Here's chapter 69, everyone.
Blake wasn't sure how she should feel. Making friends with two Schnees was a step in the right direction, in her mind, but to now see Weiss having the Schnee family semblance after all, well it outright confused the girl.
"How is it possible?"
"Thinking about what we saw in the training room with ice wolf?" Yang's question startled the cat Faunus, and she lightly chuckled in response. "Me too. It's… Pretty cool, but yeah, I don't get how she has two."
With a sigh, Blake nodded in agreement. "Back before, well before I came here to Beacon, I learned a good bit about the Schnee family, so their semblance was a bit of a big thing to learn about of them."
Yang shrugged. "Well, looks like ice wolf is a bit different with it. Still, it's pretty cool. Being able to turn into a wolf, and jump around on glyphs. Not a bad combination." Zwei barked up in response, almost like he was agreeing and Yang smiled as she rubbed his little head.
"You aren't even worried about it? I mean, who else in the world has two semblances? And… I don't know. Don't you think that might hurt her aura?" Blake surprised Yang, showing her that she was starting to show her own concern for Weiss.
The blonde brawler smiled, patting Blake's shoulder a few times. "She'll be okay, Shadowcat." Blake had a light blush on her face, but Yang chose to be mature about it. "I'm honestly kinda glad to hear that you're concerned for our ice wolf. It means you consider her a friend now."
"I-I already know I made mistakes about how I treated her." Blake said, but she did manage to let out a smile. "Being worried about a Schnee… I've been saying a lot of things about that. Being friends with a Schnee, being on a team with one. None of that matters anymore though."
"Because we're all just here to live and move forward with our lives. Gotta be, or we'd be boring zombies all day." Yang joked.
Blake nodded, but she still couldn't get Weiss' glyphs out of her head. "I think about this team, what you told me, and I don't know what I can really do to help at times."
"Hey, don't feel bad about it. With this glyph stuff ice wolf is dealing with, I don't really know how I can help either, but we can still try our best." Yang encouraged, but noticed something else was biting at Blake. "Is… There more to it than what you're telling me?"
"I'm just surprised you aren't asking me more about why I know a good bit about her family, or why I'd even need to know about her family in the first place." Blake explained.
"Am I supposed to? I think I'm fine with what you've told me already, Blake." Yang assured, smiling to show Blake she was telling the truth.
Blake rubbed her arm a few times. "Why?"
"Why am I fine with what you've told me? Well, because what kind of friend would I be if I just kept asking you questions about your life? It's your life, Blake, not mine." Yang could tell her ears drooped when her bow twitched. "But it doesn't mean I'm not happy learning more about you." That comment made Blake's ears perk back up under the bow. "So, is there anything you wanted to tell me? I'm all ears." Zwei barked again, and Yang patted his head. "Zwei can listen too."
"N-Not here." Blake began to walk to their dorm, and her blonde partner followed, with Zwei behind the two. Yang knew that she needed to be sure not to joke around for whatever Blake was planning on telling her.
The white wolf of team RWBY growled as she jumped away from Ruby's sniper fire, since their form of training her glyphs was to put her in a situation where she needed to use it. Weiss chose to not use Myrtenaster for her glyph training, choosing to focus on them instead of fighting back.
After skidding across the floor, she knew she couldn't dodge another attack, so she howled again, surprising herself, but Ruby had a feeling that it would happen. Just like before, the spinning glyph appeared in front of the white wolf, blocking the sniper shot that Ruby had fired at her.
The glyph cracked from the sniper shot, showing that Weiss' control and power over it wasn't that strong yet, and she howled again, accepting it that time as a second glyph appeared in front of the first.
"You shouldn't make too many at once, Weiss!" Ruby called out to her partner, not in a worried tone though.
Weiss shook her head, berating herself on the inside since Ruby was right. While she knew about glyphs, mostly through watching Winter, she herself had just been able to use them. "Right…" She saw that Ruby wasn't firing at her, so she walked over, looking up at her partner. "I'd like to try changing back now."
Ruby nodded, setting Crescent Rose on her back. "It shouldn't be too hard. Just like when you wanted to figure out how to not be a puppy." She giggled a bit at the memory.
One of Weiss' eyes twitched and the light growl startled Ruby, and the rose girl whistled innocently when she looked away, not wanting to see the angered look on the white wolf's face. "Don't start with me, Ruby Rose." She took a breath and closed her eyes.
"Think about what I look like… That should be enough. No glyphs, just who I am."
Saying those words had a different meaning than even Weiss knew, and as she tried to use her 'semblance', she could feel her aura, and figured that was a good sign, but when the light flashed in front of Ruby's eyes, it wasn't like before, and instantly the light faded, showing that Weiss was still a wolf.
"W-What? Nothing even happened…" Weiss said when she opened her eyes and realized she was still in her wolf form. "I didn't even change sizes… What is going on?!"
