The Schnee Black Sheep

A/N

I'M BACK!

I am so sorry for being away so long. Between moving house, babysitting and also generally needing to be an adult , finding the time to write has been difficult not to mention that ive had a lot of bother setting up the internet in the new place.

That being said. Things will slowly return to normal as I still have little time to write but I promise you all that this fic is not dead! It will not die!


Chapter 30: What Lies Unnoticed

"And then, Daddy and Uncle Coal started fighting and ended up destroying half the base!" Angel giggled standing in the middle of the table bouncing up and down hyperactively. She had awoken full of energy late in the morning having overslept and when she found out that breakfast was about to finish, she opted to leave getting ready until later in the morning in favour of getting at least a few pancakes. So, at the moment she was energetically bouncing around on a small sugar rush in her pyjamas while her Uncle Coal and Blake ate. "Three months it took us to make a base in that red zone and they ruined it in less than an a few minutes!"

"It was more like half an hour." Coal corrected drinking from a mug of strong coffee, his alternative to alcohol having kept up with the rule Blake set about them becoming an item. "And I'll have you know I won that fight."

"Did not!" Angel retorted getting up in Coal's face and looking very offended for her adoptive father.

"Did to!"

"Did not!"

"Did… OW, OW, OW!" Coal yelped when Blake started to pull on his ear fed up with the boy's childishness.

"I thought, for once, you would at least act mature." Blake deadpanned finally releasing the boy from her grip so that he could resume eating in silence, though the couple did share a short laugh and smile between them. Angel however couldn't stop herself from looking from her uncle to the Faunus, and then back again several times before finally coming to a conclusion for herself about the Faunus she had thought to be hostile at first. She could see from Coal's permanently visible smile every time he and Blake were together that the boy cared about her very much. Much like her adoptive father cared about her self-proclaimed, though not yet solidified, mother.

"Uncle Coal guess what!" She squealed once again bouncing in place. Coal looked up from his food showing that the young girl had his full attention. "daddy called me earlier… He and Mommy are exchanged!"

"Engaged." Coal corrected laughing softly. He had expected that outcome to begin with. "I give it a year before Ruin ends up in the ground. OW!"

"You shouldn't joke about that." Blake scoffed having punched Coal in the shoulder and gesturing towards the younger girl who just shrugged and gave her opinion.

"I give them six months."

"That's my niece!" Coal laughed bumping fists with the young girl.

"So, when are you going to marry Auntie Blake?" The small child asked tilting her head innocently. Blake spit her tea across the hall where as Coal ended up choking on some of his breakfast and needed a hard slap on the back from his girlfriend to dislodge the bacon slices from this throat.

"Let's not get carried away there." Coal chuckled awkwardly slapping his chest to help clear his thought as Blake buried her nose into another book removing herself from the conversation.

"But you love her right?" Angel continued to interrogate her uncle in her own innocent way. While she may appear to be a simple innocent child, she knew exactly what she was doing and which buttons she was pressing to get a reaction. She had spent a long time around Coal to learn a thing or two about how to manipulate people and influence their mental state.

"Err… It's not as simple as that kiddo." Coal tried to explain while looking to Blake for assistance. Unfortunately for him, she was either to engrossed in her book or just completely ignoring him. The way her checks glowed red from embarrassment suggested that it was the former. "You see we've only been dating a month so stuff like that will happen when it happens."

"But you two slept together last night on the sofa…"

"Alongside! We slept alongside each other!" Blake and Coal quickly corrected in sync.

"What's the difference?"

"You'll find that out when your older." Coal stated folding his arms. "I give you a lot of freedom of speech kid, but that is across the line and a fair bit privet. Change the subject will you." Angel pondered for a few moments looking around the hall for some sort of inspiration. When she spotted the title of Blake's book, Ninjas of Love, she lit up with an idea.

"Mommy reads the same books as you. I borrowed them once…"

"Did Myth know you had borrowed them?" Coal questioned slightly concerned and horrified at the same time.

