Interlude 3-3: Homefront, Part III

Hey, Sun, how are you doing? I'm not sure if you're expecting this letter or not, since we never actually said when either of us was going to write the other, but if you're not expecting this, that just means it's a pleasant surprise, right? I miss you, Sun. I miss you more than I've ever missed anyone before. Every day, I wake up, and every day, I can't wait to see you at breakfast in the cafeteria, but breakfast is with my family, and you're 5,000 miles away. Not that breakfast with the family is bad, mind you. It's just that I wish I was having breakfast with you. There are so many other things that I want to experience with you here in Menagerie too. You'd really love it, I know it. There's plenty of people here, the climate's great, and we've even got this great big desert outback. (I remember you talking about the deserts of Vacuo, and while I think the deserts here might be a bit more dangerous, I know you laugh in the face of danger almost as much as Neptune does, so it will probably be fun.) I'll get to see you soon though, since after I'm done with this unarmed combat tournament, I'm going to move on to fighting tournaments elsewhere, and that means being able to connect to the CCT! I definitely want to go to Mistral, though, since it's got all the best fighting competitions, and if I'm in Mistral, that means I get to see Haven too!

I hope you are well in Haven. Last I heard, they still hadn't found Sage and Scarlet, but I hope that's changed. I hope you will reply to me with the words speaking of how well they are. I regret that I did not know them better before their disappearance. Should they be found once more, I will endeavor to get to know them better, because I want to know your team as well as I know you. OK, not like I know you, but I do hope to get to know them better.

When I get to Mistral, it will probably be for Pyrrha's wedding. She's my best non-Weiss friend, and I won't miss it for the world. If you can get away from Haven for a few days, I'd like to see you there too. If you can't make it, then I'll see you in Mistral itself, and we can dance next to the waterfalls, or in a garden. There's so many things I want to do with you, Sun, and we'll get to do them all when we see each other again.

Well, maybe not all of them. It's a pretty long list.

With love, your girlfriend,
Blake Belladonna
XOXOXOXO

Blake stared down at the letter she had just written with a critical eye. Was this enough? Was it too much? It was hard to say. For all that Weiss was confident in Sun's continued affections, Blake wasn't so sure. It wasn't exactly rational — she knew it wasn't rational — but that didn't change how it felt. And … it was easier to express herself like this. In writing. Where she would be thousands of miles away from his reaction.

Maybe one more thing… she decided.

She added another tiny heart to the paper.

"There!" she cheered, holding up the letter to the light. "Now to mail this to Haven and wait for Sun's response."

He had gotten their mailing address from Mom, but they hadn't received a letter from him yet. There were a number of possibilities that could be the reason for that, but thankfully, one of those would never be that he found another woman. Sweet Sun was too stalwart, too loyal, too true. And maybe if she told herself that enough, she'd start to believe it in her heart and not just in her head.

He really was wonderful.

He was also not going to get this letter if she missed the mail.

With that thought, she quickly put the letter into an armored transport sleeve, sealed it, and then bolted from her room. The fact that she used the door and not a window at that point was something that trended well in her favor, she thought. Weiss couldn't complain about her being weird anymore.

She reached the door and opened it to find that she had made it at a surprisingly good time. In front of her, the door guards had just taken the mail and were running it over with a hand scanner, while the mailman was still there. It seemed like she wouldn't have to run across the rooftops to the post office this day, which was a perfectly normal thing to do, no matter what Weiss said.

"Don't go!" she shouted, running up to the mailman with letter in hand. "I have a letter for someone at Haven Academy!"

"Does it have the correct address?" asked the female guard scanning the mail, a canine-eared woman the others had nicknamed "Watchdog" due to a criminal lack of creativity.

Blake scanned the package in a panic, then sighed in relief. "Yes."

"Good, because apparently, mail's been getting lost on its way to Mistral," groused Watchdog with an irate glance at the mailman.

The mailman, for his part, just waved his hands in warding. "Hey, don't look at me. As far as our agency is concerned, we're making our deliveries, so it has to be something on the Mistrali side of things."

"Think the Mistrali are trying to put the squeeze on us somehow?" asked the captain of the watch, Saber Rodentia.

"Why? What could anyone gain from being that petty?" retorted Watchdog.

"'Lost'?" Blake asked, her brow furrowing in worry. "You mean I could have had letters that never made it here?"

"I don't want to speculate, First Daughter," Watchdog said to Blake.

She bit her lip. What if her letter never made it? She'd have to write another. Or three.

At that point, Watchdog's scanner beeped. "Okay, so it looks like the mail is clean. You're free to go."

Blake rushed over and handed over her letter to the mailman, who graciously took the offered post and said his goodbyes.

When he had left, Watchdog read off the addresses. "Ma'am, it looks like we've got mail for the whole family here, even Weiss."

With offered hand, Blake took the letters. "Thanks, I'll let her know that. Hopefully, it will cheer her up."

"As long as 'cheering her up' isn't code for sending her into the Outback, I'll agree with you there," confirmed Captain Rodentia. "The last thing we need is her coming back dead tired because the Tribals can't keep it together."