Ruby frowned, wishing she had the answer as she rubbed her partner's fur. "I-I don't know, but don't stop trying, Weiss." She pulled her scroll out and noticed the white wolf's aura didn't drop that much. "See, since nothing happened, you didn't lose any aura because of it, so you can keep going."
Weiss looked down, but only for a moment as she raised her head back up to see Ruby showing her aura levels to her. "What if I can't?"
"Don't say that." Ruby put her scroll away and hugged her girlfriend. "You just gotta keep training. I know you can do this." She pulled away, giving the white wolf a smile.
The white wolf took a breath, choosing to close her eyes again.
"Okay… Okay, this time I can do it. No glyphs, no changing sizes. I want to be human. That's it."
With those words in mind, their meaning was in fact different from the other words she used to change back. After a moment of feeling her aura, the light on her body shined and Ruby blushed, forgetting to look away, so when she saw her girlfriend naked, she instantly turned around, her face redder than her cloak. "I-It worked…"
Weiss gasped, seeing that it did, but when she realized why Ruby stuttered, and why she was turned around, she groaned and covered up with her arms. "J-Just close your eyes…" When Ruby instantly did so, Weiss ran to her clothes and took a few minutes to get dressed again. "O-Okay, you can open them."
Ruby slowly opened one eye, seeing that Weiss was fully dressed and back in her human form, so she sighed in relief and opened the other eye. "Sorry…"
The white haired teen rolled her eyes and walked over, flicking her on the forehead, making Ruby recoil back a bit as she started rubbing her forehead. "It's fine, just… Don't forget to look away when I'm using my semblance, dork."
"C-Can you blame me?! I forgot cause I gotta keep track of you having two semblances now, Wolfy!" Ruby exclaimed, and Weiss sighed.
"Yeah, I think I can understand that problem a bit more than you, Ruby." Weiss said in a somber tone, since controlling two powers wasn't exactly what you call simple.
Ruby stopped rubbing her forehead as she lowered her arms, feeling a little bad for the girl. "You'll get it to work, I know you will."
"Hmm." Weiss turned around, wanting to head back to the dorm. "I hope so, but for now… I think not using any semblance would be nice, so can we just go back to the dorm?"
While training more would be good for her girlfriend, she didn't want to overdo it with Weiss, so she nodded, running over and taking her hand. "Yup! Maybe we can play with Zwei too! I still remember the kissy faces you'd make when seeing him over a scroll call."
"Ugh, you know no one can resist how cute he is, Ruby Rose." Weiss defended as the two made their way to their dorm.
After Tai was informed of every little detail possible about Lazuria, her connections with Willow and Weiss, her plight, and everything else he needed to know, the blonde huntsman needed a moment to take it all in, sitting on one of the chairs in the warehouse they were in. "Wow… Um, wow. Soooo, this really isn't just our average mission, huh?"
Qrow rolled his eyes, leaning against one of the support beams. "I think that was pretty obvious with, oh I don't know, the group of people hunting other people."
Tai paid him no mind, and chose to look to Lazuria. "Why haven't you tried this before? Getting others to help you."
"I can't change the past, so I have no reason to answer that… Just know that I'm desperate and if I can at least live for the few years I have left-." She gasped when Raven slapped her in the back of the head, so she turned around and glared at the woman. "What the hell was that for?"
"Just stop talking and sit down." Raven ordered and the woman grumbled something as she took a seat. The raven haired huntress looked to Summer. "Everything we do from this point on is kept between our team, and Lazuria. Okay?"
"If you think I'll tell Willow… Then I get why you'd be a little cautious," Summer took a breath, glancing over at Lazuria. "But from what you said about this group, I don't want her or snowflake to get involved either."
Lazuria sniffled, thinking about her daughter as she nodded. "Thank you…"
Summer nodded back. "You're welcome." She looked back to Raven. "I promise not to mention this to Willow, just like I hope you can promise not to either, seeing as you'll be with her during training here and there."
"If you think I will, then you clearly don't know me well enough." Raven countered, and Summer chuckled in return.
"Right, well I think I'm ready to continue." Summer assured, even with her worry over taking a life, she wanted to get it done in the end for Lazuria.
"Ruby and Weiss are staying behind to train a bit, so you got me here without any interruptions." Yang said, watching as Blake locked the door, so she sat on Weiss' bed. "Making sure?"
"Yes." Blake sat on her bed, looking across at her partner. "Why do you think I don't like the Schnee name all that much?"
The question was a bit surprising, since she figured Blake was over that. "Uh, well, I'm gonna say Weiss' dad, but why even talk about that? You already know-."
"I know that Weiss and her mother, and I suppose her sister are not like what I've been taught to know about them, but her father is still… An enemy to me, and I can't say much on her brother either." The cat Faunus explained.
"Enemy? Blake, what are you talking about? Sure he's not the nicest guy out there and all, but calling him an enemy. Don't you think that's going a bit too far?" The blonde brawler said, looking a little confused.