"Not exactly…"

"So, you stole them?"

"I like to say that I borrowed them without permission." Angel giggled. "But I didn't understand most of it, like, what's an orgasm?"

"This kid is kill me!" Coal cried out faceplanting the desk alongside his girlfriend who followed swiftly after him and faceplanted the table also.

Over by the door, Weiss stood alongside the rest of her teammates overlooking the scene commenting over the how… Odd the situation looked.

"Look at them… Just look at the way their acting." Yang groaned folding her arms. "Coal I can't even begin to understand and now the kid has even turned Blake into that… You'd think that Blake just gained a niece herself or something!"

"I've never seen Coal look so relaxed…" Weiss continued staring at her twin brother unable to recognise him in the slightest. "Maybe I was wrong about him, maybe he could be the same Coal that I remember for back when we were kids?"

"I still can't believe that little girl is an executioner!" Ruby continued on gushing. "She is so CUTE!"

"WHAT DID YOU CALL ME!" Angel screamed from way across the hall. Coal immediately regained the girl's attention by flicking her ear and thus taking the majority of the girl's frustration himself rather than subjecting Ruby to the torment of calling the girl cute… The one thing that Angel hated was being referred to something that referenced her inferior size and strength. Cute just so happened to be the worst name to call her, something Coal had found out the hard way. He still had the scar to prove it.

"Regardless…" Weiss continued on making note of how well her twin brother managed kids. "Don't you think that they look a little too comfortable like that?"

"You don't think…"

The three girls look back at the scene where Coal was now busy quietly telling off Angel who had tried to 'borrow' some food from Coal's plate. While being lectured for getting caught stealing, Angel often would look towards Blake hoping she would come to her aid though the Faunus never did, stating that the young girl should know better than stealing… Or at least getting caught doing so.

Yang quickly whipped out her scroll and pressed buttons furiously. She needed to confirm something for herself before her mind lost it. It wasn't long before she squealed.

"Oh my Oum! It's so cute!"

"Let me see…" Weiss and Ruby begged before squealing at the sight of what was on Yang's scroll. The squealing attracted the attention of a young man walking around outside looking incredibly lost.

"What in the name of my sobriety is going on in here?" Ruin asked stepping up to the group of girls having recognised Weiss' shrieking squeal almost immediately. They had met only a few times before but Ruin remembered that if he could find one twin, he could usually find the second close by.

"Oh, hi Ruin." Weiss greeted before she snatched Yang's scroll away and showed the image on the screen to Ruin who just looked at it for a second before snapping his eyes over towards Coal and Blake who were once again, laughing alongside his adoptive daughter. The image Weiss had shown was from a website that combined the images of two people and created an image of what their offspring would look like. In this case, she had combined mug shots of both Coal and Blake to create their would be procreation. "What do you think?"

"I think that you girls have way to much spare time on your hands if you're doing stuff like this… But send me a copy of that. Coal will hate this!" Ruin chuckled immediately sending a copy of the picture to his own scroll. "Shouldn't you girls be studying or something?"

"No but we should really get to start on setting up the great hall for this dance." Weiss shrugged.

As the girls walked away to get to their task, Ruin looked back over to the scene where his younger squad mate and adoptive daughter laughed alongside Adam's ex and right hand woman. He knew Angel's outright fear of Faunus and for her to act so comfortably around one after only spending one night with her self-proclaimed Uncle Coal, Ruin couldn't help but let out a relaxed breath.

Deciding to not interrupt the three during their breakfast, mainly because Angel didn't get to see her uncle as much as she wanted to, Ruin headed back outside to bask in the warm daylight. It had been a long time since he had been able to just sit back and relax and Ruin was ready to snatch up the opportunity to do nothing but chill out for the morning.

Parking his ass on a bench in the courtyard, Ruin simply rest his head back and enjoyed the sunlight, letting his mind empty for the first time in a long while. His day job took a lot out of him, not to mention that he still completed odd jobs for the squad when he was needed. He was the best hacker among them even after teaching Coal a trick or two.

