A/N: I'll be honest with you, this chapter is going to be mostly describing who Team RWBY is and recapping a bit of Season 1. Pretty much all of it, in fact. Though, it is insightful, and it's good to have a reminder for those who know and a crash course for those who don't, while having more plot is definitely nice! :)
Man! I didn't think that writing this would take a week and a half! (counting in distractions, like Kireteiru's Stranger Things Have Happened (wonderful story!) and a need for mom to run through it once to make sure it was good, had everything needed for those who don't know things and was consistent with Team RWBY behavior, as well as getting winter break and wanting to spend time with my brother). Of course, I wasn't expecting to be able to keep to a weekly schedule at all when I began this story, even including the fact that I'd already written the entire first arc out by hand! Well, Here's Chapter 6! :)
But before that, I'd like to say sorry for the long wait. As I mentioned, I had to have my mom edit this because 'most everything was completely off the script, though necessary for those who don't know about the RWBY universe, which took longer than expected, and a few of you might become confused by how the perspective changes between first-person from Weiss' point of view to third person, but that's because of how Weiss thinks in this fic. Well, more because of how my brain works, but close enough for now. In real life, this would be like her thinking whilst trying to write a profile for a person, as if she was a part of an intelligence organization. Not that I know much about that that wasn't learned through fiction and databases like the Marvel Wiki and DC Comics wiki, so take it as you will.
Also, if you're wondering why Weiss' information is the only one that is so complete, that's because it's written from Weiss' perspective. She doesn't really know all that much about the other girls in her team because, well, Blake keeps to herself, Ruby isn't the kind to really gossip (and possibly not talk about herself all that much, though that may just be me projecting myself onto her), and Yang's more of a "Go with the flow" kinda girl. That, and she probably pretty much raised Ruby all by herself, if the way she acts and what we've learned about their home life is any indication.
Weiss stifled a sigh as she turned over again, trying to fall asleep. And yet, no matter what she did, she could not seem to get those mysterious Huntresses out of her mind. She decided to do a memory challenge to try and distract herself. She closed her eyes and remembered.
They were in the third floor room next to the corner on the east side of the Freshman Dorm, which was perfect for viewing the sunrise and the occasional moonrise. The fractured moon that turned above the surface of Remnant was currently in its 'full' state, where none of the fragments that had broken off of the moon (though they stayed in synchronized orbit above the planetoid) sometime in the past were visible. Right in front of her, below a painting of the Forest of Forever Fall was all the Dust she had brought to Beacon in the same white-colored steel matched luggage that her father had had made for her special.
For some odd reason, other than dealing with classes and homework, they still hadn't quite gotten around to unpacking the boxes next to her luggage, and she'd never actually put up a specialized rack for her Dust, though she supposed the Dust was safe enough in the luggage, as they weren't exactly the easiest things to steal or break into, what with the specialized locks that her father had made for them.
Directly above her head was the 'fort' that was Ruby's pretend four-poster bed, complete with an extra sheet used to block out light and include privacy. The sheet in question was held up by the same ropes that held up the bed by the tops of the legs of the beds provided for them by Beacon, though she questioned Ruby's line of thought and sanity where it pertained to the safety of her construction skills.
Then again, the other 'bunk bed', which was just Yang's bed on top of 4 stacks of books which were on top of the legs of Blake's bed was just as suspect. Which, technically speaking, that had been Ruby's idea as well. Still, neither the raven-haired faunus nor herself had yet to be crushed, so she'd reserve judgement... for now.
Between the beds was the bedroom window - which was where she liked to watch the sunrise the few times she actually got up before Ruby and her godforsaken whistle, and more often preferred to watch the moon rise as night fell. -, which was covered by the same curtains as the ones that had been here before their 'remodeling'. She knew this because there was this long diagonal slash straight from bottom left to top right (well, almost, but still completely side to side) that Ruby had accidentally left in it while putting it up whilst the rest of them were making up the room with their stuff (such as the bookshelf underneath the window that Blake had provided and mostly filled). They really should replace those curtains.
The community closet for the room was not the most attractive thing in the world, initially from having to deal with others' clothing as well as her own rather than a massive wardrobe (of mostly matching outfits that mostly looked the same with a few exceptions, though mostly based on shades), but now more from the fact that it was filled with various things which Aura had seeped into and that caused interesting effects on the area. Such as suddenly expanding into a massive Great Hall all on it's own without taking up more space in the building and becoming a dangerous maze that attempted to trap whoever entered, filled with traps of various types.
