Chapter 72
Having been let in to the massive security gate and into the compound, Weiss nervously followed the granite-smooth driveway leading around the outskirts to where the parking lot was. She wasn't scared of much, being the wealthiest person on the planet and the most influential, but this was a secure military facility guarded by like five thousand heavily armed soldiers all trained to eviscerate anything that wasn't also a heavily armed soldier at a moment's notice. If she made one mistake, curbed one wheel, set off even one measly car alarm, the whole place might come down on her like she was a rabid Beowolf.
Didn't help that she was trying to blend in in the most obvious and outlandish truck money could buy. The Blaze-Charger's three inch exhaust made every window in a mile radius vibrate and threaten to shatter, and had actually set off two car alarms when she'd left the coffee place earlier that morning, much to their respective owners' ire. She'd tried to apologize, but there was no reasoning with two very grumpy middle-aged Faunus who could only see her as a) a delinquent in a hot-rod, and b) a Schnee.
As she tentatively turned into the overly-tight parking lot filled with every manner of full-sized pickup truck and SUV, she tried her very hardest to not break her mirrors off on anyone's rear bumpers, which were all at mirror-knocking-off height. With the amount of testosterone-fuelled modifications going on in this lot, this was the first time the large VHI Blaze-Charger had ever felt undersized. It felt positively miniature, actually. Right down at the end of the aisle was a spot, which she ever so carefully squeezed the comparatively small truck into next to what was almost a carbon copy of the truck she was driving, save for the obvious Sanus Motors badging adorning the tailgate.
She shut the immensely voluminous motor off, to be greeted by a slight chill as the heater stopped blowing as well and the cool outside air started to come in through the open smoker window on her door. She leaned forward and rotated it closed, not wanting her fresh, factory-smelling cloth interior to become soaked with the light amount of snow that was falling. She leaned back on the wide bench and sat for a moment, enjoying the silence. She wasn't quite sure what she was in store for today, but she had packed a full suitcase full of supplies should she need anything extraordinary.
"Right..."
She pushed the door open, and it swung free on it's hinges without so much as an indication of creaking. Whitley had done a damn good job with this old truck, bringing it back to as new as it felt. She stepped down onto the pavement. Well, fell mostly. The truck was quite tall.
"Ack!"
She, on the other hand, did not feel quite so new. As her feet hit the ground, her entire body realized all at once that it was still sore from the weight training and cardio she'd been doing for the last six days straight. Five years without any kind of personal fitness work had made her go soft. And now, after a week of hardcore workouts, she'd turned spongy. Pretty much everything hurt at this point. She had to support herself against the front of her truck, seeing as yesterday had been leg day.
"Why me?"
Stupid workout program. Winter had been kind enough to replace the joke workout that Nora had provided with a real one, that was apparently designed with 'full body annihilation' in mind. She paused, and let out a low groan and tried to not strain her face. Four hours of driving in the snow, coupled with her actual fear of winter driving had exacerbated her sore spots, and now she was paying dearly for it.
"The fuck she trying to do to me?"
She coughed and forced herself upright.
"I think I'd have preferred Nora's workout instead of this. At least I'd have something to show from that. Ugh."
She limped around to the back of the big red truck, her boots barely keeping the cold snow from seeping into her socks. The power-assisted spare tire carrier swung effortlessly out of the way with a whir of gears and electric motor noises, and the lift glass swung upwards and open with only one finger. She had to grab the edge of the tailgate and mount the rear bumper in order to reach in and grab her suitcase from the rear load floor, silently regretting both the height of the truck and the intensity of the previous day's workout as her legs burned from the effort.
"Fuck me sideways."
The truck she's been locked away in for five days with Ruby hadn't been this tall, right? Or was that just because of its old, original sagging springs? The power-assisted tire carrier certainly didn't work on that truck either. That old girl was certainly showing it's age, she thought as she pulled the handle up and out of her suitcase. With a painful hop, she shut the glass and swung the tire carrier back into position with two confirming clicks of the latches. She stepped back, taking a deep breath of much-needed air. She wasn't out of shape, she clarified to herself. Just in pain.
She started to make her way back though the parking lot towards the main building, taking a slow pass next to the rather unique-looking SUV she was parked next to. It was a heck of a lot older feeling than the pristine, factory-fresh truck she had arrived in, but not as beaten and battered as some of the army trucks that scattered the lot. Seeing the Sanus badge on a large square SUV that was shaped very much like her own truck was a little odd. Almost like they'd been cast from the same mould, just with different stickers applied afterwards. Peculiar. Two-door sport utility trucks didn't exist anymore, and here were two relics of a forgotten kind, sitting right beside one another in the parking lot of a top-secret, secured military facility in the middle of the Atlesian countryside.
Speaking of...
"Fack!"
She'd run into the door, having been looking backwards over her shoulder at the two trucks. She suddenly panicked, thinking someone might have seen and assumed she was some kind of spy. A clumsy spy, but those were always the most convincing. Trick them into thinking they're human, just like everyone else. Well, comparatively human. She was suddenly panicked that one of these high-strung military officers might be a faunus, and therefore offended by being compared to a human. Could they read thoughts?
