In the afternoon sun of Firebase Alma, Weiss had no trouble getting directions to the Ranger Company tent, or rather the Beacon bunch tent as Weiss liked to think of it based off what Yang told her about it over the scroll. Ignoring the curious looks of the young men as she walked all the way to the other side of the base where their residence was located, bitter sentiments over the needless distance brewed in the heiress. Beacon Academy may have had larger distances between residential areas and classrooms, but for Weiss it was the principle that mattered more; in Beacon, everyone had to walk a lot, but in this base, she gathered that her group would have to walk much more on average than anyone else. This fact pissed her off, and Weiss had only been on the base for five minutes.
"...Yeah, he was being a little bitch about it," Weiss heard and saw Russel say as she walked into the big tent that was her new home, Russel on the opposite side she entered. "S'like dude, things are going to hell and you're whining about that" he explained, emphasizing 'that', whatever 'that' may be. He sat on a crate next to Cardin, and was running a snake bore through his gun when he looked over and saw the heiress. "Hey, it's Weiss..."
"Oh it's you," Weiss greeted in a unexcited monotone. Cardin's group may have stopped bullying Faunus because of Ruby's group, but it didn't mean Weiss had to be friends with them, a concept she embraced wholeheartedly.
"Wow, cold. Ice queen." Russel and Cardin went back to their weapons, not interested in a fight.
Weiss's head popped to her left at the sound of Yang's voice, "Weiss? Weiss! Come in here!"
The brawler's voice came from the first 'room' on the left on Weiss's side, the two flaps overlapping just enough to block all observations from the outside. The white haired fighter halted at the doorstep, her finger slipping underneath the canvas fold, thought for a moment, then asked, "are you decent?"
"Yeah, come on, come in!"
Taking the offer, the duelist walked through the threshold, seeing the two sets of bunk hammocks, a rug, three chests, her own luggage underneath a bottom bunk, and Yang, whom was above what Weiss presumed was her own bunk, with a thick book on her lap. "I haven't seen you in a couple days." Weiss dropped the bundle of clothing in her arms onto her bunk and unstrapped her sword, then pulled out her two luggage cases.
"Don't worry, you haven't missed anything really. How'd the visit go—" as Yang shifted her body towards Weiss, a note pad fell out of her book, past the other girl's face, and landed at her feet. "Oops, gravity's on. Wanna grab that?"
"Sure, here..." reaching down, she studied the rudimentary sketch of a twin jet craft and all the little notes and descriptions and axises and arrows surrounding it, handing it back to Yang when she was done. "Is that apart of your pilot training you messaged me about?"
Yang flashed the cover of her heavy book, something about take off procedures and aeronautical basics it said. "Yep. Thank you," she grabbed the pad, "so what about the trip? How was your mom and dad?"
Weiss sighed. "Let's just say that if my father had his way, I'd be a good little robot with a control panel he could access from anywhere in the world. Hey, could you look away for a minute?" The duelist slid off her jacket and threw some clothing to the hammock on the other side of the room.
"Sorry," Yang said in response to both Weiss changing and Weiss's family problem. She pretended to turn over to look away, but the moment her partner turned away too, Yang looked back to watch, feeling mischievous as usual.
The white dress fell to the floor, leaving Weiss in only panties, as she didn't need to wear a bra and so chose not to. Yang felt the sudden regret due to her rebellious nature, as the scars on her partner's back pained her to see. "I didn't stay long enough to see my—" she coughed, "I didn't see my mom. I did see Winter though. Strange thing, Winter was sick, if you could believe it."
"Well I don't know her at all, so I couldn't say," Yang commented lowly, still watching Weiss.
"It's not normal, I'll tell you that." The petite girl put on a dark blue and gray dress, the lower part running a few inches below her knees and hugged to her legs in two separate pieces with a right bias to allow leg movement, then reached behind her neck to pull out her hair from underneath the top part of the dress. "My dad had me fight her too, and I'm still asking why. Winter hasn't messaged an answer back, but... eh, it's all weird." Weiss lifted the brushed silver armor corset that Ruby made for her up to her chest, sliding her arms through the arm straps and buckling the lower strap on her lower back, both of which held the back plates in place and both of those tied together with string, true to a corset. "You know this is basically the first time I've worn this, and I'm surprised how well it fits." The corset was light in weight, soft and smooth to the touch, and conformed perfectly to her chest. The lowest part covered her belly button, then the shaped pieces that linked together and looked like irregular scales on a lizard ended just above her breasts. It helped that Weiss had no breast to speak of. "I don't know how Ruby does it but... wait, is there still no word on Ruby?"