"Hey, why do we call them that?" asked Watchdog.

"Call who that?" replied Rodentia.

"Tribals. Why do we call them that?" clarified Watchdog. "After all, we have a chieftain. What's the difference?"

"There's a big difference!" insisted Rodentia. "Why do you think—?"

The rest of the argument was cut off to Blake by the closing of the door.

Flipping through the letters, the dark-haired girl walked through the house. The letters to her father went onto the desk in his study. The letters to her mother went onto the nightstand in their bedroom. She wasn't precisely sure where Weiss was in the house at that moment, so she went to drop off the letters meant for her in her own room first before tracking down the white-haired firebrand.

"Heh-oooh, I crack myself up," Blake chuckled.

"You know, your dad laughs at jokes in his head too."

Blake looked around from her own desk and found Weiss standing in the doorway.

"Hey, Weiss," said Blake with a wave of her hand and the letters held within.

"Did the mail come?" asked Weiss as she herself walked in.

Weiss's long white hair was hanging free that day, unbound and freshly dried, right down to her thighs. Not that one could see, because she was wearing a slight variation on what was clearly becoming her preferred new outfit: a black hakama of lighter construction that was burning at the hem. Well, it was not actually burning; it was just a pattern of flaming yellow and orange embroidered onto the black of her pleated skirt, but it was so realistically done, the dressmaker had so perfectly captured the essence of flame that Blake had to check twice to make sure that Weiss didn't need her to grab a fire extinguisher.

Her top exposed her belly to the world, leaving her torso exposed almost as far up as her breasts; since there wasn't a lot of Weiss to go around, even before you started not-covering certain parts of her, that meant that what top there was was short indeed. It was also white, trimmed with gold at the bottom, and partially covered beneath the black bolero jacket — like the white top, trimmed with gold — that Weiss was wearing to cover her shoulders and arms. The high collar was clasped tightly around her slender throat and held there with a large red pearl brooch, from which in turn dangled three smaller emeralds of a teardrop shape hanging by golden beads. A pair of earrings, dangling from her ears, followed a similar pattern: a large ruby, square cut, set in gold, from which hung three golden beads and three teardrop emeralds, while yet more gold connected the rubies to Weiss' ears. A bracelet, a band of gold studded with emeralds and rubies both, hung from her wrist, concealing the cuff of her right sleeve from view.

"Yep," answered Blake in good cheer. "I put Mom and Dad's mail away, but it looks like I've got mail from the merch store, and you've got mail from Silverstream."

"'Silverstream'?" asked Weiss curiously as she took the offered letter. "I wasn't sure she would still care."

Smiling big and knowingly, Blake said, "Someone's got a fan! And a true fan too. Do you know how valuable that kind of loyalty is?"

"Do you know how creepy that phrasing sounds?" asked Weiss in turn.

"Eeyhh," replied Blake, bringing up her right hand, palm straight, and starting to rock it.

Weiss frowned. "Well, let me open this up then. She could just be sending this letter to tell me that I've ruined her life."

"Why do you have to say stuff like that?" asked Blake, offering her friend a concealed blade from an unlooked for part of her person. "Ever since Yang's bike got smashed, you've been lacing your speech with dark double entendres or outright pessimism."

With a deft hand, Weiss cut open the seal on the letter. "You don't think that I shouldn't be pessimistic? After everything I've done? Everything we've been through?"

"No, I don't," Blake answered honestly as she took the blade back and hid it once more before dropping back onto her bed. "Dad's right, Weiss: you really need to relax. You're in Menagerie now, the land of new beginnings and opportunity. There's nothing you can't do when you set your mind to it and work hard! So why don't you work hard on being optimistic when you're in the greatest nation on Remnant?"

Weiss paused her efforts and gave Blake a deadpan stare. "First of all, this is the only nation on Remnant."

"Still counts," insisted Blake, flopping backwards onto the bed so that she would be looking past her face to keep eye contact with Weiss.

"Secondly, didn't you describe this place as cramped and destitute while we were at Beacon? I think you even made a comment about it being the cast-off dregs of Mistral's most unwanted and desolate lands, a bitter insult from a bunch of sore losers."

"That was just fancy rhetoric for Oobleck's class and something Ruby's uncle muttered while drunk," deflected Blake, who noticed Weiss's stare growing more intense. "Well, okay, I might have agreed with more of the drunken political ranting of Ruby's family than I care to admit, but it's only because I was part of a cult. What's your excuse?"

Weiss shrugged. "Well, they do say 'misery loves company,' and I'd hate for it to get lonely."

Blake boggled. "Well, that's not healthy."

"It's plenty healthy. I'm admitting that I've got a problem," insisted Weiss as she sat down in a free chair. "It's basically solved now."

Before Blake could reply, Weiss opened the letter the rest of the way and began to read it. Blake took the opportunity to look up at the ceiling. It was strange just how familiar it was, even though, until this little trip, she hadn't been back in this room in six years. It was like nothing had changed, and yet, it was so much better than it was before. Maybe she was better than she was before, and that was something to smile about. So why not smile?

