Team SALTY

Chapter 2

"Who are you?" Yang demanded, her arms crossed. She looked Toshika up and down with a discerning gaze, not missing the fact that she'd walked onto the Beacon transport ship next to her sister. Nor did Toshika miss the few seconds of jealousy Yang allowed to slip out at her chest.

Toshika opened her mouth to introduce herself, but found the little red reaper was faster.

"This is Toshika!" Ruby said, excited. "She helped me try to stop a criminal last night!"

Yang blinked at her sister, but she didn't look surprised. "Of course you did," she deadpanned.

Toshika opened her mouth to try and introduce herself again, but Ruby cut her off… again.

"She's so cool! She's got this gravity Semblance and a dog and weapon balls and-" Ruby splurged on and on about Toshika, leading the woman in question to sigh and shake her head.

Yang slowly processed her sister's splurgefest. "A dog?" she asked.

A loud "BORK!" from behind Toshika rang out, and the purple and navy blue form of Huey trotted out from behind her tails.

Yang was speechless for several moments.

"...Your dog looks like my dog," she said, finally able to tear her eyes away from Huey. She sent a curious, but more accepting look at Toshika than she had before. "Only, like, purple."

You're the best dog ever, Huey, Toshika internally praised him. That was going to be a whole lot harder without you.

She smiled at Yang and seemed to think of something. "Is your dog named Zwei?" she asked.

Yang chuckled and nodded. "Ruby told you, didn't she," she knowingly asked.

"It was somewhere in the waterfall of words, yeah," Toshika jokingly agreed.

Ruby was still going on and on about her adventure, entirely forgetting that either of them were there. Yang smiled at her, sent Toshika a pair of rolled eyes, and then glomped her sister.

"Oh, I can't believe my baby sister's going to Beacon with me!" she exclaimed, shocking Ruby out of her rapid fire word storm. "This is the best day ever!"

Ruby wheezed from her sister's tight hug. "Pwease stop."

Things continued on as they had in canon, with Toshika engaging in the sister's conversation nonsensically, up until the news began talking about Roman.

Toshika glared at the screen. "That's the guy," she announced, annoyance in her tone. Her tails were twitching back and forth, clearly agitated.

Ruby and Yang looked over to the news. "Hey, that is the guy!" Ruby confirmed.

Yang looked at the two of them askance. "Roman Torchwick?" she asked, gaping. "You two fought Roman Torchwick?"

"Would've beaten him too if it wasn't for his meddling accomplice and a bullhead," Toshika deadpanned.

"Pride levels of sister rising," Yang announced, squeezing Ruby again.

Ruby then remembered something and burst out giggling.

Yang let her sister go a little and looked at her askance. "What's so funny?"

Ruby could barely breathe due to her giggling. She just gestured to Huey and bent over, giggles turning into full blown laughter.

Toshika took pity on the confused blondeshell. "I had Huey pee on him."

Yang stared at her, shocked, before she too burst out laughing.

It's funny how five years can seem like such a long time and such a short time. Between classes, additional training, social niceties, dealing with Ironwood, running a huntsman academy, helping out both his mother and father, and getting kidnapped more times than seemed credible, Malachite had very little time to himself. He didn't mind, though, preferring being active to sitting around doing nothing for too long. Of course, it helped that some of what he did to help his mother amounted to playing games. On the other hand, introducing the concept of microtransactions to his sister was probably a mistake, no matter how profitable it was to the family.

Still, over the years, a lot had happened. His prosthetic arm had proven a massive boon when he worked on building his weapon, Verdant Edge, just in the time saved not picking up another tool in order to seat a specific part or another. It also held a number of nice surprises, a must when the White Fang kept trying to capture him. Apparently, he was a favored target for showing their displeasure at how his parents ran their companies, which was complete bullshit. They treated all of their workers the same, to the extent they could. It wasn't his father's fault that Atlas refused to let faunus work on the more secretive components of the military hardware the company produced.