Sitting above Yang's bed and her tawny Dog pillow was a rather unevenly placed poster to the Achieve Men, whom she assumed was some pop band she'd never heard of, which Weiss was thoroughly convinced she wouldn't like from how pretty the boys on the poster appeared to be.
But she'd also never heard of Red Riding Hood or Snow White in her lessons on the history of great Huntsmen and Huntresses of recent times. She also wondered who the brunette - whom was brunette and frosted the same way Ruby was - actually was and why she was wearing that handkerchief on her face? And who were those other women?
Okay, this isn't working. Try another one.
Ah, what did she know of her team.
Well, there was Yang Xiao Long, Blake Belladonna, Ruby Rose, their team leader, and herself of course, Weiss Schnee. Go in order of team name spelling.
No, father would disapprove. Go in alphabetical order.
Blake Belladonna is a teenaged girl just like the rest of them. She has long, unruly black hair and amber eyes and cat's ears...
Okay, that's not going to work. Let's try who I know about the most and go to the next most until the list of "What Weiss Schnee knows about Her Teammates" is complete and organized according to most information to least information.
Obviously, that list would start with herself.
Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company and the Schnee Legacy (with the Fortune that follows it), has not had the easiest life. When she was a young girl, her father began to mentor her on how to be a proper leader for the company. Trade routes, the way that the company worked, business strategies, stocks, politics and current events. All were memorized and examined alongside her more traditional studies, beginning at age 7 when she was deemed as sharp enough to begin learning the business. She also began to learn all she could about the Dust that her family's company mined and shipped and that everyone used in one form or another. Batteries? Minute amounts of Yellow Dust with a few other materials added in for consistency and to keep the Dust stable and useful. Fuel for vehicles? Every type of vehicle currently uses red or blue Dust, though years ago they used Dust of all kinds, experimenting as they pleased to see what worked the best. The sugar used in her coffee or the cleaning agent in Shi-nee toothpaste, which her father's company sells?
Well... surprisingly enough, the same odd variant of White Dust is the sugar she grew up with and also the active cleaning agent in the toothpaste.
Soon after discovering the uses of Dust for herself, one of the newer hires among the servants decided to get a little grabby, which was just as well that she didn't like him as she soon discovered he was a Faunus, specifically a member of the radical group known as The White Fang who had targeted her family and the company for years, practically since before she was born, and had even killed relatives of hers that she knew and members of the Board of Directors, even personal friends, often making her father come home furious. She'd scrambled away from the Faunus, barely staying away until she found herself in the kitchen, cornered but suddenly armed with a kitchen knife and a bottle from the spice rack. In desperation, she'd opened up the bottle and threw the entire contents of the bottle into his eyes before she slashed at him, injuring him enough to cause a shout, which attracted the attention of other servants, who held the Faunus in place to keep him away from her until her father had come down to see what was going on, and thus allowing him to deal with the cretin. It was a day that had long cemented in her mind that Faunus were nothing but scum, the monsters they showed themselves to be in the White Fang. A position she was now having to deal with and decide how to revise.
The other important thing about that day is that she learned that day that she wasn't simply a girl in a dress. If pressed, then she was a fighter, and that was when the idea got into her head to become a Huntress. Money? Fame? A life of comfort where she was constantly attended to? That she had. But Power? That she didn't have yet, and she saw, both through her father's eyes and her own that the Huntsmen and Huntresses held the real power among those in place today, with the Grimm outside the walls, waiting to kill and eat and rend and tear to their heart's content whatever creature misfortunate enough to cross paths with them, though animals are generally spared, especially when Humans are around. While the militaries of the kingdoms and the androids provided by the Kingdom of Atlas were there to protect the populace where the local police could not, it was the Huntsmen and Huntresses who hunted down Grimm, because they were the only ones actually capable of it.
As a result of that decision, she had begun to learn how to fence at age 8, and had even designed her own outfit as a Huntress, something that would help mark out who she was to friend and foe, and it was what she was wearing during the daytime (not right now though, being that she was in the pajamas her mother had gotten her, one of the final gifts from the kind woman). A white bolero jacket with red lining and the Schnee family crest, a silvery 12-pointed snowflake that looked like daggers were coming out of the points, on the back. That covered her torso to mid-back, but the front was left open to show her white dress (which hugged her torso snugly, but not lewdly, with a special black and lacy undergarment to hide any cleavage that could show. Wouldn't be proper to allow just anyone a free look at her body, now would it?) that bottomed out with a flaring blue combat skirt that reached mid-thigh. Her legs were left bare, but her white boots with their 2-inch platform heels covered up to mid-calf.