"You're doing that thing again," noted Weiss.

"Doing what?" asked Blake with a glance at her teammate.

"That thing with your lips where you curl them up on both sides," clarified Weiss.

"That's called smiling, Weiss," Blake told her with some exasperation.

"Yes, that. You keep doing that; it's weird," explained Weiss with deadly seriousness that Blake was pretty sure was falsified.

"I smile all the time," Blake declared hotly.

"No, you don't," Weiss told her. "You're acting pretty out of character for your brooding bad girl persona."

"I do too," Blake pouted.

"Do not."

"Do too!"

"Do not times infinity!"

Blake scowled.

"See?" Weiss declared triumphantly. "You just proved my point."

"Shut up!" Blake complained.

"Why? You're good at being the brooding loner," Weiss said with the most obnoxious grin. "I saw the shots from that modeling gig. You look fantastic in studded leather, sans smile."

"That's marketing, Weiss! It's just a persona!" complained Blake loudly. "Maybe I'm tired of always having to lie to others, to myself, to— actually, no, I take it back. I didn't have to lie; I never did, not once, but I did it anyway, and those lies ruined me and others over and over again. It's disgusting. I'm disgusting, and I don't want to be anymore, so I'm going to take off my bow and clean up in the Shower of Truth."

Weiss looked up from the letter and blinked. "First of all, I'm glad you clarified about the bow, considering where you wore that thing when you were at Beacon."

Blake grumbled something unintelligible.

"Secondly, 'Shower of Truth,' really?" continued Weiss. "Your parents might be politicians, but I don't think you're anywhere close to the hall of rhetoric, Blake."

"The point is!" Blake loudly declared again. "The point is that I don't want to lie anymore, whether that's smiling or expressing my feelings for Sun. I didn't before, and I almost lost him to Penny. Penny!"

"I think Sun would have stayed loyal to you, regardless of whether Penny got there first or not," commented Weiss with an amused smile.

"But why?" Blake asked doubtfully. "He deserves me treating him better than I did all semester. I know he's so wonderfully loyal, but I can't take that for granted, because if I do, if I get complacent and fall back into my old habits or start smacking him around, he might go for some other girl, and he'd be absolutely right to."

The snowcapped girl looked at her in annoyance. "Come on, Blake, be serious. Even at your worst, I can't ever imagine you striking Sun, even on accident. You're worrying too much."

"You don't know what darkness lurks in my heart, Weiss," Blake told her to a groan. "That's why I need to stop lying. No more lies. I'm tired of it."

"Blake, you're a ninja," said Weiss with deadly seriousness.

Now, it was the turn of Blake to groan in aggravation. "Okayyy, fiiine. I'm tired of lying to myself and my family. I'll probably have to lie on missions, but I'll regret it later after the mission is done. There, are you happy?"

"What about photo shoots?" asked Weiss with a slight mock.

"Showbiz!" Blake shouted. "That's not real, and everyone knows it's not real, so it's not lying, technically, probably, hopefully. Now are you happy?"

"Probably," allowed Weiss.

Blake gave a huff. "Besides, Mom says I should stop being ashamed of my feelings."

"Ugh, she's being your unlicensed psychiatrist too?" asked Weiss in exasperation.

"I guess. She's also giving me lots of advice on how to deal with boys," answered Blake with slightly narrowed eyes. "Why, what is she saying to you?"

Weiss looked up at the ceiling. "She says that I shouldn't speak so badly of the Atlesians, that I shouldn't speak so badly of the place I was born in."

"That makes sense," Blake said diplomatically.

"But they're evil!" shouted Weiss, leaping up off the chair in animated outrage. "There is nothing good that has come out of that frozen wasteland!"

"You came out of there," pointed out Blake, her voice sad.

Like an ice statue, Weiss froze, and Blake continued, "Weiss, you're my best friend. You've done so much good in the world, saved so many people, saved me. Hearing you talk like that is upsetting to me, because you're insulting one of the best people I know, whether you know it or not."

She didn't voice it, but Blake felt a surge of guilt at her words. Guilt for failing to properly protect Weiss, yes, but also guilt over the things she had said in the past. How many times had she said that all humans were bad? How many times had she generalized the failings of specific humans onto the whole race? Too many, far too many, and every time she did, she was insulting some of the best people in the world, though she didn't know it at the time.

Weiss slowly slumped back into the chair and started reading the letter before speaking after a moment. "I'll try not to think like that anymore."

"Thanks," replied Blake.

She knew that Weiss wouldn't be able to hold herself to that, but the attempt was important.

After a moment of silence, Blake turned her gaze back to Weiss, finding that she was still reading the letter.

"So, what did she say?" asked Blake.

Weiss looked up from the letter with an inscrutable expression. "She's still a fan. She says she can't wait for my next concert, but if I don't want to sing again, that's okay. She also sent along a bunch of photos of my fanclub."