Malachite shook the idle thoughts off. This was no time to get lost in his own head. He was on his way to Beacon, away from the petty politics of Atlas, to learn how to be a Huntsman. He would gladly leave the stuffy parties and meetings to Sabah. At least his sister seemed to enjoy the game. He would much rather work at improving their designs and innovating new technologies, blending concepts from his memories with the realities of this world.

And he was doing it again. Looking around, Malachite decided to engage in one of his favorite past times: Weapon watching. It is always interesting to see what new and ingenious things people come up with. Mechashift and dust allowed weapons to do things that should, by all the rules of his old universe, be impossible. His Verdant Wedge was no exception, of course, even if it was admittedly less complicated than some he had seen in Weapons Magazine.

Now there was an interesting choice. Fairly standard rapier, with a rotating dustcaster. It definitely wasn't something he would have chosen, but, then again, he didn't tend towards finesse. His gaze traveled up from the weapon, interested in what kind of person would choose it, and stared.

That was Weiss Schnee. Weiss Schnee was on an airship heading to Beacon Academy. Weiss Schnee was going to be a huntress. Weiss Schnee was going to be a huntress, and was going to be training at Beacon.

It was official. Someone was laughing at him.

Malachite sighed and made his way over to the Shnee heiress. Once he was a respectful distance behind her and slightly to her right, he announced himself, using his Proper Atlesian Voice. "Hello, Miss Schnee. I must admit I was not expecting to see you here."

Weiss' flinch before she turned, showing him a proper uppercrust smile, was hard to miss. "Hello," she returned. She took a moment to look him over, rather obviously judging him based on his clothing choices. Malachite suppressed a grin. He knew his chosen outfit would look only slightly out of place in an upper class party. Really, all he needed to do to properly fit in was remove the visible armor. "I am sorry to say that, while I vaguely recognize you, I cannot place your name."

Malachite gave a polite, if vaguely friendly smile, appropriate for their respective stations and level of social contact. "I find that I can't take offense to that," he said. "If I were in your position, I would also have a hard time picking a face out of an audience, and I tended to avoid going to your father's parties when I had the choice to do so." Holding out a hand, he added, "That said, I am surprised your father hasn't mentioned me before."

Weiss, who had been reaching for his hand, stopped. "I am not looking for a relationship currently," she coldly stated.

Malachite laughed, quickly speaking, hoping to stop Weiss from taking offence. "Sorry, I wasn't expecting you to jump to that conclusion. No offence, but I wouldn't consider dating you, either, at least not yet."

The glare Weiss settled on him informed Malachite that he had screwed up. "And why is that, exactly?"

"It is nothing against you," Malachite quickly insisted. "It's just that I don't know you well enough to think about courting you, and merging our families might actually be illegal." Pausing for a moment as the thought struck him, he muttered, "Note to self, ask Sabah about mergers and antitrust laws." Shaking the errant thought off, he turned back to Weiss. "Sorry about that, sometimes my mind gets away from me." Smiling slightly, he extended his hand again, saying, "Allow me to properly introduce myself, Malachite Seolfor, second in line to the Seolfor fortune. Long live Sabah."

"Seolfor?" Wiess muttered, her brow furrowing as she took Malachite's hand. Malachite hesitated for a second before deciding to shake it gently, rather than bring it to his hand as courtly manners demanded. It wouldn't do to potentially send mixed signals, after all. "That name is definitely familiar, though I am having difficulty placing it."

"I think we've cost the Schnee Dust Company somewhere around twenty percent of their generator contracts in Atlas over the last five years," Malachite offered.

Weiss stiffened. "I remember Father mentioning that a time or two," she said frostily.

Malachite shrugged. That was just business, after all, and he had come to Beacon, in part, to avoid as much of that particular minefield as possible. "We had some interesting innovations, that's all." There was a moment of awkward silence before Malachite continued, "Still, I'm not heading to Beacon to talk business. That's actually what brought me over here." Malachite paused for a moment, trying to ensure his question came out as honestly curious rather than accusing, "What brings the Shnee heiress to Beacon?"

