Chapter 13 - Taking Risks

Pressure forces each huntress to act.

Weiss carefully watched her teammate as the blond picked up small metal tokens off of the table. The heiress meanwhile tapped the lap button of her scroll's stopwatch app each time one of the disks successfully made it back into the container.

It was hard for Weiss not to be pleased by the marked improvement Yang had made in the week since they had instituted the new training. The blond was now able to pick up the tokens with an average of about seven seconds per disk, with a variance of about one point five seconds based on disk size.

The smaller woman was ecstatic with the level of progress that her teammate had made in such a short amount of time; Yang on the other hand had been in a strangely distant and irritable mood for the past couple of day and it was starting to trouble the heiress.

When Yang had placing the last token in the box Weiss uploaded the data to the training spreadsheet she kept on their sessions. A bit of a smile touched the heiress's face as she looked over the newly imported stats, "Quite impressive, you have made a ninety-four percent decrease in your time for that activity since we first started training 3 weeks ago."

Yang simply looked at her with a wooden expression and divulged absolutely nothing.

Weiss frowned in annoyance. "What is going on with you?" the heiress asked, as irritated at her teammate's mood slipped into her voice.

The blond looked at her with a hard set expression of malcontent; answering only with, "What's next?"

The heiress let out an irritated breath and started tapping her foot, while Yang simply staring at a wall lost in thought as she sat partially slumped in her chair.

"Alright you stubborn dragon," Weiss chided, "enough is enough. You have been moping about for two days now. You need to start talking, because this disaffected mood of yours is even starting to rival Blake's."

Yang's eyes briefly flared at the mention of the faunus's name before frowning more deeply than Weiss had ever seen.

Oh, of course this is about Blake. Why wouldn't it be about the one thing I have absolutely no desire to talk about?

Weiss pushed down her ire and decided to try for a more gentle approach. She walked over the disheartened dragon and gently placed her hand on the blond's shoulder, "I would really rather you tell me exactly what is going on, but could you at least explain why you aren't more excited about the growth you have been making? Your gross motor fluency is up to ninety percent and your fine motor control is up to an average of seventy percent. Even I am impressed with the improvements you have made." Weiss removed her hand and folded it with her other across her chest. "So why can't you be even a little bit happy about all the hard work that we have put into your training finally paying off?"

The blond's eyes closed and she let her head slowly dip. The depressed nature of the woman before her made Weiss's chest ache, and she felt all the more worse at not knowing how to help the miserable dragon.

"I'm sorry," Yang finally spoke, "Thank you for helping me, and for putting up with me. You've been beyond great."

The blond opened her eyes to look down at her metal appendage. She sighed before she spoke, "I don't really know how to explain, but since I got this prosthetic I've been struggling to 'connect' with it," Yang answered.

Weiss quickly started to reach for Yang's arm to check the neural circuits, but Yang pulled back.

"No not like that. I mean, it's not real. The arm isn't..." Yang rubbed the palm of her left hand across the lip of the table as she struggled to find the words to explain.

Violet eyes grew wider as they stumbled upon a thought. "Here," the blond motioned to Weiss, "Hold up Myrtenaster."

The heiress looked at her a little funny, but drew her weapon as she was bidden. Yang took the index finger of her left hand and pushed it into the tip of the sword.

Weiss instantly jerked the blade away, but was too late. A small drop of blood pooled on the end of Yang's finger.

"You see," Yang held out her hand for her teammate to view clearly, "I can feel that. But this" she held up her metal arm, "I could beat this with a hammer till it was flat and I wouldn't feel a thing." Yang sighed and flexed her mechanical hand. "It doesn't feel at all like a part of me. If I want to do something I have to actually think about every motion that I want to complete before I do it." The blond looked away in frustration, "I don't know, did any of that make sense?"

The heiress could have kicked herself; it made perfect sense. Weiss didn't know why she hadn't realized it before. Yang's arm was artificial. It wasn't like she was trying to retrain a damaged limb. It was like more like training your brain to move something that it didn't think was there.

