The past two weeks had been busy for the heiress, although they had also been a welcome change back to a life of daily routine, no surprises and yet a few changes. The first thing Weiss had done: Requesting two sets of actual bunk beds. The questions of 'why' were answered with reason, to which the rest of team RWBY could only agree. As for Ruby's privacy creating tent construction: It could still be attached to the ceiling, the need for it to hold the weight of bed, Ruby and studying materials had just been eliminated. Why nobody had thought about this sooner, however, remained a mystery to all four girls sharing the now much safer dorm room. After she had gotten her studies back into a comfortable order, Weiss had spent much time pondering on the dream she had had, and even enlisted Ms. Grey as a helping hand in dream interpretation, for she had more or less caused that certain event, to begin with. In merely two sessions the seasoned Huntress had learned about the events occurring in the dream, and deciphered a couple of things. Others did not make much – if any – sense to neither Ms. Grey nor Weiss.
The past three days, however, the dream and its meaning had been cast aside for a very real matter at hand: A field trip to Forever Fall. Of course it was going to be used to enhance the training of Weiss and her fellow students as well as to do some good for the community by ridding the area of Grimm, while they were at it. Training exercises would cover movement and reconnaissance under field conditions, as well as navigation and transport of wounded – in which the heiress happened to have some actual experience. The teams RWBY, JNPR and CRDL were going to be trained and tested at that day, while team CFVY of the third year would act as assistants to Prof. Goodwitch and Ms. Grey, who were going to teach and monitor the teams' performances.
"Hey, Arc, trying to get a nice look before you die?" Cardin asked the leader of team JNPR, whose motion sickness forced him to bend over, so that the contents of his stomach would stay there. But he had the right angle to look under his partner's skirt, who simply glared at the brute disapprovingly. Weiss had never realized until then that a Bullhead was capable of carrying up to twelve Huntsmen and Huntresses in full gear, considering the rather small size of the aerial vehicle. Team CFVY and the Huntresses were in a different aircraft, probably going over the training plan while on the way.
"J-jus- Ooorgh…" Jaune tried to reply, but his intestines had different plans for him obviously. Ren simply patted his team leader's back, as the pilot spoke up.
"Approaching the landing zone, touchdown in about two minutes," he proclaimed to teams RWBY, JNPR and CRDL. Jaune appeared to be relieved, and Weiss could almost understand how he felt, while being grateful for not having to deal with such a severe case of motion sickness. The heiress, just like everyone else inside the Bullhead, checked their gear one last time, and got themselves ready in very different ways, as she could observe.
Pyrrha and Ren did not show anything but pure focus on the upcoming task, while Nora proclaimed the following hours to be 'totally awesome'. She was barely able to sit still, while doing so. Team CRDL spurred each other's ambition by performing some sort of good luck ritual – they basically tapped each other's heads and shoulders rather forcefully. Meanwhile, Yang seemed to be looking forward to the field training, which she additionally said out loud, as if no one would have noticed by simply looking at her. Blake on the other hand appeared to be worried – about her partner's well being, the heiress silently assumed – while she readied her weapons quietly. That was, what Weiss herself was worried about, as she looked at Ruby, who eagerly awaited the opportunity to prove herself to the rest of the world, like she always did.
The pilot eventually landed the Bullhead in an utmost professional manner, well trained and experienced, as he was. As the three teams left the vehicle, Weiss took in her surroundings. Forever Fall was a usually quiet area of the kingdom of Vale, and its red colored flora gave it an almost romantic atmosphere, were it not for the ruins scattered across the landscape – reminders of ancient kingdoms which tried and failed to stand against the darkness the creatures of Grimm brought. The heiress had never been here before, as seemingly many other of her fellow students had. While everyone stood in awe of the beauty Forever Fall presented; Blake looked at it hesitantly. Of course Yang noticed that quickly, took her girlfriend to the side a bit, and talked to her. Weiss deemed it a good idea to leave the couple alone for the time being.
"What's going on over there?" Ren asked.
