A/N: An entire chapter of Weiss's favorite thing!

HUGS,

D


Blake's trip to Professor Peach's office ended up blessedly uneventful. The halls were all but deserted as she made her way to the professors' wing, which made sense given it was a Sunday with beautiful weather. Their fellow classmates were probably out and about, visiting the city.

By this point, Blake had just about enough of the city to last her a lifetime. She could scarcely hear the word "city" without frowning. Weiss was right. They were vulnerable there. Even if the first half of her and Weiss's last visit had gone remarkably well, it had of course warped into a living nightmare. And with those particular events so fresh in her mind, it took every scrap of willpower to avoid letting her thoughts wander back - to over-analyze every single second. It was like standing at the edge of a cliffside, and if she dared to peek over the edge the vertigo would send her plummeting right back down into the thick of it...

Rather than chance a panic attack in the middle of the hall, Blake shook her head and shifted her wandering thoughts to Weiss. The confession she'd both received and given... being showered with kisses, falling asleep with Weiss in her arms... Even just thinking about it sent Blake's heart racing. It was still sinking in that Weiss apparently loved her back, and for every second she dwelled on that thought, Blake felt her face heat up at an exponential rate. Her eyes darted around the hallway - still empty. Blake sighed, a nervous smile pulling at the edges of her lips.

She was glad for the empty halls, not only because of how close her face probably was to catching fire, but also because she was still without her bow. Blake caught her reflection in the glass window of one of the classroom doors as she passed by. Her Faunus ears stood tall, on display to the world. She had no plans on hiding them again any time soon... but that didn't mean her anxiety over being out in the open would vanish overnight. She may have played it cool at breakfast, but in reality the entire time she had been low-key expecting a barrage of questions and shock and surprise and... Even though they already knew she was a Faunus, the fact that none of her friends made a big deal out of her coming out of hiding... was actually really nice.

Her ears twitched this way and that, happily picking up all the little sounds that had been muffled by her bow for so long. The way her steps echoed off the walls, the soft rustle of Gambol Shroud's ribbon... Blake didn't even know if she would need her weapon, but with the number of times Professor Peach had dragged her into the surrounding forests... Hopefully whatever it was would be low-key, because her leg still smarted if she moved it too quickly.

Blake finally came to a stop in front of Peach's office. The door was slightly ajar, as always. She could see her bright green drink sitting on the professor's desk, as always. The office itself appeared to be dark and bursting with plant life from wall to wall to ceiling... as always.

The image of that towering Alpha Beowolf from the night prior flashed through Blake's head. Had Professor Peach always looked like that? Blake tried to scour her memory of her past outings with the reclusive Professor, realizing a little late that Peach had always shown up after she'd taken the dose of catnip left for her on the desk.

Even still, she was pretty sure she remembered... some kind of person? At least she thought she did. Hand still resting on the door frame, Blake stood there in the doorway, pondering, when her ears caught the sound of something large making its way towards her side of the room.

That same Alpha Beowolf stepped out of the closest cluster of plants and into the light pouring in from the hall - Professor Peach, staring Blake down with burning red eyes.

Blake stared right back, rendered speechless.

It wasn't exactly possible to tell where a Grimm's eyes were focused, but Blake could somehow feel her looking at her uncovered ears.

"Looks good."

One of Blake's Faunus ears half-flattened in embarrassment. What exactly was the proper reaction to a compliment from a Grimm? But, no, this wasn't a Grimm. This was her Professor, and regardless of how terrifying she might look, she would treat her the same as any other professor. Blake cleared her throat. "...Thank you."

Peach took a step closer and tilted her bone-plated head to the side, looking down at Blake from her full height. "You don't look like ex-White Fang."

Blake's heart stopped, but her professor spoke again before she could really process things.

"Glynda told me everything. She wants your training changed."

Something about the way her Professor spoke without moving her jaws in the slightest was extremely disconcerting, but Blake managed to nod. She was halfway to managing a question when Peach held up a hand.

"Hold on."

Blake simply watched, baffled, as her Professor turned and vanished back into the plants. The foliage was too thick to really make anything out even with her darkvision, but she could hear her Professor's steps gradually lighten to inaudible levels, followed by the soft rustling of some kind of cloth.

After a few moments of dead silence, a slight woman barely Nora's height stepped back out of the plants. Dark eyes framed by short dark hair squinted in distaste at the oversized lab coat she was tying closed around her waist. "Clothing's a nuisance, but it is easier to speak this way."