She was capable of fighting with either hand, but while she was good with the light foil she'd used to learn in her right, she was deadly with the heavier rapier she counted as hers in her left, which left a hand free to do any gestures needed to summon up her Glyphs. However, she had not simply become good overnight. Oh, no, there were trials that had truly stretched her limits, such as her graduation test, a fight against a giant suit of armor, unnamed by whoever created it (to her knowledge, at least), which had landed a solid punch, sending her rocketing back and that hit would have been enough to seriously injure her if nor for her Aura. Instead, she merely got off with a gash starting above her eye and running across it to her left cheek without injuring the precious orb. That wound had since faded to little more than a scar, a near-invisible white line on her face.
Currently, though, she was not living the life of luxury she had in Atlas with her father. No, she was living in a dorm with 4 other girls, all of whom she had her issues with but would protect with her life. They had all earned that.
She'd also recently learned that she didn't actually know all that much about them. The way she'd learned this was not pleasant, what with Blake accidentally revealing herself a Faunus before Weiss had been forced to rethink her position on Faunus, but right now she was what she knew of them.
It was true that she wasn't the most, sociable of people. A part of that is the self-serving attitude she had been forced to adopt in order to keep up with her father's demands for perfection, and a part of that was the mask that she'd had to adopt in order to survive in "high society", but a part of it also came from not really having any real friends growing up.
Next was Ruby Rose. The leader of Team RWBY - the name given to them by Proffessor Ozpin at the end of initiation was spelled by the beginnings of their names, like it is for many similar teams, and pronounced as "ruby" - is a slim individual with a sturdy build, brown hair with red-frosted tips, a larger bust than Weiss' own, an inch of height over her when she isn't wearing her normal 2-inch-heeled combat boots, and uses a 2-foot gun that extends into a 7-foot-long spiked metal pole holding a 3-foot long blade in the shape of a scythe with a high-powered sniper rifle built into the pole to be operated from the halfway point, the barrel opening just barely poking from the top where the blade is.
The girl's preferred combat uniform was a black combat skirt with red lining, a black combat corset with long sleeves and red laces on the stomach, accented by her black belt which held a few extra rounds for her sniper scythe and an ammo pouch (as well as a set of hooks to hold onto her scythe, Crescent Rose) and the silver buckle was in the shape of her personal symbol, a Rose, as well as a red hooded cape held fast by silver cross buttons (which was actually rather stylish in it's own unique way), and her black thigh-high combat boots covering the bottoms of her full-length black stockings completed the image. Her striking silver eyes were often filled with a powerful curiosity and naivety that constantly reminded Weiss of a little child, as did the way she acted and held fast to cookies as a dietary staple only reinforced this image, not to mention her fascination with weapons and the childish way that she fawned over the Cross-Continental Transmit tower, which, admittedly, was very impressive (though, the one in Vale was nowhere near as good as the first one built, back in Atlas). However, the way she could plan in combat, the way she could use her scythe competently in ways that are absolutely beyond Weiss, especially given how heavy the weapon actually was (Weiss couldn't even lift it properly in either form without using her Aura to enhance her strength), and the way that solid determination filled those same silver eyes when the situation was serious all told her that beneath the childishness, Ruby Rose was a force to reckoned with. The way that she could kill a Grimm without the slightest bit of hesitation had astounded her the first few times she'd seen it, but now it was just another part of her leader that she admired.
Not that she'd ever actually say that to the brunette's face, of course.
The girl's Semblance was her near-impossible speed. With it she could go so fast that she could appear to teleport. She tended to leave behind rose petals behind her in abundance whenever she uses it, which tends to clutter up whatever area she had just vacated until they dissipate. Though, it was a rather odd thing, now that she thought about it, that whenever Ruby killed a Grimm with Crescent Rose, the corpse would dissolve into rose petals, rather than simply fade like normal.
