Chapter 15: Long Overdue

Six had staggered back to her room that evening, the day had left her more drained than most, even during basic training she hadn't been run so ragged. At the very least, she could take solace in the fact that nobody was screaming at her. In fact, her companions had been rather quiet for the whole day, and Six was glad for that. The day had been… a lot, and she wasn't in the mood to talk about it.

Instead she'd forced out a rough 'see you later' to Team CFVY at the doors to Beacon's main dorms, and then started meandering back to her room. Logic told her that she shouldn't be standing in the rain letting herself get drenched, but it was oddly calming, just to zone out and not think for a bit.

"Having a pleasant day, Miss Six?" A voice asked, snapping Six out of her trance. She turned to face the Headmaster, who had his normal mug in hand and an umbrella in the other, smiling as he looked over at her.

"Yes sir." She replied automatically, trying not to look guilty. Generally, she figured that most places wouldn't be okay with people wandering into the monster-infested forests; then again this was Remnant…

"You're not in trouble, Miss Six." He said with a small enigmatic smile. "I was merely curious, most students don't typically visit the Emerald forest in their free time."

"I-" Six began to conjure up some kind of explanation, before being cut off by the grey haired man.

"You do not have to explain anything you do to me." He said cooly, taking a sip from his steaming mug as the rain pounded down around them.

"Oh…" Six muttered, her face flushing. It was an odd feeling she was fairly certain she hated. She pulled her hood up to block his view of her face.

"Good idea, it is getting rather wet isn't it." The Headmaster said conversationally, looking up at the sky briefly. "It is strange though, it's normally rather sunny around this time of year… Oh well."

Six looked at the man as he turned to leave, giving her a nod before walking off back into the main school. More than a little confused by the strange encounter, she set off back to her room. Pushing the door open and stepping into the empty space, stepping over the scattered mess, she emptied her backpack of its weapons and carefully arranged them back in their designated spots. Deciding it wasn't worth unpacking the survival gear she made her way over to her duvet and pillows on the floor. The Hotel mattress had been awful and the one on her bed wasn't looking much better, so she was excited to sleep on the floor again.

Settling down she looked up at Emile's armour standing in the corner; uncertain what to think about it. It didn't actively hurt anymore but… she still felt… slightly empty. Deciding to do something about it she walked down the hall, pulling out a towel from a cupboard at the end of the hallway and threw it over the armour. It obviously didn't cover much, but it did hide the skull, and right now that was enough for her to throw her clothes off and collapse onto the duvet and fall asleep.


Six awoke the next morning to the sound of rain on her windows. Looking up, she saw it was just as grey and wet as yesterday. Reaching for her scroll she blearily looked at the time, it was much later than she expected.

Wow, 8 in the morning. The Instructors would've had our ass on a pike for that.

We haven't been a recruit in years… They'd still yell at us though.

Smiling weakly, Six pulled herself up and reached for her Scroll, trying to remember the dream she'd had last night. She was sure that she'd had one, but outside of a flash of orange light she couldn't pin down any details. Shaking her head she looked at her scroll, which was showing her she had a message from Deputy Headmistress Goodwitch.

Miss Six, your combat evaluation shall take place in two days time. Please prepare any equipment you wish to make use of before the time. You have permission to utilise all of Beacon Academy's facilities should you need them.

Six quickly scanned the rest of the message, most of it was just details on where to go for the evaluation, as well as the exact timing. Six committed all the information to memory before going to delete the message, her finger only stopping because she realised that she wasn't working for ONI anymore, she could probably afford to keep this information on her device.

Shaking her head, she headed for breakfast. She'd been eating rationbars again yesterday and her stomach was growling for some actual food before she finally continued work on her hammer.

Once she arrived in the mess hall (the sign said 'Cafeteria' but… no, it was a mess hall to her) she loaded up on toast and liberal amounts of butter. Probably too much, but a part of her was still exhausted and just didn't care. Also, with the workout she'd been getting lately, she figured it probably wouldn't matter in the long run.