This version of Peach clicked into place in Blake's hazy memories. She had gone on those strange plant hunts with a person. So then the Beowolf had to be... "Was that your semblance?" Blake asked in wonder, realizing after the words had already left her that many people considered questions like that extremely rude.

Thankfully Professor Peach did not seem to be one of them. "Yeah," she answered simply, seemingly more interested in the seeds she'd just discovered in one of her pockets.

This time it was Blake who stepped forward, out of the doorway and properly into the classroom. Peach moved to shut the office door, cloaking the room in darkness once more, but Blake could still see her Professor's stark white coat. "You can become a Beowolf?"

"Any Grimm I kill with my own two hands." Pocketing the seeds once more, the Professor returned her attention to Blake. She motioned towards the office chair behind the desk. "Sit."

It felt strange to sit in the Professor's chair when she was standing right there, but Blake didn't dare question her. She took the seat and instinctively gripped the bright green catnip drink, but paused before taking a sip. This was a lot to take in all at once, and she wanted to be as lucid as possible for it.

Somewhere in the back of her head she felt like she should be panicking over all or at least some of this - but after everything that had happened yesterday... this was strangely par for the course. Blake watched in silence as Peach rummaged through the drawers of her desk, unearthing a silver thermos from a tangle of leaves and twigs in the bottom drawer. "So... how exactly are we changing my training?"

Peach took a seat on the desk's edge, legs crossed and brows furrowed as she wrestled with the thermos's cap. "Beacon teaches you how to kill Grimm, and how to fight in that rule-bound Vytal Festival. After last night, Glynda decided she wants me to teach you to fight people," she finally wrested the cap free and set it aside, "which I happen to be very good at. And it's not like I can say no to Glynda anyway."

Blake frowned. Loathe as she was to admit it, she probably already had more experience than most students in fighting people rather than Grimm. "...What about the catnip training?"

"Easy - fight under the influence." Peach said simply, dropping some of the seeds from her pocket into whatever was in the thermos and taking a short sip. "If you can do that, fighting sober will be child's play. Two birds one stone."

For what felt like the millionth time in the past five minutes, Blake stared at her professor, finding herself at a total loss for words.

Professor Peach took another sip, keeping her eyes on Blake the entire time. "That being said... if I'm going to train you to fight, I need to know who you are." She set her drink down. "And of course, if I get to know who you are, then you deserve to know who I am."

"So," she motioned for Blake to drink her catnip, "Let's talk."


Sweat stung in Weiss's eyes but she didn't spare a hand to wipe it away. She and Yang circled each other on the mats after a series of dry runs that mostly involved crashing into each other. Well, Yang circled. Weiss turned to stay facing her, both hands up in a fighting stance that still carried a hint of 'fencer' to it in her shoulders and footwork as her mind went a mile a minute. If I can catch her at the right time, and step out of the way just as the glyph takes hold, and watch her free hand, and...

Yang lunged with a straight right hook, a wild look of glee in her eyes.

Weiss's normal reaction of giving ground to get out of range got tangled up in the other half dozen things she was trying to remember to do and she tripped backwards over her own feet, covering her head as she belatedly threw up an overly large black repel glyph set to pull Yang through straight overtop of her.

The glyph caught Yang's arm and jettisoned her across the gym, barely missing Pyrrha in the process. Pyrrha flinched at Yang's spectacular crash landing in the pile of exercise balls, but breathed a small sigh of relief that she'd missed the nearby rack of dumbbells. "That's an excellent way to create distance! You should be able to yank someone's weapon right out of their hands with that."

"Yes, well. I suppose that works." Weiss picked herself up off the floor, red in the face after the inglorious maneuver. She glanced to make sure Yang was alright.

Yang hopped to her feet, a delighted smile plastered across her face. Heat was already beginning to roll off of her as she trotted back to Weiss and Pyrrha. "Not gonna lie Weiss, that was terrible, but also awesome."

She was fine. Of course she was- Yang was practically indestructible. Weiss fumbled for a handkerchief and tossed her hair, stating primly, "I'm open to suggestions."

"I suggest," Pyrrha spoke up, "we work on disarming techniques first."

Yang pouted at the suggestion, but like everyone else in the school, she couldn't say no to Pyrrha. "I guess that makes sense. But hand-to-hand is so much fun!"

"So is disarming an opponent," Pyrrha's wink and smile left Yang speechless... at least, until the barbell from the bench press suddenly flew across the room and into Pyrrha's hand, glowing with a soft black outline.