Thinking about those rose petals and Ruby killing Grimm reminded her of the team's first 'official' battle against a powerful Grimm. During initiation, they had been assaulted by an adult Nevermore, a gigantic crow-like creature half the size of the airship that had brought all the first-year students to Beacon and just as capable of flying and using it's feathers as projectiles, which caused Ruby to be caught by her cape and had allowed the scorpion-like Deathstalker that had been chasing Pyrrha to reach Ruby. She had decided then and there to go and save the dense girl by speeding up to her (with the help of a discreet Glyph at her feet) and using some Ice Dust to create a wall of ice between them and the Deathstalker. Then she'd berated the girl for her idiocy, before relenting that, maybe, she had been a little harsh on the younger girl and that she would endeavor to be nicer. That's when Blake reminded them that their goal was to get a relic and get back to the school safely, not to kill everything in their way, and so the group of them had all decided that, discretion being the better part of valor, to run on back to school before they risked serious injury or death. They had been informed at the beginning of initiation that the teachers, while watching, would not intervene in this test, and so it was up to them to survive.
They had run towards the school, and when they were almost there, they came upon a structure that the Nevermore landed on. They couldn't really circle around, as the structure was in the middle of a gorge that was directly between them and the school, and the Deathstalker was still bearing up behind them so they couldn't run or take the time to circle around, so they went straight through, finally taking on the Nevermore on approximately even ground. However, no matter how powerfully they hit it, they couldn't seem to even scratch the damn Grimm, even when Yang jumped out to be snatched up in its beak so that she could ram some active explosive Dust from her shotgun-gauntlets down it's throat. Except that actually did have an effect, which was when Ruby came up with a plan to defeat it. While the Nevermore was dazed and on the ground, Ruby told her to tie the creature down with some ice, connecting it to the ground by its tail feathers (though, how the feathers in question were not simply plucked, Weiss wasn't sure). Then, using Blake's weapon's seemingly indestructible ribbon and a pair of pillars as a slingshot, Weiss had aimed in such a way that Ruby would be able to hook her scythe on the 'bird's neck and sent the girl flying before lining up a line of Glyphs so that the crimsonette could run up the cliff face, using her Semblance and the added power of the scythe's powerful recoil to drag the 'bird' up the cliff, trying to sever the head, before finally managing to do so when the neck caught on a jutting ledge at the edge of the top of the cliff. It was all rather dramatic and awe-inspiring. That was also the moment when Weiss began to truly respect the younger girl.
Then there's Ruby's sister, Yang Xiao Long. She was a little taller than Ruby, with a larger bust that made Weiss fairly jealous (though, not for the back pain the blonde probably had to deal with, if you ignore her Aura's probable healing of it) and her clothing was rather revealing. The garb reminded the rich girl of a certain adventurer, other than the definite feminity of the outfit, with a leather jacket top (that had poofy shoulder-sleeves that stopped before the elbow because of buttoned cuffs which was cut to show off her bellybutton and down, a yellow tube top under that that showed her bust for all to see that had the girl's symbol, a burning heart, in black but partially hidden by the jacket, black cut-finger gloves that were accentuated by the golden bracelets that were her weapon, Ember Celica, when not prepared for battle, a belted leather skirt that held a pouch for holding things and was unevenly cut, which gave it a downward spiral look along the edge and had a gold version of her symbol on the lowest bit in the middle. There was another layer to the skirt, a cotton cloth cut as oddly as the leather but longer, and both had a 'window' in the front to show off her black exercize shorts, and there was gold piping on both the jacket and the leather skirt. The final part of her ensemble, if it could be called such, was a pair of worn leather boots which reached to just below the knee and a pair of yellow stockings, the one on the left pulled up above her knee to where it stopped and with a grey bandana wrapped around her leg at the top of the boot, and the one on the right allowed to simply droop on top of the boot, finishing her rather unkempt look.
For all that the blonde berserker with a fondness for her honey-colored hair (which easily reached mid-back, though it was usually in the wind a little too much to get a proper accounting of how long it actually was when she was actually paying attention) that bordered on obsession (seriously. If anything cuts her hair, even just one strand, she goes on a rampage and utterly destroys whatever it was that did it) wore her heart on her sleeve, she didn't know a whole lot about the girl. She had done her research on the girl, but the most she'd really gotten from the digital sources was how she had a 3.5 grade-point average, mostly bringing home B+'s and A-'s. Well, that and a few minor charges of disturbing the peace that never actually earned her jail time (one particularly noteworthy time was a bar fight that basically demolished the bar, though it only noted her as a suspect rather than an actual charge), aggravated assault, and a few speeding tickets. The reports on the assaults basically said she was protecting her sister, and so they let her off lightly. She had found out that Ruby and Yang had different mothers but the same father, but that was all she'd found digitally.