A quick glance around showed nobody in her immediate vicinity. She sighed, and let her shoulders droop. She remembered why she didn't like visiting her sister on base. Military police were scary as hell. Actually, regular police were scary as hell. The strict rules of the Atlesian Motor Vehicle Authority may have meant that certain sections of the highways were without speed limits, but it also meant that every other law was enforced with an iron fist. Do even fifteen over, have one measly taillight out, be a day behind renewing your registration, and you risked having your car impounded and faced a possible ten thousand lien fine. At least with the military cops, you were guaranteed to be shot and killed.
She pushed into the facility, where the warmth of the air was a welcome change to her aching body. It wasn't as hot as the inside of the truck got, but it was nice enough to be comfortable. She shrugged her shoulders to reset the strap, having fallen almost off her shoulder and onto the hard linoleum floor. The inside of the facility felt like the inside of a hospital, and that made her feel no better, actually. Everything was sterile and drab. At least it was warm.
Remembering where her sister's office was was a chore. She had a good memory, almost photographic in fact, but the amount of left and right turns, inclined hallways and errant staircases made it feel like she had walked back to Anfang when she finally rounded the last corner and caught a glimpse of the golden plaque that sat framed next to the door. She grinned with a sharp inhale, happy to finally see something that was recognizable. Her fast walk became almost a skip as she approached, ignoring the dull throbbing of her knees. And calves. And glutes. She skipped to a stopped in front of the most exciting plain white door she'd ever seen. She knocked.
"Winter?"
Silence. She frowned, and knocked again.
"Wi-i-inter!"
Still silence.
"What the heck?"
Perhaps she was asleep at her desk? That didn't sound like her sister, but maybe she had been weighed down with work to give her some time off today. She reached over to the panel next to the door, trying to remember the password. Having forgotten it, and not wanting to put in even one wrong password lest she be sent to worse-prison for infiltrating a military base, she pulled out her note book from inside her jacket and flipped through it. She'd been told the door password some time ago and had scribbled it down somewhere, hopefully in her notebook.
"Ah, here we go."
The page was covered in a bunch of random numbers and letters. Seeing as the door panel was numbers-only, only one of the passwords was correct. She smirked.
"Heh. Glad one of us still has a sense of humour."
She punched in the code. Six, nine, four, two, zero, six, nine. The light on the panel blinked green, and the latch clicked considerably louder than she was expecting. She reached over and pushed the door open, and stepped inside.
"Hello sist- oh, it's empty."
The lights were off, the curtains drawn. The absence of any noise from inside the room was now fully explained. There was no one here. She was relieved that her sister wasn't asleep in her office, or passed out on the floor or anything. All of a sudden, she remembered what she'd just done.
Broken into a secure military facility, and into the office of one of the country's most respected military officials.
"Shit!"
She panicked, as usual, and launched herself over and behind the desk, knocking a few of the loose papers in the black plastic 'out' box onto the floor with her. Along with it came an envelope, fluttering conveniently down into her lap. She picked it up, turning it over. Weirdly, it had her name on it in the overly-scripty characters her sister favoured when writing letterhead. Ignoring her panicked state, she slipped her nail under the flap and pulled it open, cutting the edge of the envelope down vertically to slide out what ever document might be inside.
Wait, wasn't this corporate espionage?
On the MILITARY?!
Somewhere in the last hour, she'd clearly pissed off some deity or something. Someone that was making sure every action she made could be misconstrued as a treasonous felony. She suddenly wondered if parking lot violations could be turned into war crimes.
The little documents inside the envelope turned out to be no more than a single piece of paper folded in three, with the following written on it in the same felt tip pen she reserved for business cards and her birthday. An occasion?
My dear Weiss,
Come down to the campus gymnasium.
I am waiting with tea and biscuits. I remembered to buy the cheese ones you like.
Please be dressed in an outfit appropriate for moderate to strenuous physical activity.
The women's locker rooms are to the right of the check-in desk.
They are expecting you, you do not need to sign in.
Please make haste, but do not feel the need to rush. I have been there all morning setting up.
I look forward to your arrival.
~Winter
"Huh."
Rarely did she sign with her first name. But the general dialogue was up to her regular military professionalism, so it wasn't out of place per se. She sighed, standing up from behind the desk and carefully replacing the stuff she'd knocked over so carelessly.
"So how do I get to the gym, then? There's no map."
She pulled open the top drawer of her sister's desk and rooted through it. Surely, even someone as prepared as Winter Schnee got lost on occasion. The woman was thirty-two for goodness sake, and she could still get lost in an empty warehouse if not provided with a map. And much to her excitement, there was indeed a handy map of the campus right at the bottom of the drawer.
"Good. Glad we're both idiots." she said with a chuckle.
/.../
She burst into the large, open gymnasium with a flourish of her wrist. Dressed head to toe in the finest Lycra gym shorts and sports top money could buy and wearing a brand-new pair of the most comfortable running shoes she could find, she felt fairly ready for whatever her sister would throw at her.
"Winter!"
She skipped forward, to the little table that had been set up right in the middle of the huge building. This was like four full basket-ball courts, layed out in a square. There her sister was, standing next to the table wearing a set of grey sweatpants, similar runners and her favourite ATLAS STRONG hoodie. She also had a stopwatch slung around her neck. Weiss suddenly felt concerned that she might have to run laps. But that's not what she was here for, right? Ren had said something about Aura control?
"Weiss!"
The cheer came back almost too cheerful for her liking. Weiss skipped forward, towards the little table that seemed to have a long tether to the nearest wall. As she made her final approach, she could see the little electric burner that was plugged in to the long orange extension chord had a shiny chrome teapot on top of it, pluming small amounts of steam. Finally the table, she gently lay her duffle bag on the ground under a chair and bounced around the table to hug her sister, who seemed all the more eager to hug her back.