"Um," Yang looked between the massive metal bar and Weiss, and back again, "That's what you're using?"

Weiss slowly backed away from Pyrrha, who had almost a foot of height on her, and the bar, which had two. "For once I think Yang has a definite point."

"I'm not going to actually hit you," Pyrrha tried to reassure her. "I just thought something metal would be easier for me to catch quickly if you fling it as far as you did Yang."

Weiss's brow rose in alarm and she shot a look at Yang, who she had toppled directly onto herself every time except this last one. Catching a flying metal bar out of the air was one thing, but catching it post-glyph before it made contact with her face was something else. "You don't think we should start with something smaller?"

"I thought you might like to start with something slower, but..." Pyrrha looked thoughtful, "I suppose I could ask Jaune to bring Milo."

Yang nodded in approval of the much lighter option, then blinked and quietly grimaced at the sudden mental image of Weiss flinging spears at herself.

"That sounds ideal," Weiss said instantly. Her aura could shed a light blow or two from non-aura-piercing steel, and she preferred not to be laid out flat on the floor with every misstep.

In theory, practicing against an armed opponent wasn't far from normal. Redirecting her opponents' strikes and outmaneuvering them was integral to her rapier work, so this shouldn't be too difficult overall. She just had to figure out the right timing for her glyphs, and the angles. And how to get out of the way.

With a nod and smile, Pyrrha set the barbell on its end beside her, that soft black outline holding it perfectly balanced and still as she pulled out her scroll to text Jaune.


The pair of ninjas, one clad in crimson the other in dragon's blood black, fought. Their blades flashed in the moonlight as cherry blossoms spilled in an eternal breeze behind them.

Jaune's scroll buzzed in his pocket and he jumped. Instantly, Soaring Ninja's head was separated from his body.

The screen changed as words flickered up and a narrator announced Red Dragon's victory.

"Ha!" Ruby leapt up triumphant as Jaune cried out in protest. "Even with one eye, no one beats the Red Dragon!"

"No fair! I was distracted!" He switched his scroll out of game controller mode to see Pyrrha's text. His brow knit. He'd thought Pyrrha was going to help Yang and Weiss with unarmed combat, but she was asking for her spear. He set the device on the rug of RWBY's dorm, turning to Ruby, "Hey, did you ever find out what happened last night?"

Ruby dropped her scroll to her lap as she sat back down on the rug, shoulder's drooping. She reached for the bowl of dry Pumpkin Pete's cereal they had between them, but didn't take any to eat. "Not really."

"Oh," Jaune sort of bit his lip and ran his hand through his hair awkwardly. "They seemed okay at lunch? Like, no bandages visible or anything. And Blake, uh... seemed confident. Kind of."

"You mean she wasn't wearing her bow?" Ruby leaned forward some, tipping the bowl of cereal around and avoiding his gaze. "Yeah, I think they're okay. I'll talk to Weiss later and find out, probably."

The victory screen kept replaying up on the bookcase. Jaune watched Ruby pretend to be fine with everything her friends were going through. "You're a great team leader, you know."

"What?" She looked up, surprised.

"Just the way you look after them," Jaune laughed, warding off Ruby as she started shoving him sideways growling at him to not be weird. "C'mon, it's true! And we've got your back too, you know?"

"Yeah, this would be easier if I was better at people." Ruby quit pushing him and sat back, running a hand through her hair.

Jaune struck a pose sitting down, "Fortunately you have the extremely suave and capable Jaune Arc's social aptitude at your disposal."

"Pfft." It was tough to feel rough with support like that. Ruby wound up with a half-smile in spite of herself, "Thanks."

"Any time," Jaune held up the message on his scroll and levered himself up to his feet, "Actually, hey, I'm about to make a delivery. Want to come with? Maybe we'll catch them at a good time."

"Is there a good time for Weiss?" Ruby smirked, stashing her scroll into her skirt pocket.

Jaune shrugged a little as Ruby took his helping hand to stand up. "It can't be that bad."


Whack!

Pyrrha's red and bronze spear, Milo, reverberated in the wall right between Ruby and Jaune's seats on the bench at the side of the gym. Jaune belatedly flung himself sideways away from the weapon. Ruby ate another handful of Pumpkin Pete's, glancing a very 'I told you' look at her fellow team leader.

Weiss stepped back, trying to catch her breath. It had been half an hour of continuous practice so far. Her palms were slick with sweat and her nerves seemed like they were on fire from all the precision semblance practice. She brought her hands back to her ready stance, "Let's... let's go again."