Ruin couldn't help but laugh to himself lightly over how much both himself and Coal had grown over the last few years since they were recruited into the squad. They had started off as enemies, hating each other and doing everything in their power to make the other surrender after a long and destructive fight. But in the end, when it came down to it, they were the best pair on the squad. Both had made a name for themselves on the front lines. Having fought so hard against each other, Ruin and Coal had learned the other's strengths and weaknesses and thus could accommodate for other when needed. They would never need to speak during a battle, they never needed to plan strategy, but most of all… They always came out on top without a scratch.

Over time Ruin began to think of Coal as the younger brother he never had. Having been an orphan for his whole life after being dumped on the doorstep of a nunnery as a two week old infant, Ruin never really had much of a family of his own. A fact he was proud of as he used to jump headfirst into battle without any fear of dying, thinking that no one would miss someone who never really existed. Every time he would come out unharmed, unscathed and not even mildly out of breath. He had his semblance to thank for that…

Speaking of, Ruin detached the flask of alcohol engraved with his number (V) from his shoulder and took a long drink of the harsh liquid. Because of his semblance, Ruin needed to continuously consume alcohol to maintain his aura shield. The more he drank, the stronger his aura became and thus increased his power, speed and resistances. He could survive almost anything anyone could throw at him if he drank enough. Something he had proved countless time during his many fights with Coal, who never held back against him and aimed to kill.

Ruin thought back to all the times Coal had pulled the trigger against him. Aimed between his eyes with intent to kill and fired without thought. Ruin knew that back then Coal was in a dark place and took it upon himself to vent the boys anger and frustration himself by subjecting himself to tremendous amounts of punishment and abuse delivered by the hurting boy… And now he was finally seeing his work come to light.

Coal was now a young man. Kind, caring and had a heart belonging both in rekindled light and harboured dark. He could step into a place where few could enter and still retain their sanity. It was one of the few things Ruin respected about Coal. That he would take on the dark horrors few could even imagine in favour of subjecting others to it themselves. Angel was one of those people. Ruin may have been the one who brought Angel back from a dark place, but what many didn't know was that Coal was the one who actually started that journey. He knew full well what the small girl was feeling and sought to ensure that she would never feel that way again. It was Coal who convinced Ruin into accepting the small girl as a daughter. It was Coal who talked Ruin into opening up to Myth and then convince his long-time friend into asking the young woman out. Now that Ruin thought about it… Coal had done just as much for him as he had done for Coal.

In some weird way… Coal was the brother that Ruin had always dreamed of having.

Ruin was startled from his daydreaming by the sound of a heavy sigh along with the disappointing footsteps of a blond knight looking very much like someone had just pooped on his heart. Somehow the boy looked familiar to Ruin… Wasn't this kid one of the guys Coal had mentioned in his reports?

"Hey what's up kid?" Ruin called out rattling his brain for a name. The boy stopped his slow walking and let out another heavy sigh, holding up the small flower in his hand.

"Ever had your heart stepped on repeatedly by the same girl?" Jaune answered rhetorically.

"Wait I do know you… Your one of Coal's friends err… Jean or John…"

"Jaune Arc."

"Yeah that's the one." Ruin laughed lightly. "And to answer your question, yes I have. Take a seat Young'un and tell me about it." Jaune looked at the young man weirdly for a second causing Ruin to chuckle lightly. "I'm Ruin. Coal is watching my daughter and I'm enjoying the peace and quiet for a moment before I have to return to daddy duties. Any friend of the runt's is a friend of mine."

Jaune recognising the name that Coal had spoken of a few times decided that venting his frustrations on to someone who he would most likely never see again sounded like a good idea. Not to mention that the way Coal held the man in such a high regard prompted Jaune to figure that he could put his faith in the man himself.

"I just don't get it." Jaune started taking a seat next to the young man. "All my dad said women look for is confidence."

"I take it that approach didn't work?" Ruin asked already knowing the answer himself. "Might I ask who the lass is?"