"My goodness, you're excitable this morning."
"It's like, two in the afternoon."
"Fine, you're excitable this afternoon. Happy?"
"Currently, sure. Overall... could be worse, I guess."
Winter smiled brightly as she let her go. If she was honest, there wasn't much that could make her feel worse, but some of the stuff she'd been doing to herself the last few weeks had been pretty bad. So maybe she outta up that feeling to 'pretty alright'.
"Like some tea?"
"I'd enjoy some, yes. Thank you."
She pulled her chair out and sat down at the table, which felt weird to do in a room where the walls were more than a hundred feet away in each direction. Winter sat down across from her, grabbing two teacups and placing them on the little porcelain plates in front of them both. After scooping a small amount of the little dark green leaves into each cup, she took the tiny towel that was folded neatly in the centre of the table and placed it over the handle of the teapot before lifting it off the burner.
"So how was the drive in?"
Weiss watched her pour the boiling water over the leaves in each cup.
"Tedious. This place is really fuckin' far away."
"Mind your language, Weiss."
"Sorry. This place is really far away and sitting in traffic to get on the highway out of Anfang is like waiting for a train to run you over in a ghost town."
Winter chuckled, stirring her tea. "Weird metaphor, but okay."
"That's a simile, sister, not a metaphor, but yeah I know it's weird. It's the best I could do in the time given, sue me."
"My my, you're in a mood today."
"I-I got lost trying to find this place."
"I knew you would, that's why I put a map in my desk for you."
Weiss chuckled.
"Why didn't you put it on top of the desk? Or in the envelope with the note?"
"I wanted you to find it. To use you intuition."
"See, I would have hidden it in a picture frame of some sports equipment if I was gonna be clever like that."
"Aw, you are right, that would have been much more interesting."
Weiss sipped her tea with a smile. Then remembered why you don't sip tea for the first twenty minutes or so.
"Aah, this is too hot!"
"Do be careful."
"Shut it."
"After all this work I've done for you, you still use that kind of language with me, your favourite sister?"
"You're my only sister."
"Mmm, I have some pictures from when Whitley was little that say otherwise."
Weiss narrowed her eyes at her sister, who had put on a rather evil grin.
"I'm sorry, what."
"Mm, nothing. I said nothing."
"You're gonna show me those pictures."
"Mm, if you're good."
They sat for a moment in a quiet contemplation as their teas cooled off enough to drink. Winter was the first to brave the boiling tea, with Weiss following quickly after to not seem weak. It was still too hot to drink, but she endured. Coffee was never this hot on the first sip, so she wasn't used to it.
"So've you been waiting for me for long?"
Winter shrugged.
"Since about noon-hour. It was surprisingly hard to find an extension chord on base here. Especially one this long. I had to go visit the Automotive guys to get one, then I had to pull rank when they didn't want to give up the goods."
"You still holding Major?"
"Lieutenant Colonel, now."
"Oh you got a promotion, congratulations. Why wasn't I invited to the ceremony?"
"Thank you. And it was a private affair, no media coverage and no public access. Military personnel only."
"Oh. Well, good work. Hopefully soon you'll be taking Jimmy's job."
Winter laughed out loud, a real smile breaking across her lips.
"I appreciate your confidence in me. And please don't call the General 'Jimmy' around any of the soldiers, alright? That's uh... that's considered classified information."
"What, you and Mister Branwen do it all the time!"
"That's because Qrow's an asshole, and I'm enabling. But seriously, don't say that around the troops."
"You realize everyone in this country answers to me, right?"
"We answer to the King above all else."
"And the King answers to me."
"Pfft, right."
Weiss paused, grinning brightly through her tea.
"You wanna see pictures from my birthday last year? When me and Arnolf got drunk and played video games in our pyjamas?"
Her eyebrows shot so far up they almost left her forehead.
"No way."
"Yes way."
"Huh. Alright. Uh, did your majesty want sugar in her tea?"
"You're mocking me, aren't you."
She leaned back in her chair, spreading her arms wide.
"Last I checked I was still your older sister, and that was still my primary profession, the military be damned."
"Meanie."
"Hey, you made me postpone my wedding, this one is on you."
Weiss pouted.
"I'm sorry."
"I can be patient, it's alright. Qrow's not pleased but I made him understand that sometimes things happen that we have no control of."
"I'm really sorry."
She shrugged.
"As long as you promise to pay my deposits in case I lose it. Then I won't be even a little upset. Look, it's fine. It's only pushed back, it's not like I'm cancelling my wedding or anything, it's still going to take place. Don't you worry."
She felt some regret start to work over her. It wasn't the nicest of feelings.
"I'm-"
"Stop apologizing."
"Sorry."
Winter rolled her eyes at her and set her cup down on it's little matching dish.
"If you keep apologizing, I'm not going to make you my maid of honour, you know."
Weiss increased her pout and sank down into her seat.
"I'm-"
She stopped as Winter's 'big sister' look slapped her across the face.
"-understanding of the situation."
"Better."
Weiss put her now empty teacup down on the table as well, sitting back up straight as her sister's bright smile returned.
"Now, on the topic of situations, we need to start to delve into yours."
"Yes, I think we do."
"Your little handsome boyfriend came to see me a little while ago, said you had some issues you needed to deal with involving a certain member of the Valean military, and a former student at school with you."