The look Weiss leveled upon Malachite informed him exactly how incredibly stupid she found his question. "I am going to be a huntress. That should have been fairly obvious."

Malachite winced before nodding. "Right, allow me to rephrase that. Why would someone like… Hmm, it's really hard to put this in a way that won't come off as insulting." He sighs and continues, "Nothing for it, then. Why is someone like you, who has a lucrative singing career and who is the future owner of one of the largest companies in the world, becoming a hunter?"

Weiss opened her mouth to reply, but Malachite started talking again, cutting her off without realizing it immediately.

"I mean, it's great that you want to be a huntress and all. More props to you and all that, but… oh, right, sorry about that. You were saying?"

"It's like you said. I am a Schnee. I have a legacy of honor to uphold," Weiss stated. "Once I realized I was capable of fighting, there was no longer a question of what I would do with my life."

"Come on, that can't be all of…" Malachite trailed off as he noticed something about Weiss' face that had definitely not been there at the last concert he'd been to. Honestly, he was mentatlly berating himself for having not noticed the scar across her left eye sooner. "Weiss," Malachite continued, much more seriously than before. "What happened to your eye?"

"What?" the heiress snapped. "Upset that my perfect face is ruined?"

"No! That's not it at all," Malachite hurried to reassure her. "It's just… a wound like that… something broke your Aura, and then you would have had to go without treatment long enough that it wouldn't heal cleanly. That's not something that should have happened before we're going on missions, and I would have read about it if you got kidnapped. I know how good the press is about finding out about those, after all."

Seriously, after the third time, the White Fang should have figured out kidnapping him was a bad idea. Then again, a surprising number of his kidnappers were currently part of the Seolfor security force. His father was a master at creative sentencing for the more repentant members who had ended up well over their heads. And another surprisingly large number were currently students at Soelfor's College.

"My father," Weiss began, likely not realizing just how cold her tone was, "decided that, if I wanted to be a huntress, I would need to prove myself. I did not do as well as I had hoped, though I did succeed."

"I see," Malachite replied. It was trivial to read between the lines. It sounded like Weiss Schnee had much more of her grandfather in her than he had feared. As far as he was concerned, this was very much a good thing. Really, there was only one course of action he could see himself taking at this moment.

"Miss Schnee, no," he stopped himself and reached out, placing his left hand on her shoulder. "Weiss, I want you to know that I am not here to spy on you. I did not even know you were going to be here until I saw you. What do you say we keep Atlas in Atlas and Beacon in Beacon?"

Weiss tilted her head but didn't knock Malachite's hand off her shoulder. He took it as a good sign. "What, exactly, are you proposing?"

"I'm suggesting we do our best to pretend we're just two students; leave as much of our business lives outside of Beacon as much as possible. I came here to get away from political games, and I'm sure you did as well. You could have gone to Atlas Academy, after all."

"And why should I?"

"Our families may be business rivals," Malachite stated, "but that doesn't mean we have to be at each other's throats." He took a half step back, releasing Weiss' shoulder in the process. "If you ever want to talk to someone, who at least knows roughly where you're coming from, I promise that none of it will get back to your father." He smirked and added, "I won't even tell my parents about anything business related you might accidentally let slip, unless you ask me to."

Weiss gave him a suspicious look. "You don't expect me to actually fall for that, do you?"

Malachite sighed. "Look, Weiss, I don't know what I can do to prove I'm serious. Considering what I've heard about your father from mine, I can't even blame you for being worried. But I don't care about your father. I really don't."

"You say that," Weiss acknowledged. "I have yet to meet very many people who mean it."

"Oh, I mean it, I just don't have a good way to prove it," Malachite insisted. "Still, the offer is open, whenever you want to take it. Everyone needs someone to confide in, and, while it should be your team, I'll be available if you ever need to talk, or get a hug, or just need someone to vent to if your team gets on your nerves. I'm a pretty good listener." Holding out his hand again, he finished, "What do you say? Friends?"