"I don't know," Weiss answered, "but I think it's something private."
"You're most likely right, Weiss," he replied, and left it at that.
"But just in case I'm not…" she murmured to herself, and watched the couple from the distance. She was wondering what was going on with Blake since the announcement of the field trip – the area especially – because she had been somewhat withdrawn. Yang was the only one being able to get close to her, talk to her about what was going on. And the blonde most likely had to promise not to tell anyone anything.
"Students assemble!" Ms. Grey suddenly shouted across the clearing loud enough to startle not only Weiss, but Blake and Yang as well. The voice of a commander… Weiss remarked to herself, while imagining the Huntress yelling on an actual battlefield, with all its noises and chaos.
When the teams were assembled, Prof. Goodwitch started to explain a set of tasks to teams JNPR and CRDL, while Ms. Grey did so with team RWBY.
"How good are you in finding artifacts?" she asked.
"Well, we found some during our initiation, so… As good as the others over yonder?" Yang answered, and grinned sheepishly afterwards.
"…Gods help me… Working with professionals, at least once…" Ms. Grey murmured to herself, before looking at the brawler again. Despite her somewhat harshly disapproving comment, the Huntress smirked in amusement.
"So we're looking for an artifact? Any artifact? A certain artifact? What's it look like? Where do-"
"Ruby!" Weiss intervened. The barrage of questions was annoying the heiress, although the questions themselves were reasonable.
Ms. Grey started her answer with a drawn out sigh: "Yes. No. A set of two artifacts. Sword and shield. In a castle ruin about two and a half kilometers that way." She pointed to the east after that. "Any further questions?"
Weiss expected another barrage of questions from her team leader, but the little rose stayed silent. Instead Blake asked: "What does that ruin look like? Are there any distinctive features?"
"Doctor Oobleck did inform me that castle has a white tree growing in the middle of the main courtyard. I think that is its most distinctive feature, Blake," Ms. Grey answered, "Anything else?"
A quick glance to each other and a collective headshake later, team RWBY went on to fulfill the mission their navigational skills would be tested in. They knew what they were looking for, and the direction they had to go.
Blake went on ahead, scouting the area and looking for paths team RWBY could take through the woodwork. While all kept their eyes open for Grimm, Weiss still thought about what was going on inside Blake's head. Eventually, when the team sat on a fallen tree for a brief pause, while their Faunus friend was scouting the surroundings, curiosity got the better of Weiss.
"Yang, what's up with Blake?" she asked.
"Uhm, nothing bad, I can promise you that," the blonde answered a little bit worried herself, though, "it's just the memories which surfaced again. You know… Her parents, the village, and the other stuff."
Of course! Why didn't I think of that? Weiss scolded herself silently on the way. The sight of Forever Fall had reminded Blake of that most likely traumatizing experience back then. Ms. Grey was probably not happy about this, either, but those were the things one would have to deal with – returning to places which remind you of bad things that happened to one. As one of Blake's closest friends, Weiss should have noticed that much sooner.
"Hey, what are you getting so angry about?" Yang asked the heiress. Although Weiss did not say a word, her facial expression was clear enough, she presumed.
"Well," the heiress sighed, "I should've noticed that sooner myself, I think. That's all."
"Aw, come on," Yang replied, "You couldn't have helped her anyway, so she doesn't mind. Besides, you did not pour any salt into that wound accidently, so it's no deal at all."
"What's no deal?" Blake suddenly asked. The Faunus startled Yang and Weiss, while Ruby snickered to herself.
"Should've kept your eyes on the surroundings… Lesser grades for you, hihihi," the little rose dared mock them both. While Yang fumed at Ruby in a playful manner, the heiress took it upon herself to inform her friend that she was worried about her, and had asked Yang about what was going on.
"I see… Thanks for telling them," Blake addressed Yang, who did not even stop mock-fighting with Ruby – her reaction was a measly thumbs up, while the Faunus turned her attention back to the heiress. "It just surfaced, I can manage. Don't worry about me."
