.
And another buzz.
So let's talk about how we can hone your skills. We'll do a lot of stuff now, but you'll need to find another place and time to practice without me. I'm a busy lady after all. For strength and endurance you'll have to talk to that blondie- "You mean Yang?" - with the big boobs. If you've seen those delicious abs, then you know she knows what she is doing.
And another.
So we'll start off with some basic unarmed fighting, without your semblance. After about 1-2 hours of that, we'll integrate your semblance, and then work on getting some more muscle memory practice into your norm- If that is her name, then yes. -al training routine. After that we'll talk about specifics when it comes to robbing this train.
And one last.
But first, I'll give you a five minute break. I need to tidy myself up a bit, and you probably want to get a couple glasses of water. You'll find the water and some other snacks behind the tree behind you. While you're waiting, feel free to watch me change~
Looking up, Weiss sees Neo walk over to a tree and pull out a bag. Checking behind her, she finds a similar bag with snacks and water inside. Neo was right. She needs water. Opening one of the bottles and taking a drink, the water feels divine on her tongue, refreshing her spirit. And she proceeds to dump the whole bottle down her throat. She opens a second, and turns back around to the sight of Neo taking off her clothes.
-And she choked.
She sees the dirty smile that graces Neo's face. More teasing. She needs to get used to the way Neo acts or she's going to die of a heart attack. But now that Neo's had her fun, she can at least enjoy the show. Laying with her back against the tree, she removes a granola bar from its wrapper and starts to chew on it while watching.
It's not much of a show though. Weiss honestly expected Neo to pull a pole out of somewhere and start dancing, to at least irritate her. But she's still enjoying it, watching the sweat glisten on Neo's bare skin, noticing how the sun highlights the tone of her muscles, gazing at the nape of her neck as she puts her hair into a ponytail.
Her scroll buzzes again.
Did you enjoy the show?
"Indeed I did."
A clap echos as Weiss forces her hand to her mouth. Neo goes wide-eyed for a moment, and then chuckles silently. Strolling over to Weiss, she grabs Weiss's hand and pulls her up.
I'm glad. Let's teach you some fisticuffs, madam.
If Weiss's eyes could roll any harder, she'd probably have to go to the hospital. Instead she'll have to settle for being put in there by this psycho.
They start off working on some basic fist fighting form. To keep the pace of the training from halting, Neo ends up dropping both of their scrolls off in a bag. Instead of attempting to tell Weiss what to do, Neo illustrates what she wants Weiss to and has her replicate it. Of course, there are some small mistakes arising from her fencing background, and Neo moves over to her and manipulates her form to fix them.
Feeling Neo touch her, Weiss starts to object to the idea of Neo groping her, but says nothing as her worries become unfounded. The look that she sees in Neo's eyes is one of sincerity, rather than one of provocation. Weiss relaxes herself, enjoying the careful movements of Neo's hands over her body. This is different than the fencing tutors she had, who were careful not to ever touch her, lest they get in trouble.
There was a seriousness in this training that Weiss did not predict. It was a genuine lesson, which was something she could get behind. Her partner often lacked the discipline to train with her in practical matters (let alone normal studying), so she took great pleasure in the change of pace with her new practice partner.
-Weiss focused on the training.
"I think we should move on to something else at this point."
Neo pauses, her hands still on Weiss's hips. They were making good progress, but there are still other things they need to attend to. As she removes her hands and walks over to grab their scrolls, Weiss relaxes her muscles. The past three hours had overloaded her, her mind needs time to mull over the skills she had just been taught. she is keen on integrating it into her normal practice routine.
Interrupting her thoughts, she hears a snap and turns to Neo, catching the scroll she had been tossed.
Refresh yourself. You picked up the subtle aspects much faster than I was expecting you to. And the technical control you have over your body, well, I'm a little bit jealous of it.
"You should have expected no less of a Schnee like myself!"
Unaccompanied by the normal scowl that might grace that boast, she wears a warm smile. Taken aback at first, Neo gives her a scowl, but upon noticing Weiss's expression, she breaks into a voiceless giggle. Satisfied with her audience's enjoyment of her jest, Weiss takes a swig of water, and lays against the tree once again.
Of course, my dear heiress. Truly I should have expected no less of a lady as prim and proper as yourself. Please forgive my lapse of judgement!
Caught off guard, Weiss lets out a snort, letting water spray out of her mouth. Embarrassed by her lack of grace, she quickly wipes up the mess on her dress. She watches Neo double over in laughter, so she clears her throat and moves on.
"So what should we move on to next?"
Let's check up on your progress with CSL. I'm going to sign a sentence, you let me know what you understood of it.
Hands moving deftly, Weiss watches as Neo signs a short sentence. She understood some of it, but Neo is definitely teasing her.
"I'm pretty sure I got 'want', 'over there', and 'go'. I don't think I know the last one, but I think I can infer what you were saying. No, I would not like to go over there and fuck."
A sigh from Weiss and another giggle from Neo.
