Here's chapter 80, everyone.
"You done sulking yet?" Qrow asked while he and his sister were heading back to the warehouse after getting paid for the mission they dealt with. "If not, I'm gonna take the long way back."
"Shut the hell up already." Raven glared. "If you want to do that, go right ahead, I'm not stopping you."
Qrow crossed his arms and shook his head disappointingly. "Yup, still sulking."
"What is your damn problem?" She questioned after stomping her foot and turned to face him.
"My problem is your acting like a kid by avoiding exactly what we both know, and it's not going to help us on dealing with these hunters." Qrow stated. "You're letting your own personal feelings get in the way because you keep ignoring-."
A blade was at his neck, and he sighed while holding his hands up. "Nothing will be personal here, and those hunters won't last long. This will be an easy mission, but if you want to cry about how I handle it, then back out. Now."
"Get your sword out of my face." Qrow demanded, not looking nervous that her sword was at his neck.
A few moments passed, and Raven slowly pulled her blade back. "You don't need to be involved anymore if you continue this."
"I'm not backing out because you told me to, idiot. I'm the one who took the job, so I'll see it through, but you need to get yourself in check. Willow already has Jacques to deal with, so don't make her deal with another moron." Qrow warned and pushed past his sister.
"Don't give me that! The entire point of keeping her out of the things we do is because she deals with that piece of garbage!" Raven surprised herself again with how she raised her voice, and Qrow shrugged it off while continuing to make his way to the warehouse.
"And what you're doing hasn't been 'keeping her out of this?' Oh yeah, sure, sis. Look, either you need to let her do what she wants by joining you on a hunt, or find her a trainer who will take her seriously." Qrow said without turning around.
"This isn't your business." Raven snarled, her patience already gone and clearly he wasn't making it better for himself, but Qrow wasn't soft either.
"True, but you causing problems by not being focused on the mission involves me, and I don't need a half assed huntress weighing us down for something like this." While he didn't mean it completely, as it was meant to get her to understand, Raven froze from his words.
Qrow realized she stopped walking when he couldn't hear her boots against the ground, so he sighed to himself and continued walking, not choosing to look back as he hoped his sister would realize what she should be doing.
"Weak people… That's just how things are. If they stay weak, they can't do a damn thing, but this is life and death damn it."
While Raven had her feelings in check many times before, the idea of Willow losing her life to the way things were for them, it wasn't something she wanted lodged in her mind, but to Raven, Willow not improving and getting stronger was a risk in itself.
As the huntress watched her brother walk off, she sighed and pulled her scroll out. After thinking about what to say, she sent her message and pocketed her scroll, choosing to walk to the warehouse at her own pace, though mostly to avoid talking to her younger brother.
"Soooo, when did you realize you liked my sister?" Ruby asked, while both she and Blake were outside in the courtyard, a good bit away from some of the other students as Blake wanted privacy for the conversation at hand.
"I… I guess not too long before the mission we went on with Ms. Goodwitch." Blake admitted with a blush. "Back then, well, during the mission… I noticed how she got. How protective she can be," She let out a small smile. "It's a bit silly, since I don't want her getting into fights we can't handle just because she feels like she has to protect me."
Ruby let out a light chuckle and thought about all the times back home, when Yang would baby her over the smallest scratch, though throughout the years, the blonde did lighten up on that. "Yeah, Yang can get like that, but she knows when to lay off too. Y'know, like she knows when someone can handle themselves."
"I can tell. At first, when I saw her speaking with her mom at times. Um, not your mom, I mean… Yeah." Ruby simply nodded, understanding what she meant. "Anyways, when she spoke to her at times, I could tell how angry she can get, but then she ends up calming down fairly easy too."
"Another great thing about my sister. She won't let her anger take over for long." Ruby said proudly. "I used to be really jealous of her actually."
"Hmm? Why?" Blake inquired.
Ruby looked up at the clouds for a second, thinking more about her life in Patch. "Well, she's just always been so… Awesome, y'know." She lowered her head back down to face Blake. "There was this one time, we were trying out hand to hand training… I… Well, I'm not that great in a fight without my scythe, so she kinda kicked my butt."
Blake let out a chuckle. "To be fair, her fighting style is hand to hand."
"Yeah, yeah, but that's not the awesome part. There was this big Ursa that was lurking around us, and when we got split up for a bit, it tried to attack me." Ruby recounted the story with ease, while Blake simply listened. "And since you know how protective Yang can be, she swooped in and saved me. The Ursa even had her in its mouth at one point." Blake stiffened up for a moment, not liking the image of that. "Don't worry, her aura protected her."
"I-I know…" Blake was a little embarrassed that Ruby caught her reaction.
"Hehe, right, well she obviously killed it. Something she could do that I couldn't… I look up to her a lot, and… Knowing she has someone who cares about her, it makes me happy." Ruby gave Blake her brightest smile. "So when you tell her, you gotta promise to make her smile just like this. Got it?"
"Ruby…" Blake looked to the ground for a moment, chuckling a little at how her team leader spoke.
"W-What? I'm trying to be serious here!" Ruby's pout only made Blake laugh a bit louder, so the rose girl blushed, but after a few moments, she started joining in on the laughter.
It didn't take long for the two to calm down, and once they were done with their little laughter fit, Blake spoke. "Thanks, Ruby. I really needed this."
"I should be the one thanking you. If you didn't get me to show up at the library, I'd probably still be sulking." Ruby said, appreciative that her friend got her to relax.