"Are you sure about that?" Weiss asked in return. Although Blake's words were confident, her body language was not so much, to say the least: Hanging shoulders and head, obviously sad facial expression, and her avoiding of eye contact told a much different story.
"Yeah," was Blake's immediate response, and Weiss deemed it a wise decision to leave it at that. As far as the heiress knew, her Faunus friend would say something in case it changed. Until then all four of them had to focus on their surroundings, as well as the mission they had been given.
"So, enough screwing around, you two," Blake said while separating the sisters, "I found a safe way to the castle ruins. Just around that rock over there, across a plain and past a group of trees. Shall we?" she then asked, and pecked a short kiss on her girlfriend's neck to finally break the sisters off of each other. After everybody agreed, they went on in said direction. While Blake was taking point again, the rest of the team spread out when they approached the open plain.
"Something's not right," the Faunus said, after they crossed the plain without any incident.
"What do you mean?" Ruby asked in return.
"No wildlife, no Grimm… I don't know, I just have a bad feeling," Blake replied to the team leader. And she was not the only one.
"I… Think we're being watched…" Weiss said, and started to look around very closely and carefully. The others formed up on her, readied their weapons, and secured their surroundings thoroughly. Eventually, Ruby decided to move on, through the group of trees Blake had mentioned. That time, they stayed close to each other, while they passed the trees.
"Yuk!" Ruby suddenly exclaimed.
"What is it?" both Yang and Weiss asked in unified worry for the little rose.
"Spider webs…" she answered.
"WHAA!" Blake screamed in fear and surprise. Weiss looked at her friend, who was being dragged away from the team. Naturally, Yang charged straight after her, as did Weiss and Ruby. The blonde called out for her girlfriend, desperately trying to reach her, while that unknown force pulled her away rather violently. The heiress could not even see what had dragged Blake, until she and her team had cleared the group of trees.
There, she found herself in close proximity to a Grimm she only knew from the books so far: An Arach. It was no stretch that an Arach, capable of creating spider silk, would resemble a spider quite literally, similar to the scorpion shape of a Death Stalker. The eight legs of this monstrosity were about double the length of Yang's height, and lifted its head, center, and abdomen, which was large enough to fit two of the young Huntresses inside it at once, a bit more than Yang's height above the ground. The black body was covered almost entirely in a bone like carapace, again similar to a Death Stalker, including the mandibles. And there was Blake, right in front of them, ready to be devoured, because the Arach had tied her Hands together with its spider silk, so she was pretty much defenseless. In a moment of heroic stupor, the heiress charged forward, using a white propulsion glyph to do so, cut the Faunus loose quickly, and propelled both of them back to where she came from, again via the use of another propulsion glyph. Eight glowing red eyes pierced down on the heiress, as the creature lunged at team RWBY without any warning, let alone a sound.
Weiss and the others had to dodge out of the way. Despite being a large Grimm, that thing was fast. It quickly turned around and lunged at Weiss. It was obvious the creature deemed her the easiest prey – or just had decided to kill her first, because she stole its previous prey. Yang shot a volley of fire Dust infused shells at the Arach's flank, as did Blake, who had joined her girlfriend's side. The response was immediate, for the Grimm jumped right at them, turning mid air. The projectiles barely hit the creature. Blake dodged again without much of an effort, but Yang was in trouble. Although she dodged successfully, Weiss could see the Arach had utilized its spider silk to literally glue Yang to one of the nearby trees – her right arm in that regard.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!" the brawler yelled, and tried to burn herself free. The silk, however, turned out to be a bit more resistant to fire than she had anticipated. The heiress tried to freeze the Grimm in place via ice glyphs, just as she had done with the Death Stalker during initiation, but this Grimm was by far more agile than the one back then. It kept the legs in motion almost all the time, which made it nigh impossible to hit the feet. Its bone carapace, though, proved to be able to withstand her attempts of impaling the creature with ice crystals from below, but at least provided a distraction long enough for Ruby to cut Yang loose, and get her out of harm's way. And the Arach was either not very persistent, or it changed its approach to the encounter rather rapidly, for it then attacked Weiss again, instead of chasing Yang and Ruby. The heiress tried her best to avoid getting close to the mandibles, but when the Grimm had outmaneuvered her, Ruby rushed back in to her aid. A powerful strike with Crescent Rose and the resulting hit of it forced the creature back just enough for the heiress to escape the monster.
