"And you truly believe that you're ready?" Ozpin asks, sipping his cocoa.
"As much as I can be. I can survive a fight against Yang, at least."
Ozpin chuckles. "Ms. Xiao Long does seem like a worthy barometer for progress. I suppose there's not too many concrete ways of verifying your abilities aside from a mission. I'll see what missions we have available for first years; speaking frankly, RWBY has proven to be quite adept and could easily move on to more difficult missions, but I suppose they could use a breather every now and then. Ms. Belladonna did ask for you to accompany her, yes?"
"Yes, thank you, sir! I hope I can manage to keep up with them."
"I'm sure you'll prove who you are out there. Even stepping outside the walls is brave, especially for someone with your history, or lack thereof. RWBY will be there to support you, so don't rush in by yourself."
You take a breath. The reality of accepting a mission to fight Grimm was starting to hit. You're about to be assigned as a temp member of Team RWBY to join in on a quick extermination, so the idea of monsters is still fresh. Still, you have a bigass flame sword, magic (but not magic) armor, and a team full of hot girls, each of which could kick all sorts of ass. If worst comes to worst, you can rely on RWBY; that's the benefit of a team, after all.
"Yes, sir!"
"I look forward to hearing from you once you return." Ozpin dismisses you.
You nod and leave Ozpin's office. You feel your heart pounding even though nothing's really happened. It'll be a day or two before Ozpin finds something suitable to your skill level and then mobilize your new team. So you have that time to stress about things! Woo.
Of course, now you become self conscious of everything. Your skills were mediocre (especially compared to RWBY), you have no Semblance, no practical experience, no idea what's truly out there. You don't even have a gun attachment on your sword. Sure, it's a cool, size-changing flame sword, but that's pretty lame compared to most of the other stuff around here. Speaking of…
You start heading to the workshop. Of the things that would help put your mind at ease, ensuring that your sword didn't break halfway through a fight would be towards the top of that list. You've been going hard in training, so best to sharpen your blade and tighten the screws. Retrieving it from your locker (thanks rocket locker), you test it out in the courtyard just to be sure, then head inside.
Oh. Oh, right. Ruby's a weapon freak. It's only natural that she'd be right in front of you, tinkering away with her Crescent Rose. It's also Ruby, so she doesn't even notice you enter the room until she spies you in her blade's reflection.
"Meep!" Ruby squeaks, jumping a few feet in the air. Scrambling to tidy up her work station, she asks, "How long have you been standing there!?"
"Only a sec! I was just gonna do some maintenance."
"Oh. Oh, right. Yeah, of course," Ruby stumbles. "That's always a good thing!"
"Yup. Especially now! I just got out of a meeting with Ozpin."
"You mean?"
"Yeah! I got the go ahead to join you guys for a mission. I'll be backing you up come a few days."
"That's AWESOME! Oh, oh, you need to let me have a look at your weapon first!"
"Ruby, you pretty much designed it. I'm not sure there's much more for you to learn."
"But I got so many more ideas I wanna try! I could try addinganotherDustportorimprovetheburnerormaybetoywiththeventilationsoitcouldgethotter–"
"Ruby, I understood like three of those words, but I think you said you couldn't include them when you first worked on it."
Ruby's babbling stops. Nervously touching her fingers together she whispers, "But I wanna tryyy…"
You look at Crescent Rose. You see several stripped screws bored into the plating, as well as several brand new ones. You can tell just how many times Ruby has torn her weapon apart for what might be a .01% improvement. Seeing just how eager she is, you relent and say, "Okay, fine. She's all yours."
"Yehihihi!" Ruby snatches your sword and finds a new workstation. She finishes up on Crescent Rose for now and begins tinkering away with your blade. "What was her name again?"
You aren't sure where you stand on referring to your sword as a her. "Synstylae," you say, remembering when you dicked around on a wiki searching up cool names for a weapon.
"Ah, right! Of course! Roses, right." Ruby smiles at you with her rosy cheeks. You feel like you lucked out on your bequeathed name; you feel half the reason Ruby is more comfortable with you than other people (at least initially) is because you share rose-themed names. Good thing Ozpin found you in a rose bush and not like, a fern. Ah, yes, it's, me, Fern Bushman. Briar Redfield sounds like a protagonist, not like a loser.
"Now, I don't have all the parts I want, so I don't think I can do a TON, but I should be able to rework some bits and make it much more efficient!" Ruby, without looking at you, starts deep diving into the mechanical parts of your sword. With dexterous speed, her fingers flicked between gears and tubes like she knew every inner working by heart. "Yeah, yeah… Yeah!" She mumbles to herself, hunching over even further.
You watch Ruby work, interesting in learning more about your weapon. Dust was one of things you don't remember at all, and you don't recall working with any sort of mechanical monstrosities like your standard gun-hybrid, but the necessity of them meant you picked them up quicker than most other things. If you get asked anything about basic history, you got nothing, but how to rework a refined Dust engine to slot in with the heating element? You got that. Mostly. Watching Ruby reminds you that she's leagues ahead of you in tinkering in addition to fighting.