Jokes aside, let's try something we would actually need in combat.
This time, Neo signs something longer and more complex.
"That was a bit more difficult, but, I think I got the gist? Something like 'Cover our back?' 'there's a something something coming and I need to something'? I got lost after that point."
That should have been 'Cover our 6, there's a group of guards coming, and I'm still not done picking this lock." That's a bit better than I expected though. I'll give you a book with some of the slang I tend to use. I signed pretty slowly there, so you'll have to practice your reading speed. Do you have a practice partner?
"I actually found someone who was fairly well versed, and available for teaching. I'll bring the book to our next lesson, and ask him to focus on reading speed."
Sounds good. At this point focus on listening , as I can still hear you speak after all.
"Understood."
Onto the stealing. Since this is your first time, we're going to keep it simple. Normally Roman and I would take over the train and disengage the carriages we're interested in with some help, but I can't take Roman out for this and I don't think the White Fang would take too kindly to working with you.
Weiss nods. While she had agreed to this, thinking about it still makes her a little gun shy. Dipping her toe in the pool with a less risky plan sounds a bit more pleasant. The way her father threw her to the sharks left a bad taste in her mouth. Hijacking some high value dust sounds like a good way to hit him where it hurts.
We'll hit the last carriage, grabbing whatever's the most valuable in there, and leave. The main roadblocks will be entering and leaving the station, rather than any of the actual theft.
"I think we should hit a different carriage."
What?
"The fourth carriage has the most valuable cargo in that shipment."
I checked the manifest, all of the carriages are practically the same. Plus, being that close to the station platform means we're more likely to be spotted.
"You know my father, right? That manifest is dirty little liar. He would never list ultra pure gravity dust on any official manifest. I've heard him set up this particular route and timing. It's definitely going to be there."
Neo stares directly into her eyes, a slight scowl forming. Weiss knows approximately what was going through Neo's mind at this moment. Was Weiss attempting to set her up?
-Weiss wasn't going to let that thought linger any longer.
"I'm not lying to you. If I was trying to set you up, you'd obviously see this coming a mile away. I could just set you up at the last carriage, as such in your plan."
But more importantly, she wants to hurt her father. And this would hit him where it hurts, so to speak. Though, what might be surprising to most was how it would be slightly safer. It's unlikely that her father would let the theft go public, as his reputation would be at stake if he were to even appear to have lost such valuable cargo.
But Neo doesn't need to know that.
And you didn't tell me before because?
"Our relationship at that moment was tenuous at best. It seems like a bad idea to play your entire hand at the start."
Fair point. So is that your entire hand?
"Of course not."
While not strictly a lie, it isn't strictly true either. That really is the best information Weiss has right now, but she still has avenues she had yet to exhaust to more information. But again, Neo doesn't need to know that.
It looks like we'll have to plan around the extra security then. Is the manifest also wrong about the crew?
"Not necessarily. My father won't assign more personnel than normal, to avoid drawing suspicion. All of the crew members will be at least military or hunter trained though, as he's not willing to place that kind of cargo at that much risk."
Looking up from her scroll, Weiss meets Neo's stare, one she was sure Neo was using to evaluate whether or not Weiss was telling the truth. The stare down is broken when Neo puts on a slight smirk.
I'll rework the plan a bit then, and we'll have another short session going over the full plan. For now, let's cover some of the less pleasant aspects that you'll have to deal with regardless.
"Less pleasant aspects?"
Mainly, dealing with witnesses.
Weiss crosses her arms.
"What is that supposed to mean?"
Well, my heiress, for better or for worse, you're a very famous person. Anyone will recognize you if we get caught, which means bugging out at first sight may not be your best plan of action. This run isn't like the one's Roman was running. This is supposed to be a quiet job, we've got no need for public or private panic.
Neo set her own scroll down for a moment, letting the implications sink in for Weiss.
And Weiss was in her very own private panic at the moment. Of course she didn't think of what would happen if something went wrong, this was the perfect heiress after all! If there were even rumors that Weiss had tried to steal something from the SDC, consumer confidence would plummet! She wanted to hurt her father, not the company! And her father would do everything in his power to get her back in the mansion, and control her every waking moment!
Deep breaths. Breathe in, one, two. Breathe out, one, two.
Okay, okay, this is fixable. Neo could just do it herself. She is the one has got the experience after all, and there is no risk for Weiss being implicated outside of what Weiss had already considered before. But... this is an unsatisfying conclusion. She wants to be the one to damage her father's standing. It is meaningless if she doesn't take part in this. She would just be a tool for Neo to get information from. Does she want to go back to just being a pawn, albeit under another chess master?
-No, Weiss did not.
"So. How do we deal with witnesses?"
Two ways. We don't let anyone, and I mean anyone, see you. If that doesn't work, we'll have to keep them quiet, and likely using a more permanent solution.
Weiss says nothing. Neo closes her eyes and sighs.
You are going to have to learn how to kill someone. Quietly and cleanly.
"I see."
Neo cocks an eyebrow.