"Number one, he's not my boyfriend, and number two, this technically isn't my problem, I'm just the one solving the problem."
Winter stood up, giving her an inquisitive look.
"Then why do you choose to solve it?"
"It's for a friend."
"For Ruby?"
"Yeah."
"Because you love her."
"Yeah."
"Because you want to get revenge for what he did to her?"
She nodded.
"Ren said she'd do it herself, but she can't bear to face him. So I said I would go in her place."
"That's fair. And very amicable. You're a good friend."
"I'm trying."
"And I'm sure you're doing what you can."
She paused, shrugging her shoulders and leaning back in her chair and exhaling. She gave her empty cup a half-smile and flicked the edge of the plate with her finger.
"...yeah. I just wish I didn't have to."
"You don't have to, you're choosing to."
"No, I mean, I wish there was never the situation where I have to in the first place. I wish bad things never happened to Ruby. To me. To anyone."
Winter sighed. A deep, lungful sigh.
"Bad people exist all over the world, honey. There's not much we can do about that. It's unfortunate that you happen to run into one so selfish and cruel. And it sucks that he had to do that to the person you love. But that's why you're here. To put an end to one bad person. That has to count for something, no?"
"I guess."
Weiss caught a glare through her sister's eyebrows.
"You guess?"
"It does, it counts for something."
She nodded, smugly.
"That's correct. Now shall we begin making it count?"
Winter picked up both teacups on their plates and set them off to the side of the table. She turned, reaching down to a large box that had been sitting next to the table, turning it and flicking the latches so Weiss couldn't see what was inside. As she stood up, she had a leather leg sheath in her hand, complete with the Bowie knife buckled in place. With a flick of her thumb, the clasp snapped open and she pulled the knife free of it's sheath, and proceeded to drive it into the table with a loud thunk. Weiss jumped, not expecting to be knifed today.
"What the hell's this?!"
"This is a knife."
Weiss muddled this over for a moment, perplexed.
"...but why?"
Winter righted herself, pulling her legs together and clasping her hands behind her back in a very commanding sort of stance. One Weiss was intimately familiar with, as it was the same teaching stance Professor Goodwitch used to use. Very upright. Very uptight. She paced a few steps around the table.
"What would you do... if say, you were in a tussle with some Beowolves, and your rapier was to be knocked from your hands?"
She turned on her heel, directing her gaze down at the still-sitting and still-a-little-shocked Weiss.
"...reach for my sidearm."
"You carry a sidearm?"
"Uh, yeah, I used to. Ruby said it was a good idea for emergencies, so I bought a .38 Detective Special that I wore on a thigh-holster. It's in my bedside table at home now, but that's what I'd do should I lose my sword."
Winter blinked a few times. Clearly she'd been on a roll in her head.
"Okay, so now you're out of rounds in the sidearm, and there's still Grimm surrounding you, what do you do?"
"Dive for Myrtenaster."
A finger was suddenly on her nose.
"There's a Grimm in the way."
"Start punching."
"You're in no shape to punch a two-thousand-pound Grimm out of the way."
Weiss shrugged.
"Die, I guess."
"Not an option, soldier. You need to get your weapon back."
"You said I can't."
"Didn't say that. I just said there was obstacles. Have a look over there."
She gestured over her shoulder to where the long extension chord was plugged into. There was a little table about the same size as the one she was seated behind sitting up against the wall with what looked very much like her sabre perched neatly on it on a velvet blanket.
"Is that yours?"
"It is indeed. Observe."
She brought her hands together. With a woosh of chilled air, a small, perfect white glyph formed between them. As she pulled her hands apart, clouds of condensation pooled out from the glyph as two frozen objects started to form in her hands. With two pointed flicks of her wrists, she separated her hands all the way, procuring two icy replicas of the exquisite sabre and parrying dagger pair she favoured.
"Woah."
Winter tapped the two unbelievably sharp ice blades together, demonstrating how solid they were. She rotated her hand and drove the dagger into the table top next to the Bowie knife, startling Weiss again. The sword followed it through the wood tabletop.
"Okay, what do you have against this table?"
"I needed to prove how sharp the summoned blades are."
"I think I would have understood if you had done something like, oh I dunno, cut a tomato or something. That's what our head chef does to test his blades, this just seems..."
"Like a reasonable demonstration of brute strength?"
"Look, can you just... not stab the table anymore. I'm worried about my knees."
"Alright, fine."
She snapped her fingers. The two ice blades shattered into a frozen mist, leaving two sword-shaped holes in the surface where the swords used to be.
"So that was cool."
"Wasn't it, though?"
Winter seemed to be just as amused with herself as she was. She had this giddy smile on as she sort of hopped around in place for a moment, before straightening up and clearing her throat.
"Now, do you see the tactical advantage of that?"
"I... guess so? Seems kinda like a neat party trick, though. Not really tactically advantageous."
Winter nodded slowly, looking away for a moment.
"Alright, try this. Stand up."
Weiss stood, gently pushing her chair back in and stepping to the side of the table. She watched as her sister pushed the large green case further back still with her foot, reaching into it again. The leather sheath was thrown at her, bouncing off her stomach and into her hands. She caught it, barely, before turning an inquisitive look to her older sister.
"What's..."
"Put it on. And take that knife."
