"I don't know how you do this, Ruby." Nora said, plugging her nose. "This place reeks something foul."

"This wall is right next to the uppermost sewers." Ruby said, leading them down a shorter route than what had been planned. "You're smelling partly that, and partly sulfuric acid."

"And, why, might I ask, would we be smelling that?" Pyrrha asked, never having gone down below Atlas before.

"This is all lava rock. There's a bunch of underground volcanoes here. It's one of the reasons it has so many dust mines in the first place." Ruby said, used to the smell by now. It didn't even phase her. "About two hundred feet below us, there's actually a lava pool. I think the SDC taps into it…something about melting down unused crystals and dust."

"You don't sound very sure of that." Coco replied, wishing Ruby was more competent when it came to general science.

"I'm a huntress." Ruby shrugged, not letting Coco's quip bother her. "Knowing that kind of stuff is something Weiss worries about. Not me. I just slay Grimm and visit the towns." She punctuated that statement by killing another small bug Grimm that had passed by. It was harmless alone, but they had a nasty habit of chewing on metals like copper piping.

"So what do you expect to find down here?" This came from Ren, who saw no signs of large Grimm at all.

"Probably nothing." Ruby said as she examined all of the small crevices as she passed them by. "The kind of Grimm that make homes down here, aren't the kind to play nice with people. Grimm don't really populate these kinds of places unless somethings wrong."

"Doesn't explain the rotting Ursa back that way." Nora cringed, recalling the slowly fading corpse. "Something had to have hurt it."

"Nothing down here did something like that, Nora." Ruby murmured, her voice uneasy. "It's one that straggled in from the north, only question is, was it a hunter who maimed it…or…"

"A bigger Grimm…" Ren supplied.

"Best be on our toes." Pyrrha sighed, wishing she had the same kind of night vision a Faunus had.

"If Grimm rarely come down here, why are there so many bones?" Fox asked, kicking another dead rat aside before someone tripped on it.

"I don't really think about it." Ruby told him, sending a glance over her shoulder. "Sometimes, it's better if you don't. A lot of ways your mind can go wrong. If think about that kind of thing, you're a goner."

"Ruby…" Pyrrha murmured, not liking that dark undercurrent in the youngest woman's tone. There was something so final about it.

"You guys need to remember, I spend most of my life in these places now. The solitude gets to you if you let it. We've all heard the rumors of how Grimm are made in the first place." Ruby didn't believe them, but there were no small handfuls of horror stories that could keep a person up at night. She laughed then, seeing the disturbed looks on her friend's faces in the lamplight. "Wow, come on guys. What are you, academy first years? You really need to lighten up."

"That's hard to do, given the situation." Fox attested.

"It's because of the situation, we need to have a little fun. Relax a bit." Ruby said, giving him an amused look. "There's nothing down here, just bug Grimm and an occasional arachnid to step on."

"I hate spiders…" Pyrrha sighed with resignation. "Especially spider Grimm, or anything else with eight legs."

"Don't like the squish of the carapace, Pyrrha?" Coco chuckled when the redhead muttered something nearly profane under her breath.

"Aw, don't feel bad, Coco. She just hates anything that makes a crunching sound when she kills it." Nora laughed. "Sends skitters right up her spine." Pyrrha shrieked as Nora's fingers mimicked that of a bug, sending a few of the team into giggles. Pyrrha sent Nora into a wall by accident. "Ow." Nora coughed, soot and ash tumbling out of her mouth.

"Ew, ew!" Pyrrha scratched her back to get rid of the feeling, sending her comrade a murderous look. "You know I hate those little vermin."

"Seem to love you, though." Ren sighed, Picking Nora up off the floor. "Come on, Nora…don't try to scare her, she's jumpy enough as it is."

"Forgive me for disliking dark, wet places." Pyrrha sighed. "They've never served me well."

"Either way, can you try not to dismantle the passages around here?" Ruby asked as they got going again. "I really want to be able to backtrack if we have to...there's a long walk ahead."

The sound of swords clashing rang out in the personalized Schnee arena. "Good, again."

The blond haired girls nodded, standing across from Weiss, swords at the ready as they prepared another set of strikes. Together they worked trying to push Weiss back, but it was to no avail as the skilled fencer stood her ground against the girls in training. Another clash of metal rang out, the screeching of regular fencing swords bending and skidding against each other.

Then, the match stopped, the girls collapsing after hours of the hard regime.

"They're not half bad, Jaune." Weiss said, removing her mask from her face. With care, she released her hair from the tight ponytail she'd placed it in. "As a rule, they could both use work when it comes to footing. That said, they're ready for beginner bracket competitions."