"Hmm, well I know you and Weiss will work things out. I've seen you two and how you act around each other." Blake thought about something and reached for her scroll. "In fact, maybe you can show her this."
Ruby looked curious at that point and leaned over to see what was on her scroll, and Blake pulled up the picture of her art. The one she specifically drew of Weiss in her wolf form, and Ruby if she had a wolf form.
"Whoa, this looks amazing. Is that Weiss?" Ruby asked, her eyes glued to the screen as Blake had a light blush from the compliment.
"Y-Yeah, I actually enjoy drawing. So I thought it would be nice to draw Weiss' wolf form, and since you and her are together, I just felt it was only right to add you in it if you had her semblance." Blake explained.
Ruby blinked a few times, looking closely at the wolf that was meant to be her in the picture. "Wow, Blake. This is really good, like… Amazing. I know Weiss didn't sit still for you to draw her, so you did this all by memory, and you even made a wolf me! That is so awesome! I would love to be a wolf!"
Blake chuckled at Ruby's excitement, and she was glad she was able to help her feel better, while also thinking about how and when to tell Yang how she felt.
Weiss held Myrtenaster tight in her hand, knowing that she was just trying to blow off steam, but at the same time, she was trying not to let her life spin upside down from the new information she had to live with.
"I still have to realize where I'm at. Beacon Academy. I'm here to be a huntress, and nothing should slow that down… Not even this."
Even if she was bottling her emotions up, she didn't care. So as she made it to the training room, she walked in and noticed that Yang was already there, working on her accuracy with long ranged shots from her gauntlets.
"Yang?" Weiss called out and walked over, as the blonde stopped firing, surprised to see the white haired teen was even here to begin with.
"Weiss? What… What are you doing here? I thought you'd be with your mom." Yang instantly tried pulling her into a hug after what happened, but she stopped when Weiss raised a hand up.
"I'm here to continue training to become a huntress. It's what we're all here to do, so please, no questions." Weiss felt a little bad talking to Yang like that, but the last thing she wanted to think about was what her Mother revealed to her, and Yang's questions would do just that.
With how she responded though, Yang was taken aback. "Whoa, uh, Weiss, I mean… I get it got pretty loud back there, but I'm not sure if being out of the loop is something I'm okay with."
"Well too bad, Yang. I don't have any reason to discuss what my Mother and I spoke about, so if you would kindly drop it, I'd appreciate that." Weiss requested while walking over to one of the training consoles.
Yang felt a little hurt by that, but at the same time, she remembered Summer's words, knowing that Weiss was in even more pain than she's ever been. "O-Okay, Weiss. Um, so… Do you wanna spar?"
"No thank you. I'd like to work on fighting without using my wolf form for a while." Weiss was avoiding it, as she tightened her grip on Myrtenaster even more so, while keeping its rapier blade up.
"Oh, well okay. Um, want me to monitor your aura like Ruby does?" Yang still wanted to help in some way, since she knew Weiss was acting differently at the moment.
"I suppose, but I don't plan to stop when my aura is low. I can still use my weapon, and if I need to, I'll set the hard light program to hold a defense instead of using offence." Weiss pressed a few buttons on the training console, while Yang silently nodded, not wanting to say anything that could set Weiss off.
Weiss took a breath as she watched the hard light enemies spawn out, and she readied her blade as she moved away from the console. Yang took a few steps back and watched as Weiss held out two fingers with her right hand, casting a few glyphs behind the hard light enemies, only for her to begin a barrage of dust attacks that started slamming them against the wall of glyphs behind them.
The force of her attacks, combined with slamming against the wall of glyphs made Yang wince, since Weiss usually wasn't that forceful in her attacks, unless she was in her wolf form. Even so, she wasn't done as the hard light enemies in front of her had rifles in their offencive programming.
Yang watched as they started to fire at Weiss, but instead of casting a glyph in front of her, she dashed from side to side, not flinching for even a moment as she leaped up. The hard light enemies aimed up and began firing at her yet again, but she used a glyph that stayed floating in front of her as she descended, blocking every shot until she slammed down on one of them.
The blonde brawler watched as it was crushed from the impact of Weiss' glyph, and with the other hard light enemies stunned for just a moment, Weiss jabbed her blade into one, affectively taking it down, while doing a backflip to dodge one trying to hit her with the butt of its rifle, so as she jumped behind it, she slashed the nape of its neck.
The program was made to shut down any hard light humanoids that took fatal blows, so that one was also considered dead.
As Weiss continued fighting off the hard light program, Yang looked worried about the girl, not seeing this side of her before, since at least when she trained before, she'd try to talk with them at times, but right then and there, she was silent.
Weiss is just letting off some steam. I think. Really though, this is the time where she just needs to think more about herself, and more about what she should be doing with this information. And for Raven, well she's still being too personal, but she's getting there. Oh, and a bit of a tease here, but I know when I'm gonna introduce a certain mama and papa cat now.
To JJ- Yes, it's true. Change will happen in their lives, and whether Weiss can accept these changes will have to be seen when they occur. As for Ruby and Blake, well, as you can see, Ruby is still excited about it, and she's being as helpful as she can be. The story is getting close to picking up more on a certain group's side soon enough.
To Flowey- Haha, I honestly forgot about that line in the game. Well hey, it's how Raven views the world, so she and Flowey does have that in common with each other.
I hoped you all enjoyed chapter 80. Remember, reviews are welcomed, but not required. See you all in chapter 81.