Blake sighed, so she rubbed her scarred leg. "When I showed you this," Yang grimaced at the memory. "I told you that my last partner gave me those scars…" Again, that memory got another reaction from her partner, one of anger. "You never really wondered what kind of work I was involved with if I had a partner like that?"
"I don't know what you did, but I know if I ever see that guy's face, I'll-." She stopped when Blake glared at her.
"You'll do nothing, because you won't be able to fight a monster like him." Blake almost yelled, but kept it down to avoid anyone walking by their door to hear. "What I did… Was things I can't say I'll be proud of anymore…" Her cat ears drooped. "I used to think that fighting back the way I did was the way to finally get people to hear what my kind has to say."
Yang sat in silence, as she was not oblivious to how the world viewed the Faunus, and as she took her words in, she couldn't stay quiet much longer. "Okay, so what DID you do?"
Blake still had her weapon on her, so she grabbed it, only to place it next to her. "I used that… And fought alongside people that used to fight for Faunus Equality… Until they were pushed too far and chose a different form of fighting…"
As the words sank in even more so, Yang's eyes widened. "You… You hurt people? Did you-."
"I never killed anyone." Blake answered immediately, making Yang sigh in relief. "But I have hurt people, indirectly, and… Directly." She bit her lip, watching Yang's every reaction. "If you haven't figured it out yet, I was part of-."
"The White Fang…" Yang finished for her, and Blake looked down in shame, while the blonde brawler got up from Weiss' bed. "It wasn't hard to pick up on that when you said that the people you worked with chose a different form of fighting."
Blake looked up, seeing how upset her partner looked. "I'm sorry."
Yang walked over to the window, choosing to lean forward to take in the fresh air after she opened it. "Who are you saying sorry to, Blake?"
With her partner's back to her, the cat Faunus had to think about what she meant, and who she really was trying to apologize to. "You… Weiss… Ruby… All the people I've hurt." She took a deep breath, feeling her eyes watering. "I made a choice, and I still hate how the world treats us."
Turning around, Yang nodded. "I get that, and I don't really know what happened to you to make you wanna stay with a group like that, but it's like you said, you made a choice."
Blake continued to feel ashamed, almost wanting to leave the room so Yang wouldn't have to see her like that. "I never killed anyone…"
"You told me that, and I believe you, but is that why," Yang sighed, looking at her partner's scarred leg. "Is that why that piece of garbage did that to you?"
With one hand rubbing her right leg, Blake slowly nodded. "Disobey an order, and face punishment. It was how things went, all because they wanted 'proper' fighters."
Yang growled in response. "Even for them, that's not how things should be."
Blake somberly chuckled. "A lot of people in the White Fang would agree with you… Years ago, but now, it's nothing like back then. Things changed, and the only reason you saw me limping back then… Was to remind me of all the times he would hurt me… How I would limp from the pain." She clenched her fists. "It's so I never forget how things were, and to make sure I never have the urge to go back."
"Don't do that anymore." Yang said, and Blake gave her a questioning look. "You don't have to remind yourself of that." She walked over, choosing to sit next to her partner, who glanced down at her scarred leg.
"I can't trust myself." Blake stated, and she grunted when Yang punched her shoulder.
"Keep saying shit like that and I'll bring you back to the training room to knock some sense into you." Yang warned, as Blake rubbed her arm and scooted away.
"I'm serious, Yang!" Blake yelled, choosing to stand up, and as she was about to head for the door, she felt the blonde grab her arm. "You can't do this now."
Yang sighed, loosening her grip, but also getting up to keep her from leaving. "You're different now, and if you think about those times more and more, how are you gonna be able to keep moving forward?"
Blake gasped, feeling her partner completely release her arm, so she slowly turned around, staring at the blonde for a few moments before finally speaking up. "I-I don't want to end up that way again…"
"I won't let you." Yang assured, taking a step forward and embracing her partner. "I swear that you're gonna stay by our side, even after we graduate, cause no way am I gonna lose my partner." She closed her eyes, feeling Blake burying her face into her shoulder. "Face it, Shadowcat… You can't get rid of me that easily."
Hearing that made Blake slowly hug her back, as she thought about two people in her life. It was the two people she needed to talk to again, and she only hoped that they would forgive her for everything that's happened.
More Blake and Yang bonding and moments to set up for possible… Well, y'know. We'll see how it goes. Like I say a lot, I like going with the flow. And try to remember what Weiss said to herself when trying to change back and it failed. Something the readers know, but she herself will not.
To JJ- Sorry about that, but hey, at least now you know it wasn't like she was close to dying. And seeing as this chapter answered your question, you can tell Weiss can use both powers, but yes, her glyphs are her semblance, while her shifting power is just what her kind can do. Also with Tai, you can see he's willing to help.
I hoped you all enjoyed chapter 69. Remember, reviews are welcomed, but not required. See you all in chapter 70.