If a human had to actively think about every movement they made in a day they would hardly get a thing done. It would be like planning every step you took, or deliberately willing every movement of your fingers as you typed out a simple message on your scroll. People don't usually think, if they want to do something their body just generally complies.

Weiss narrowed her eyes as she sheathed Myrtenaster, "Yes, it does."

The heiress reached out to grab Yang's injured hand, but the willful dragon leaned away from her.

"I'll be fine," Yang quickly responded to the gesture. "My aura's already healing it."

The smaller woman rolled her eyes at her reticent teammate, and resigned herself to the fact that arguing the matter would go nowhere.

Yang scowled at the ground as she spoke, "I've had a weird feeling about using this arm since I got it. I thought eventually it would get less over time, but a couple of days ago I realized that it wouldn't ever go away. Which means I'll never have truly full function back, because there will always be lag time in my actions." the gloomy blond looked into Weiss's eyes with determination as she spoke, "That doesn't mean that I will stop training as hard as I can. I wouldn't ever be so thoughtless about the time and effort that you put into helping me." Yang looked down at her metal appendage, "But it is hard to stay positive when you realize that what you've been working towards won't ever happen."

The words hit Weiss on a level that Yang could never have anticipated.

Righting her thoughts back to the task at hand Weiss scolded her teammate, "I wish you would have told me about this sooner," The heiress took a long moment to fully analyze the problem before speaking, "I actually think I have a few ideas that might help, but I will need time to look into them."

Practically grumbling to herself Yang got up from her chair and stormed out into the main practice area of the gym.

What is wrong with her now?!

Exasperated with the fuming dragon's behavior, Weiss strode off after her teammate.

The heiress had hit her threshold with Yang. It had been just over three weeks since she found and started training Yang, and the whole time Weiss had patiently waited for the blond to talk to her about the issues that were affecting her from that night at Beacon. But now that they were influencing Yang this badly Weiss felt like it wasn't just her satisfying her own need to know. Something was eating away at Yang in a way that Weiss hadn't ever seen, and it was simply too hard for the heiress to watch someone that she loved tear themselves apart inside without doing something about it.

Weiss stopped a few feet from the taller woman's back, "Yang this has to stop." Her voice raised a little when Yang didn't turn around, "You can't keep pushing me away like this. Tell me what is going on so that I can help you."

Yang's shoulders slumped and she fisted both of her hands, "I don't want you to help me anymore."

Immediately the smaller woman felt pain radiate through her at the rejection.

"You've done too much for me already," Yang continued, "and I can't just keep relying on you to fix all of my problems." Anger crept into the dragon's voice, "It's not right that you do so much for me. I can't even help you in return."

"Yang," the heiress tried to reassure her, "you don't need to-"

"It's not just that," the blond's short temper cut her off. "I get that all of this is helping, but it takes so much time. And I don't have time to waste. I spent over six months in Patch just licking my wounds while the rest of you were out in the world fighting, traveling, and living your lives without me. Meanwhile all I have managed to do is sign myself into servitude under the Atlas military, thinking that I'd be clever enough to find a way out of it," Even with her back turned Weiss could see Yang's whole body shake with anger, "But I haven't. I don't have the slightest clue of how to get out of my contract without giving up the one thing I came here for."

Weiss wanted to say something, she wanted to do something to comfort the woman standing in front of her, but now that Yang was finally talking she didn't want to do anything that might make her stop.

The dragon straightened to her full impressive height as she continued, "I get fully deployed under Ironwood in a little more than month, and when that happens I know what I have to do."

The heiress took a cautious step towards the expanse of golden locks that covered the taller woman's back. Her chest tightened as she waited for her teammate to continue.

Yang spoke with clarity and defiance, "I'm going to tell him that my first assignment needs to be hunting down Adam Taurus."

Weiss's eyes shot open with shock and soul crushing fear; without thinking she grabbed Yang's left arm tightly with both hands.