She looked around and smiled as she spotted Team CFVY eating their breakfast, moving over she sat her tray down and began tearing into her toast. While a very, for lack of a better word, Spartan meal, it did the job.

"You were pretty hungry, weren't you?" Fox asked, tilting his head towards Six as she noisily tore into her third slice of toast, she nodded, then remembered who she was talking to and said, after swallowing a particularly large mouthful of bread.

"Got a long day planned, my combat exams in a couple of days, and I need to get my hammer operational before then." Six explained quickly before grabbing more toast.

"Do you want some help?" Velvet asked hopefully. "I'm really good with Dust and you've never used it, so you know, I might be able to help…"

Six nodded and finally stopped trying to shove bread into her mouth for long enough to respond properly.

"Yeah, that would probably help… to be honest I didn't recognise half the tools in that workshop, so your help would be appreciated."

"Great!" Velvet beamed before looking awkward. "I mean, erm, thanks. I hope I'm uh… helpful?"

Six raised an eyebrow at her before grabbing her last slice of toast.

"I guess I'm bringing you two lunch then." Coco said with a dramatic sigh, leaning back on the bench and looking at Six's confused expression she explained. "Velvet loses track of time a lot working on her weapon and I imagine with an alien weapon like that… yeah, she's gonna be obsessed."

"Coco if I wasn't with you on your shopping trips you'd also forget to eat most of the time." Velvet said with a small smile, pecking Coco on the cheek before grabbing Six's wrist as she stuffed the last bit of toast into her mouth, dragging the shorter girl off to the weapons workshop.


"Okay, so I need to make this usable." Six explained, using her scroll to unlock the chains holding her gravity hammer in place on the rack. Before removing it she carefully checked to see whether it was powered on, and was relieved to see that it wasn't. That didn't make it safe by any means, it was still a stupidly heavy weapon, and the blade was strong enough to tear through titanium with little effort. Still, it was a lot safer with its gravity pulse dissabled.

She reached up and freed it from its spot, her muscles screaming in protest as the weapon pulled her down to the ground.

Shit! How heavy is this thing!?

38.7kg fully charged, if you want to be technical.

How do we know that?

Erm, training? You know, when we were being taught to use these things?

"Are you okay?" Velvet asked as Six forced the weapon up onto one of the work benches.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Six spat through clenched teeth. "It's just harder to lug around without the adrenaline that comes from the threat of death looming over you."

"Makes sense, it was being held by one of those, Brute… things wasn't it? They looked pretty strong, I'm not surprised they'd come up with something like this." Velvet muttered, almost to herself as she looked the weapon over. Tracing her finger across the various components, taking note of the axe-like blade on the back, and the actual gravity generators.

"What do you think?" Six asked once Velvet stood up properly, one rabbit ear standing straight up and one flopped down, matching her eyebrows as she thought hard.

"I think we have two choices." Velvet said as she ran her finger along the blade, eyes seemingly mesmerised as the brown glow of her Aura lit up on her finger. "We can either strip components to make it lighter…"

"Not a chance. Most of those bits are needed, and you mess with the structure it's going to break when I use the Gravity Generators." Six butted in, before feeling flushed again and adding in a much quieter volume. "I… uh, sorry, what's option two?"

Velvet responded with a grin as she hauled something up. Six noticed the snow flake insignia on the industrial case as Velvet punched a code into the keypad which freed the two clamps keeping it shut, flipping the lid back and showing Six the contents. Inside the foam casing were five glowing black crystals, each one strapped firmly in place.

"This is Gravity dust, it's normally outside of Beacons Dust budget but, well my Dad likes helping out with my studies." Velvet said, smiling before looking abashed. "I told him I was going to use this to try and improve my weapon, but you need it more… even if I don't feel quite right lying to him."

"I'm sure he would understand. I assume this stuff can help?" Six asked, reaching forward and fiddling with the straps, freeing one of the crystals and watching as it floated out of its slot, hovering about a foot off the workbench, unpowered and unassisted.