She gestured to the knife that she'd driven into the table. Weiss sighed and wrapped the two long leather straps around her left thigh, pulling the buckles as tight as was comfortable. The lower brass buckle was absolutely freezing against her skin, and she fought the urge to squeal like a stuck pig. She righted herself and reached for the knife, wrapping her fingers around the ribbed wood handle. She yanked.
"Holy gods, this thing is stuck."
"C'mon, use your arms."
She placed her right hand face down on the table, bracing the whole of her weight against it and tried again. After making some rather unladylike noises and nearly bursting a whole row of blood vessels in her forehead, the blade came loose from its hold in the surface, allowing her to wiggle it free the last few inches. With a spin of her wrist, she flipped the knife down into the sheath. She stood up straight and put her hands on her hips.
"Okay, now what."
"Draw on me."
Weiss stumbled for thought for a moment, sputtering.
"S-sorry, what?"
"Draw on me like you are going to attack me."
Weiss let her hand drop slowly to the blade's handle.
"You're... sure?"
"Yes. But don't do it slowly. Attack me. Think of this like combat training."
"Alright."
She put her leg back, and her hand shot down to her hip, wrapping around the handle of the blade. Just as she had the blade no more than halfway out of the sheath, she went to move forward. This would be easy. Weiss was the fastest draw of all her teammates. No one had ever beaten her on a draw, and she wasn't about to lose to her sister. Her body tensed.
"Too slow."
There was a sword in her face. She stopped dead. She'd barely made it even out of her own footprint. And now she was staring down the barrel of the sharpest icicle she'd ever seen.
"Huh?"
"You're dead. I killed you."
"How?!"
"You didn't draw fast enough."
"That's not possible. Forming a summon takes more than a second, and I can draw in under a quarter."
"On the contrary."
Winter twirled the icy sword in her fingers, whipping the tip around as she stepped back around the table."
"On what contrary?"
"Summoning something like a Beowulf or a Boarbatusk has a toll on your abilities because it has so much mass. So it takes time to form. But a sword on the other hand weighs very little, meaning it can be summoned in an instant. Same effort, less size, and boom, instant weapon."
"Wow, seriously?"
"Absolutely. Give it a shot."
"Okay, but-"
"Oh yeah, and don't try to summon anything complex like a gun or anything, you'll end up giving yourself an aneurysm. Trust me."
She tapped herself on the temple a few times. Weiss gave her a concerned look, not remembering such an occasion. Or wanting to.
"What should I try then?"
Winter shrugged.
"Try the knife? Just focus on the blade and nothing else. Same way you summon anything else."
"Arright."
She took a moment to buckle the knife on her thigh into its sheath. She'd had a problem back at school whenever she summoned anything that was larger than her hand. She'd accidentally blown herself up a few times. So she didn't want to have a knife blown into her stomach because it wasn't secured in place. She pulled out her chair and sat back down. She didn't want to fall over. It'd been a while.
She closed her eyes, and pictured the knife. It was a simple knife. Not overly stylish, not overly curved, and not serrated. In terms of knives, it was a pretty boring specimen. But she had it in her mind.
"Okay, I have it. What do I do?"
"Hold out your hand like you were going to grab a knife out of the air."
Her left hand came out from under the table, her right hand following along behind for moral support. She focused, creating a tiny glyph on the palm of her hand.
"Now summon."
She did. And immediately, a loud solid thunk resonated off the table top as something hit it. She opened her eyes, completely taken aback by what she saw. Her hand, still open over the table, was suspended over a roughly-hewn ice knife that had knocked over the box of tea leaves. She reached for it, grasping the 'handle' in her hand, which she found was surprisingly not cold. It had some weight to it, but it was only a few ounces more than the real deal.
"So that was good for literally your first attempt. I'm impressed."
"But I dropped it."
"Because you summoned faster than you thought you could, so you missed your own hand. The same thing happened to me the first hundred times."
Weiss let the knife fizzled out of existence into a cloud of steam. She put her hand out again, palm facing upwards. She tried again. The little glyph spun into existence followed immediately by the weighty coldness of a second icy knife. She wrapped her fingers around the handle before it was even fully formed, ending up with the blade in her hand and now on the table.
"Hey, I got it!"
She looked to her sister, who pouted.
"Great, fantastic."
"What, are you upset at me?"
"No, just disappointed in myself that I never thought to catch it like that."
Weiss chuckled to herself, spinning the knife in her fingers a few times.
"I'm used to falling over, so I did was came naturally."
"Okay, that's fair. Alright, now we're gonna spend some time practising getting that knife to be more realistic and sharper, okay?"
Weiss smirked, flipping the blade into a reverse grip and slamming it into the tabletop. It was Winter's turn to jump back as the frozen blade entered the top of the wood surface and stuck in place.
"Alright. Let's see what we can do."
/.../
"Come on! Again!"
Weiss panted, stepping back into position and sliding the knife back into it's sheath. Her chest heaved. She hadn't done this much training with her sister since before Beacon. But the drills were the same now as they'd been then. Wait for the whistle, attack, get knocked down, and then get up again. Over and over and over. She wiped a bead of sweat from her brow, coughing roughly.
"Are you really that tired, sister? For shame."
Weiss gritted her teeth and nearly growled, her hand falling to the clasp that help the knife in place on her hip. She leaned down and put her right foot forward, bracing her body to pounce. The whistle sounded.