In personal observation, the girl was a brute, a bruiser that believed the best way to fight was to punch things in the face until it stopped moving, and while she talked like a party girl, she acted like an overbearing mother Ursa, especially protective of Ruby. She was a sound advocate of fun, partying, and a lack of study with a rather brilliant smile, but she did show that she cared when she wasn't acting her age. Either way, the girl had a somewhat plain honesty that she found refreshing at times, wearing her heart on her sleeve rather than hiding it like Weiss did, a way with puns that she had decided to try and emulate as she had learned of the effectiveness of battle banter somewhat early in her training, she just hadn't learned how to use it correctly, and the blonde was highly skilled (obviously, from how she had been accepted into Beacon) and an actually useful member of the team. When angered, her lilac eyes would turn as red as the red on a Grimm's mask. Not quite blood red, as it was far too vibrant for that, and the anger in it had a heat and life to it that the lines of red on Grimm never could, but when turned on you it could be quite chilling.
Physically, she's strong. Stronger than almost anyone she knew, including her father and Ruby. She was well-built, though her muscles didn't stand out in sharp relief like the muscles she'd seen on body builders, and her skin was actually a shade or two paler than Blake, Ruby, or herself, and being of Schnee lineage, she was close enough to snow white skin that it almost made no nevermind.
Finally, she came to Blake Belladonna. The quiet girl was actually the person she knew the least about on the team, even if she could actually say more about her than about Yang. It could be because Blake was such a mystery that she understood little about while Yang simply was. She was compelled to collect all she knew about Blake in one place, because she was such a mystery. Insight on Yang simply required you to watch her for a day.
Blake was a teenager like the rest of them, a mane of unruly black hair that could billow out like a cloak behind her while running that held an equally black bow on top of her head, just a little bit back, and somehow managed to compliment her amber eyes well, which were accented lightly by a simple application of purple eyeshadow. Not much, just a dab at the corners of her eyes, its minimalistic feel matching the girl's quiet nature.
Her normal daytime garb (unlike the black yukata she was currently wearing, both of which were always neat and tidy) consisted of a black buttoned and coattailed vest that stopped beneath her bust on top of a white tube top which is connected somehow to the white short shorts she wore above her black stockings which faded to purple the closer to the black one-inch-heeled boots you got, other than the slightly holographic silver examples of Blake's symbol at the thigh on both stockings, which happened to be a Belladonna flower like her last name, or so Weiss assumed. She still hadn't discovered the purpose to the zippers on Blake's shorts. The only other noteworthy thing about her appearance were that she wore odd black ribbons around her forearms as if they were a badly wrapped set of mummy wrappings and she had a black sleeve with a silver armband near the shoulder on her left arm.
Her weapon, which Blake had named Gambol Shroud, hadn't seemed like a proper weapon at first. In all honesty, it looked like someone had attached a thin black blade to the top of a USP pistol, and then covered that with a very large, definitely oversized sheathe over it, making it look like a boxy greatblade with a pistol for a hilt, a ribbon trailing from the bottom where the clip goes in like a banner. However, more thought had been put into it than you could readily see at first.
The katana-like blade was collapsible so that it would reverse along the top of the gun like a very small scythe, a Kama to be specific, and could be swung around like a ball and chain, though more deadly, and when pressed, Blake could attach one of the ribbons from her wrists to add range to this form of the gunblade, and she could pull the trigger using the ribbons to spontaneously change the weapon's direction or add additional speed to strikes, making for an impressive attack style and weapon, once you had mastered it. Even the sheathe was made use of, as the large boxy thing had a sharp edge along one side, where the gun was pointed, as if that was the main purpose of the blade, and could be used as an independent blade held by a hand-sized rectangular hole right at the base of the sheath.
The woman was quiet, often preferring to read alone whilst the others went along with their lives, their own worries and troubles. She had a liking for tuna, which was almost odd, especially in the way she preferred the entire fish be present though she would take canned tuna or tuna fish sandwiches easily. She was well-read, and could easily hold her own in a debate against herself, and had a rather focused interest in issues dealing with the Faunus, including both the way history presents them and their abilities, which were well above normal human norm and included a decent package of more powerful senses, perhaps even including a better ability to sense Aura, and the current history and political affairs to do with them (not to mention keeping stock of who uses Faunus in their labor forces and how, such as the rumors of the Schnee Dust Company using undereducated Faunus as less protected, less well-paid workers in the Dust mines who were basically considered to be expendable. Those rumors had caught her attention when they were brought up, but at the time she'd thought such rumors nothing but hateful slander against her ancestral company, her birthright that she would inherit once she was of age). Weiss had wondered the first time she'd seen an article about a Faunus right's protest on the other girl's Scroll that first time Weiss had actually caught her slacking off in class. The raven-haired girl actually studied as ardently as she did, and that was saying something.