Weiss gave a small smile, barely more than a twitch of the lips before she took Malachite's hand and replied, "Allies of convenience. We'll see about friends later."

"I'll take what I can get," Malachite agreed with a smile. "So, excited to get started with training?" The two made small talk for the rest of the flight, watching the scenery pass by in the large windows.

It was a fun trip. Jaune still barfed and earned his nickname from Yang, but Toshika at least redirected the vomit off of her shoes to avoid that little bit of resentment from occurring.

Their transport sailed towards Beacon, Glynda showed up via hologram, and time moved on.

Beacon was beautiful. That part was accurate. It also had several appearance upgrades from the show, even the latest version before the Fall, as it was a real place for Toshika. Ozpin must've had master architects build the entire campus!

...Or maybe he did it himself, Toshika mused. All that time? If he didn't pick up some other skills than bare minimum secretive planning, he's a crappy immortal.

So it was that a blondeshell, a redshell with nine tails and fox ears, a little red reaper in a red cape, and a dark purple and navy blue Battle Corgi stepped off the transport onto Beacon's pavement, all as happy as they could be.

Yang still ditched them, though. And Ruby still encountered a cart of dust belonging to a certain white haired Heiress... because Toshika was too busy staring at all the cool buildings and technology to notice and intercept it.

And so the argument began.

One Metric DIKEIDO after arriving on Remnant

"Well that exam was easier than I expected it to be." He smirked as he walked onto the Beacon Academy landing pad. It seemed that the exam for those without prior schooling was mostly combat based, and if you passed you were tutored and tested until you were going to Beacon the next day. Oh well, that didn't matter to 'Lorem Ipsum', not really. He was just glad to be off of the transport. 'Time to get to work.' he thought with a chuckle as he walked past the puking form of Jaune Arc, just in time to see a blonde bombshell run off, causing a girl I vaguely recognized as Ruby Rose to become extremely dizzy and fall onto a cart of luggage.

"Huh, wonder who the redhead that's with her is…"

Finally, Professor Goodwitch overrode the news broadcast Malachite had been ignoring, welcoming the students to Beacon, even if it had been about one of his more successful kidnappers. He and Weiss quickly made their way off the airship and began to look around as they waited for Weiss' luggage to come off. Apparently she needed to see to it personally, even if she was still planning on letting the school's porters move it for her.

Not nearly as concerned about his own luggage, Malachite took the time to look around. Each of the airships was offloading its passengers, causing the docking area to be crowded with friends meeting each other, people trying to check on their luggage, and more than a few just being thankful to be out of the air and on solid ground again. Not for the first time, Malachite rejoiced in his decision to skip taking Motion Sickness as a drawback. Off in the distance there was a flash of reflected light as a girl produced a folding scythe larger than she was. "Now, that's impressive," Malachite noted.

"What is?" Wiess asked, having been looking around for her luggage. One of the school's porters was stacking multiple metallic cases onto a trolley behind her. "Be careful with those!" she snapped as one of the cases started to slip. The porter managed to get it under control before it could fall.

"Someone over there has a really interesting looking scythe," Malachite explained. "I wonder who made it." Starting to make his way towards her, Weiss at his side, he wondered how effective such a large and generally unwieldy weapon could be. He'd be able to ask her soon enough.

The first week since Yache's arrival on Remnant had passed as if in a single, blazing moment. Study, study, forest clean ups, more study, with occasional breaks for miscellaneous things such as reading, going shopping for some base Remnant necessities, and eating.

But even routines eventually have to end, and so it was the day that Beacon would finally wake up from its slumber as students began to arrive. Yache herself had passed the entrance exams with a visible lack of effort, much to Glynda's annoyance, yet at the same time genuine surprise. She always found time to appreciate a student who was actually willing to put in the work, even if they were cheating via not needing to sleep nearly as much as a normal person would.

But either way, Yache was now standing somewhere in the general mass of students. Which was, to her surprise, rather thin all things considered. Even despite Beacon's status as an elite academy for a rather dangerous profession, there were still far fewer people than she'd expected to see.