Yang felt two slender and dexterous hands firmly attach themselves to her forearm. She was angry, but the sensation managed to conjure up a faded memory that dulled her ire slightly and kept her from pulling away.

"You moronic dragon, you can't do that," Weiss yelled in panic, "if you go after him you'll die!"

The fear in the princess's voice finally made Yang turn around. When she looked down on the smaller woman she found herself surprised at the level of terror that showed on the heiress's normally controlled face. Weiss was not being melodramatic, she was really and truly worried.

Yang's hard expression faltered slightly, and she didn't have the heart to make the princess let go. "Weiss," she sighed, "he's still out there, and we both know that it is only a matter of time before he finds Blake again. If I want to find her I just need to find him first."

Weiss's face turned to a disappointed and aggravated frown as she looked away. She eased her grip and then let her hands fall away, "You are such a fool Xiao Long." There was a long pause before the heiress spoke again and when she did there was vexation in her voice, "That is your plan. You think you can just walk up to Ironwood, the general of the whole Atlas military, and insist that he send you on a suicide mission so that you can search for Blake."

The princess looked up at her in anger, "Did you really think that I would let you run off on a mission that will most certainly get you killed? Do you actually think Blake wants you to do this? And what about Ruby, what do you think it would do to her if she lost you? You are being so selfish," tears touched the corners of Weiss's eyes as she continued, "you are acting just like Blake. There are so many people that care about you and you-you-"

The heiress stared daggers into the floor as she cut herself off.

Yang stood very still; she was not really sure how to deal with what was happening. She had expected Weiss to be mad, but angry sad was freaking her out. "Look Weiss it's the only plan I've come up with that will let me do what I need to. I didn't say that I was going to fight him; I just need to find him. Finding him will help me find Blake."

Weiss's eyes narrowed sharply in agitation at the blond's words and she had the same look on her face that she got after having to turn Jaune down more than twice in one day, "So you think that you, a human, is just somehow going to sneak up on a group of highly trained faunus." Condensation marked the heiresses words as she railed on, "Then upon finding Taurus he will simply lead you straight to Blake, whereupon the two of you will slip away from a literal killer without having to fight."

The heiress's words were stern and without hesitation, "You are nowhere near ready to fight him, on multiple levels, and you know it."

The truth of her teammate's words stung, but they also made Yang mad past the point of rational thought, "I can deal with Adam if I need to."

"No," Weiss's voice lightened, "you can't. And the fact that you do not see that is beyond troubling. What he did to you was nothing short of traumatizing, and if you think that your anger and semblance will protect you then you are deluding yourself. People don't just get over the type of loss you have had, it takes years to deal with and talking to about it with people that are trained to help. You have shown all the signs of post traumatic stress disorder since you arrived in Atlas. I tried to let you come to me to talk about it, but you have kept it all locked inside and refuse to talk about it whenever I even hint at bringing it up. It would even be fine if you didn't open up to me about it as long as you talked to someone, but you haven't gone to see anyone on base about what happened either. You have to work through what happened. This is not the type of thing you can do on your own."

Yang felt like she had been slapped in the face, "You think I'm broken don't you?! Or do you just think I am too weak and stupid to handle my own problems. How could you think I have some sort of disorder? I'm here in Atlas trying to get my life back, I'm not crazy. I don't need to go see a shrink to talk about my feelings. I'm dealing with it on my own."

The heiress looked up at her with sad pleading eyes. Yang couldn't handle seeing Weiss when she looked that miserable and disappointed, so she turned her head away.

There was a long pause before Weiss started talking again, "Yang, I would never think little of you, I am just worried about you. You haven't been the same since the fall, and rightly so, you lost an arm and were nearly killed. If the same had happened anyone else that we know you would be the first person to listen and offer them help. I know you would never want someone to shoulder so much pain on their own, but you have insisted on setting a standard for yourself that is unreasonable and goes against what you would normally offer others. And I'm afraid that if you don't get help dealing with everything you are going through thing are only going to get worse."