"Yes, it should be a great help." Velvet said, taking the floating crystal and holding it in place near the hammer's head. "I think if we mount maybe three of them on some of the structural hardpoints of the weapon, we can reduce the effect of Remnant's Gravity on the hammer, and it should make it easier for you to wield comfortably."

Six nodded at Velvet's explanation, even if she did have a few questions to ask.

"So, what does this Dust do, exactly?" Six asked, looking at the other crystals. "Like, is it making things lighter or, actually affecting gravity?"

"Gravity Dust… well as a whole that's quite complicated, let's just focus on these crystals for now. They reduce Gravity's effect on whatever they're mounted to." Velvet explained with a smile as she let the crystal go before opening a draw and retrieving a roll of duct tape. "See as it is right now it's floating, but I do this…"

Velvet trailed off before proceeding to snatch the crystal out of the air and tape it to Six's hammer, before offering it to her, Six took it with both hands and realised what was different immediately.

"It feels a lot lighter… that's pretty impressive." Six remarked. Back home, stuff like gravity plating was only really feasible on starships, or in the Covenant's case, entire vehicles like Ghosts or Wraiths.

"It might feel lighter, but the mass is still the same." Velvet reminded her. Truth be told, physics class had hardly been the most exciting part of her Spartan training, but she at least remembered a few of the basics. "If we mount a few more crystals, you should have a weapon that you can swing one handed if you have to."

Six nodded in understanding, that certainly explained how so many people were running around with huge weapons that, by all rights, they should've been able to carry, let alone wield. "Just to double-check, this won't reduce its impact, right?"

"Normally that might be a problem, but this weapon already has a projected gravity field… a pretty powerful one at that. Yeah, you won't need to worry about impact, you could smash through a Deathstalker with this." Velvet answered. Six said nothing in response, but felt a feral grin begin to form on her face.

Finally, something about this insane planet we like!


Velvet had just finished drilling the necessary bolt holes into the metal mount she'd been making when a pair of hands were placed over her eyes.

"Guess who!" A voice sang, oozing confidence and flirty undertones. Velvet smiled.

"My secret mistress?." The Rabbit Faunus said with a smile as she moved her safety goggles up off her head, turning around to look at the grinning brunette who nodded, offering a brown paper bag to her.

"And I come bearing lunch!" She said with a grin, looking at Velvet and eyeing her up and down. "Judging by the amount of metal debris on you, you're really going to need it."

"It's been a challenge making mounts that'll fit her hammer." Velvet said, awkwardly brushing metal shavings off her blouse with one hand while removing her ear plugs. Having extra sensitive hearing was useful in a lot of ways but it did mean you had to be careful in some others.

"Speaking of Six, where is she?" Coco asked, looking around for the purple haired girl.

"Oh, erm. She had to… use the facilities?" Velvet explained, blushing furiously.

"Ooh. Makes sense. Still, does that mean we have some time to kill?" Coco asked with a cheeky smirk as she plonked herself down on one of the work benches Velvet and Six hadn't scattered parts over.

"I, well maybe a bit of time." Velvet said, her blush dieing down slightly as she walked over to the bench Coco was sitting on. Coco patted her lap, grin on her face as Velvet realised what she wanted. Smiling, she hopped up onto Coco's legs and spun around so she was facing Coco, who carefully removed her sunglasses and beret, setting them down carefully before leaning in and kissing Velvet.

Coco gave very good kisses. Admittedly outside of one boy doing it on a bet back in Atlas, she'd never been kissed by anyone before Coco Adel (Parent's very firmly didn't count) and so she supposed the bar should have been low. Velvet still thought she was good at it however, the girl seemingly having a sixth sense for knowing how far Velvet wanted to go at any given point.

It was actually something she loved about her girlfriend. She never made her feel bad about only wanting to go so far with whatever they were doing. Sure, she'd been disappointed during her birthday that Velvet wasn't ready for anything too intimate yet, but she hadn't pushed her and had been a perfect lady for the rest of the night.