And then the Arach switched targets again, and drove Blake into one of the trees covered in its spider webs. The Faunus had tried to find a weak spot on the abdomen of the spider body, but the only thing she found was one of the hind legs, kicking her right into her solar plexus. She got thrown away a short distance, hit the tree, and then landed on her back, stunned by the accurately placed kick. Yang, naturally, charged the monster in order to buy her girlfriend some time to get back up, while Ruby raced around the beast, looking for an opportunity to strike.
In the meantime the monster engaged Yang again, but she botched her evasive roll, landing flat on her chest. Using that opportunity mercilessly, the Grimm tried to slash its fangs into Yang's back. Luckily, it just broke the brawler's right forearm – she rolled out of harm's way, but could not get the arm away in time – which caused her to scream in pain. Blake then desperately tried to get the Arach away from her girlfriend by shooting at its eyes with Gambol. Weiss fired a volley of ice darts at the Grimm, and together she and Blake managed to prevent it from doing any more harm to the blonde, at least. Yang rolled further away from the beast, but stayed down, squirming in pain. Blake naturally tried to stay between her and the monster, but the Grimm proved to be very persistent in trying to finish the beaten Huntress in training. However, it stayed still, more or less, during the encounter with the brave Faunus girl. How the Grimm overcame Yang's rather potent Aura protection was beyond Weiss in that moment, but saving her friend was more important anyway.
Then an explosion, seemingly out of nowhere. The little rose had finally found the opportunity she had been looking for, and had shot one of her explosive rounds between the second and third leg on the Grimm's right side. Although Ruby hit her target, it did not stop the Grimm from attacking Blake, who became more and more desperate over Yang's screams of pain. The Arach had no time to outmaneuver Weiss, and the heiress could see the damage Ruby had inflicted: The carapace at the right flank had a crack, created by the explosion. Without giving a second thought, Weiss thrust her rapier towards this opening, using a white propulsion glyph to change direction and charge straight into that gap in the Grimm's defense. It was probably the only chance they would have to actually hurt that thing. Infusing her blade with fire Dust, Weiss struck true, and the beast shrieked in pain and agony.
But her strike was not even close to the fatal blow, for the creature of Grimm retreated rather quickly, and took Weiss with it; she was stuck between the legs, the left sleeve of her combat attire caught up in parts of the carapace. Of course her team would follow swiftly to save her, but she managed to cut loose as the creature entered a nearby cave. However, the Arach smashed its abdomen into one of the side walls, and caused the cave entrance to collapse by doing so. Weiss rolled inside, because of the momentum she had, while Ruby barely caught up with her, before the cave entrance collapsed. Yang and Blake were nowhere to be seen, though.
Inside what appeared to be the Arach's lair, it made its final stand against the two young Huntresses in training. It was a blessing and a curse that the Grimm decided to limit its mobility with the cave walls, because the lack of daylight made it difficult for Weiss to see her enemy – THEIR enemy. All four of them were barely able to wound the Arach. With their numbers reduced to half, it would be much easier for the monster to kill either Ruby or Weiss. The right flank of the creature was its weak point, but that was all the advantage the heiress could think of, before the Grimm went on the offensive again.