She jumped forward unassisted by any aura or glyphs, her knife instantly in her hand and into her preferred forward grip, her index finger rested comfortably against the dull side of the blade for control. She swiped to her sister chest, but the attack was easily dodged by the tall soldier with a simple turn of her body. Weiss was undeterred, swiping to the right where her opponent now stood. Her blade collided with the polished and scarily sharpened sabre Winter was wielding in one hand with the other still behind her back. Weiss pushed forward, swiping again and causing Winter to step back.
That was a first.
She pushed her advantage, hopping forward and driving a punch towards Winter's cheek. The blow was easily dodged, as it was so clearly obvious to anyone watching from miles away that Weiss would have been more confused if the shot had hit. She sailed forward through the air, tucking forward and rolling over her left shoulder as she came back down. Halfway through the roll, she rotated and took another low swing at the legs. Another miss as the legs left her frame of view with a flip backwards.
"Come on! Like you mean it!"
This felt unfair. Two and a half hours and she hadn't landed a single hit. She was out of breath, out of aura, and out of patience for this endeavour. Winter was clearly the superior fighter, but that was an indisputable fact. She was a soldier, whereas Weiss was merely a businesswoman and formerly a student of a training school. Her sister had done nothing for the last fifteen years except fight for the military. But to her credit, Weiss had been holding her own.
"Just shut up!"
She dived forward, taking swipe after swipe towards the tall and obvious target, military trained or not. The short dagger rang loudly off the sabre's blade with every strike, and the sound was clearly getting to the both of them. She pushed on, making her sister take more and more steps backwards and away from her. A smirk crossed her face, knowing that she would be within her sister's guard circle withing moments, hopefully able to bat that sabre out of her hand and make the fight a little more fair.
She dropped to her knees and bent backwards out of the way of a low swipe from her opponent, springing back upwards. She had gotten up faster than Winter had retracted her swing. Her heart raced, realizing this left her sister's right shoulder unguarded and unprotected.
A mistake!
Weiss jumped, literally jumped at the opportunity, flipping the knife into a reverse grip and taking a mighty swing towards the right cheek. It would bounce off her aura, sure, but it would count as a hit. Weiss watched the fear fill her sister's eyes as the blade started to advance on her face. Pure, carnal enjoyment flowed through her as time seemed to slow down, as if the entire world wanted to see how this played out. She could see her shoulder moving as if to try and get out of the way. Too late. Weiss followed through the swing.
Until a sudden, dull pain caught in her wrist. She sent a glace down. There, just at her wrist, was the back of Winter's right hand, empty of the sabre it held mere milliseconds ago. Panic raced through her mind. Was she disarmed? Had she sacrificed the blade to block the shot? She scrunched up her face and made a decision. The sudden pain in the wrist had made her hand unclench and drop her own blade, which had gone sailing over Winter's right shoulder. She put her right foot up and drove it into her sister's sternum, propelling the two of them apart. She flipped backwards once, landing on her feet and crouching down.
"Too slow!"
She looked up. The sabre had switched to her left hand and was now coming at her, point-first. For the last hundred or so time, this had been the point Weiss yielded. But she was fed up of losing. Not this time, she wouldn't yield again.
"Not quite."
A glyph spun into existence on her left hand. She drove her fist forward, towards the oncoming blade. The familiar chill of ice caressed her palm. She smirked. This time the blade wouldn't come down on her and force her to give up.
"Haa!"
She swung towards the oncoming blade. The ice knife in her left hand deflected the oncoming attack with such ease that she nearly knocked herself over from the force she'd put into it. The genuine shock on Winter's face kept her standing up, though. She sent another attack across from the right side, as if to try and remove her head. Weiss wasn't going to have it today. She drove the blade downward to the hilt of her sister's blade, catching the sharp side just under the cross-guard and next to her thumb. Weiss twisted her wrist and pulled her arm back, ripping the sabre from her grip and sending it clattering to the floor off to the side. Her sister sputtered.
"W-what...?"
Weiss dove forward, her right fist shooting out and up to the throat.
Everything in the room stopped. The only sound was the plastic stopwatch falling to the ground with a loud snap. The chill in her hands was making her fingers tingle, but she was ignoring it. She had won. She had come out victorious. There was no more training to be done.
She panted, finally turning her head up to her sister's face. The icy blade she was holding across her trachea looked a tad uncomfortable, judging by the amount of twitching that her sister's face was doing. Weiss shuddered. Any closer and she might have accidentally killed her sister. She stepped back, retracting both ice blades down to her sides and relaxing her overly tense body. She exhaled a nervous breath as the remaining half of the stopwatch string fell from the back of Winter's neck and down to the floor. She looked away a few times, before looking back at Winter.
"S-sorry."
Winter smiled, and relaxed as well.
"No, don't be. That was perfect."
Weiss put a few steps of distance between her and her sister, Pulling the two ice knives behind her back and out of her line of sight. To her surprise, Winter tried to come closer.
"Winter, wait..."
"Hey, don't worry, you didn't hurt me, it's fine. Show them to me."
"Wh-what?"
Winter closed the distance, gesturing to her. She tentatively pulled the two blades from behind her back, and held them out in font of her. To her surprise, Winter yanked them from her hands and pulled them to her face.
"Wait, be caref-"
"These are amazing. These are perfect summons!"
She held them out to make Weiss look at them. She hadn't had the time to look at them properly yet, but now she'd been given the chance to see what she'd created she couldn't not agree with Winter's sentiment.
"I want to keep these. I don't think I've ever summoned something this perfectly clean and clear!"