"So soon?"

"Starting early is the key. There aren't many competitors in the three to five age bracket. They'd probably rank top thirty on an international level. That's less impressive than it sounds numerically. Hardly something to sneeze at over all, though." It wasn't terrible by a long shot, but, they could do better, and Weiss knew it. She turned to the girls. "Good job ladies, three more matches against yourselves, then you can stop."

"Yes ma'am." They agreed, quickly getting into stance as Weiss exited the arena.

She took a cool, moistened towel from the rack, her voice lowering so as not to be heard by the younger ears in the room. "I'm surprised Pyrrha let them take up fencing."

"It was the bribe she made to keep them out of the apprentice program." Jaune sighed a bit. "They really wanted to fast track to being huntresses. She figures if she can at least keep them out of the academies until Sanctum, she has a fighting chance of diverting their attention to other things."

"So, she's got them training for the battle of aristocracy instead." Weiss smiled at the absurdity of it all. "Well, if anything, fencing is a highly prized Olympiad sport Remnant wide. Not as cut throat as arena fighting, either. They've got a chance on the professional stage if they stick to it."

"Pretty big if."

"Jaune, forgive me for prying, but if I may play devil's advocate? Assuming they do reach academy age and they want to attend, what's Pyrrha going to say about it?"

"Pyrrha promised she'd cave. If that was what they decided they wanted to do. She would let them try to make Sanctum." Jaune said slowly, still not sure how he felt about it himself. As a father, he worried. "They're pretty sure, and she's dreading it."

Weiss nodded. "You know, Jaune, you don't have to send them away to school. It's what our parents did for us, but we're all formally trained. The schools are rudimentary, but out in the field, it's the people you know that matters most. We could train them ourselves. there's enough of us, yourself included."

Jaune smirked. "I know what you're trying to say, but, Ruby was a prodigy. It's different for them."

"Qrow took the time." Weiss said more confidently. "The way Ruby tells it, she was failing her way through Signal. Then, Qrow tutored her personally. Learn from your own example, Jaune. If they want to be huntresses, you'll be hard pressed to stop them." She watched the girls at practice, her keen eye observing every flaw and mistake. "Knocking them around might not be such a bad idea. Give them a taste of the kind of combat they'd have to be suited to."

"Pyrrha doesn't want me to encourage it." Jaune said. "She doesn't want them fighting Grimm, and…" He looked away. "The more dangerous it gets, the more I'm inclined to agree."

"Then you need to step it up. Pull off the kid gloves, activate their semblances. Knock those girls flat on their behinds." Weiss said proactively. "Drill them till they fall, then drill them harder. They should be collapsing into their beds every night sore and tired. Knowing they'll be facing the same thing the next day."

"That sounds…kind of harsh…they're only three."

"Almost four."

"They're still so young."

"Fighting Grimm is harsh, Jaune. It's not a job, it's a lifestyle." Weiss told him. "You're looking at this the wrong way. They're almost four. That means you have eight years left to give them a running start. It sounds like a long time, but it's really not. If they really do make Sanctum, at thirteen, they'll be out of the house."

"We live close by."

"Granting you that, then, let's continue." Weiss allotted. "If they're anything like Ruby, at fifteen, they'll be young teenagers living in an adult's world. I don't know if you realize this or not, but Ruby sent the precedent. Beacon's been taking students as young as fifteen for years now. If they can make the cut, they get in. It's a regular thing now."

"Oh, man, damn it..." The blonde sighed. "When you put it that way...it's hard to argue. I just don't want them growing up too fast."

"As huntresses, they're going to. The best thing you can do is meet those dreams head on. Give it to them raw. If it doesn't dissuade them, then at least you'll know they'll be entering Sanctum prepared. If it does manage to change their minds, then you know they weren't fit to be huntresses in the first place."

Jaune took an unsteady breath. "I don't know about that. I've been meaning to ask you though, do you miss being out there...in the field?"

Weiss nodded. "I do. Every single day."

"Yeah." He sighed softly. "Me too."

Weiss turned her attention back to Jaune's daughters. "Their teacher seems the type to coddle them. Plenty of untapped potential squandered behind kid gloves." Weiss said, feeling as though it was a shame. They were skilled, and she didn't dole out that praise lightly. "If you want me to, I'll shatter their fundamental understanding of fencing from the ground up."

"Is that really such a good idea?"

"As Olympian fencers, or as huntresses?" Weiss asked him with a shrug. "The skillset could be applied to both. I'll have them mastering the basics in no time. Drill that in, and if they really want, I'll help them mold that talent into something worthwhile. When I'm through, that little swordplay of theirs won't be play anymore. All you need to do, is say the word."

