I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at the Rooster Teeth.
Chapter 7: Reassurance
Waking up never felt so terrifying yet so relieving before to Weiss.
Ever since she blacked out while protecting Blake, her mind had been in a state of constant terror, wondering whether or not she had been left behind. Recklessly, she had lashed out against the Grimm and for that she nearly paid with her life.
She could only vaguely remember the Faunus, defending her before her mind had been plunged back into nightmares. No matter how old she grew, the scars of her upbringing never seemed to fade. They always stung like fresh wounds, no matter how much time passed.
And this time was no different.
It started the same as before, with Weiss alone on her bed, waking up to hear commotion from outside. She knew she shouldn't go out; she knew she wasn't supposed to hear it. But curiosity won over her, as it always did. The words never seemed to change.
"I am merely doing my duty for this company!" came the familiar voice of her father, booming through the door.
"And when did your duties involve neglecting your family just so you can make a profit?! Your daughters need their father, not this pathetic excuse of a businessman." Came her own mother's voice, heavy with the alcohol she had been drinking.
"Your father left me in charge of making sure this company didn't fall into the ground. I swore to your father on his deathbed that I would ensure his company would be in better hands and I'll be damned if I fail his last wish. I would've expected you to understand."
"Understand?! You expect me to understand, when you very clearly use your own daughters for each and every single one of your exploits. When you neglect them each and every single day by choosing to serve the company as if it's the only thing that matters to you?!"
"I'm surprised it even took you this long to figure out on your own. The company is what matters to me. That's why I even bothered to join this family in the first place."
"You… you backstabbing, piece of- "
"Now, now, let's not get hasty, ever since I came into this family, profits have only been increasing, you and your daughters can live in peace without ever having to worry-"
"You won't be doing anything. I'm stopping you right here right now. You will no longer be the head of the SDC as per the document that sealed our marriage if we divorced."
"About that document of yours. I'm afraid there's been some revisions to it."
"You wouldn't dare."
"Anything's possible Willow, you of all people should know that."
"Our children, you're just going to abandon them?"
"Like you haven't been? Drinking away your sorrows, ever since our first fight. What do you think they would learn once they find out that their mother is just another drunkard? You're lucky none of them even know just how bad it's gotten for you, Willow. But don't worry, I'll make sure to take good care of them. Better than you ever did."
Nearly every year she faced one of those visions, and it always had the same impact. She could even remember her response to that event; attempting to go to her mother only to be stopped by her father who told her,
"I'm sorry dear, but mommy's a little bit unwell. You're going to have to wait before you can go see her."
"But, but."
"Quiet child. Your mother needs some time alone, and that's that," came the words from her father, silencing her again. "Do not, go into her room. Okay Weiss?"
Later that day, she tried to visit her mother, despite her father's wishes. And what she saw, was something that finally uncovered the truth behind all of it. In just those brief few moments she finally saw past the fronts her mother and father had put up. in those fleeting moments she finally saw what had really been happening.
And her reward for her curiosity? Being forced into her room by her father and being beaten for the first time in her life.
That day exposed the cruel reality of her own family, that day Weiss Schnee stopped believing in the purity of the Schnee name. That day, she finally saw the truth. And then the vision faded, replaced instead with a vision of one of the hardest days of her life.
She was hunched over, panting in exhaustion. Today was supposed to be the day of her escape, her ship had long been waiting and she had already transferred all the Dust she needed. All that was left was getting out of that prison she once called her home.
But her efforts escaping were quickly halted by the presence of a Grimm. A Mimic to be exact. How a Grimm even managed to get into her home was beyond her understanding, what she did know for sure was that the Mimic had taken the shape of one of her family's armor suits.
Why her father even held on to those pieces of armor, despite them being nothing more than relics of the past was beyond her, but that didn't matter. What did, was getting out of this house alive.
Despite its heavy armor slowing it down, the fight was no cakewalk, as she had found out quite personally from a series of surprisingly well-placed strikes and punches. The fight had forced her to not use her revolver or even her glyphs for fear of making too much noise.
Without much of her toolkit, the only thing Weiss could actually rely on was her swordsmanship, which given her current target, wasn't the most effective strategy for taking it out. However, she was able to whittle down the Mimic to its knees. The fight was coming to an end.
Dodging a strike with a slide and then grappling to the neck chink of the armor, she plunged her rapier through its neck, exactly as she did when she escaped. But this time, something was… different.
Instead of the rapier ripping through the armor like paper, it was deflected out of her hands as sparks came over her hands, burning them and stunning her. At that moment, she was grabbed and thrown to the ground. Her aura shattered; she could only look up in horror, as the Mimic regained its blade.