That being said, she loved Coco's deep kiss sessions, and she always knew exactly what to do and how to hold Velvet. She practically melted into her arms and laid back on the table. They broke apart to look at each other, respective brown eyes meeting as they smiled, going in for another kiss before something clattered to the ground.

Bolting upright Coco and Velvet looked over at the flash of purple ducking under the desk, returning with a screwdriver in hand.

"Six, when did you get back?" Velvet asked quietly, looking over at the other girl who shrugged.

"Minute ago, you seemed… busy. So I just started fixing these to the hammer." Six explained awkwardly, holding up one of the metal mounts.

"Well you ruined the mood…" Coco said flatly, before rolling her eyes and offering the Spartan a different brown bag. "Anyway, put your tools down and eat, I didn't make food for you to not eat it."

"You made this?" Six asked, pulling out a sandwich wrapped in paper, freeing it and looking in bewilderment at bread.

"What, had too much bread for breakfast?" Coco asked with a grin as Six poked one of the edges.

"No, just can you make bread without a crust?" Six asked, looking at the rim of the bread. Ticking Coco off slightly because she'd put a lot of work into the whole sandwich, not just cutting the edges off.

"No I cut it off, Yatsuhashi likes 'em, even if he's too embarrassed to say it. Look, will you please eat? It's three PM, I got held back so Oobleck could moan at me about my history essay… again."

Six nodded and began eating her lunch while Velvet reached forward and took Coco's hand.

"You said you were ready for this one?" She said quietly, looking into Coco's deep brown eyes as she tried to glance away.

"I thought I was, and hey, a D is still better than last time." Coco muttered, her face swapping to an awkward grin. Almost fast enough that Velvet didn't see how disappointed she looked.

"Coco I can help if you ask for it." Velvet said, firmly squeezing Coco's hands.

"I, look I'm team leader, I should be able to handle this on my own."

"Coco…" Velvet began before Six cut her off.

"Why?"

"I, what?" Coco asked, looking at Six with a slightly baffled expression on her face.

"Why should you be able to handle it by yourself? That's not what being a leader is about." Six said, reaching for the orange Coco had put in the bag and peeling it dissinteredly. "I mean, when we needed something hacked we just gave it to Kat because she was good with computers; Carter didn't have to crack it himself, that would be insane. He just knew how to point us towards what we'd be best at doing."

Coco and Velvet glanced at each other. Six had mentioned her teammates before, but until now she had skimped on the details. What little they knew had been hard fought knowledge given up only under the roughest of circumstances..

"I guess, but come on, a leader should be smart at least, right?" Coco said weekly as Six shrugged after she swallowed an orange segment.

"Well, yeah but not getting help when you need it isn't very smart. I mean, we worked in at least pairs normally; it's good to have someone watching your back, you know?" The Spartan said before biting into more of her orange.

"I guess, I just… I want to be competent. I should be at least that."

"So ask for help and get there first before you try and run solo. They taught Jun to shoot before they let him loose with a rifle." Six said before reaching into her bag and pulling out the cookies Coco had put in the bottom and munching happily.

"Fine, I guess." Coco muttered, the dejected note evident in her voice as she spoke, before glancing down at Velvet.

"You could have told me you know, I don't mind helping you if you need it."

"I don't like relying on you okay. I… I don't want to drag you down to my level." Coco muttered. "I mean, you're stupid smart, just look at what you're doing with Six here, this thing is… powerful-looking. I never would have realised what the problem was. Also your grades are so much better then mine and I just… It's frustrating, okay."

"Coco, I never would have gotten anywhere in Beacon without you." Velvet said gently, kissing Coco again before sliding off. "You don't freeze up when everything goes crazy, just… let me, heck let any of us help okay?"

"Fine." Coco said with a smile as she looked over at Six, who had already resumed her work of attaching the gravity dust mount to her hammer.

"Good." Velvet said, smiling as she pecked Coco on the lips before diving into her lunch, grinning as she bit into the sandwich her girlfriend had made.

Coco slid over, smiling awkwardly as she looked at Velvet.

"So… erm, could you help me with the makeup assignment?"