So here's chapter 7 of dust eater, this chapter, at least to me flowed much easier from my brain to my fingers than the last one did and hopefully the quality is a bit better as well. So you might notice that this is the first chapter I put a name to, Naming after the character who's in focus during the chapter. I know most of the chapters focused on Jaune's thoughts on the situation at hand, and occasional showing the thoughts of other characters, But this chapter was all Weiss, so it seemed fitting to make it work that way. As for Ozpin, well he's now filling an unintentional role in the story, Ozpin was always until he started sharing head space with the young boy, was kind of the passive observer type. Here I can use him, as sort of the reader surrogate as he studies up on Dust eaters, a subject he knows little about (shocking I know), to teach everyone else about the dust eaters themselves and to give some more background into the history of the species.

Also in this chapter, if you squint really hard and change the font to wingdings, you might see some hints of a possible JauneXWeiss pairing. But honestly, I'm not writing this with the shippers in mind, so we will see what happens. I think other better authors have handled every possible permutation of each possible ship in the fandom far better than I can hope to in any-rate.

Anyways, I hope you all enjoy this chapter and I'll see about working on the next chapter when I get the time.

It was pretty late when Jaune returned back to the dorm room. Weiss took note that he was carrying a shopping bag that he tossed onto one of their desks before he face-planted into his bed.

Yang and Blake had stepped out a half hour or so ago so they could explore the campus, Weiss had been reading a book she had borrowed from Blake about Ninjas when Jaune came in.

Weiss stood up, putting the book aside and walked over to the bag and looked inside of it, She saw that Jaune had purchased some extra clothes, mostly older items, a bit out of fashion, and nothing from any major brands she could recognize. Weiss also noticed that the shirts all looked like they would be a bit on the baggy side for Jaune's athletic build.

Weiss looked over at her clearly exhausted partner. "When I said you should get some new clothes I didn't mean tonight" as she felt her face contort to worry.

Jaune spoke, his voice muffled by his pillow and with a clearly worn out tone "Just be happy I manged to find a consignment shop open this late"

Weiss frowned, she figured the young miner didn't exactly have a lot of lien to his name, but he didn't even go to an actual clothes shop? "If you needed money for this I would of helped you."

Jaune didn't look up still speaking through his pillow "I was raised to be self sufficient, and to never own anything I couldn't buy or make for myself." Jaune paused "Besides I didn't want to owe anyone any favors"

Weiss read between the lines "You mean you didn't want to owe me any favors." She put the shirt she was holding back in his bag and sat back down on her bed, which thanks for yang's insistence, was right next to her partners. "You really don't like me do you."

Jaune didn't answer right away "I don't like that your not letting me sleep right now."

The room was filled with a bitter silence as Weiss stared at the Jaune's messy hair, she would quietly admit that he wasn't hard to look at, at least to her. But more importantly than some hormonal imbalance, he had become a something of a mystery. She wanted to know where all his anger at her family came from. Was his parents fired from one of their dust mines? He said his father was still a miner, so it's not impossible they had to relocate to Vale where her family didn't have a monopoly on mining Dust yet.

But he also seems to not be a big fan of Atlas as a whole... At least he said he wasn't a Faunus, so at least she didn't have to worry about him being some sort of White Fang terrorist waiting to stab her in her sleep tonight.

Weiss, unable to bear the silence any further spoke up "So where are you from anyways?"

Jaune noticeably tensed up at the question. Weiss picked up on it with some curiosity, but he still answered her question "Just a little mining town that's so small no one ever bothered to name it." Jaune then asked back with an accusing tone "Why is the SDC looking to make a purchase?"

Weiss pushed down her annoyance but still with a hint of anger stated "I'm not my father's company Jaune, I try not to live in his shadow as much as I can"

Weiss watched Jaune's shoulders relax a bit. she spoke softly "I just want to know the type of person my partner is, is that really such a problem for you?"

Jaune tilted his head to look at her, Weiss could see the sheer exhaustion in his face. Weiss understood why of course, he went through hell and back in the Emerald Forest, and then he turned around and went into Vale to buy clothes because she pushed him into it. She felt a pang of guilt at the second part.