Blake brought herself back upright and reached out to take one of the photos that was poking out of Weiss's one-handed grip, finding it to be a picture of Silverstream and a few other young girls of both races holding up a banner that read "FRIENDS OF FIREBRAND" with the "Firebrand" part accented by a bunch of hand-painted flames.

"I said it before, but I'll say it again: you're really lucky, Weiss," said Blake before handing the photo back. "Of course, with great admiration comes great responsibility. You can't let her down."

Blue eyes glared up at her. "So you're saying I should go back to singing?"

"No, that's not why she admires you," Blake told the shorter girl. "She admires you because of your courage and conviction. She admires you because you'll do what's right, no matter the cost. She admires you because you're you, Weiss."

Weiss cocked her head. "So I should disobey your parents and go out on Huntress missions? I don't like the sound of that."

Blake blinked in shock. "You don't want to go on missions?"

"I can't disobey your parents!" Weiss corrected her. "They're your parents!"

Once more, Blake blinked. "Yes, they're my parents."

Weiss nodded. "Exactly. I'm glad you get it."

She didn't. She really didn't. Still, how could she respond to that?

"Do you want me to take care of your mission workload while you're out?" Blake asked with her thumb hooked over her shoulder.

"Aren't you already doing missions on your own, in addition to the tournament stuff?" asked Weiss with worry.

"I am, but I can minimize my sleep and maximize my combat effectiveness for a time with the use of a secret ninja technique," explained Blake easily.

"Oh! Could you teach me that?" asked Weiss with a chipper smile.

A coy smile came to Blake's lips. "I don't think Mom would like that."

Weiss crossed her arms. "Very well then, keep your secrets. Just promise me you won't burn out too."

"Don't worry, Weiss; I know just how to handle this," Blake told her.

Then, with that, Blake vaulted through the nearest open window and disappeared into the outside.

Weiss was left to gaze upon the empty space that her friend used to occupy in wonder.

"Why does she keep doing that?" the white-haired girl asked. "The door's right there!"

Richard Belladonna met General Moss Dredd's mismatched gaze without flinching. The man — a turtle faunus, though he kept the claws on his fingers neatly trimmed — was older and likely far deadlier than he looked. His balding gray hair and graying beard only hinted at his age, for the eyepatch he wore covered an injury he'd received in the Mistrali theater of The Expulsion — Hagaerush, to those who were picky about it — and for all that his slow, deliberate demeanor gave the impression of someone that his namesake might grow on, he hadn't gotten through that war alive by being slow or indecisive.

That didn't mean Rick was going to back down, though. The general had come to him, after all.

"I'm perfectly willing to accept contracts should the need arise," he said evenly, folding his hands on his desk, "but I will not turn over my ships to your military."

"You would receive fair market value—"

"Whether you're offering to buy them or just insure them," Rick interrupted, "government ideas of 'fair market value' don't tend to match reality, and even if it did, I'd still be losing millions while I try to replace any ships you cost me."

General Dredd paused.

"My concern," the general said quietly, "is coordination. Intelligence reports from Mistral indicate rapidly growing support for increased militarization. The Atlesian withdrawal has them running scared, and scared people do stupid things. I know Mistral; if they attack someone, Menagerie will be their target, and we'll need the logistical support to launch a counterattack."

Which the ADM lacked. It had been built, after all, primarily as a deterrent, meant to make conquering Menagerie too costly for the spoils. But that would only work if an invasion was motivated by profit or glory. Fear? People were willing to sacrifice a lot on the altar of fear.

"If it comes down to it," Dredd continued, "fighting defensively cannot win a war; it can only lose it slowly. The Valish taught us that."

And on that, the general had a point. After all, while popular culture liked to play up the Battle of Four Kings — which, to be fair, had been quite impressive and glorious — the reality was much simpler. Vale and Vacuo hadn't won the Great War in a great defensive battle; they had won it by taking the fight to their enemies. The Battle of Four Kings was nothing more than Mantle and Mistral's desperate last gamble, an attempt to strike at the western alliance's soft underbelly, even as Mistral itself was being invaded and Mantle besieged, the final death knell for a war the outcome of which had already been decided.

"I'll do my part," Rick said begrudgingly. "Retainer fee. Upon activation, liaison officers on board to coordinate, discounted and priority service for a period of … say, one year or until the end of the conflict, whichever is less, to be renegotiated and extended on a yearly basis if needed."

There was no way he was going to sign off on any special deals "for the duration of the conflict." Not when that would mean letting the government define the duration in question. Not without some hard limits.

It wasn't that he didn't trust his son. It was more that Ghira would not be Chieftain forever, and even if he were … no, with governments, one made deals with the office, not the person or administration who occupied it.

"Three years initially," was the general's counteroffer.

He weighed that thought. Odds were, any such war would last more than a year or two, so he wasn't really losing anything with that.

"Six month extensions, then," he said.

The general grunted. "Acceptable."

"Good." Rick smiled. "I'll have Finance draw up some numbers, let the accountants figure out the details. Was there anything else, General?"

"No, thank you, Mister Belladonna," the general answered as he rose to his feet. "I bid you good day."