"No." The worry in her voice was unmistakable. Weiss ignored the tone.
"I think I'll go asking around about her, maybe I'll find something." She lifted the jacket and vest she took from her sister, the coat cut down to a flak jacket, and assembled the clothing upon her body. The vest hid the corset completely, and because of how naturally skinny she was, no one would've guessed there was armor underneath at all. "You can look now."
"Ooh, so pretty" Yang sincerely remarked, having already had the chance to look at it. "So elegant. Though I don't know how a dress will fare on a battlefield."
Weiss slipped on her heels, scoffing. "Yang, please. I..." She inspected herself for the first real time, lost as to what to say. She came to the conclusion that it wasn't the best idea, but was going to do it anyways. "I'll think about it when it becomes a problem." Stepping halfway through the threshold to leave, Weiss stopped to itch the bridge of her nose, turning to ask Yang, "what's the situation on food here?"
"Hungry?" Yang guessed, relatively surprised.
"No." A lie.
Yang laughed to herself. "They serve breakfast, lunch, and dinner. We have a couple hours, so if you wanna snack, there's rations right in the center of the tent."
"Rations?" Weiss asked, head cocked and worried.
"Parmesan cheese, hardtack crackers, salami, and chocolate bars. Nora told me it ain't bad."
"Hmm." After a moment of travel, Weiss was standing in the middle of the tent and spinning a small, black, plastic crate around to open it correctly. Inside she found exactly what Yang told her would be there. Foot long lengths of packaged salami, square cuts of wax wrapped cheese and rectangles of crackers, then finally flat yet strangely thick bricks of tin wrapped chocolate. She read the label, then spoke to Russel and Cardin but did not look in their direction, "these were made 50 years ago." They looked to each other and shrugged, their attention immediately being pulled to the sound of hoof steps outside the tent, Jaune entering in the same place Weiss had a few minutes ago.
He started with a simple "hey Weiss" to greet the newcomer, then walked with a spring in his step across the left side of the tent, peeking his head into each quote unquote 'room' as to look for something. Not finding it after a couple seconds of searching, he put himself next to Weiss so he could grab a half eaten block of cheese he had left out earlier, cordially asking, "have you seen where Pyrrha is?"
Weiss glanced with a raised brow at Jaune, then to Russel and Cardin who both returned muddled faces. Settling on Jaune, Weiss flatly stated while flicking her chocolate around, "Not in Vale? I don't get the question..."
"Oh, right, I forgot..." he smiled as he looked down. The knight walked one way for a moment very slowly, then turned back to where he came from. He winded up his body and kicked one of the ration crates, livid with anger. Russel and Cardin jumped where they sat, eyes wide and everyone watched the blond boy make his way out of the tent.
Weiss just itched the bridge of her nose again, and took a bite out of the thick chocolate bar, a snapping sound similar to breaking rocks accompanying her bite. She chewed for a moment, then looked at Russel and Cardin who waited for her reaction. "It tastes mildly better than a potato" she said, once more in a flat and bored tone. She spat out the small chunk which hit the ground like a bullet, dropped the chocolate carelessly onto one of the lower crates, then walked out too.
Across the sea, an hour left till sunset, Cinder found herself knocking on a cheap apartment door to a cheap apartment building with her two close followers standing right beside her. The one to open the door was Scarlet, not the member of team SSSN, but the mouse faunus who went undercover at Beacon with her estranged team mates, Scarlet Mally. Her ear was unsurprisingly still missing, courtesy of Ruby, who also was the one responsible for blowing off Scarlet's friend's left arm, Alice, with the same shot. More than a handful of people in the higher echelons of the White Fang were quite familiar with Ruby Rose's extensive record of dismemberment and gore, even if the rate of events were mostly infrequent.