"Weiss Schnee…" Jaune answered in an affectionate sigh. Ruin froze up for a second before erupting into a hysterical fit of laughter seeing the irony. "What's so funny?" Jaune questioned looking incredibly offended yet Ruin did not let up on the laughter.

"It's just…" Ruin forced through bouts of hysterics. "Coal has a habit of choosing close friends that try to hit on his sisters!"

"You tried to hit one Weiss?" Jaune questioned completely shocked not understanding the inside joke.

"Hell no! His older sister Winter!" Ruin corrected trying to calm himself down. "By Oum she is one hell of a woman… Don't tell Myth I said that."

"I don't even know who that is…"

"Even still… Let me guess, your head over heels for this girl and she's the only one for you or something to that extent."

"She's everything I could ever want and more."

"Damn is this what I sounded like? I owe the runt an apology." Ruin mumbled to himself realising that he was now on the other end of a conversation he had had with Coal some time ago. "I'm going to give you some advice that a good friend of mine once gave me… Now how did Coal word this again… Oh yeah that right, Jaune, do you know where your nose is?"

"My What…" Jaune questioned confused. It wasn't a second later that he was punched in the nose jolting his head back from such a hard strike, crying out in pain. "WHAT THE FUCK YOU JUST BROKE MY NOSE!" Jaune yelled furiously clutching his now heavily bleeding nose in both hands.

"Good, now that you know where your nose is you can start looking past it." Ruin smirked standing up from his seat on the bench. "Look past that tunnel vision you have for that Schnee and you might just realise that your missing out on the world… And the person your really supposed to be with. For all you know, they've been right in front of you this whole time." Ruin then started to walk away having gave out the exact same advice Coal had given him just over a year ago, taking a long drink of strong whiskey as he went, humming a tune to himself.

Jaune followed the man with his eyes for a long while completely mind fucked by his actions before setting off himself to go and fix his nose. Luckily he had stumbled upon Pyrrha who immediately grew concerned for her partner and escorted him to the school's infirmary. For some reason that Jaune couldn't explain, he couldn't get the words that Ruin had used out of his mind. What was it that he had been missing out on?


After Angel had been collected by her adoptive father, Coal and Blake were finally left alone for a while to bask in the peaceful atmosphere of the warm day. Unfortunately for Blake, Coal was catching up on some much needed studying as he had neglected to pick up a single text book for almost a week now.

"Come on can't we go out and do something while its nice?" Blake pouted trying to persuade her boyfriend to stop studying leaving his stuffy room. "You have all the time in the world to research… What am I even looking at?"

"The schools network protocols and diagnostics." Coal stated typing away on his laptop while also checking his notebook every now and again. "The place has really weak security."

"You hacked our school?"

"I got bored while you and Angel slept and messed around for a while and found some really weird anomalies about this place." Coal stated, his eyes racing across the text appearing on the screen and flicking over to his notes so that he could add to them. "For reasons that I still can't find, there is an unusual amount of power being drawn to something underneath the lowest levels of this place but the schematics I've recovered from both public records and even Ozpin's privet network show that there is nothing there."

"Did you even get any sleep last night?" Blake questioned. Coal span around in his chair slightly agitated that Blake had only picked up on that little bit of what he had said.

"That's what you pick up from all that? That I didn't sleep last night."

"I kind of thought that you would have at least attempted." Blake stated folding her arms and narrowing her eyes at the boy.

"And put you at risk? No I'd rather lose the sleep."

"You won't kill me, I trust you."

"I know you do." Coal admitted folding his hands over one another. Even though he had come a long way in terms of getting over his past horrors, Coal still felt as though he had a long way to go before letting himself indulge in such a venerable position. "But I can't risk it." Blake moved over and pulled his hands apart, sliding her fingers in between his own.

"You can't doubt yourself forever. You're not as messed up as you think, just look at how you are with Angel. She looks up to you."

"She really shouldn't." Coal muttered.