Its behavior had changed drastically inside the lair. The Arach focused completely on Weiss, and the heiress could even imagine reasons for that. She hoped her partner would come up with one of her plans in time, while Weiss circled around the Arach. She tried to keep it occupied, keep Ruby out of sight. But as soon as the little rose made her move, the monster reacted, as if it anticipated Ruby trying to get to its right flank. Using its spider silk, the Grimm shot a sticky ball of the material at Ruby with enough force to throw the little rose back against the cave wall, thus fixating her on it. The heiress witnessed her friend getting incapacitated, as the Grimm continued tiring her. As it chased her around at the edges of its lair, the Arach kept her away from Ruby, as if the Grimm was following a certain strategy the heiress had yet to grasp. For the time being, she had to keep her distance from the mandibles, or this fight would be over.
If Weiss fell, her death would be full of pain and agony.
If Weiss fell, Ruby would have been the additional meal, or whatever that thing intended to do with her.
If Weiss fell, she would have failed to protect her partner. And a Schnee never fails!
The only weak spots for the heiress to attack were either the beast's eyes, or the inside of its mouth. Neither of those options were easy choices, so she went for the eight eyes of the Arach. Using her white platform glyphs to counter the height-advantage the Grimm had, Weiss managed to stab one of the Arach's eyes. Its agonizing screech felt as if it was supposed to deafen its prey, but while the monster was thrashing about blindly, Weiss had an opportunity to cut Ruby out of her silken prison. Although the heiress knew she was very capable, a Grimm of that size, fortitude and strength was too much for her alone to handle.
The first thing Weiss could cut loose was Crescent Rose, before Ruby shrieked in surprise and fear. The heiress had taken too long, and the Grimm had decided to end them both. Luckily she got the hint in time to create a barrier glyph, which blocked the Arach's assault rather efficiently. As it tumbled backwards, Weiss could see that the wound she had inflicted finally took its toll. The monster became slower, more sluggish, as it attacked the barrier glyph once more.
Weiss immediately took advantage of that. She pushed that barrier glyph to the Arach's front, and tried to turn it sideways, so that its right flank would point towards the heiress. After she surprisingly succeeded, she created a large black gravity glyph near the abdomen, and used it to fixate that body part to the ceiling of the cave. She then used Crescent Rose, still in her hands, dashed forward via another propulsion glyph, and smashed the scythe blade inside the Grimm's wide open wound from above, using the weapon's own weight to strengthen her attack. The weakened Arach tried, but failed, to break free from its shackles, before the weapon was burrowed inside the monster. When Weiss pulled the trigger, an explosive shot ripped the beast in half, while the recoil ripped the weapon back out of the Grimm, and tossed the light weight heiress backwards.
Weiss got ready to strike the downed monster again, before it finally started to evaporate, as the Creatures of Grimm usually did. And like the Creature of Grimm left the cave, the tension left Weiss' body slowly, whilst clinging to her desperately.
"That. Was. AWESOME!" Ruby cheered, while she was still stuck to the wall.
"Let us NOT do this again," Weiss huffed. She was still out of breath, as she approached Ruby to finally cut her loose completely. The little rose flung her arms around the heiress' neck afterwards, which made Weiss feel not as uncomfortable as it used to. Maybe that was the reason: She was getting used to these assaults on her personal space, and just let it happen that time. On the other hand those signs of affection had become somewhat regular as of late, and the heiress admittedly liked them, had they not been these kinds of assaults; most of them without warning.
"Oh gods, Yang!" Ruby suddenly shouted, and went for the cave entrance, only to find it completely obstructed by boulders. "Can you open this?" she then asked Weiss.
"I'm afraid, I could, but shouldn't…" the heiress replied, while looking at the collapsed cave entrance. It would take quite the effort and a lot of Dust to power any glyph potent enough to remove the rubble, and Weiss had neither the Dust left, nor the strength remaining to do so. "I would just exhaust myself completely, and probably fall unconscious," she then explained additionally.
"Damn it," Ruby muttered, "Blake's with her, though, and she's tough… She's okay, probably," she then tried to convince herself of – badly.
While Weiss was not so sure about that, she kept her opinion on the topic to herself. Ruby needed to focus on the predicament she and the heiress were in: Trapped inside a cave in an unknown territory, with no provisions or way to escape. Weiss was sure that worrying about her sister would distract the little rose too much.