Scarlet wiped drunk sleep from her bloodshot eyes as she opened the door, yawning long and loudly. "N' the three chosen ones appear, poised to save t'day" she said in her odd way of speech, almost always as though she was telling a story.
"Wow, you smell fantastic," snarked Mercury.
"All work and no dranks makes Scarlet a dull gal." The mousy girl waved them in, still rubbing her eyes. It was a small apartment, with one bathroom, two beds, and a window. By the window sat Sham, the tall black and green clad man in his slanted beret, having turned his stare from the outside to the other team of people. Alice hummed to herself as she finger painted the wall into a distorted scene of Mistral. "I got your application forms for the police station under t' bed, half filled em' out too," spoke Scarlet.
"Good" responded Cinder cooly, not impressed as the task left for them was by no measure difficult. "Now for the real effort; are you three ready for the next step?"
"Yes, we already volunteered, now we just ave' to ship off in the next tree' days. Up, off, and away," she groggily explained. Not waiting for anything, the small girl grabbed her sword that laid against the table in between the two beds, a duffle bag, and checked out of the room with a sloppy salute.
Alice spun upwards onto her feet, jumping high off the bed and ducking her head so to not hit the low ceiling, and grabbed her flamberge style blade on the way out the door, humming all the while. The last one, Sham, picked up a brown guitar case and sauntered to the hallway, mumbling as he passed Cinder, "tell them we're off and on the next phase."
"Why can't you do it?" bit back Emerald.
He scowled at her, answering "we wiped our scrolls of all information, and I don't memorize numbers." The door slammed behind him.
A minute passed where the three of them watched the door, then finally, Emerald moan. "They are so weird! I mean they take it to a whole new level."
Cinder strolled to the first bed, lifting up the mattress in search of the papers but found nothing. "I would love to say something conflicting to piss you off... but I actually agree too much to spite you" Mercury remarked. Cinder lifted the second mattress and snatched the papers she found. "You find them? Say, what jobs are we applying for?" he asked, smugly curious.
Sifting through the information briefly, the older woman obliged her underling's question with a smile. "Me and Emerald are going to be janitors for the Mistral's Central Police Department."
"And what about me?" he laughed, picturing Cinder in gray-blue duds.
"Hot dog stand boy."
"What?" Mercury sounded angry.
"Remember, service with a smile" Cinder grinned with a mean pleasure.
His frown turned into a smile. "Just kidding. You think I would be mad, but this just means I get free food. Besides," Mercury leaned back into a fall, one of the beds creaking loudly underneath his sudden weight, "I'm not too interested in playing hide and seek right now. I'll sell my hotdogs all day long, you guys can look for the Maidens without me."
The leader looked out the window, sighing with tired anticipation, elated at the change of scenery, and the change of pace. "We're not looking for the Maidens just yet. You know the plan, we're looking for the person who will find the Maidens for us."
As the sun cast it's gold ocean shore glow over Mistral, shadows creeping upwards in lower places, Cinder and Headmaster Yelette, though in different places with different scenery and different goals, looked at the lowering sun all in the same way, waiting. The Headmaster, sitting at her now cluttered desk inside the dynamically lit office with it's windows open for the gentle breeze to tug at one's hairs, found respite in how a physically serene space could combat the emotional chaos a person felt, a person namely being her. Could being the key word. Though somewhat calmed by the picturesque qualities of her home, her fingers still tapped at her desk top impatiently, bouncing from rhythmic patterns to erratic messes and back again. The fingers stopped abruptly at the ding of the elevator notifying her that company was arriving.
Rising to her feet, Yelette faced the door with her typical bored yet slightly annoyed expression, waiting for the elevator to bring in the people. The clock tick tock away, the woman staring at the seconds hand. Her foot tapped the floor progressively faster. After thirty seconds, the elevator arrived and opened, and her slightly annoyed face had turned into a frown. "Was I not clear about the time? 'Meet me after lunch' I'm sure I said, and here we are, sunset..."