Rick stood up as well and walked the general to his office door. It was only polite, after all. And if it meant he could keep an eye on the general as he departed the building, all the better. The holographic virtual assistant he'd picked up from Atlas was an infinitely useful investment that had paid for itself many times over and could handle a myriad of situations, but an unruly general who would cause problems if he was shot by the concealed turrets was a little outside its capabilities.

"Out of the way, human," the general growled with a violent shove as he stepped out of the waiting room.

Rick saw a brief flash of white hair as the recipient of the shove cried out and caught herself. He strode forward, carefully smoothing his scowl away.

"Now, now, General," he said with deliberately false congeniality. "Is that any way for the ADM to treat the Chieftain's guest?"

The ADM officer stiffened and turned, glaring at him.

Rick clasped his hands inoffensively.

"We wouldn't want something like this to affect any future business contracts, after all, would we?"

After all, he thought, a verbal agreement is not a signed contract.

The turtle faunus's eyes sharpened at that. Message received.

Stiffly, he turned and bowed grudgingly.

"Apologies, Miss Schnee," the general ground out, "but I'm in a bit of a hurry."

"That's— that's all right," Weiss said.

"Ahem," Dredd straightened up, then turned on his heel and left.

"You don't seem to be acting much like a firebrand these days," Rick observed.

Weiss rubbed her arms as she stepped in, shaking her head. "I've read about General Dredd, sir," she said quietly. "He's earned his hate."

"No," Rick insisted firmly. "Not against you." He poked her forehead. "Against certain individuals, yes, who are almost certainly already dead. Against Mistral, perhaps." He waved his hand in a vaguely northerly direction. "But not against you." He poked her again, this time in the sternum, then reached out and wrapped an arm around the girl's shoulders. "Now, what brings you here, Weiss?"

"Well, Chieftain Belladonna has banned me from taking any missions," she said with a shrug, "so I figured I'd come over here and see if there was any way I could help."

"You're a real go-getter, huh?"

"He said the same thing," she murmured with a fond smile.

"Did he, now?" Rick asked, arching an eyebrow.

His relationship with his son hadn't exactly been the best, not in years, regardless of Nagida's efforts. Sure, they met regularly when he was in town, but there was always an invisible wall between them, in part because of their professional interactions.

At least Weiss was a subject they agreed on; the poor girl had been through far too much. She certainly was eager to get her hands dirty, but he'd kept his hand in Personnel enough to realize what lay underneath the enthusiasm to work: a lack of self-worth.

She had probably grown up surrounded by false affection from those who wanted her family's money or influence, had to work for whatever scraps of praise or acknowledgment she received from within her family, the only ones she could trust weren't after her money or influence.

He wondered if she'd ever received a kindness for kindness' sake.

Rick had never had much of an opinion of Jacques Schnee. He'd heard the accusations, of course, the rumors, but nothing that had ever been substantiated — well, until recently, anyway — and he was a businessman. While rumors were useful for predicting which way the winds might blow, they were like aching injuries or gut feelings: unreliable. And it had been a long time since Black Lotus Shipping had had any significant dealings with the SDC, as the latter had shifted to building and using its own transport infrastructure years ago.

Although, considering the uptick in people raiding SDC transports, he would count that as good fortune for him.

Now, though, with what he'd heard from Kali … it seemed that family redefined dysfunctional: emotional abuse and manipulation from her father, drunken abuse and neglect from her mother, physical abuse from her older sister, and a younger brother who was apparently coping by mimicking their father.

It made his own differences with Ghira look small by comparison. Fixable, for all their disagreements. Perhaps he should work on that.

"Well, I do have a few contracts to draw up," he said, filing that thought away and leading her into his office. "Let's have a look, shall we?"

Weiss stifled a yawn as she entered the bathroom. The day spent going over contracts, accounts receivable, and expense and revenue reports with Tricky Ricky had been more intense and grueling than even the strict tutelage she'd received growing up; not only was there a marked difference between exercises and the real thing, but Atlas had inherited Mantle's legal code, while Menagerie had cobbled together theirs together from a mishmash of Valish and Mistrali law with a few good ideas from its early settlers … and more than a few not so good ideas.

As she brushed her teeth, staring into the mirror, her gaze was drawn to the scar that still marred her face, above and below her eye. Honestly, it was a miracle the Arma Gigas that had given her that scar hadn't also carved out her eyeball.

Her left eye. The same eye that Adam Taurus had once lost in an SDC mine due to a fit of pique from one of her father's employees.

She trembled. Adam had had his eye restored and his scar removed by the Autobots, and he'd even made a point to extend an offer from them to do the same for her own scar.

"Don't let your scars define you."

"I'm not," Weiss replied, shaking her head. "My scar … it's a reminder."

"So was mine," Adam pointed out.

"Of what you were fighting for, or of when you were a victim?" She bit her lip, regretting the words immediately when he looked away, hand clenching. She bowed her head. "I'm sorry. I just— this scar is a reminder of when I decided to fight back."

He turned to look at her again, then offered an awkward, crooked smile, on a face that clearly wasn't used to smiling. "Well, that must be a memory worth treasuring."