Your thought process is interrupted as the door behind you opens. Turning, you see a tiny woman with white hair walk in. Upon seeing Ruby, she stops, looks at the rapier in her hand, frowns, then starts turning around to leave. Before you can notice the hints that she didn't want to hang out with her teammate, you say, "Oh, hey Weiss!"
The white-haired woman flinches. The red-haired woman snaps her neck backwards in a freakish display of speed. You realize your mistake as you watch Weiss recoil backwards, wanting anything to happen other than what was about to happen.
"Weisssss!" Ruby shouts, excitedly speeding over to Weiss' side. The red streak starts clinging to her teammate's arm, inspecting her weapon.
"That is my name. Please get off of me." Weiss glares at you. You do your best to say you're sorry nonverbally.
"Oh, are you here to fix your Myrtenaster? Did the blade bend? I did think it was a bit too thin. Or was the Dust revolver knocked loose?"
Weiss shakes her teammate off of her arm. "I was just going to sharpen the blade, nothing more. I take good care of my weapon."
"That doesn't mean other things can't be improved!" Ruby cheers. "I can take a look at–"
Seeing your chance to ask for forgiveness, you interrupt Ruby, "–Don't you have to worry about my weapon? I imagine you don't want to split your focus on this kinda thing."
Ruby freezes. She nervously looks back at your sword and says, "Yeahhhhh, that's true."
"Plus, I think Weiss can look after her weapon. Mine's still pretty new, so I can adapt."
"Yes, Ruby. Myrtenaster is a very delicate weapon and requires a finer hand than yours to perform maintenance properly."
"Okaaay," Ruby mopes, clearly disappointed. "I'll work on my ideas for this one, then." She goes back to your sword.
"And if that's settled, I will sharpen my blade and be on my way."
"Actually," you say, trying to gauge Weiss' mood. "You mind if I come with you? Just need to have a little talk."
Weiss looks at you with a, "Are you speaking to me?" face, but looks at Ruby. Seeing her salvation in you, she agrees, "Alright, then. If you be prompt about it." She walks past you and starts sharpening her sword on a high tech grindstone machine. Considering it takes her all of three minutes to finish, you assume that she actually wanted to do much more, but she'd rather avoid Ruby. Again walking past you as if you weren't there, she calls back, "Come."
Remembering just how much you don't care for Weiss, you exit the workshop and catch up to her.
"What did you want to say?" Weiss asks, very curt in her tone. Even her walk is direct, to the point, and stern.
"Just that I got the okay from Ozpin to join you on a mission. I'll be tagging along in a few days."
"Ah. Blake did say something like that. Yang mentioned that you didn't have a team, as well."
"Yeah. I've already talked with everyone else, so I thought I might as well say hi to you, too. Teamwork and all that."
"Yes. Teamwork," Weiss says with disdain. You understand that she has a myriad of issues with her team that you don't exactly want to get in the middle of.
This is difficult and awkward. Sure, you haven't had a one on one with Weiss before, but she was actively ignoring you. You'd be on the same team in a few days! She could at least attempt a conversation…
Trying your best to not sound like you're forcing conversation, you ask, "So you fight with a rapier, right? I've seen you use it a few times and it's like I'm watching someone dance; it barely even looks like you're fighting."
Weiss' ice starts to melt. She smirks (though still doesn't look at you) and says, "Yes. I was taught that grace matters in combat in addition to one's social behavior. A lesson Beacon could do to teach. Your manners are passable, but there's not much grace in that sword of yours."
At least complements make Weiss bearable… "Yeah, greatswords don't leave much room for pirouettes. Though, Ruby actually upgraded it to have a shorter form that's more easily wielded; I've been practicing my swings a lot since."
"Practice makes perfect," Weiss states. "I am glad to see you progress; most of my knowledge about your abilities comes from Yang, who tends to add… superlatives."
"You can come practice with us sometime. I'd love to see your fighting style up close, maybe learn something from it. And those symbols you use are incredibly interesting."
"My Glyphs, yes. They are my family's Semblance and they are *quite* versatile." Weiss actually turns to address you like a person. "Maybe some training would be a good idea. If we'll be working together, I should know your skill level. Your true skill is muddled by Yang's… humor, so best to verify it."
Good things! You now know that all it takes to make Weiss address you is to shower her with complements and you also get to spar with her! That's valuable training, and some insight into how you'll pair with her on the mission. The bad, though, is that she's still shallow. Oh, well. Hopefully actually interacting with her will make her more personable.
You have a quick discussion with Weiss where she explains her Glyphs and how she uses the as you walk her back to her room. Once you drop her off, you start a deep think on how you'll fight her and how you'll fight with her. You look forward to your first real mission, the opportunity to truly fit into this world for the first time.