The ice knives were perfectly transparent, with no clouding in the ice like they'd have found in regular ice cubes or in the pond ice in front of Schnee Manor six months of the year. Most times Weiss had ever summoned anything it had been cloudy and fairly brittle. But these two knives had the solid feel of actual titanium, and were as sharp as the real deal as well.
"But they'll melt..."
"Could you make them again?"
"Probably?"
Winter's face lit up.
"Do it! Right now!"
Weiss sputtered, but brought her hands up and spun a glyph up on her palm. As quick as she could, the summon formed and she grabbed the knife by the handle as it started to exist. Winter gushed.
"Amazing! This is... I'm stunned!"
Now Winter had three knives. Weiss rubbed her arm sheepishly.
"Sorry for trying to kill you."
"Hey, don't be, I told you to. You'd have stopped before you got through more than two layers of skin anyways. I know you. You'd miss me too much."
"Yes. Yes I would."
"Besides, you managed to best me. Me. A trained soldier, and the person who trained you. I'm more than impressed. I'm proud of you."
Weiss's mouth twitched, trying to make a smile.
"Took me two and a half hours, though."
"That's the closest anyone's ever come."
"Really?"
"Absolutely. Take a seat, we'll have a break. Some more tea, perhaps."
"O-okay."
They went back across the gym to the table, where Weiss pulled out her chair and sat back down. Winter dropped the three ice knives into the kettle, plugging it back in and flipping the little red plastic switch on the power bar to the on position.
"Hope you don't mind if I re-use these. The nearest sink is way the heck over there in the change room."
It took her a second to realize that her sister was melting the three summons to use as water for the kettle.
"Can you do that? Is that... is that safe?"
"It's just ice. It'll melt into just water."
"But..."
Winter shrugged, closing the lid on the kettle and cranked the burner to the max setting. She sat down at her own chair and grabbed the two teacups again, placing them in their respective places.
"It's not just weapons you can summon. Anything you think of, you can create. Need a coffee mug because you forgot yours in the car? Boom, mug. Need a pen because yours broke? Boom, pen. Need a chair to lounge in on your break because the picnic tables are taken up by a bunch of surly jocks? You guessed it, 'boom, chair'."
Weiss chuckled.
"Wanna listen to music but forgot your radio? Boom, box."
"There, you got it."
They both laughed for a moment at her dumb joke.
"Would that really work though? Summoning a working stereo?"
Another shrug.
"Probably. I've never tried. You can summon Grimm that move and attack in very real and very alive ways, I don't see why you couldn't summon a radio. Maybe give it a try when you've practised some more."
The kettle started to whistle steam out of the lid. Weiss leaned back in her chair painfully, stretching out her legs and pinching her thighs to try and get the taught muscles to relax. They weren't having it. She winced.
"Did you have to go so hard? My legs feel like they're fit to fall off."
Winter let a breath out, dropping her shoulders and melting into her chair.
"Yours too, eh?"
"Uh, yeah?"
She flopped her head backwards over the back of the chair and groaned out loud. Weiss gave her sister a wary look.
"Are you okay?"
"I can't believe you made me go for so long. I would have assumed you'd have given up at the hour mark. I've never attacked for so long before."
"S-seriously?"
Winter righted, rubbing out a spot on her neck.
"Yeah, even our training only goes for one hour sprints at full speed, then we break for twenty minutes. That's not my choice, that's set by health and safety. This has been the longest continuous battle I've ever done."
Weiss paused to check her own pulse. Elevated, but not racing. And her breathing wasn't especially hard.
"But... I'm not really that out of breath."
"I know, I'm impressed. A little shocked, even. Would you be able to keep fighting with that much intensity?"
"Probably for another maybe half hour or so. I'm beat, but I'm not dead."
"Good, good..."
Winter poured the two teacups full of boiling water, before gently scooping the remaining tea leaves that hadn't been knocked onto the ground into the two little cups.
"...Do you run, or something? Some kind of long-distance conditioning?"
Weiss shrugged.
"Not really. I have a tough metabolism and liver, if that's any answer for you."
"Yeah, so does Whitley. You two are so damn skinny."
"I mean I have a treadmill and stationary bike in my room that I'll ride if I'm playing Space Craft or something online."
"I've seen you play, you're on for multiple hours a session. Maybe I should instate that kind of training regiment. Online Gaming and conditioning at the same time."
"I dunno, you might lose them to the game. It's pretty much not by choice anymore."
Winter laughed, sipping her tea. Weiss followed suit, remembering to blow on it this time. She'd been right, this tasted just like regular tea. Nothing special or weird, even if the water was formerly three knives made of ice.
"Well, I'm sure I could keep them in line. My squad is very much a 'how high' kind of group. They're disciplined to the absolute maximum."
"What is your- the training..." she sniffled, sneezing. "'Scuze me, what is the kind of training you make yours do. Compared to what you sent me."
"Well, a large part of theirs involves running large distances with a hundred fifty pounds of gear on. And I figured I might exclude that for yours since you weigh considerably less than that amount and you might be injured."
The rest of the workout had been unbelievably demanding anyways. Hundreds of push-ups, hundreds of sit-ups, hundreds of squats. Her body'd been destroyed anyways, and she wasn't sure if that omission really would have made a difference.
"Thanks. For you kind consideration."
"The rest is pretty much the military workout we all follow. You know, out of all my men, myself included, only two people have broken the five-hour mark for the gear run?"