"That's not your decision. She does whether you like it or not, so this uncertainty and confusion, what kind of image does that set for her?"

"Not a very good one." Coal sighed.

"Exactly. You need to stop overthinking everything and just let that mind of yours switch off. You may seem like a child but I know you well enough that you use that as a front so that no one else catches on to the fact that you're really thinking a mile a minute and predicting every possible scenario. Not everyone and everything is out to get you Coal."

"Your right… Your always right." Coal sighed forcing a slight smile. "That being said… I still don't think it's a good idea for us to sleep together just yet." The only response that Coal got was a raised eyebrow questioning the words he used and his intentions. "You know what I mean."

"Maybe I do and maybe I don't." Blake teased pecking her boyfriend on the cheek. After staring into each other's eyes for who knows how long, Coal's scroll pinged having received a message from Ruin with an image attached. The image he had gotten from Weiss earlier. "What's up?" Blake asked noticing the horrified look on Coals face.

"Nothing you need to concern yourself with." Coal immediately replied quickly deleting the picture from his scroll and personal memory. "But next time I see Ruin, he will be getting a swift kick in the nuts!" Blake giggled at her boyfriend's determination to inflict harm to one of his closest friends. She adored the way he seemed to treat everyone he cared about as if they were his own personal family. She could barely recall the Coal that she had met in the forest at the start of the year and now that she was thinking about it, she wondered exactly if he would ever return to that mental state. She fully accepted the fact that he was and still remains a soldier, but she didn't want him to change from the way he was now.

"Speaking of your squad." Blake stated trying to find out more about his past wanting to understand his past. "What's with the numbers?"

"Well that's a simple answer. We are all just pawns, rather than show our faces we all wore masks with numbers on them so that no one would see our faces, just our number. It was meant to instil a deeper fear into our targets."

"Who's dumb idea was that?"

"Mine." Coal stated. "That and I couldn't look anyone in the eye when I killed them. The mask helped with that."

"So you also carry a number?" Blake asked remembering the way Angel identified her own number the day before. She thought it was an odd way of saying it at the time but now was starting to understand just what it meant to be a numbered executioner.

She was reminded of the masks that her fellow white Fang members wore while on missions. Never really forming any bonds with anyone and unable to put a face to a name made it difficult to really feel any sort of remorse should any one of them got killed or captured. But then if that was the case with Coal's squad, why did he seem so close to them all?

"I carry the number seven." Coal answered reaching into his coat and pulling out a small cube that Blake recognised as the same cube that Weiss had given Yang as proof to collect whatever Coal had requested from Junior. Coal unlocked his mask and presented it to Blake who held it up to her face and looked into it.

"I can't see through it." She stated flipping it over and looking at the frost white engraving of Coal's number. "What's the point of a mask with no eye slots?"

"So I don't have to look at the people I kill."

"Then how do you see with this thing?"

"I don't see, I feel." Coal explained taking the mask back and returning it to its previous form and hiding it back inside his coat. "Can I borrow your bow for a second?" Blake wasn't sure what he was about to do but remover her bow and handed it to him curiously. "You remember when I fought Cardin and his team?"

"Yeah, though I wouldn't exactly call it a fight… It was more of a beatdown." Blake shrugged not knowing where he was going with his explanation. Coal tied the bow around his eyes making a blindfold for himself so that he couldn't see a thing.

"Try and hit me."

"What?"

"Try and hit me." Coal repeated smiling. Blake didn't know what else to do so flicked him on the nose playfully. "I mean actually hit me damn it." Blake shook her head thinking that this whole thing was stupid and made to slap Coal across the face, hard. She missed. Coal stepped backwards before she had even started swinging and tutted in disappointment. "Come on, at least try to do some damage."

Blake had had enough. She balled a fist and launched a punch towards the childish boy. She was completely taken by surprise when Coal not only dodged the strike, but also managed to twist his body around her own and end up standing behind her with speed that could match Ruby's top speed. Starting to grow competitive with her boyfriend, something that happened more often than not, Blake launched more punches and swipes at Coal growing more and more amused by the second as Coal dodged and weaved through every attack with ease, still completely blinded by the bow over his eyes.