She smiled back faintly.

"I think so, at least."

That still held true, she believed. To be marked by someone at a whim was very different from being marked for your defiance.

It was, perhaps, the first time she'd fought for something. She didn't want to forget that.

Early morning in Kuo Kuana was something special in Kali Belladonna's mind. The sun was glinting over the hills, making the ocean shine in its beauty. The air had yet to be broken by the clamor of traffic, and she could still hear the animals in the trees and the wafting of conversation on the wind.

This particular morning was even more special, because today, she had a special guest who had no choice but to try and relax.

"So, don't you usually have security everywhere?" asked Weiss curiously as she walked alongside Kali in her now standard "around town" outfit.

"Oh, we still do, but because I'm a creature of habit, they've already taken the time to scout ahead and remain hidden," explained Kali with a gesture to the town around them, letting the basket she carried hang from her forearm.

Weiss nodded. "That makes sense. I just didn't expect you to have so many ninjas on your payroll."

Kali gave a little sigh. "Not everyone is a ninja."

"Blake is a ninja," pointed out Weiss.

"Yes, and that's why she was able to get out of doing this, but her time will come," swore Kali. "Now, stop trying to find something to worry about and relax."

Weiss looked down and fiddled with her fingers. "Do I have to?"

A bemused look crossed Kali's features. "Why yes, yes you do. If it's any consolation, you can think of it as an important study opportunity. After all, these are the people you're fighting for."

A thoughtful expression came to Weiss's face as she considered that, and she nodded.

"Good!" Kali cried, clapping her hands together. "You know, after the tournament, there's going to be a big party for the contestants. We should get you some jewelry for that."

"Oh no, I wouldn't want to put you out."

"Weiss," Kali said, "it wouldn't put us out." She raised her hand and pointedly began playing with one of the gold bangles on her left wrist. "I don't know if you've noticed, but we do have quite a bit of wealth."

Weiss flinched. "I … I'm sorry. I meant no offense."

"And none was taken," Kali told her. "Though, if you wanted to make it up to me…"

"Name it!" Weiss said instantly, and just as quickly regretted it.

"You can come to the party that's going to happen after the tournament is over, and you can let me choose your outfit," finished Kali quickly.

She tried not to smile too much when Weiss bowed her head. "Very well, Lady Belladonna."

Kali clapped her hands together once more. "Excellent! Oh, you're going to look wonderful by the time we're done with you. We'll get you some new jewelry today and more later, but first," — she paused as they came up to the kiosk — "I need my morning paper."

"'Remnant in Retrospect'?" Weiss read off the kiosk curiously while Kali was putting her copy of yesterday's into the recycling slot.

"It's a print-on-demand news aggregator," Kali explained as she logged in with her scroll. "It takes the news from various publications, both local and whatever we can get from elsewhere, and organizes it based on your preferences."

"Why not just get it on your scroll?" asked Weiss curiously.

"Because," Kali replied as the kiosk began flash-printing her copy, "there's nothing quite like the smell of fresh ink and the feel of real paper."

Weiss smiled, and Kali's heart did a little jig at the sight. "I can see where Blake gets her love of books."

"Oh no, she got that from her father," explained Kali chipperly as she grabbed hold of that sweet sweet paper. "I prefer audiobooks."

The snowcapped girl nodded, looked at the paper, blinked in realization, and then stared in bewilderment of Kali.

It was adorable, and Kali was torn between pinching her cheeks and audibly cooing, but she did neither and instead looked at the paper.

Front page headline: MISTRAL ON THE MARCH? Kali felt her blood run cold as she read over the text beneath that shocking headline that detailed how a few days ago, several prominent Mistrali politicians, including two members of the council, had made an open declaration that Mistral has to take "immediate action" to contain "the Menagerite threat," citing, of all things, her own personal guard's actions during the Battle of Vale as an illustration of the threat they posed. Not for the first time in her life, she wished that the news she was reading was an outright fabrication, and more than a few times, it was, but … well, one of the reasons she liked this paper was that they were pretty good at filtering out such nonsense. At the very least, they hadn't been caught in any fabrications yet.

"I need to contact Yuu," Kali declared.

"Me?" asked Weiss.

"No, not you, Yuu," clarified Kali, barely resisting the urge to break out laughing. "Yuu Mov."

"Move where?" said Weiss as she reflexively stepped back.

"No, Yuu Mov, our ambassador to Mistral."

"I need to get the ambassador to Mistral?" exclaimed Weiss in shock. "I can do that. For Menagerie, I'll do my best! Where is the ambassador right now?"

"What?" Kali asked in confusion, then shook her head and pulled out her scroll. "No, I mean I need to contact Yuu Mov, our ambassador to Mistral."

She brought up the picture of Ambassador Mov they'd taken before he'd left for his assignment. With the communication delays between Menagerie and the rest of the civilized world, each of Menagerie's ambassadors to the four kingdoms had to be trustworthy, the one to Mistral most of all, considering the proximity, threat, and bad blood. Yuu had been … insufferable … when the White Fang had proven him right, but that was just another indicator of how trustworthy he was.