Yang glared at the wall refusing to meet Weiss's gaze, "You couldn't possibly know what I'm dealing with, so why do you get to tell me what I'm doing is wrong?"

The princess's words were soft, but thankfully without pity, "You are right, it isn't right right for me to presume what you are going through. But I am also not able to sit here silently anymore and watch you suffer. The moment we met in Atlas I could tell that something was wrong. You were not your normal vibrant self, and I have never seen you be so negative or down on yourself as I have these past few weeks. I wasn't going to push you, but you have slowly become more irritable and quicker to anger than ever." Weiss knitted her eyebrows and paused before finishing, "And I know a lot of that has been caused by the nightmares you have about him."

Yang's eyes went wide with shock and her head snapped back to look at the heiress.

How could she know about that?

Weiss let out a sad sigh as she frowned, "I knew it, you are having nightmares." The smaller woman's gaze became intense as she locked her eyes on Yang, reading how the blond reacted to each word, "You get forced to relive that night in your dreams, and every time he attacks you no matter what you do. Then when you wake up you are in a panic that takes you nearly an hour or more to shake."

Concerned blue eyes pierced into her soul as Yang stared back at the princess in disbelief. She knew, she knew almost everything, but how?

The princess's hard expression broke and she took a step closer looking off to the side, "I know it doesn't make it any easier, but what you are going through is actually relatively normal. I started researching the effects of trauma after the first time I managed to call you in Patch."

Weiss paused and gently reached out to grab Yang's left hand in each of her own. The action forced the blond to meet troubled azure eyes, "You aren't broken Yang, but you also should not have to go through all of this by yourself. This isn't the type of thing anyone can do alone."

The blond looked down sadly at crystal clear eyes, then lower at the pale white fingers that held on to her. Painfully she pulled from the grasp and put a few steps of distance between them. Yang had to turned away because she couldn't handle looking at those worried eyes anymore and she didn't know how much longer she could control the emotions that were still running rampant inside of her.

It was all just too much. She squeezed her eyes shut and took a long deep breath.

With great care she unpacked all of her emotions. The anger that she had directed at Weiss, but was really about her own inability to fix things. The fear of someone else knowing her weakness and having to acknowledging that something was wrong. The hopelessness of not knowing how to deal with the nightmares and all the pain that that night had continued to bring. The persistent desire to seek comfort from her teammate, only to know that she wouldn't ever let herself have it. And the guilt at always taking and never giving enough back in return.

Yang didn't know how long she had stood there working through her inner turmoil. But eventually her thoughts were broken by slender arms tentatively slipping past her sides to grip the fabric of her shirt. Yang froze as she felt the princess's forehead gently rest against her back.

Confusion marked Yang's face as she looked down at the pale hands that clenched the front of her shirt.

Is Weiss... hugging me?

As if on command the princess responded, "Don't take this the wrong way you dumb dragon, but you did this for me once… so I'm just returning the favor," Weiss's voice sounded shaky and unsure, but still full of her trademark pride.

Part of Yang wanted so badly to turn around and embrace the princess properly, but the other part felt painfully guilty for enjoying the feel of the smaller woman gently clinging to her from behind. So as conflicted as it made her feel she stayed where she was, because she knew how unbelievably cruel it would have been to turn the heiress away after she had worked up the nerve to complete such a 'personal' action.

She also figured that staying put was the safest bet and would raise the least amount of questions.

Closing her eyes Yang stood there with a teammate, who the blond was still working out how she felt about, at her back that was trying to comfort her in an adorable and completely unskilled way.

Yang desperately wished that her emotions would stop fight long enough for her to sort through the chaos.

Maybe Weiss is right, maybe I do need to-

Before she could finish her thought the heiress spoke quietly into her back, "Please promise me that you won't go after Taurus unless I fail to come up with a better plan. I will do everything I can to help you, so just please promise me this one thing."

Yang couldn't remember a time in her life when she had felt like more of an asshole. Her own problems were now spreading to others because she had refused to try and fix what was going on inside of her, and now she was hurting the one person who had helped her the most. It left Yang with an aching guilt that only grew the longer the princess held on to her.