Of course, after the events at the docks, she understood exactly why.
Unknown to them, Blake Belladonna, their Blake who had stood by them through thick and thin, had been a cat-faunus the entire time. When it came out, they'd been arguing about whether or not the White Fang deserved any merit more than a rabid dog might, and immediately after offering the possibility, in her own words, that "Maybe we were just tired of being pushed around!", she had had a desperate look on her face before fleeing whilst they were still shell-shocked by the admission.
Afterwards, mostly at Ruby's insistence, they'd searched the city of Vale for any sign of Blake. She'd mentioned the possibility of involving the police in the matter, letting them take care of it, but Ruby took it the wrong way (well, mostly, if Weiss was honest with herself then she'd admit, if only to herself, that she had been considering Blake as a criminal out of hand at the time), and so they didn't go to them. Not that it would've helped, as Weiss later discovered that the laws say that unless a person has been missing at least 24 hours, they cannot be declared as missing, and thus no police action can actually be taken.
They were searching for the girl for a full 12 hours, mostly because she had debated about even going on the search in the first place after they first got up. For the first part, the three of them were walking around, shouting for her (though Weiss wasn't shouting), until Penny, a fighter here for the Vytal festival, though very weird, appeared right behind her with no warning and showed them, in a roundabout way, how Blake was a Faunus, and when Penny overreacted to Blake's missing status by coming up to Ruby and going off on a soliloquy, Yang and her made their escape. An hour later, Yang noted out to her that she wasn't helping as much as she could, that Weiss really didn't care about finding Blake. She'd responded simply. "Of course I do. I'm just afraid of what she'll say when we find her." She'd turned to Yang to make sure she understood as she said, "The innocent never run Yang." before walking off to continue the search.
A few hours later, there was an explosion at the docks, and they arrived to the scene of a wrapped up battle. Police officers were standing around, some like incompetents, some like they knew what they were doing. She marched right up to Blake, half ignoring Ruby's attempt to calm her down with a mention of cute cat ears and then she listened to Blake's attempt to calm her down, quickly giving a rundown on her activities with the White Fang, though she started out with the words, "I want you to know that I am no longer associated with the White Fang."
6 words later and she interrupted her friend simply. "Stop. Do you have any idea of how long we've been searching for you?" Weiss had paused to let her words spoken at the Faunus in front of her (as well as the non-confrontational tone and posture she'd said them in) sink in. "Twelve hours. That means I've had twelve hours to think about this. And in that twelve hours, I've decided..." She let the other girl stew for a second, a technique she'd picked up from her father and a half-competent instructor who'd preferred talk and battles of debate over teaching. "I don't care!"
Blake had been very surprised. "You don't care?"
"You said you're not one of them anymore, right?" Weiss had pointed out rather logically.
"No, I-I haven't been since I was younger-"
Weiss had put up a hand and silenced her. "Ah-bah-bah-bah-bah! I don't want to hear it. All I want to know is that the next time something this big comes up... you'll come to your teammates. And not some..." She had unintentionally looked over Blake's shoulder to look at Sun, the monkey Faunus who'd been there throughout this particular debacle. She started to say something along the lines of "Scruffy-looking degenerate Rogue" or a rapscallion or something along those lines, as her father had taught her to look on for the Faunus, but then she'd caught herself and simply said, "Someone else."
And with that, other than reporting in to Proffessor Ozpin, the entire fiasco was wrapped up.
Later, Blake had shown them her cat ears at Weiss' request, which had been filtered through words that meant things like "Privilege of the elite" and "since I am the last to see them, then I must be shown", though she had included Yang into that second one, and they'd been very thin excuses. Blake had smiled at the heiress and shown them to the team. Right where the bow usually sat were two rather cute cat ears, black with grey insides. Without the bow, she actually looked somewhat bedraggled, rather than the usual serene, seemingly regal normal person they'd become accustomed to. But, in truth, that was little more important than wearing a dress on one day and a combat skirt on another, with an equal amount of change.