Pyrrha was already summoning Milo back to her hand when she caught sight of Yang standing at the edge of the mats behind Weiss, arms crossed and looking extremely concerned over Weiss's state of exhaustion. "Actually Weiss," upon catching her spear, she rolled her shoulders and stretched her arms over her head, "do you mind if we take a short break to stretch? I like to keep limber during training."

Weiss stood for a handful of seconds, scowling as she saw through Pyrrha's act. She didn't need a break. She needed to be competent. Pyrrha and Yang were doing her a favor, helping her, though, so she couldn't exactly force them to keep going. So she said, "Fine. I'm ready when you are."

Turning, she stalked to the edge of the mat near Yang to find her water bottle.

Yang already had it in hand, and held it out to her with a grin. "Okay so that last one was scary but like in a cool way."

"Thank you," Weiss took the plastic container and unscrewed the cap, going silent again. Adam wasn't going to wait until she was ready for a rematch, especially if his henchmen were bold enough to attack Beacon itself. She needed to improve as efficiently as possible, and her mental gears turned the situation over and over trying to figure the best way to do it.

What she ended up doing was remembering that prickling feeling right before she got sidelined with that net, and the black barrel of Adam's gun in front of her face.

Yang watched Weiss go full space cadet - a rare and concerning occurrence for a girl that so prided herself on focus. "Um... Weiss?" When she got no response, Yang laid a hand on her shoulder, "You all right?"

Weiss started at the touch, dropping her water. The open bottle hit the concrete floor and bounced, spilling everywhere. She looked at it, and looked at Yang, and the emotional rollercoaster of the previous day started catching up with her. Focusing on getting better had helped, but she was tired. Really tired. And in the middle of it all she also missed Blake, even though that was ridiculous because they'd just been at lunch less than an hour ago.

"I think I need to sit down," she tried to keep the shake out of her voice, but only marginally succeeded.

Yang traded her look of concern for a smile at once, wondering what the best method might be to help soothe whatever was behind Weiss's ice blue thousand-yard stare. Not that it was hard to piece together. Weiss and Blake had run across the leader of Vale's White Fang just last night. They had to have fought - and if Weiss's training request was any indication, she must have been without Myrtenaster for part of the fight, and it must have gone poorly. Of course she needed to sit down. "Sounds good to me," Yang answered easily, sliding her arm around Weiss's shoulders and giving her a quick squeeze.

Pyrrha trotted up beside them to retrieve the bottle from the ground. She glanced between Weiss and Yang, unsure of what to say.

Instead of crossing the corner of the mat to the benches Weiss opted for a relatively clean looking spot against the wall. She sank down, sitting with her legs tucked up to one side of her while she got her bearings. All her extra training, here and with Goodwitch, all the new relationship things she'd been tangling with on the side... had she only had yogurt for lunch? She put a hand to her forehead, shutting her eyes hard to try to clear her head.

"Weiss!" Ruby came running over, red cape trailing at her heels and Jaune at her elbow. She saw Pyrrha standing by with Weiss's empty water bottle and asked, "Pyrrha, do you mind maybe grabbing some more water?"

"I'll get some paper towels," Jaune volunteered, his tennis shoes squeaking on the smooth floor as he backtracked to the locker rooms.

With a lingering glance at Weiss and Yang, Pyrrha nodded to Ruby and followed after Jaune.

Yang took a seat beside Weiss, close enough to reach if she needed too, but just far enough away to give her space to breathe. She shared a brief worried look with Ruby before plastering her smile back on. "Guess we should have let you sleep more, huh?"

"Yes, you should have." Weiss snapped, latching onto the excuse to be angry in lieu of parsing her other emotions for a moment. "And I'm not tired from last night. I'm tired from these weeks of extra practice, and exams, and trying to figure out- this-" she sputtered and threw her hands up, as if that could indicate the mess of her relationship with Blake, who she apparently couldn't even keep safe for one evening.

"This...?" Yang prompted.

Ruby glanced at their surroundings and guessed, "The gym?"

"No," Weiss said, sitting back, her shoulders half-rigid from the way Ruby and Yang were... well, they were trying to help. She didn't particularly want it, except in the form of extra sparring. She closed her fists, "I just need to improve as quickly as possible."

"Well... How about you give us a rundown of how last night went down and we can work it into your training?" Yang knew she was grasping at straws but she also knew that sometimes talking things out helped people feel better...

Weiss sat still, avoiding Yang's gaze.