"Are you one of those people?"
"I did five hours, three minutes, seventeen."
"Oh damn. What was the common time?"
"Between seven and eight hours."
Her eyebrows migrated to the upper bounds of her forehead.
"How well do you think I'd do?"
"Never know until you try. But please don't try, you'd suffer cardiac arrest. I don't want that."
"Did you?"
"I did. At the four hour mark. Restarted my own heart, kept running. I probably shouldn't have done that. I should have given up right there and called the medics to rescue me, but I wanted to break five hours. I like to think if I hadn't needed to restart my own heart out on the trail, I'd have broken the record."
They sat for a moment, sipping tea. Weiss didn't like the mental image of Winter having a heart attack. But she supposed it was a necessary evil and a part of the process. She fiddled with the edge of her teacup for a few moments, rubbing the tea-stained rim of he cup with her thumb.
"You still rollin' around in that old Aston that Whitley and I convinced you to buy?"
"That thing's not old, it's barely five. And yes, I still own it, but no, I drove Qrow's car to work. The Aston's in for servicing. His car's over in the barracks parking lot."
"What's it in for?"
"I dunno, really. The light on the dashboard came on and said 'vital transmission failure' so I brought it in for service. They said it could be a month because they have to ship the parts in from the south of Mistral."
"But Astons are built in Vale."
Winter shrugged.
"Don't ask me. I just drive the car. I don't know anything about it."
"Man, I love that car. It's just so..."
Weiss rubbed her fingers together for effect.
"...fundamentally cool. So damn gorgeous. And fast."
"It's just a car, Weiss."
"Alright, whatever you say."
"But I do know that my Aston could absolutely wipe the floor with your little white hatchback. I don't have to shift gears, I don't have to make a good launch or anything. Just have to drop my foot and you're a little speck in my mirror."
"Well... currently, yeah. But not normally. I have four-wheel-drive, six hundred horsepower, and advanced adaptive aero parts that make my car-"
Winter held up her hand.
"Woah, woah, woah, stop right there. Everything you just said made absolutely no sense."
Weiss paused, scrunching up her nose.
"Uh, my car's faster than yours. But not right at the moment."
"Why not?"
"... I wrecked it."
"WHA- Are you okay?!"
"Uh, yeah, I'm fine."
"How fast were you going."
Weiss looked away.
"Zero."
"...huh?"
"It happened in the garage."
"How... how did you wreck your car in the garage?"
"With a sledgehammer."
Winter's face fell into her hands.
"Why."
"I was angry. Messed up the core support, the ECM, the window frame, the roof panel and the rear quarters. Something like forty grand in repairs."
She pinched the bridge of her nose, rubbing small circles of disappointment. Weiss shrank down into herself.
"You're an idiot."
"You are correct."
"Why would you do that."
"Because I was mad, and I was alone."
"Oh, this was after the..."
"Yeah."
"Okay, now I get it. But you don't have to destroy your things when you're angry. It's wasteful. And a little juvenile."
Weiss sniffled and wiped her nose on the back of her hand.
"I know. Whitley already read me the Riot Act. So did Klein. And... my assistant. And my head of security, and the good doctor, aaaaand the Chieftain of Menagerie."
"Damn, you screwed up."
"I do what I can. I'm a multi-faceted disappointment."
"Oh, Weiss..."
Winter chuckled in her direction, setting her teacup down with a clink of fine porcelain.
"You're not a disappointment. You're just like everyone else. You have feelings and emotions."
"Yuck."
"And you also happen to have enhanced abilities that make your reactions substantially more impactful than anyone else. You just need to know how to channel that anger and ability into something useful. Like what you're doing."
"I know..."
"You know, if you were able to control your aura the right way, you could actually summon real stuff. Like, actual steel and titanium weapons, not just frozen replicas."
"...really?"
"Oh, yeah. It takes so much more skill and power than the two of us combined have, but I saw it done once. Grandfather used to be able to summon like that."
"But how?"
"Beats me. I think I was... maybe ten when I saw it. He summoned his sword off the mantle from across the room. It was absolutely astounding. I've been trying to practice, but all that keeps happening is ice copies."
"Oh. So I guess you won't be teaching me that."
"There's not exactly a textbook for this stuff. This is all guessing games and trial and error. The fact we figured out how to summon copies of Grimm was a complete accident."
"Hmm."
They sat for a few moments in silence, listening to the kettle's low rolling boil. Weiss finished off her cooling tea rather quickly as to not waste it, sliding her cup across the table to her sister, who wiped it clean with a silk cloth. The two cups were placed neatly back into the tea set box that was tucked away under the table. Winter shut the electric burner off.
"Did you want to continue?"
"I guess so. I've had enough break for now."
"Okay, good. We can do some high-stress exercises now."
Weiss stopped halfway through standing up.
"Wait, that wasn't high-stress?"
"Nope."
Winter reached down to the big armoured case that sat next to the table, keeping the lid facing her way again and hit the clasps. Hidden from view, Winter started to fiddle around with something inside. Something fairly large.
"What the hell counts as high-stress then? You nearly killed me for two and a half hours!"
"Well, we're gonna do the same thing again, only this time..."
She came back up, holding a short-barrelled K&H assault rifle in her hands. The magazine was already inserted, the foregrip in the unfolded position. Weiss's eyes nearly bugged right out of her head as her sister yanked back on the charging handle, chambering a round.
"...I'm gonna be shooting at you."