Trying her hardest to get up, she suddenly felt… chained and bound. Desperate, she tried pulling herself up to her feet, only to find her efforts to be in vain. Somehow, she was stuck to the ground, chains binding her hands and legs, unable to move and completely disarmed. Struggling to even raise her arms, she looked up finding the Mimic's blade hurtling towards her neck.
As the blade connected with her neck, she screamed.
Ruby's day had been rather stressful up until that point, after all, helping Blake in the middle of the night with almost no sleep and almost no rest made her feel pretty tired. That, added with the worry of wondering when Weiss's condition would improve, made her a nervous wreck as she was setting up the MAD.
Although she was probably doing a good job of hiding it, as neither Yang nor Blake seemed to call her out for it. Her stress did not go away while she was dealing with Blake's rig as in the middle of the process the bad mod ended up showing her a nightmare!
Completely caught off guard by the events that transpired, Ruby panicked as Blake's vitals began to drop. All her training with removing mods on Yang's arm and her weapons couldn't possibly have accounted for when the individual in question began convulsing and was starting to have their aura flicker violently.
Thankfully, while she was panicking, Yang had already sprang into action and moved to Blake's side, comforting her long enough to finish the procedure safely and remove the bad module which turned out to be nothing more than a bad nanobug. Seriously, who designs a hacking module to look like a bug?
Anyways, almost as soon as it was out of Blake's exosuit, Yang scooped it up in her robotic hand and threw it straight across the room. After checking up on Blake's vitals, using a bioscanner from the table, she helped her out of the chair. While she was going into the building to find her a place to sleep, she called out to Ruby and said. "Make sure to check up on Weiss before you go to sleep Rubes, I'm just going to-"
After letting out a yawn herself, she continued. "-Get Blakey here to a bed and get some sleep myself. If you need me, just call. See ya in the morning Rubes."
"Alright sis. Goodnight," Ruby replied, heading to Weiss's room.
"Goodnight, Crater Face."
"Yang!" Ruby exclaimed, feigning annoyance which ended up getting a laugh out of her sister.
Sure, Yang was a little prone to teasing, but Ruby always knew she never meant it and was all the more grateful for her constant quips to help offset some of the more… serious times in her life. She truly was lucky beyond the stars to have a sister like her.
Heading off to check up on Weiss, Ruby was horrified to hear a scream from her room. Almost using her semblance, she burst through the door and found Weiss on her bed, breathing heavily clutching her throat.
Running to her side, she asked her, "Oh my god! Are you okay?"
Weiss seemed to still be dazed as she took no notice of Ruby's arrival until she was already by her side.
"I'm fine, I'm fine. Just a couple of bad dreams," she replied quickly. "Where are we?"
"In one of the workstations of an abandoned town. but actually, are you okay?"
"It's nothing Ruby, nothing you need to be bothered about," Weiss replied, trying to divert the attention away. but Ruby wasn't having it. Something was very clearly hurting Weiss, and she wasn't going to ignore it.
"Weiss, can you trust me?" she asked.
"Not completely," She replied. Not off to the best start but she was no quitter.
"Please, I can tell something's wrong. You're still recovering from a sickness that nearly killed you twice!"
"You won't understand Ruby."
"I can try," She continued, now squeezing Weiss's hand. "You can trust me."
"Fine!" Weiss finally relented. "I didn't come to Vale for the most normal of reasons. I came here because… I wanted to leave my family behind and start anew."
"Why?" Ruby asked, perplexed as to why anyone would want to leave behind their family. As far as she knew, family was easily one of your closest bonds. The one thing you could always trust to keep you safe. The one thing that was always there to support you.
"My family isn't like most, Ruby. I'm the daughter of Jacques Schnee, head of the Schnee Dust Company."
"You mean the company that's responsible for all the Dust we get?" she pondered aloud, recalling the snowflakes on the Dust crates that Weiss carried. Was Weiss really the daughter of the man who owned the company?
"Yes, exactly that. It's how I got all the Dust I needed." Weiss replied, confirming Ruby's suspicions.
"But isn't he a good man? at least that's what all the advertisements say of him." Ruby said. In nearly every single one, Jacques was shown off as kind, benevolent and as the only source of Dust in the Remnant system, which she already knew was untrue as she had seen plenty of companies that had sold Dust under their own names.
To this, Weiss sighed. "No Ruby, my father is none of those things. He is callous, arrogant, vindictive and overbearing. His only concerns have always been Lien and showcasing himself as a symbol of success. His PR team won't tell you about the way he abused Faunus rights to grant them minimum safety precautions, or about the appalling way Faunus criminals are forced into mining outposts to live out their lives in what is practically slavery, or even the horrific punishments he hands out to the people who try to escape."