Weiss looked at the picture and blushed. "Oh, I'm so sorry."

"Don't apologize; just remember not to mention it around him," Kali told her. "He'll get you stuck in a loop for hours."

Again, the snowcapped girl blinked. "I see."

"No, you'll hear it, endlessly," said Kali. "In any case, we need to get in contact with him so he can brief us on the situation on the ground. This is a bit of an escalation from the saber-rattling Ghira's been dealing with."

She moved on to the next page of the paper, looking for a distraction. "I just don't know why this is happening now. Why is my old homeland attacking my new one?"

"You're from Mistral?" queried Weiss curiously.

"Originally, yes," confirmed Kali as her mind drifted back to the land of her birth. "I can still picture it, even the mountains of the capital city. It was beautiful, it was all so beautiful … but compared to Menagerie? Menagerie is in a league of its own. That's how I knew from the moment we met that you would fit in just perfectly here, Weiss."

That probably wasn't a lie, at least she didn't remember it being a lie.

"I'm not sure that's true," admitted Weiss.

"Whyever would you think that?" lamented Kali.

Weiss pointed at a point on the paper. "That, for starters."

"WHAT?!" cried Kali as she shifted her attention to the paper like a gunshot.

More Violence In Human District was the headline, placed rather tactlessly next to a Brawndo energy drink ad featuring Gregor Doyle, one of Sienna Khan's poster boys. A quick scan of the article indicated there had been what was likely a burglary gone wrong, one that had escalated and left five dead. As the headline had mentioned, and the article had clarified, it had happened in the very city where they now were.

Gods, those poor people…

"The human district of Kuo Kuana has a crime problem that we haven't managed to fix," explained Kali, and as she talked she could feel her soul leaving her body. "We shouldn't even have a 'human district,' but almost every human who comes here always ends up making their home in that same tiny space. God of Animals and Life forgive us, we failed those people. We fail them every day."

"Is there some sort of … structural issue?" asked Weiss, not sounding much better.

"There must be. There has to be something wrong with the system," reasoned Kali aloud. "I can't believe that these people are just born criminals. That's what Sienna says, that every human is a killer and thief, and she's wrong; I know she is."

"I see," Weiss said with a frown, her forehead wrinkling, then she blinked and pointed at the paper. "Is that Blake?"

Kali flipped it over.

"On the next page," Weiss clarified. "The corner fell open."

Kali opened up the newspaper and began paging through it.

And there it was. A full-page ad with her daughter flexing her left bicep in a typical strong-man pose, her left foot raised and placed on a milk crate. Which was appropriate, given the glass of milk she held in her right hand and the white "mustache" she was sporting on her otherwise stern-looking face. Plastered across the bottom was a caption reading Milk. It does a body good.

Kali found some of her troubles leaving her. "Was Blake always that jacked?"

"Maybe? It's not like she exposed much of herself at Beacon. Perhaps she just didn't want Sun to feel inadequate?" theorized Weiss.

"How?" asked Kali, her mind skipping a beat as the image of Sun's throbbing abs filled her mind. "That doesn't make any sense."

Weiss snapped her fingers at Kali. "Exactly. That's why Blake would think of it."

Kali felt her lips curl into a smile and shook her head, then a thought struck her. "Are you trying to distract me, Weiss?"

"Is it working?"

She sighed. "Yes, actually. Now, come on. We still need to get you prepared."

Weiss whimpered good-naturedly while Kali put the paper in her basket. The two of them continued on, seeing the sights and shopping from the various stores. The basket was filling up nicely with various foodstuffs, and they were ready to move on to some of the more fun stuff.

That was when the air was split by a cry.

"Stop! Thief!"

Even as Kali was turning her head to look, Weiss was already snapping into action, leaping across the market square and vaulting up to the roof of a building in order to drop down and disappear into an alley beyond. Kali ran, but by the time she — and the fruit seller who had called out — reached the alleyway's entrance, it was over.

"Hey! Get off!" cried out a small young man, the boy pinned beneath Weiss with her sword drawn to his throat.

The other people in the square seemed to have woken up to what happened and were starting to gather, including a few members of the Belladonna estate guards. It was turning into quite the spectacle. That wasn't good.

"Get them out of here," whispered Kali to her guards.

"All right, people, back it up!" one of them called out. "Nothing to see here! Just move along! Move along!"

The crowd grumbled as they started to go back to what they were doing before, and Kali knit her face tightly as she went the opposite direction, the furious fruit seller only half a step behind.

"I didn't do anything!" cried out the boy on the ground, who up close was clearly a human and also clearly holding an apple.

Oh no, thought Kali, a weight dropping into her gut again.

"There he is!" declared the fruit seller. "That's the filthy human who stole my apples!"

"I didn't!" declared the boy, his hand clutched around the green skin of one of the fruits that instantly brought to mind a certain accent. "They're lying!"

"Quiet! You little thief, I'll see you flogged for this!"

"An apple?" asked Kali in disbelief.