So, in summary, she... didn't actually know a whole lot about her team. She knew that they were driven, that they were dependable, if childish, and that they belonged to her, just as she belonged to them. Though, that particular phrasing came more from the woman they'd met earlier that night rather than her own self.
And just who were those women?
"Can't sleep Weiss?"
Her eyes opened with a surprised snap, body turning around to face the intruder, ready for fight or flight assessment, before she fully recognized that it was only Ruby. She sighed. "Yes, Ruby, I'm awake."
"Still thinking about them?" Ruby said simply.
There was no doubt about who "they" were. She nodded. "There's just too much we don't know about them. Who were they? Where did they come from?" She looked Ruby in the face, for some reason trying to ignore the white pajama pants with roses on them and black tank top with a heart-shaped Beowolf caricature face on the bust - the black face mask with red triangles reminiscent of eyes absent at current - to focus on those silver orbs in front of her. "My father had me study famous Huntsmen and Huntresses of recent times as part of my training and there is no mention of any Huntress to have endured such a hard lifestyle as they mentioned, not in recent times. The closest we have to such warriors were roaming ones, but those hardships were only endured way back when Remnant was still in its infancy. Back when Dust was either unknown or treated as some dangerous magic - wild and uncontrollable - and those accounts are little more than rumor and superstition or stories designed to keep the adults entertained and the children obedient." The heiress didn't really want to crush her team leader whom she knew had a noticeably profound love of those kinds of stories, ones where the virtuous Huntsmen and Huntresses go out and slay the evil Grimm and other forces of darkness, but she couldn't keep back the bitterness from the reminder of the thankless tasks of little to no reward which had ruled her childhood at times. She couldn't keep back the sigh those thoughts produced.
"Wanna talk about it?" The girl asked sympathetically.
Weiss shook her head. "No thank you, I'm just tired." She rolled over to try and go to sleep, or at least get the crimsonette to leave her in peace.
No such luck. The younger girl sat there for a moment before asking, "Could you tell me one of those stories?"
She sighed. "No, Ruby."
"Please!" She whisper-yelled.
Weiss closed her eyes and sighed, slowly counting in her head to try and keep a level head. Then she decided to humor the other girl. "Well, there were a few stories that seemed to match the claims those women had. They were all centered on four nameless warriors, and there were many different versions of most of the stories, but many of them called the main characters 'The Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse', based on the fact that they often rode horses - especially into battle - and they left death and destruction wherever they went." She paused to think, unaware that she'd rolled over to look Ruby in the face. "The version of the most popular story that seems to be most accurate accounts that they were well storied warriors, capable of many seemingly impossible feats, including fighting down Nevermores that usually stayed in the skies, dealing with multiple Deathstalkers, King Taijitu, and Greater Ursa at a time or combinations as well as beating down hordes and packs of Beowolves and Ursi like we would, though the numbers seem exaggerated."
"Wow." Ruby said, her face impressed, but taking what she'd said into stride. Weiss remembered having a similar face at first, and while one part of her wanted to remind the girl that the stories collected on these four were nothing more than a distorted collection of rumors and myths and legends, another, larger part of Weiss had gotten caught up in the storytelling and wanted to continue, though there was a thing that was so commonplace to the two of them that weren't in those times that she felt she needed to clarify it to the younger girl.
"Ruby, I don't think that you completely grasp the enormity of what I just said. I know I already said that Dust was believed to be dangerous magic that couldn't be controlled, counted on or used properly, but there's another part to it. Back then, Aura was little more than superstition. They didn't usually believe it existed, and those that did were counted as fools that believed in nonsense. If a Huntsman or Huntress were to be hit by a single swipe from a lesser Beowolf, one of the weakest Grimm in existence, then they were liable to be torn in half." She added, somewhat harshly. "Besides, even with the advantages of Dust and Aura and Semblances, it still takes highly skilled and experienced warriors to kill Grimm, especially in large numbers, even with groups as small as 10, or even 5, or own experience notwithstanding. These four managed to kill, at smallest count, 10 or more Grimm of various types in almost every bigger than normal battle they ever participated in, and these were people without any of our advantages, with only as much strength as a bodybuilder without Aura, at most, with average speed and comparatively pathetic durability. That hit I took from the Ursa earlier? That would have torn one of them clean in half, rather than simply cutting in, and just getting the slightest cut in past thick Grimm hides would have been incredibly difficult."