"It doesn't seem like your advocating for murder in the process of theft, and I'm not one who is willing to go in without preparations to deal with outcomes that we know may occur. That doesn't mean I'm happy about this, though. I'm not sure I could go through with it anyway, but I'll try to be prepared."
Weiss looks to the trees.
"And it's not like Hunter training shies away from the possibility."
Neo waits for Weiss to continue, but after a minute of silence, she starts typing again.
Well, let's go over a couple of different methods. Personally, I carry around a blade specifically for...
The walk back from Forever Fall was silent, and lonely. After the lesson on murder, Neo had let her go on ahead, content to clean up her belongings. Weiss never really thought about the complexities involved in killing someone quickly. It took about four minutes to strangle someone apparently. That was an agonizing amount of time.
Shaking those thoughts from her head, she brings to mind the issues and complications she will be dealing with in the next few hours. Ruby will definitely be unhappy with how late she was in getting back again, and probably more so if rumors about Neo's affection have already made it around the school. She needed to come up with a good cover story.
Rubbing her temples, Weiss continues her walk back, deep in thought.
A creak of the door to the room breaks the silence in the team RWBY dorm.
Weiss knows it's unlikely Ruby is already asleep in bed, but in the case that she is, it is worth a shot.
"Evening, Weiss," Blake says, without looking up from her book.
"Good evening to you too."
"Hey Weiss, are you ready to talk?"
Standing at the other end of the room, Ruby gives Weiss a glare. It is almost comical, coming from her. Weiss has seen scarier glares from kittens who had been shooed out of their favorite spot. At least it wasn't the puppy dog eyes. Weiss lets out her held breath. Her walk back through the school grounds lead her to believe no one really caught her and Neo at the festival, otherwise the rumor mill would've been out in full force.
"She's been pacing for the past 30 minutes, Weiss. You should really talk to her," Blake says.
"That's a bit rich coming from you."
Stifling a cough, Blake intensifies her gaze at her book.
"But, no Ruby, I can't say I am."
"Come on Weiss we're a-"
With a motion to cease from Weiss, Ruby stops speaking for a moment.
"My father isn't really an easy topic for me. He's a lot of the reason I am the way I am now, and the reason I came to Beacon. As much as you'd like me to dump my psychological problems all over you, I need time. He still tries his best to infect every part of my life, while I'm attempting to cut him out of it."
Though she generally used her father to excuse Neo's text, the fact remains that he is constantly calling her and texting her looking for a response.
"And it is not that I don't trust you, Ruby. Or Blake, or Yang for that matter. This is just a very sensitive issue for me."
Meeting Ruby's eyes, Weiss gives her a somewhat pleading look. The eyes she's gazing into narrow, but Ruby seems satisfied by her response.
"Okay, but if you need someone to talk to, please come to us first. There's no need to let this blow up."
They both smile.
"And give me a hug!"
Panic spreads across Weiss's face, she moves to leave the dorm again, but is caught by Ruby's arms tightening across her back. Fidgeting and squirming, she attempts to excuse herself from the hug to no avail.
"Come on, Ruby..."
The girl hugging her says nothing.
"You're better off just returning her hug." Blake grins at Weiss, giving her a wink. Weiss shoots back an unimpressed glare, but ends up giving in to Ruby's hug.
Pleased with herself, Ruby releases Weiss from her clutches, and returns back to her bunk. Dusting herself off, Weiss opens the door out of the dorm.
"Is Yang at the gym right now? I need to ask her a favor."
"Hello Yang."
To put it mildly, Yang is surprised. The Ice Queen herself? In the gym? Pigs must be flying. Normally she would snap at someone who interrupted her workout routine, especially since she had practically just gotten started. But in this case, a thorough questioning is order.
"What are you doing here Weiss?"
"I'd like your help improving my body."
A crack echoes through the gym.
"Yang?! Why did you slap yourself?!"
"Just wanted to make sure I wasn't dreaming." Yang examines her hand, looking for whatever evidence might indicate it was in fact a dream. "What exactly were you looking for help with?"
Taking a deep breath, Weiss relays the suggestions that Neo had offered her during training. Though somewhat startling to Yang, the combination of Weiss's very focused look and realistic goals help her understand that this isn't a some sort of elaborate prank.
"Well, lucky for you, you caught me at the beginning of my workout, so we can workout together today. I'll write you up an exercise routine, and show you the proper form for each of the exercises we'll go through."
Yang looks Weiss up and down.
"While aura will certainly make it faster, it will take a while for you to build the kind of muscle I have. We'll also have to work on your diet, so be ready for that. For now though, go get changed, and meet me back here. I'll put you through hell- I mean see what your limits are right now when you get back."
This is going to be fun. At least it will be for Yang. Weiss has never made it so easy.
Hey guys, I'm going to start a schedule now: every 3 weeks on Friday. I'd like to shorten it to every 2 weeks if possible, but I'm unsure if I can keep that pace up. Thanks for sticking around! Next Chapter: February 16th