She took a long deep breath and held it in before answering through her regret, "I promise Weiss."

The heiress elegantly disentangled herself from Yang so swiftly that it was like she hadn't ever been there.

She didn't want to, but Yang turned to look at the princess. The smaller woman's eyes were a little red in the corners, and she had a stern look on her face that Yang had started to recognize as Weiss trying to hold back her emotions.

Clenching her jaw Yang fought back her feelings of shame and guilt long enough so that she could speak, "I'm sorry that I always cause you so much trouble." The blond looked away, "I won't go looking for Adam, but if I search for Blake I might not be able to avoid him."

Out of the corner of her eye Yang could see the princess frown deeply with worry, and it made the blond cringe.

Quietly Weiss replied, "I understand."

Yang rubbed her head in frustration at how poorly things had gone, "Tonight's sorta been a lot, if it's okay with you I'm going to skip the rest of our training tonight."

The heiress's brow knitted together with concern, but she nodded, "I'll go get my scroll and call you a car."

"Thank you Weiss," Yang looked down on the princess as she held her emotions in check, "for everything. You truly are an amazing friend."

The heiress glared at the gym door, lost in worried thought. Things had worsened for Yang in a way that sincerely scared Weiss. She knew to her core that if she didn't do something soon enough the prideful dragon was going to run off and get herself killed.

The events of the previous hour had grown a type of fear inside of Weiss that she had never felt before, and she didn't like it.

Resolve made the heiress clench her jaw as she pulled out her scroll. She tapped a few buttons to make sure the line was secure and waited for the man on the other end to pick up.

"Ms. Schnee," Glenn answered promptly, "I wasn't expecting to hear from you till tomorrow. Has something changed with the decisions we made on the-"

Weiss cut the man off, "I want you to put everything we were working on on hold. You are going to meet with Doctor Polendina tomorrow. I need you to be completely available to him to ensure that he gets anything he might need to undertake the Yellow Dragon Project. It has recently become apparent to me that he is the only person that will be capable of working on the project given the new parameters that I want met. I'll be in contact with him early tomorrow morning to get him on board."

Her assistant hesitated before answering, "Ms. Schnee what happened? We had agreed that that Project would only be feasible after you had secured enough support and resources for the new LLC. We are still about a month off from being ready for this."

"I am acutely aware of how disruptive the timing is, but it needs to be done now. I will be working on new schematics for the prosthetic all tonight. So I will need you to start lining up suppliers for the materials as soon as I send you the new blueprint. Doctor Polendina will no doubt make changes to the cybernetic design, but hopefully it won't be too substantially different. This project is to be completed as soon as possible, so if Doctor Polendina says he needs something get it for him. I do not want to be bothered with purchase requests, whatever he requires is approved."

"Ms. Schnee," his voice hardened, "I think you need to take a minute to evaluate. If we pursue this now it will set our main goal back weeks and severely drain your personal accounts to the point that we may not be able to move forward. Not to mention the risk involved once you give it to her."

"Glenn I know how badly this is going to affect us," Weiss fought the urge to let her frustration out on the man, "We will just have deal with our timeline being pushed back, and I will just have to look at other options for securing us new funds. I know how much of a gamble pulling this project together right now is, and I will do everything in my power not to let it set us back any further than it has to. But if I don't act now she is going to get herself killed, and I would rather lose the company a hundred times over than let that happen."

There was distinct hesitation on the other end of the call, "If this goes wrong it will cost you quite literally everything." Her assistant let out a regretful sigh, "I hope this woman is worth it."

Weiss replied with ardent conviction, "She is."

Author's note:

Please leave a review if you have time. It really helps to get feedback as a writer. I always appreciate constructive comments or speculation on what you think is coming next. Even if you just really liked something, let me know which parts were the best or why you liked them. The more feedback I get the better the story can become. Who knows you might even see your suggestion used in later chapters. Thank you for reading and enjoy. (Posts will usually be weekly)