Aside from that minor curiosity, though, everything was mostly how she remembered it from her days before the rather abrupt departure from her world. Most first years grouping up based on either pre-existing connections or the gravitational pull of random extroverts. Others stood aside, awkwardly waiting for whatever scene was going to invite them into their new life of study.

Yache, never one to betray the ageless code that most introverts of the various worlds seemed to follow, was part of the latter group. She stood aside from the general mass and observed. There was a guy with green hair, arguing with a white haired princess who was rather obviously Weiss Schnee. Yache couldn't hear what it was they were talking about from there, mostly because of the background noise, but come on, if Weiss wasn't arguing with someone this early on, she'd… do nothing probably. She wasn't much for bets.

For another curious arrival, there was a woman with a prosthetic leg, fox ears, and… nine tails? A kitsune? Huh. Weird. I thought that Faunus could only have a single animal trait. Aaaand she's got a floating corgi. Bloody hell, what even is this version of Remnant?

There were other people that Yache recognized. Ruby Rose with her sister were next to the kitsune, seemingly friends with each other, and that blonde mop along with the others from his canon group were around as well. There were also lots of people she simply did not recognize.

And so Yache continued standing there, people watching and waiting until the show finally began. Wasn't like she had anything else to do. Approach someone and start up a friendly conversation? Pssh, who were you taking her for? Even becoming a man-eating spider monster with actual honest-to-god magic at her fingertips wouldn't change an introvert.

Malachite walked sedately next to Weiss as they made their way along the airship docks toward Beacon. He was keeping an eye on where he had seen the scythe wielder, hoping for a chance to speak with her. They were just getting close to where he assumed she would be when a small horde of people suddenly crowded around her before rushing off, leaving the girl spinning in their wake. The odd fox Faunus - seriously, who had ever heard of a Faunus with both ears and a tail, let alone nine - seemed to be distractedly looking around.

"Wait, are we supposed to go to our dorms?" the red clad girl asked as she spun. From this close, Malachite could tell that she was probably a good year or two younger than the others nearby. "Do we have dorms? I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing," she complained plaintively, before collapsing backward.

Unfortunately, Beacon's porters apparently weren't paid very much, as the ones who had been pushing Weiss' cart along had decided going directly behind the spinning girl was a perfect idea, causing her to land on the cases.

"What are you doing?!" Weiss demanded, stomping forward. Malachite winced at the pitch her voice hit. She sounded far too petulant there.

Weiss' shriek startled the fox Faunus out of her distractions. She spun around on her heel and opened her mouth to say something, but upon seeing Weiss approaching her friend… looked amused?

"Sorry," the younger girl returned apologetically, offering one of the cases to Weiss.

"Sorry?" Weiss snapped, still sounding even younger than Ruby. It's weird how tone can change one's apparent age like that. "Do you have any idea what kind of damage you could have caused?"

Toshika snickered and reached over to her flying purple corgi, petting him a little. To anyone else she seemed irrationally relaxed within the proximity of that much dust, but she figured even if the whole cart went up, the worst it could do was tickle her.

She eyed the man next to Weiss up and down, biting her lip in thought. Something about him was nagging at her… of course, Toshika's once overs tended to look like she was undressing you with her eyes, multiple times in a row. Even if she wasn't.

Uh…" Ruby began, obviously still out of it from both her recent spinning and Weiss' sharp tone. She obviously wasn't used to dealing with upset people, or at least couldn't see why Weiss was so upset.

Malachite found himself sympathizing, considering he couldn't tell what had the Schnee so upset, either. It wasn't like she'd be dumb enough to bring an entire supply of dust with her or something, right? His own dust supply was carefully stored away in an armored and padded crate, after all.

"Uh," Ruby began again, helpfully picking up one of the cases and holding toward Weiss. "Here-"

"Give me that!" Weiss ordered, grabbing the case out of her hands.