Walking into the office slowly as if it were a lion's den, the four teenagers shuffled into a row in front of the woman's desk. "Sorry Headmaster," Scarlet spoke regrettably, nodding his head lower but looked straight at her nonetheless, "but a lot of the other students were asking us questions about Vale and everything that happened..."
"...And we lost track of the time," finished Sage.
Yelette began laughing, enough so she felt it necessary to cover her mouth with a hand, then using the other pointed at Sage, saying, "okay, first: Sage, button up your shirt," she commanded, referring to his bare chest. "Second: 'The other students'? Do you think you're going to continue studying and schooling after everything that happened?" She sniffled, her body relaxing into a more somber posture at a jarring speed.
"We were afraid of you bringing that up," Neptune confessed solemnly.
Yelette's head turned slightly upwards, and her voice deepened. "Afraid of what exactly?" She knew the answer, but alas, wanted to hear from their mouths.
"War," Neptune choked, fidgeting with his hands. "We're not stupid Yelette. We know you expect us to do our part for our kingdom, more time in the classroom just being pointless, but we're going to be fighting friends if that's the case. We just got home. And that's only because of extenuating circumstances. Bad circumstances."
"You're not as stupid as you could be, what you say is true." Wobbling for a moment, the Headmaster pushed away from her desk, and began walking in a circle around her office. "And while we're at it, let's not beat around the bush, you're scared of dying too I imagine. Fighting people with a cause is good way to get killed, but then again, that's what you've been doing with the people of the White Fang, is it not?"
"If I weren't scared of being called a coward, I would agree... the dying part that is," softly spoke Sage. The three boys wriggled in place restlessly, their consciouses at conflict. There had always been a great element of danger to their lives, especially during missions, but the rules of war were different, less forgiving, and had more at stake. Instead of a failed objective being a setback and a nuisance, in war, the failed objective could cost many lives, or in extreme cases, the whole war. People will fight to kill you not because you are in the way, but because you wave a different banner.
Pyrrha however, stood as still as stone, eyes locked on Yelette.
"I don't blame you boys, but after everything that's happened, yes, it would weird for you to not act now. But enough of that, what about you Ms. Nikos, you don't seem very fazed at all, nor worried. Are you ready to fight again?" Yelette, who now stood before the redhead, had to look up to Pyrrha.
"I will do what it takes to return things to the way they were, if not better." There was no falter in her stoic delivery.
A short but impressed whistle. "Wow, determined are we? We must have a boyfriend waiting for us or something. Or maybe a code of honor? Or was Vale your new home you want to return to?"
"You were right for sure the first time" Scarlet offered meekly, Sage and Neptune elbowing him from both sides.
"Well I hope he doesn't become a casualty of this ridiculous war then." The old woman returned to her desk, dragging a large and long wooden crate up next to her seat, prying it open with a readied crowbar.
Scarlet whispered to Sage, "I can't believe I didn't see the giant box until now, I kinda feel dumb now." The other three nodded in accord, too distracted by Yelette to pay attention to the room.
The old woman dead lifted a long blanket wrapped item onto her desk, the glass making a worrisome sound from the weight. "Sage, take it!" she panted.
Stepping forward, he grabbed it with one hand and stripped the blanket to reveal his sword, a small smile replacing his sad visage. "How'd you get it?"
Yelette planted an open smaller box from the crate that contained a cotton wrapped sword and pistol for Scarlet, bragging "I have people all over looking out for my interests." Another blanket unfolded for Neptune's weapon in gun form, then finally Pyrrha's sword and shield. "And that's not all folks, I have a special delivery for the first weapon in a new line of weapons with someone's name on it."
The teenagers, still grabbing and examining their weapons for any mishaps in shipping, cast curious looks to each other. New weaponry was like new toys, but not only that, if someone was gifting a weapon to you it meant that they felt you could use it well. If Yelette was giving a new weapon to one of them, a lot of thought had to have been put into it.
Retrieving it from a cubby in the walls, the woman laid out a polished mahogany box, shiny with it's varnish, the setting sunlight painted it black and gold. Unlatching the lid, the teens gawked at the red and yellow rectangle of metal, three feet long, resting in crimson velvet, unsure what they were looking at. "Go on Pyrrha," Yelette grinned, "take it. I believe you'll find it to your tastes."