After a good ten minutes of missing every attempt, Blake finally gave in and helped Coal out of the blindfold that he had stupidly tied far too tight.

"So what exactly was the point in that little demonstration?" Blake asked retying the bow over her ears, still feeling the amusement of what could have been described, in a twisted way, as their first dance.

"You've seen how dense I make my mist clouds first hand. Even I can't see through it so I had to learn how to fight while basically being blind." Coal explained. "As a Faunus, you understand how to use your heightened senses of smell and hearing correct? Well I do something similar while channelling a Grimm's instincts through a series of glyphs."

"So you summon Grimm instincts, over your own?"

"No I channel those instincts so that they work with my own senses." Coal corrected. "It's not summoning. It's something I learned how to do from the glyph in my back but now that's gone, I have to manifest the glyph myself rather than rely on the one that was previously there."

"So… Your half Grimm?" Blake questioned sarcastically.

"I hear the sarcasm Blake but in a weird way of saying, yeah, I am half Grimm. Remember what I said ages ago, to summon a monster wouldn't I first need to become one?" Blake's expression dropped having understood where that comment originated. Coal had had that glyph embedded into his back for well over 7 years now and over that time he must have needed to continuously fight against the instincts of the monsters he could access. It was no surprise that he had an animalistic side. Blake should have realised it sooner, that he was living as a collective of monsters that he not only had access to as summons, but that they also had access to as a host… Before Blake could even respond, Coal turned around showing his back to her and pulled aside his coat to show off a long white wolfs tail that came from a small glyph on his lower back. "Though it does have some benefits." Coal chuckled as the tail started to wag from side to side. While Blake still couldn't get the thoughts of Coal being basically part Grimm, she couldn't help but giggle at the childish manor at having a tail.

It was no wonder he accepted Faunus so easily. Deep down, he was something much worse.


"Hey Coal are you ready yet?" Weiss asked peeking into her twin's room hoping he was at least half decent. Nine times out of ten when they were living back at home and their father had arranged for them to attend some formal event, Coal would still be in his underwear playing games until the very last moment… This time however, much to the persuasion of Blake, Coal had gotten himself ready with plenty time to spare.

"Well… How do I look baby sis?" Coal asked as he stopped doing up his tie and spread his arms wide. Weiss would happily admit any day of the week, much to her twin's argument, that Coal could clean up nice and did look good in a suit.

"You still look like crap." Weiss teased walking over to help her brother with the tie. "Seriously why can you never remember how to do this?"

"Because I hate them." Coal choked when his sister playfully tightened the neck trap far too tightly. "You know I don't do this sort of crap without first having an argument with father."

"You and he never could agree on anything…" Weiss chuckled sadly lowering her head. Coal lifted her head upwards so that he could look his twin in the eyes.

"Something's bothering you, what's up?" Weiss huffed, flaunting her dress as she danced around the empty space of her twins room trying to figure out the answers to her own turmoil herself.

"Am I pretty?" Weiss finally blurted out completely taking Coal off guard.

Coal had come in contact with many obscure things in his life. From being experimented on, tortured half to death and so many more things yet nothing, nothing in his entire life could have prepared him for that grenade that just exploded in his face.

"Well I picked the wrong time to quit drinking…" Coal sighed heavily sitting down on the desk chair. "Why would you even need to ask such a question? Let alone as me? Isn't this kind thing something to ask any other female in exitance?"

"Neptune rejected me."

With his sisters enlightenment to her completely shattered self-confidence, Coal changed his attitude completely. Favouring a caring and mature persona for this instance, Coal wrapped his twin in a soft embrace and told Weiss to explain what happened.

Weiss went on to explain that she approached the blue haired teen and asked him if he would like to accompany her to the dance only to be rejected and pushed away with no explanation as to why. As the explanation went, Weiss felt herself grow angrier at the aspect that she was turned away in possibly the worst possible way, in her mind anyway as Coal could come up with many more hurtful ways that she had turned down Jaune but kept them to himself.

