Dinner had left Coco feeling radiant and warm. Despite the occasional awkward pause or uncomfortable turn in the conversation, Velvet grew more animated as the meal went on. By the time they left the dining hall, she looked more relaxed than Coco had ever seen her. Elated by her success, Coco wanted nothing more than to celebrate by cracking open the bottle she hid in the room for special occasions and splitting it with her partner; Yatsuhashi too if he was around.

But instead they parted ways outside the dormitory, and Coco made her way to the machine shop in the Beacon armory.

Now the real fun starts, Coco thought.

The machine shop was a massive room filled with rows of workbenches, several forges, lathes, and other large machines. A pegboard filled with every hand tool imaginable ran along the longest wall, a cage at one end containing more dangerous tools like welding torches and plasma cutters. Coco walked towards a cluster near the center of the opposite wall where the shop's only occupant stood honing one of his blades on a large grinding wheel.

Coco watched for a moment, wincing at the sound the wheel made when it came into contact with the blade. Fox's usual surly scowl was gone. Instead, his face was placid as he slid the blade across the wheel with a light touch. He looked more like a violinist blissing out in some cozy little practice room than a huntsman maintaining a deadly weapon. He turned to set the blade down on a workbench, then noticed Coco. The scowl returned. He shut off the wheel, then yanked his ear protectors down around his neck.

"What?"

Coco held her breath for a moment, biting back her kneejerk reply to his curt greeting. "I came to apologize."

"And here I was expecting Part Two of 'Coco is Never Wrong'."

"I've been mean," she said, fighting to resist Fox's baiting, "self-centered, callous, and arrogant. It's held me back from improving myself, and it's holding back the rest of CFVY as well. I want to stop screwing everyone over and make us functional. I need to make amends to do that."

"I'll believe that when I see it," Fox said, turning back towards the wheel.

"Hey, I don't expect us to hold hands and skip around campus, but can't we at least be civil enough to work together?"

"I can't work with someone who refuses to acknowledge her weaknesses."

"Then tell me what they are."

Fox paused. He leaned back against a workbench and folded his arms, giving Coco a quizzical look.

Coco sighed, her cheeks flushed. "Yatsuhashi said I rely too much on my aura and instincts to get me through fights. I didn't want to admit it, but looking back it makes sense. I was tougher than all my opponents at Sanctum by a huge margin and the differences in skill level were so close that, with one notable exception, I could just muscle my way through all my opponents. That doesn't work anymore so I need to adapt. Help me adapt, please." Coco suppressed a shudder. Every word tasted like bile coming out, but Coco had managed to say them.

"Wow," Fox said. "Yatsuhashi finally cracked. No wonder you had an epiphany. But since you asked, it's not just using your aura as a crutch and poor form: You're also not built to be a speedy fighter like me or Velvet, but you keep trying to fight that way. You are tough, and you can chug along for a lot longer than most people, but you just don't have a sprinter's physique. That sword of yours is best suited to a style of combat you will never master. It's holding you back, ingraining bad habits into your fighting style."

Coco frowned. Her bladework had always been acceptable, but her footwork had plateaued for at least a year despite her increased drilling.

"I could work on my agility."

"You could, and you should, but you're forgetting we'll be fighting more grimm than humans. Your style makes you look impressive against large slow grimm in small numbers. But if you had to fight large numbers or something fast—like a full pack of beowolves or a king taijitu—you'd be finished. Let's also not forget that dust knife is the closest thing you have to a ranged option. That makes you almost useless against anything airborne."

Coco narrowed her eyes at Fox. "You have no ranged options."

Fox shrugged. "That's a smaller liability when you're mobile as I am."

Coco wrestled the urge to criticize Fox's stamina. She took a deep breath, then asked; "So what do you suggest?"

"Well you can take a hit, I'll give you that. You block well, even if you're a little slow. You absorb blows that get past your guard correctly, and that's before you take your aura into account. Your speed means you won't be an effective vanguard, but you could flank or guard the back of formations. If you picked up a ranged weapon you'd make yourself much more versatile." He shrugged again, palms turned up. "But what do I know? My family's only been some of Mistral's top weapon-smiths for six generations."

Coco took a moment to process everything Fox had said. "Thank you. I'll have to think about what I'm going to use to replace Récolte Rouge." Coco looked wistfully down at the Adel family sabre.

"Always glad to be of service," Fox said, his voice thick with sarcasm. "Now beat it so I can finish working."

Coco glared at Fox as he turned back to the wheel, finally losing patience. She strode over to the wheel and yanked the cord out of the wall before he could turn it back on.

"Hey!" he said.

"After all that, you're still going to be a prick?" Coco asked.

"I got to see you humble yourself. I've had my fill of playing along for now."

Coco seized Fox by the collar and slammed him into a nearby wall, locking eyes with him. "Good, because I'm not playing around."

Fox scowled at Coco. "Adel, if you don't let go…"

"Listen, even though your 'help' was yet another way to be an asshole, everything you said was right. But you're not the only person who can't work with someone who refuses to acknowledge his weaknesses."

Fox brought his head down, smashing his forehead into Coco's. She saw stars and her grip loosened for a moment. Then she shook her head and head-butted Fox back twice as hard, catching him on the jaw. Fox fell to the floor, clutching his face. Coco stepped to loom over him.

"I'll make this simple. You don't like me, and I sure as hell don't like you, but we're in this together for the next four years, so we might as well try to get along. To frame things in terms I think you'll like, you have a choice: you can spend all your time tinkering with your weapons and practicing technique to compensate for having lungs like a sick child's, and maybe you'll beat me a couple years down the road."

Fox clenched his fists and readied himself to spring back up. Coco pushed him back down with her foot.

"Or," she continued. "You can start running and conditioning your body to patch your weaknesses, and beat your sloppy blowhard team leader a lot sooner." She grabbed Fox and yanked him to his feet.

"I'll let you think about it," she said, before leaving the workshop.