Ruby didn't always believe the advertisements that the SDC had shown, but this was confirmation that Jacques truly wasn't who he made himself out to be.
"Do you want to talk about it more?" she asked.
"Not really. I would prefer to leave him in the past." Weiss replied, making it clear to Ruby that perhaps she was overstepping her boundaries.
"Okay Weiss, if you ever want to talk more about him, just remember, I'm always open." She said, patting Weiss's shoulder.
"Thanks Ruby."
"Soooo, are you going to head to sleep?"
"With an empty stomach and dying of thirst? I think that's a pretty bad idea." Weiss said.
"Good point. My sister found us some MREs, I think there might be some blueberry ones."
"Don't you have anything else we can find to eat?" Weiss asked, notably disgusted and the prospect of eating one of those MREs, which was something Ruby understood
"I mean we could always try scavenging this place, although I do think the food's a little expired." Ruby replied, gesturing a rusty can with the label beans on it.
Seeing Weiss face's fall, Ruby immediately said "I'm pretty sure there's some blueberry MREs. You didn't seem to be too bothered by them when we last ate. Should I get them for you?"
"Yes, I think that's a better idea."
"Alright, a butt ton of blueberry MRE's coming right up!" she said, using her semblance and speedily heading out to the box Yang had put down containing the MREs.
After grabbing a couple of strawberry and blueberry flavored ones, she rushed back to Weiss in record time.
"That was fast."
"Hehehe, my semblance comes in handy when it comes to simple stuff like this." She replied, arms filled with strawberry and blueberry MREs.
"I imagine it does."
"Don't worry about thirst, these MREs are also able to quench that as well. They may be disgusting to eat, but they always fill you up in jiffy!" she replied, intentionally overexaggerating her tone. She was hoping it would maybe get Weiss to smile a little and move past her… nightmare.
"Thank you Ruby, for everything, really." She replied, taking one of the MREs and eating delicately, just like a lady would! She almost looked like a bird, pecking on her food, albeit a very pretty one at that.
"Eh, it's nothing Weiss. All in being a good partner!" she said, opening her MRE packets and shoving them in her mouth, hoping her speediness would allow her to power through the disgusting jelly like texture and instead focus on the strawberry flavor.
"I uh… also owe you an apology." Weiss said, not even halfway through her first MRE. "I should've listened to you, back on the ship."
"Hmm?"
"I know you were worried for me and you knew I shouldn't have gone out to fight the Tachyon on my own." Weiss replied, genuine sadness and disappointment filling her voice. "I'm sorry I didn't pay attention to the warning."
Swallowing her MRE as quickly as possible, Ruby immediately placed both of her hands on Weiss's shoulders and said. "Weiss, please don't beat yourself up about it. We all make mistakes from time to time."
"My mistake could've cost us all our lives." She added, surprising Ruby with the fact that Weiss chose to include all of them in that statement. Maybe she was finally opening up to being a team!
"Well we can't always be perfect. Hell, I make mistakes too! That doesn't mean I can allow myself to get beaten up by them. My sister always taught me that your mistakes don't define who you are. It's how you react to them, how you grow from them that matters." She said, keeping her voice as soft as possible. "Yes, it put us all in danger, but it didn't mean our deaths."
"Instead we kept on pushing forward. And we can grow stronger because of it. For example, now you learned that you probably shouldn't go attack a Tachyon on your own!" she continued with a grin on her face.
"So, don't worry about it, Weiss. Next time we face that Grimm, we'll make sure to pummel it into the ground!" she concluded. "Just you wait."
"I'm saying this for the third time but thank you. I haven't really had someone who's cared for me like this, since well my butler back in Atlas, Klein."
"And I'll always be happy to help you out, Weiss. Now, think you can tell me about this butler of yours?"
"Oh, He was honestly a one of a kind. He had seven personalities and each one of them, was- "Weiss began to explain with a smile on her face, exactly what Ruby wanted to see. She really ought to smile more, she was the prettiest then.
Eventually however, the exhaustion ended up getting to both of them and as Weiss comfortably yawned, she ended falling asleep. Right on her shoulder.
She could practically feel the heat rippling off her face as a rampant blush came across her cheeks at how closely Weiss had rested her head against Ruby's shoulder. After a few seconds of her heart beating out of her chest, she finally took a deep breath and decided that it was probably best if she fell asleep too.
"Goodnight Weiss." She said, very slowly moving out of the bed and moving to the bunk bed above, after closing the lights.
"Sweet Dreams."
A/N: Man, I get way too busy these days. ;( Sorry for the late upload but hope you enjoy the WR crumbs.