"Speaking of," Ruby interrupted at the reminder of the hit Weiss had taken earlier that night. "What did the nurse think of your cuts?"
Weiss sighed and unconsciously put a hand over where the wound had been. "She said that they were incredibly deep and surprisingly well-managed and healed for something that I had supposedly gotten less than an hour before. The stitches were professionally sutured, even if they were installed in a shape, and that there was no real further damage beyond my Aura's capabilities, so it should be healed by morning."
"What kinda shape was it stitched in?" Ruby asked curiously.
Weiss felt her cheeks heating up a little. "A line of snowflakes." She really hoped Ruby didn't see her blush.
"So what was their biggest fight?" Ruby asked excitedly.
"Well, the texts tend to disagree on exactly what was their biggest battle. Some say that the Hood's fight against the Vermillion Rose of the group known as the Hunters of Vermillion was the biggest, and I think that that one is the most believable. Some say that their fight against 5 Greater Nevermores was their biggest or most amazing, though I always found that particular account rather ridiculous."
"How would they have fought the Nevermores?" Ruby asked curiously. "Don't they only swoop down to either attack or land in their nest, for the most part?"
Weiss nodded and shrugged helplessly at the same time. "How would I know? Of course, a few of the battles attributed to them are obviously nothing more than hearsay, myths, or just flat-out lies."
"Did they ever kill a Hydra? Or a Dragon?" Ruby asked, eyes sparkling, subdued excitement almost bringing a smile to the heiress' face except for what she had to say next.
"Ruby, Hydra never existed." Weiss said bitterly. She'd wanted to meet one, when she was younger, even if it'd likely kill her. Her father put paid to those thoughts quick enough, and here she was, repeating those same crushing words. "Neither do Dragons, and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is a fool... or insane."
The absolutely heartbroken look on Ruby's face twisted at Weiss' heart, like as if someone had killed her puppy or something. She sniffled, and said, "Well, I guess I'm a fool then. Or insane." She stood quickly and dusted off her knees before saying in a subdued tone "Goodnight Weiss." before quickly climbing into bed.
Weiss sat there, shocked and confused by her bubbly team leader's abnormally cool dismissal and subsequent leaving, and tried to puzzle out exactly what it was that she'd said to make her react like that for a good half an hour. She only stopped when a breeze ran across her face, blowing some of her hair into her face. She gave an annoyed huff at the breeze for interrupting her musings and glanced at the window, finding it open. Strange, she thought she'd closed it earlier. She left her bed as quietly as possible and went to close the window when a piece of paper smacked into her face. She tore it off and was about to throw it away, dismissing it from her life as quickly as it had appeared, but then it caught the soft moonlight in just the right way to catch her attention and make her pause.
Perhaps it was simply that the room was near silent at that moment, or the way the moonlight shone on the paper, but the picture on the paper instantly struck terror into her heart.
And what was worse is that it wasn't simply some poorly done drawing of some fantasy creature by her leader, it was an aged photograph, a little yellowed but still clearly legible as the nightmare it showed. A young man, though devoid of grey hair he was clearly recognizable as their teacher, Peter Port, partly because of the rather distinctive Blunderbus/Battleaxe combo weapon he held in one hand like a baseball bat. He stood resolute, almost like he likely imagined himself in his impossibly boring anecdotes that he shares in class, facing down a monster that she had dismissed as mere fantasy after her father had broken what few illusions and childish notions involving the Four Horsemen she'd had. True, it was just a small picture, used in a news article for what appeared to be a small town years ago, but the lifelike way this Grimm was portrayed left no doubt as to its veracity.
The paper trembled in her suddenly slack grip, fear gripping her before she could get ahold of herself.
And then the breeze kicked up again and the page, still in Weiss' hand, was wrenched from her hold and fluttered out the window. The snow-haired heiress' eyes widened and she made a mad grab for it, wanting - no, needing - to know more, to verify, even if the truth would terrify her, but by the time she reached the window that the page had left, it was already out of her reach, floating away with the wind. She watched it, resigned as her chance to find out flew away on the wind.
After the piece of paper left her view, she reluctantly went back to bed, resolved to ask her teacher about that picture, and then fell asleep. Not easily or quickly, but she did.
Of course, if she had stayed up just a little longer, she would've heard a muffled curse from right above their window before seeing someone carefully sneak in, leave behind the piece of paper that had flown off, and then leave, closing the window behind them.