Pyrrha pointed to herself, flattered and embarrassed at this unexpected gift. Taking a short breath, she reached forward with shaky hands, lifting the fairly heavy weapon from it's molded case, just now noticing the huge bullets that came with it, and ran her hands across the bumpy contraption to try and understand it. She thumbed a small switch, and the whole weapon jumped out of her hand as it folded out and shifted into a six foot long sniper rifle. "Oh."
"That's so cool!" admired Scarlet, feeling a little inadequate in comparison with his little gun.
"As far as I can tell," Pyrrha thought out loud, "it's a bolt action version of my rifle, just much bigger." It did in fact look like her own weapon in rifle form, except bigger, a proportionally longer barrel, bigger scope, and a muzzle break. She wiggled the gleaming bolt lever, working its surprisingly smooth action up and out, a un-modest, gigantic space for bullets (more like artillery rounds) to fit in one at a time. "Who made this?" she asked as she cycled the bolt to see if it caught at any moment.
"A weapon designer by the name of Gwen Rush, you might've heard of her."
"That's Lance's mom" Neptune commented, surprised to hear the name.
"Yeah, her designer symbol should be somewhere on the thing, just don't know where," she continued, waving her hand in Pyrrha's general direction.
"Wait," Pyrrha whispered, eyes darting along the length of the rather beautiful gun that fit in with her own in style. "This is supposed to be like my weapon, so..." she moved up her hand to the middle of the gun and repeated the motions she practiced for years on a smaller scale, happily surprised when the six foot long sniper rifle turned into a seven foot long spear. "It's beautiful" she whispered.
While the others eyed the weapon longingly, Yelette talked mostly to herself, explaining, "just so you know, the scope needs to be sighted in still, and it fires .95 caliber cartridges. Gwen only sent six bullets with it, so I'll give you money so you can set something up an ammo distributor, maybe get a bullet mold and press..." the three boys kept staring, and Yelette found it very distracting. "Oh, for— you three get out, don't you have some practice you need to catch up on?"
"Yes ma'am" they echoed each other, running to the elevator while excitedly talking to each other about new weapons for themselves.
Turning back to Pyrrha, she continued, "I also have the new clothes for you. I quite like them myself. Very classy." On the last word, she bowed with a smile, then pointed to a parcel on a chair to Pyrrha's right. Before she forgot, the redhead tried shifting the spear to a sword, but had no luck. "Just rifle and spear. Gwen told me that a two handed sword did not fit with your combat style."
"That was very considerate of her," Pyrrha nodded, sincerely thankful that she didn't need to bother with the urge to learn a new combat style just because it was available as an option. Stepping over to the parcel, she effortlessly broke the twine binding and lifted out a neatly folded stack of black and red clothing. She looked to the Headmaster with a happy smile, "I'm excited to try them on when I get back to my dorm."
"What are you talking about, put them on now!" Yelette barked.
Pyrrha's smile dropped. What was this she thought, the third, fourth time she would strip in front of other people with no regards to her privacy? "Are you going to look away?" she tried sheepishly.
"I'm an old lady Ms. Nikos, I don't care, now hurry up!"
"Yes ma'am." She removed her clothes she still had from the boat trip, keeping her underwear and bra, and figured out slowly the articles that went on from there. First came the black turtle neck shirt with the long sleeves and black thigh high stockings. Now not almost naked, she slipped into a pair of red short shorts and a red short sleeved double breasted jacket. "Ok," she said suspiciously, not a fan of the short shorts, looking at them anxiously as she unfolded the next couple pieces. A red two button poncho shawl with a large hood fit on top with no resistance of course, but there were leather straps underneath that locked the shawl to her shoulders. Undoing the buttons, she re-clasped the middle portion halfway over her left shoulder, leaving long fabric over her non dominant arm, a different section of drooping flowing fabric down her middle, and a black clothed right arm. Then finally came the split dress skirt. Using a temporary brown belt, she hung it on her hip, the dressing reaching down to the floor while she didn't have any heals to raise her. At the base in the back there was a knot in the dressing that shortened the back. Like her shawl, there were buttons and creases in the skirt she imagined had a function, and after a bit of tampering, she figured it out. At the bottom of the split that went down the middle of the skirt, there was a hole on each corner meant to go over large buttons to pin them. Folding the bottom corners of the dress behind her, she was left with legs unhindered save her upper thighs, but a curved triangular dress behind her. Last but not least was a short bandolier that laid across her breast underneath her poncho, clearly designed to hold six of the massive bullets for her new weapon. "It's interesting," offered Pyrrha, feeling a little suffocated in fabric.