"Who does he think he is turning me down like that!" Weiss angrily stomped around venting her frustrations by kicking around on of the sofa cushions. The physical therapy was helping her keep her cool somewhat and doing practically no harm to herself. Coal simply stood off to the side waiting for his sister to finish beating the crap out of his furniture. "There is nothing wrong with me, NOTHING!" Weiss reached onto her twins desk to grab the closest object to launch towards the wall.

"Don't throw my gun Weiss." Coal blankly stated, quickly stopping his sister from doing something stupid. Weiss sighed and put the gun down before grabbing Coal's small piggy bank and slamming that against the wall instead launching his loose change everywhere. "Great… Now I've got that to clean up."

"WILL YOU STOP THINKING ABOUT YOURSELF FOR ONE FREAKING MINUTE!" Weiss screamed finally fed up with her twins lack of interest. She hadn't even realised that Coal had listened to every word she had said and had come up with his own idea on the situation.

"What do you like about him so much anyway?" Coal asked in a calm tone not responding to the outburst from his twin in a negative way and making her explode further.

"I don't know… He's cool." Weiss shrugged. "Good looking, smart, strong-"

"And you know all this from spending how long with him exactly?"

"Since when did you become the guru of relationships? If I remember correctly, it was me who talked you into going out with Blake."

"This isn't about me is it?" Coal sighed trying to not let his sister dodge the topic any further. He had figured that this conversation had been coming on for a while so he was just wanting to get it over with so that both he and his twin could move on. "What's really got you in a bad mood about this? You must be able to see that Neptune shot you down just like how you shot down Jaune every time he asked you out."

"That's different…"

"No, it's not Weiss." Coal sighed shaking his head. "I don't know why he rejected you, heck personally I'm glad he did because one way or another, you know now exactly what Jaune must go through every single time you slam the door in his face. I don't mean to be harsh, but seriously Weiss, you really need to take a step back and figure out what it is you want. Otherwise your just going to go round and round in the same pattern and missing a great opportunity that you were just too proud to even consider." Coal stared down his twin sister who remained silent letting his words sink in. Weiss opened her mouth to argue further but swiftly shut if again knowing deep down that her twin might actually be right this time. It was a few hollow moments before she finally came up with a response.

"I just want what you and Blake have." Weiss admitted quietly. "I knew you two would be great together I just didn't expect you to be all… That."

"All what?" Coal asked now confused himself. Just what was his twin getting at.

"It's nothing." Weiss smiled rolling her eyes. it seemed that her twin was still oblivious to some things. "But maybe your right… I have been a bit harsh on Jaune, even though he did deserve it sometimes…"

"Please remind him to return my guitar at some point." Coal chuckled to himself remembering the many times the blond knight tried to win his sisters heart with song.

"I'll remind him after I apologise to him." Weiss smiled alightly. She wasn't exactly over the hurt she had been feeling but she knew she could at least do something to make herself feel better. Perhaps one dance with Jaune would be a good start to making up to all the times she had slammed the door in his face and she would definatly need to rethink her priorities when it came to boys. Her twin had been right. She was far to proud to concider anoyone at the school before. "Arent you going to get Blake now?"

"Oh crap im late!" Coal jolted realising the time. "pass me my gun!"

"Your not taking a loaded weapon to a school dance you dolt!"

"Why not?"

"BECAUSE ITS POSSIBLY THE LEAST DANGEROUS EVENT OF THE YEAR!"

"And?"

"You are hopeless…"

"Oh, and Weiss." Coal stopped halfway through the doorway and looked back at his sister. "Blake and I don't have the perfect relationship. We fight and argue just as much as any other couple so don't think it's all perfect like in the movies. I know one day, you'll find your soulmate. And I'll be there to kick his ass when you do."