Weiss was about to say something when Blake and Yang returned, Weiss shrugged and thought 'So much for solving this mystery tonight then'.


Professor Port's class, in Weiss's less than humble opinion, was an embarrassment to the very concept of teaching as a whole. And why wouldn't she feel that way, this so called professor spent half the class so far talking up his own past exploits as a Huntsmen.

Weiss found the fact that Jaune was actually taking some notes more interesting, he had a notebook in his hands he was adding notes to. She glanced over at it and saw that he had taken intricate notes on the subject of Beowulf, including some surprisingly detailed drawings and observations on the variously weak points and detailed notes on pack behavior, a brief diagram on how they set up nests, it was fascinating stuff she was reading..

Weiss thought to herself 'So my partner knows quite a bit about Grimm, he's also not a bad artist either" A passing thought of her posing for him as he drew a picture of her flashed through her head briefly as she snapped her focus away from Jaune in embarrassment. She had done so just in time for Professor port to call upon the class for a volunteer to demonstrate their skills against a Grimm in the class.

Well, who was she to turn down a challenge, or a chance to prove her skills. She one the only one to raise her hand.

Weiss was enthusiastic as Port called her down. She stood up, her rapier in hand watching as a couple of Port's teaching assistants pushed a chained cage into the room with some kind of boar like Grimm inside of it. As she started to walk down to the front of the class, she felt Jaune grab her wrist. She turned to face her fearless leader wondering what he wanted.

Jaune spoke quietly "That's a Boarbatusk, do you know how to take one of them out?"

Weiss's felt a simmering anger grow in her "Are you trying to imply I don't know how to take down such a simple monster?"

Jaune's eyes were serious but he let her hand go, Weiss couldn't quite figure what her partner was thinking, he just merely said "Well, I trust you won't embarrass us then."

Weiss couldn't believe the nerve of him, sure he might have that damn notebook of his, but she at least was trained at fighting, he didn't even graduate from a combat school before coming here.

Weiss took a ready stance at the front of the class, ready to vent off some of that building anger, as Port took his axe and neatly cleaved the chain holding the cage closed and the Boarbatusk charged out of the cage

Port stood back, Her teammates either watched in silence, or shouted out for Weiss to kick it's ass.

The Boarbatusk struck first charging as if it was planing to plow into her with it's sharpened tusks, Weiss waited for it to get close, and then easily side stepped it and lashed out at it with her rapier only managing to scrape against the side of the creature's bone plating.

Of course the creature was armored, Weiss tried to examine the Grinn for a spot where she could strike the creature, surely it had a weak point somewhere... right?

The Boarbatusk had different plans however, it turned almost on a dime and charged at her again, Weiss was almost taken aback by the beasts speed as she leaped to the side and shot a glance at her partner who was watching with a tense expression on his face.

That split second of distraction was all the Boarbatusk needed and it leap into the air rolling into a bony ball and forced Weiss to roll to the side ungracefully. The Grimm smashed into the teachers desk and smashed through it before it turned and charged her again.

Weiss however noticed one thing, the creature seamed to be unarmored on it's underside, if she could just get it on it's back for just a moment, she could easily take it out.

As she was thinking on how she could do that, the creature charged again. Rolling once again into a ball, Weiss decided to try something and threw up a Glyph in front of it. When the Boarbatusk crashed into it, she could see the Glyph crack from the impact of the Grimm's body against it. Weiss mentally pictured what it would have done to her if it had plowed into her like that. Weiss then noticed that the Grimm had stunned itself in the process and fell on it's side leaving it's stomach wide open.

It was a simple manner of course for her to stab it in the stomach at that point and when she did, her dual with the Grimm came to a sudden and uneventful end.

Weiss felt elated, she had proven to the class that she was the real deal, that she deserved to be there, at least in her own eyes.

The Professor seemed to almost disagree "Not a bad performance, you managed to exploit it's weakness, but I must ask, was that your first battle against a Boarbatusk?"

Weiss sheathed her sword, curious as to why the professor was asking "Well, yes sir it was".

The professor without changing his facial expression "In that case, good job thinking on your feet, you may take your seat"

Weiss honestly didn't care for how Port worded that, it almost felt like she was being damned with faint praise. As she returned to her seat and sat back down she noticed her Partner had his notebook the desk turned to a section on Boarbatusks.