Malachite sighed softly. So much for good first impressions with a fellow new student. If Weiss wanted to make friends, this was not the way to start. She snapped open the case, allowing Malachite to see two neat rows of dust vials. Apparently Weiss was dumb enough to wander around with a loose supply of the stuff. She took out a vial of red dust before snapping the case back closed, causing a slight cloud of dust to be ejected.

Toshika's eyes widened and she grinned. She took a slightly ready stance, her tails flaring out as if preparing to grapple something.

Or someone, given how she was eyeing Weiss. Just like a fox eyeing its prey, ironically.

"Uh, Weiss?" Malachite tried, hoping to get the Schnee's attention.

"This is dust. Mined and purified from the Schnee quarry," Weiss continued, either not hearing him or ignoring him. Either way, Malachite noticed more dust drifting away as Weiss emphasized her points by shaking the vial.

"Um…" the younger girl said again. She really should try using more syllables. Mono-syllabic non-words were not going to appease an upset heiress.

"Weiss!" Malachite tried again, sharper this time. Again, he was ignored. The air was beginning to get cloudy with the amount of dust Weiss had accidentally shaken out of the bottle, and the fox was starting to vibrate with visible anticipation.

"What are you, braindead?" Weiss demanded unhelpfully. "Dust! Fire, water, lightning, energy!"

Yes, Weiss, because at least two of those things aren't essentially the same, Malachite thought to himself before trying again. "Weiss! Pay attention!"

Unfortunately, she continued her rant as the red clad girl began sniffling.

"Are you even listening to me? Is any of this sinking in?! What do you have to say for yourself?"

"Ah, ah, aaah…" Ruby continued, about to sneeze. With how much dust was in the air around them...

"Shit!" Malachite exclaimed, swiping a hand upward and releasing a burst of wind right as the girl finally sneezed.

It was very nearly too little too late. The fire dust that had been tickling the girl's nose ignited, following the trail toward Weiss before being suddenly directed upward by the newly formed wind current, detonating in a fireball … with electric discharges and ice formations within it… over their heads.

At nearly the same instant as Malachite redirected the explosion, Toshika lifted off. She bounded at, and bodily into, Weiss, wrapping her arms around her waist, and pulled both of them through Weiss' cart onto the ground on the other side. One of her tails reached out along the way and grabbed Ruby around her waist, yanking her through behind her.

The shrieks of both girls were delicious to Toshika.

Toshika landed on the other side with a triumphant cry, cradling the two girls in her tails. "GOALLLL!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.

While everyone was distracted by Toshika's antics, the vial of dust Weiss had been holding which had somehow managed to escape rapid detonation sailed off, bouncing on the ground a few times. It rolled to a stop against a pair of black, high-heeled boots. Bending down without taking her eyes off her book, the shoes' owner picked up the vial. With a straightened back she finally looked away from her book enough to inspect the snowflake logo of the Schnee Dust Company on the vial. Lowering said book to the side, she began making her way toward the group.

"What?" Weiss demanded, struggling her way out of the grip Toshika had on her. Jumping back several feet, she drew her rapier and pointed it toward the fox Faunus. "How dare you manhandle me like that?!" she demanded.

"Damn it, Weiss!" Malachite exclaimed, stepping between the two girls to interrupt the building tension. "I'm sure she was just trying to help."

Toshika tilted her head to the side. "Would you like the physical explanation or the floofy one?" she asked. Her ears followed the motion and bobbed at the ends. She seemed entirely unfazed by Weiss… her, or her rapier. "Also, for the record, it's womanhandled." She looked down at her much larger than average chest and back up to Weiss with a gigantic smirk. "As you can see."

She made it even worse by waggling her eyebrows at the heiress.

"BORK!" Huey helpfully chimed in, spinning in the air.

Malachite sighed and stepped back. "Never mind, Weiss," he muttered, shaking his head. "Have at it." The Faunus trying to be helpful was fine, but when she decided to start actively antagonizing his… ally, if not quite friend yet, then she was on her own.

"You… you barbarian floozy!" Weiss indignantly exclaimed, brandishing her rapier at Toshika. "Do you even know who I am?"