"That's right!" confirmed the fruit seller. "Three beautiful apples. I'd just barely turned to help a customer, and he just came along and swiped them! Right off my stand! The other two must be in his pants."

What she had read in the morning paper came back into her mind. "How much for the apples?"

The fruit seller seemed a bit taken aback by that. "How much? About a rupiya a piece, so three rupiya."

That was an incredibly expensive fruit, especially for a boy who didn't look to be the healthiest sort. Since Menagerie wasn't connected to the CCT network, cross-checking the verification coding embedded in lien cards wasn't practical, so they'd never stopped minting their own coins, such as the silver rupiya, even as the lien took hold as a unified currency for most of the world. At least, that's what Kali understood; she might be a politician who married into a family of traders, but monetary theory was something that flew over her head.

The thing she remembered most was the time her husband and father-in-law got into a fifteen-hour-long argument about the difference between currency and money, and that was hardly a good basis for either sound governance or a stable marriage.

"I can pay for it," offered Weiss as she sheathed her sword, seeming to reach inside Kali's mind.

"Would that make things right?" asked Kali.

"Hmm…" The fruit seller seemed to consider that. "Well, I guess so. You'd be making a big mistake, though, if you let this one go. I want you to understand that."

With that decided, Weiss got off the boy, and he bolted away further down the alley. The fruit seller might not have liked it, but Kali was proud of Weiss. She displayed not just skill and dedication that day, but also kindness and mercy. They really were lucky to have her.

"Here, let me just…" Weiss trailed off as she reached inside one of the few pockets of her outfit and got nothing, which made her just go and start desperately searching her other pouches and pockets. "My purse! I just had it a minute ago! Where'd it go?"

A cruel laugh came from the fruit seller. "I told ya, you just can't trust those humans. He must have picked your pocket."

The irony of the statement when Weiss was human herself was apparently lost on them, most likely because of her hat and positive social standing.

A thud was heard over the buildings, and the closest guard brought their hand from their earpiece. "We got him. Firebrand, he had your coin purse and the fruit."

All's well that ends well, but not for Kali. She had to do something to make it up to Weiss. More than that, she made a shame-fueled promise to fix the situation in Menagerie somehow.

Chrysalis was most emphatically not running away. No, of course not! She was merely follow— no. No, she was not following Sienna Khan's orders. She was … she was deigning to take Sienna Khan's advice in eliminating a threat to the White Fang. Yes. That was why she had left Menagerie and no other!

After all, she could hardly sully her own hands with such plebeian work, and Menagerie was bereft of suitable recruits for such a mission. Everyone there was either in the Belladonnas' camp or would bring suspicion upon the White Fang. Well, everyone with any chance at succeeding, at least.

Mistral, on the other hand … there were many Mistrali who would delight in doing injury to the chieftain of Menagerie, even if by proxy, and if they were to be captured or otherwise identified, well, that would just prove how much of a threat those perfidious Mistrali were, that the velvet glove had failed, that the iron fist was necessary.

Which was why she was currently wearing the face of an Atlesian Büro für strategische Dienstleistungen agent who had started sniffing a little too closely around a certain member of the Provisional Council several months ago. He certainly wouldn't be showing up to contradict anything she did; she'd made sure of that by arranging for him to take a most unfortunate swim at the time.

Next to her was Councilman Joseph Vargas. Though he sat on the Mistrali council, she knew he was bought and paid for by a certain underworld big boss. That, however, didn't mean he lacked his own desires, his own ambitions. His own hatreds. Certainly, nothing of value would be lost if he were to be … compromised.

Across from them was … a myth. A legend. The sort of man whispered about in dark alleys or spoken of by men drowning themselves in liquid courage to forget.

"Accepted," Firefly said, "if you don't mind a bit of a delay."

"Excuse me?" Chrysalis demanded, straightening up and glaring. "'A delay'? We're paying you an awful lot of lien for this."

"Which is why you can afford me at all," Firefly retorted. "I have a favor to repay first." He turned his head and nodded over his shoulder to a figure behind him that Chrysalis hadn't even noticed before. "My friend has some … family business to attend to."

The other man was concealed in shadows, his iron gray hair and cold eyes all that could be made out as he fixed Chrysalis and Vargas with a dispassionate, chilling gaze.

She swallowed hard.

Author's Note 1 (Cyclone):

Large parts of this particular chapter was Cody's work. I can only really claim full credit for the shorter scenes with Tricky Ricky, Weiss at the mirror, and Chrysalis. Writing Chrysalis is so much fun. She's basically Starscream with a twist. That last one actually was originally going to be off-screen, but after we split things up, it was needed for pacing reasons.

Author's Note 2 (Cody MacArthur Fett):

Part 3 is here, and once again it focuses on Weiss. Weiss at home, Weiss at work, Weiss at night, Weiss about town, and people looking to kill Weiss. Well, OK, people wanting to kill Blake, but Weiss would die inside if Blake were to pass from her world, so it still counts.

There were a lot of jokes in this one, and I enjoyed reading them out almost as much as I enjoyed writing them.