Ruby drew her knees up partway on the floor next to her. She could tell Weiss was stuck, so she prompted gently, hoping it was the right thing to say, "We're a team, right?"

Weiss realized that she hadn't paid her teammates much attention recently. Maybe that was part of the problem. How did the saying go? 'A cord of three strands is not easily broken'. Likewise with Beacon's four person combat teams. After some hesitation, she sighed. "... alright."

Recapping the evening wasn't the easiest thing to do, but she did her best to de-tangle the events, all the way up through Professor Goodwitch's timely rescue.

"I'll thank you not to tell Blake that last part," Weiss finished up, straightening her collar rather self consciously.

"You're not gonna tell her?" The second the words were out of her mouth, Yang grimaced and ran a hand through her hair, "She would probably flip, huh."

"Yes, well," Weiss glanced to make sure the other students across the open mats weren't listening in, but they remained absorbed in their routines. "It turned out fine, so I don't really see the point of bringing it up."

Ruby was cross legged on the edge of the mat, a crumpled up bunch of damp paper towels near her knee. Jaune had delivered them and retreated back to the benches a ways away.

"Yeah, well, for as fine as it all turned out, I am still using one hundred and ten percent of my willpower to not hug the crap out of you at this very moment," Yang countered, crossing her arms tight across her chest, "That is... unless you would like a hug, because that entire encounter sounds like it sucked."

Weiss's words caught in her throat. She didn't want a hug from Yang; she wanted one from Blake. She also wanted Blake to be angry about all of this. She wanted Blake to not have to cry or be hurt or frightened, or be anything except blisteringly angry about this nightmare from her past trying to interfere with her life at Beacon.

At length she took a breath and managed a comment without much waver in her voice, "The city did leave much to be desired."

"Sure sounds like it..." Yang shared a pointed look with Ruby, silently calling upon her assistance. Willpower was overrated.

"Yeah," Ruby crossed her arms and nodded. With a solemn expression, she said to Yang, "So, on 'go'."

"Wait, what?" Weiss frowned, glancing between the two for a clue to whatever she'd missed as Ruby started to count down from three. By 'one', the sisters were in some kind of ready position, crouched with their arms wide, and Weiss was trying to back into the wall, "What-"

"Go!" Ruby latched onto her teammate in a half-hug, half-tackle hard enough to almost knock her over.

Yang's matching half-hug half-tackle from the opposite side kept Weiss perfectly balanced and exquisitely crushed in the warmest, tightest hug the sisters could manage.

"Ruby! Yang!" Weiss tried to lunge forward to get out of their combined embrace. Ruby had her arms around her middle, though, with her head down, going 'rrrrrrrg!' as if to narrate how hard she was holding on, and Yang had her at shoulder height so Weiss couldn't get the leverage, and, well... she was tired anyway. She stopped struggling- just to rest, of course. Just for a minute.

Once she'd settled down a bit, Ruby pulled back a little.

"Weiss, I know you've had a lot of stuff going on with you and Blake and training and everything," she sort of shrugged her one shoulder, "and maybe we haven't been super on top of saying it, but we're your teammates too. Not that I think you'd actually get kidnapped or anything, but if anything happened we'd definitely come find you."

It was like a punch to the stomach, hearing that. Not in a bad way, but just Weiss didn't expect it, and didn't know how to react, and all of a sudden her vision went blurry with tears she couldn't wipe away because her arms were trapped by her two idiotic teammates. She sniffed, "You were in the infirmary all last night."

"Running into a pole was only a minor setback." Ruby shoved into her side a little harder.

"We would still track you down with two broken legs and crutches," Yang added, squeezing Weiss's shoulders a little tighter.

Ruby looked up at her, "Just like you'd come after us, right? If something happened, I mean."

"Maybe," Weiss choked out.

"Um excuse you," Yang poked Weiss in the ribs, "it is a team requirement to be one hundred percent on board the rescue Ruby train at all times."

"And how am I supposed to do that if you crush me to death?" Weiss squirmed in the double hug, not really to get away. Just for the principle of the matter

"Ghost rescue," Yang answered perfectly seriously.

"Pfft," Ruby started laughing into Weiss's shirt, and it wasn't long before Yang joined in.

"Ugh, you're," Weiss had to catch her breath a little, because she was being crushed as she fought the contagious smiles of her teammates, "You're both ridiculous."

Somehow, though, deep down, she found that she didn't mind, and as the two laughed, she felt suddenly like... well, like maybe things weren't quite as bleak as they'd seemed a few minutes ago.