"Some form of ice cream, pretty sure," Toshika snarked back, the unrepentant smirk on her face getting wider. Oh yeah, she was enjoying messing with this particular woman. "Can't be who you're supposed to be given what you were just doing with your dust-"

Ruby was having trouble speaking due to the highly comfortable tail she was wrapped up in. And also the shock of being translated through space at a rate not dissimilar to when she used Crescent Rose as a travel mechanism. Finally, she got out, "I'm really, really sorry!"

Unfortunately, this only served to make her the focus of Weiss' ire again, causing her to ignore Toshika for the moment. "You! You dolt, this is exactly what I was talking about!" She dismissively looked the red clad girl up and down before demanding, "What are you even doing here, anyway? Aren't you a little young to be in Beacon?"

That was… actually a pretty fair point, actually, Malachite mused. He couldn't recall ever hearing about Beacon letting students attend early, unlike Seolfor College, where only your abilities and attitude mattered. Then again, Beacon probably wasn't designed from the ground up to handle educating an entire city's population if necessary. "I'm sure-" Malachite began.

Weiss most likely hadn't heard him, considering she had been concentrating on the younger girl and she had started attempting to speak at roughly the same time. Neither managed to be heard intelligibly.

Toshika wasn't much liking this Weiss. Most likely bolstered by the man's presence beside her, she was harping on Ruby much more than she should've. Clearly the cluebat of dickishness needed to be delivered ahead of schedule. And so, she wrapped more tails around Ruby and yanked her behind her while ignoring the little squeak the red reaper let out. Once she was out of sight, Toshika stood up from the ground and revealed just how she towered over the shorter heiress. She was one of the tallest of her party and she wasn't shy about wielding that power.

Weiss didn't seem to notice the dark look coming over the fox Faunus' face. "This isn't your ordinary combat school, you know," she said, trying to talk around the larger woman and fire more shots towards Ruby, "It's not just sparring and practicing. We're here to fight monsters. So, watch where you're-"

"Knock it off, Schnee," Toshika stated flatly, cutting Weiss' rant off. "This was mostly your fault anyways." She looked to the cases around the cart and the suspiciously absent porters. "Well, yours and the porters." Her eyes alighted back on Weiss and she narrowed them. "You can't blame someone for sneezing."

"Especially after all of the dust you shook into the air," Malachite added with a shake of his head. "Seriously, I've been meaning to ask, why did you even pack your dust that way?"

Weiss was taken aback by the sudden turn in the conversation. "I don't know what you mean," she complained. "Everyone carries their dust in cases like this."

"Sure," Malachite allowed, "when they're taking a few vials and crystals home from the store. Now when they're carrying a full month's supply around."

"You don't also shake your dust in the air like you're on stage at a club," Toshika added. She pointed at the backpack on her back with a thumb over her shoulder. "Safe Dust Handling. Something you, of all people, really should know about."

Weiss turned toward Malachite, demanding, "Why are you taking her side all of a sudden? What happened to being allies?"

Malachite sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "I am your ally, Weiss, especially when you're working against yourself." He gestured to the other two girls. Toshika gave him a little wave back. "Look, you're here because you don't want your family's influence to matter as much, but what's the first thing you do when someone screws up? You snap at them like they should be scraping and bowing before you. Do you want to have a chance to make friends here or not?"

Toshika chimed in with another little wave. "Speaking for myself, I'm on board with being at least cordial towards you if you pull the titanium rod out of your ass," she proclaimed. "I can also become your bestest, floofiest friend, but you've gotta warm up a little!"

Malachite sighed and grabbed Weiss before she could lunge at the Faunus with her rapier. "Even if some of them are ruder than they need to be." Looking around the group, he added, "Look, let's try starting over. I'm Malachite Seolfor."

Toshika's eyes widened and she gained a massive, knowing grin. She knew exactly who he was now, and who he'd been.

She was going to have so much fun with him… as a certain cyber boi once said; Oh, YES.