"Just go already!" Weiss scolded throwing a book at her twin. When Coal disappeared around the doorway, Weiss couldn't stop the smile from spreading across her face. Her twin may be a dense idiot at times, but when he really put his mind to it, he could say exactly what she needed to hear to feel better.

Having lost the argument of bring along a weapon, Coal stood outside of team RWBY's room trying to build up the confidence to knock on the door so that he could take his girlfriend to the dance. It had been a whole month since they had listened to their feelings and finally got together but for the first time since that first date, Coal felt incredibly nervous.

There was a sickly feeling building up inside the pit of his gut. A feeling that he couldn't interoperate whether or not it was just his nerves about tonight or if it had something to do with his Grimm instincts acting up. since his operation, those instincts dulled quite a bit so that he wasn't as accustom to sensing incoming threats and danger, even his sense of smell and hearing had dulled because of the loss of the glyph on his back. Yet over time, Coal was slowly able to figure out means of getting them back. He never realised just how much he had come to rely on those hidden abilities.

"Come on you weak ass little bitch." Coal scolded himself still unable to bring himself to knock on the door. "It's just like any other date." He continued to remind himself but at the same time he knew it wouldn't be.

Coal hated these kinds of events. Ever since he was a little kid he had despised everything about events like this because of the simple reason that he had to appear formal and respectable whereas he, along with everyone else knew, that he would prefer to be far away fighting a horde of Grimm with his bare hands. He belonged on the battlefield and having gotten himself a girlfriend, over the past month Coal realised that keeping a girlfriend was a battle of its own. Never had his mind been so tested.

Though it wasn't all bad.

Coal had learned quite a bit about himself because of the new relationship and had even come to think of himself as an idiot for not perusing it earlier. Weiss would often tease him about being whipped and having 'gone soft' as she put it but Coal would simply shrug it off. Why? Because as time went on the more he came to realise just how much he cared for the Faunus.

He had never loved anyone romantically before. He had no idea what the feeling was like. So like any inexperienced person, he just let what naturally happens happen. sometimes it was good, other times… Well Blake only tried to shoot him once in the last month which was a good sign really. He remembered when his older brother figure Ruin got together with Myth and she had almost killed him within the first 3 hours.

Then things had to have been made complicated by Angel. Her innocent childish manor had brought to light just how much he had wanted to admit that maybe, just maybe he loved Blake. He hadn't even considered the possibility that he did up until that point where she outright asked him over breakfast if he did truly love the Faunus.

"Go on you little bitch. Knock."

Coal's eyes widened at the voice of a girl that he recognised from his passed and whipped his head around while also manifesting a glyph under the skin of his right shoulder. His aura shifted and formed into the sharp claw of a beowolves over his arm as he began to snarl like the beast he was channelling ready for a fight.

But there was no one to slash at.

Coal stared into the empty corridor wondering if he had really miss heard the voice of one of his old squad mates. The one who carried the number ten.

But she was dead. He knew she was dead, he had watched her die himself so how could it have been her?

His nerves must really be playing up if he is imagining her voice. But just to be safe Coal pulled out his scroll and sent a message to Ruin, requesting him to look into the possibility of the girl being alive before returning his arm to normal and knocking on the door trying to force the memories down into the dark void of his mind. He did not want to relive those days again and if she was indeed alive… He would be subjected to those nightmares again and again until she was done with him.


Elsewhere, a figure in a black cloak phased into exitance in one of the white fangs hideouts in the city of Vale. Breathing a sigh of pleasure, she removed her hood along with the mask that carried her number and tossed the mask aside.

Hidden behind the mask and hood was a beautiful young girl with short black hair tinted white at the ends.

"How far you have fallen Coal… Oh how far you have fallen." She giggled to herself. Out of the shadows behind her, a figure in a mask of his own emerged. His face and number hidden by the hood of his black trench coat.

"My host is not to be underestimated. Don't forget that."

"Don't you worry my dear old pet, I won't let him cage you up any more." The girl giggled further turning around to see the figures number 7 start to glow a dark crimson red underneath the hood.

"Good… It will be soon time to show him hell."