"I'll think about it." Jaune said uneasily. "It might not be such a bad idea."

The amount of laundry children generated seemed insurmountable. Multiply that by Velvet's brood, and the entire laundry room was wall to ceiling in clothes. Blake had shooed the maids away, telling them not to worry about the influx of work that unwittingly dumped itself all over the household. They had enough cleaning to do, without worrying about all of the added destruction caused by the laundry hamper.

Blake and Velvet didn't mind the task anyway. It had long since become a form of bonding for them. It helped of course, that Blake was allowed to scent mark the children's clothes, coining them as kin. Further establishing her bond with them as an extended, but welcome relative.

They'd taken several baskets to the main room so that they could watch the children play while they worked. Sorting and folding the clothes just as they used to do in Beacon, on slow Saturday afternoons. Blake tossed another wayward sock in with the growing pile of misfits.

"That man..." It seemed never-ending as Velvet shook her head at the sight in front of her. "I just don't know what to think of him. He better not be feeding her any anti-semantic garbage."

Blake looked up, seeing Coco's eldest, Jade. She was playing a game of backgammon with Wilson. For all that Blake thought him to be an asshole, which she did, he was actually quite involved with young people. "Even if he is corrupting her, you'll never know."

"Well I don't like it." Velvet sighed. "I don't understand why Weiss lets him have run of the main house. Coco's parents moved out when Fox and I moved in…and they actually approve of our relationship, more or less. It confuses them, but I've never felt uncomfortable leaving my children with them unsupervised."

"Weiss has her reasons. Simply, work that needs to get done." Blake explained as Bruno found his way into her lap. Folding clothes becoming that much harder as a result. "I don't like him either, Velvet. I don't agree with most of the things that comes out of his mouth, but it's good for Weiss I think."

"How so?"

"He spends long stretches of time in the main house. It proves that he at least tolerates my existence. That's better than I'd ever thought possible before the wedding."

"And, how does he feel in regards to the litter?"

"If they were human, he would be elated." Blake said, having gotten that impression. "However, I'm not sure that he's entirely unhappy. He might come across that way, but, then he does these little things that surprise me."

"Wishful thinking, Blake. Don't do it, it'll only hurt more later."

"No, truly. We shared words, the nature of which I can't really get into." The cat Faunus paused, looking across the room. "He's not thrilled, but, outside of not wanting them to overtake the company, he hasn't denounced them. A Schnee, is a Schnee, tainted blood or not…or, so he says."

"Doesn't mean he'll treat them as a grandfather should." Velvet warned slowly.

"Well, he'll never treat them as humans. That wouldn't be very realistic, but, I don't exactly think that's a bad thing." Blake had been weighing her thoughts on the matter for years. She had only recently come to a conclusion. "As you can see, he's not entirely unkind to children. He's brash, but there are cracks in his cold exterior."

"I think you're being too hopeful, Blake." Velvet eyed her friend in pity. "I sincerely hope you're right, but, I just can't see him welcoming your litter with open arms."

"I don't either, at first. I think he may warm up to them…in time. There seems to be less of a true hatred on his part, more of a superiority complex." She couldn't really be sure, but it was her best guess. "I'm starting to think that bias stems from an evolutionary byproduct."

"Are you excusing his bigotry?"

"There's more to it, I'm saying." Blake said after a moment. "We're inhuman, he's right about that. It doesn't make me happy, but, it's simple in it's complexity. In his eyes humans are humans. Faunus are faunus. You could go so far as to say apples are apples, and oranges are oranges. I think that's the simple start and the end of his views on the matter. It's that cut and dry to him."

"That's not exactly a comfort, Blake. Not when my human daughter sits at his table."

"The fact we make that distinction at all, denotes the necessity of his mindset." Blake shrugged. "Not that I agree with it. It's just, eventually, she is going to be exposed to such thinking anyway. Better it come from a man like Wilson, who at least lives among Faunus. Rather than an abusive man like Cardin, who wishes us dead."

"I'd rather she wasn't exposed at all."

"But, she is going to be. You can't deny her a voice in the matter. She's going to form a stance on the topic eventually. At that point, Wilson's the much lesser of the evils."

Velvet, much as she wanted to, couldn't deny that. "Well, I still don't like it."

"Me either, but, let's just say, I'm starting to see a lot more of Weiss in him than I ever thought I would. She was rather bigoted too, when I first met her. Though you'd never know it now. If anything continues to instill hope that he'll learn to love the litter, it's that."