Well at least she knew why her partner was asking if she wanted a few pointers. Weiss rubbed her neck and made a mental note to talk to him about helping her out in this class later on tonight.

Weiss's thoughts were scattered and questioning of she did something wrong during the fight until she heard her partner tell her "Good job kicking that things ass Snowflake"

she was not sure why, but that seemed to have lifted her spirits quite a bit.


The rest of the day passed mostly uneventfully until Combat classes with Professor Goodwitch. That was except for a small explosive realization at just how bad Jaune was at handling dust.

They had been given the time time to get into their combat gear before the class and Weiss took stock of the weapons her teammates brought with them. She saw Blake carrying a strange weapon that looked like a dark gray combat knife with a Black fabric strap attacked to the hilt, she also saw what looked like a small caliber firearm built into said hilt.

Weiss couldn't wait to see that in action. Weiss also found her self noting that Yang didn't seem to bring a weapon at all to class. 'Lovely, we have two people on our team that try to get by with their fists" She thought.

Weiss's attention was called to the front of the class, as the Professor called everyone's attention to the front.

Ms Goodwitch spoke up "Okay class, listen up, today I'm going to try and sort the class by the aptitude scores in your dueling abilities to try and put you into one on one spars with someone on your skill level"

Weiss slightly tuned out the instructor as she went on to explain she was going to start off with students that under performed in the schools initiation tests first and eventually work her way up the chain.

Weiss's attention was snapped to the front of the class when Glynda said "We'll start off with our lower end performers Would Mr Arc and Mr Winchester please come up?"

She swore she could hear her partner mutter "Aw Crap" as he stood up.


Ozpin sat alone in his office, his eyes focused on his computer he was watching the feed from Gylnda's classroom, in his hands he held his scroll as he was reading an older report, commissioned by the Schnee dust company in it's early days when the, as the report claims, "Subterranean humanoid lizards" were first discovered.

The "Watts Report on Dust Eaters" as it was called, was a report commissioned by the SDC's founder Nicholas Schnee who wanted to know if the, at the time, recently discovered and highly secretive species was going to be a major threat to the Atlas government. Ozpin questioned if the late Schnee also commissioned the report in an effort to see if the Dust Eaters would also be a threat to his own small but growing company as well."

Ozpin noted, that at least according to the report, Dust eaters were in fact a major threat to, not just Atlas but Remnant as a whole, the report advised that the so called "Monstrous Lizard men" consumed "Huge amounts of dust" in which the good doctor also added "The same dust that is vital to our war efforts against the Grimm" and the report said that the "Barely sentient creatures no doubt if left alone, would surely create massive shortages of the all to important resource that fuels our very society."

Ozpin would recall, that the author of the report, a well known and regarded Doctor, one know for having an incredible thirst for new knowledge, Arthur Watts was a well regarded multi-vocational scientist and researcher in his day. Ozpin came to the conclusion that his findings, as well as a push by Nicholas Schnee himself, would be all that was required for Atlas to pass the "Dust Eater Extermination Act" in the interests of public safety.

Ozpin noted as well, that other kingdoms, including Vale, had actually passed laws to prevent Dust eaters from settling down in the major settlements of the various Kingdoms due to the very same report.

Ozpin never thought much on the subject before today, he frankly had to much on his plate as it stood, especially now that this terrible business with the Fall Maiden was taking place. Ozpin was no fool however and knew from experience how many conveniently already dug out dust Mines fell into the SDC's possession after the exterminations.

"Very Convent indeed" Ozpin said to no one in particular. Ozpin also while thinking about it, can not recall ever hearing about Arthur Watts passing, And that Nicholas Schnee's own cause of death was never made public by the Schnee family.

Ozpin put the scroll down and returned his gaze back to his his computer to watch the first year combat class just as Mr Arc was about to have his first classroom dual against one Cardin Winchester. Ozpin found himself wondering to himself 'I can only imagine how Mr Arc will handle being partnered with Ms Schnee in the long term, lets hope it doesn't result in the first recorded instance of a murder on campus'.