"That's not all. My tailor is having armor made to go with it, a belt, gloves, boots, but that's what she got done in a day. I like it. That'll be good for the outdoors and colder regions." The Headmaster, pleased with the outcome, pulled out a cigarette and sat behind her desk. "Come on, I want to see you with your weapons."
"I'm sorry?" Pyrrha asked.
"I'm not going to lie Ms. Nikos, you're going to become an icon very soon, so I want to see the person who's going to be plastered on every Mistral poster. Here, a holster came with the gun." She threw the reddish brown leather and quiver like carrier to Pyrrha whom strapped it to above her hip and horizontally. Doing as she said, Pyrrha held her regular spear in her hand, shield on her back, and the new weapon behind her, poncho with it's left arm bias, and the folded cloak skirt that wrapped around her legs. Yelette whistled. "I think we got ourselves a crown model here. Alright, that's enough for today, I'm satisfied."
Crown. On the word, Pyrrha gasped to herself, fingers tracing lines in her loose and sprawled mane of hair. Her tiara was gone. For a moment she looked around the room, then remembered getting on the boat for Mistral, tiara already gone. Stroking her jaw, she realized her mother's heirloom was still in Vale.
"Ms. Nikos?" questioned the older woman, taking notice to Pyrrha's sudden somatic.
The younger of the two dropped her hands and shook her head. "Uhm, nothing. Mrs. Yelette?" spoke up the redhead as she placed her spear behind her back.
"Yes?"
"Thank you. Thank you for everything you're doing for us." Once again the green eyes of the champion remained unwavering in their target of interest, Yelette, tired but thankful.
"Any time my girl. Now go, I don't like wasting time with idle chat." She waved away Pyrrha with the hand that held the cigarette.
"Yes ma'am. Good night." Pyrrha made it to the elevator where she called it up, but was held back when the doors opened.
"Don't forget your box Ms. Nikos," mentioned Yelette, nodding her head at the dark shiny box.
Pyrrha chuckled. "Silly me." Going back, she tucked it underneath her clothed arm, and made it a couple of steps back when Yelette asked her something, hand with cigarette outstretched.
"Hey Amber, could ya get me a light?"
"Yeah sure" she said, turning back around and flicking her thumb, a small flame turning the end of the cigarette to black ash.
Turning back around to leave, Pyrrha came to, looking back at Yelette with wide eyes, scared and feeling vulnerable, and somehow betrayed. Sharp breaths picking up, the redhead looked side to side with panic and stomped to the elevator where she slammed the ground floor button, giving a smiling and smoking Yelette one last confused and angry look before the doors separated them.
-End Chapter 3-
Okay, let's set the record straight: I'm sorry I did two wardrobe changes in one chapter, it was in bad tastes, but now I don't have to worry too much about it for the moment. Also, I don't make any claims to being a fashion designer, but I want to give everyone different outfits without copying volume 4. Also I'm sorry but more are coming, but Pyrrha's is easily the longest, so the others will be short and sweet.
And to add on, I know I always say more is coming soon, but I have a bad track record, so I wanna say: I'm sorry for that too. This time though, my excuse is the fact that my work hours went from less than 40 hours a week to over 60. I'm making money, no doubt, but that coupled with my blooming social life makes writing with full focus difficult. But no worry, I will keep writing until this story is either done or I'm dead.
Thank you guys, I hope you enjoyed this night's chapter, review, comment, and statement— shit. Comment, favorite, and follow if you so feel inclined, I read all reviews repeatedly for critique, and I'll see you all soon again.