"Weiss?" Ruby looked at the heiress expectantly.
"Yes, Ruby?" she replied.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm shaken up, but alright," Weiss answered, and touched her own arms, legs, torso and chest, just to prove her words to herself. They just had fought a major class Grimm, namely an Arach, and miraculously came out of the encounter almost unscathed; a few bruises here and there, but was about it.
"Now, how do we get out of here?" the heiress asked, looking at the blocked cave entrance again. There were a number of openings, but none of those were large enough to squeeze through, although some were large enough to let in at least some light, so that the two would not sit in complete darkness.
"We could clean up the mess manually?" Ruby said, and tried to move one of the rocks away – so hard, she actually slipped and fell flat on her back. Weiss could not help but chuckle a little bit at the somewhat funny occurrence.
"I doubt this is going to work, Ruby," the heiress stated, while she did not even try to hide her amusement.
"Do you have any ideas?" One should have expected the little rose to be annoyed by being laughed at, but she took the predicament she and Weiss were currently in very seriously. The heiress thought for a brief moment, and then pulled her Scroll out of its pouch.
"Let's see, if we can't reach anybody…" she said, and hesitated. "But who…?" she thought out loud. Weiss tried to contact Blake, Pyrrha and Velvet, but the rock around her appeared to block any signals from her Scroll to get through it, as well as the other way around, and the heiress became agitated because of it. "Damn it!" she eventually yelled, and almost threw the device on the ground. "I can't get a connection through!" the heiress added in an almost spitting fashion.
"Same here," Ruby added. She had tried the same thing with her own Scroll. After putting the Scrolls back into their respective pouches, Ruby started to wander around inside the cave. Luckily she had a rather strong flashlight with her, which she used to illuminate her surroundings while looking for something. It was not helping Weiss to calm down again, though.
"Ruby! Weiss! Are you in there?!" a voice from outside the rubble called. Weiss took a brief moment to realize where it came from: The upper parts of it, near one of the larger holes. And it was Blake's voice. Ruby appeared to have not heard it, though, so it fell to the heiress to answer.
"Yes, we're in here!" she yelled at the top of her lungs – just to make sure she would be heard outside. That got Ruby's attention, and she raced towards the exit.
"Yang?! Blake?!" she shouted. "Are you okay?!" Naturally the little rose worried about her sister above all else. Blake answered first, and said what Weiss already knew: Yang's right arm, as well as the right one of Ember Celica, was broken, but the brawler was unharmed otherwise. Blake sounded as if she had been crying a bit, though, and did not tell anything about herself, as the heiress noticed.
"We're fine so far, but stuck in here!" Ruby then shouted.
"Can you call anyone? We can't get anything out of this cave!" Weiss added, while looking at the concerned face of her partner. She wanted to get out of that cave as soon as possible, and actually hearing Yang outside groaning in pain only increased her already growing restlessness.
"O-okay!" Blake replied loudly enough, although one could tell by the tone of her voice that she was unsettled herself. The reasons for that were obvious for Weiss, and most likely for Ruby, too.
And then they waited. The heiress knew they had to be patient – not Ruby's strongest suit – before their friends would have found a way to free them. Eventually, Blake talked, or rather shouted to them again.
"Okay, I've spoken to Miss Grey." the Faunus sounded much more confident than before. The Huntress must have calmed her down, Weiss assumed. However, Blake was interrupted by a painful groan of Yang, before she could share any actual useful information.
"Yang!" Ruby shouted.
"It's alright, baby Sis'…" the blonde responded – finally a word from her. "Sorry." Yang was barely audible, though; most likely because of her injury. The relief on Ruby's face eased the heiress as well.
"So, this cave you're in is a tunnel, she said," Blake then started to explain, "and she knows where the other end is! You could go there, which would be faster than bringing in machinery to… Dig you out!"
Ruby nodded a couple of times, her worry seemingly replaced by her much larger sense of adventure, and the excitement about the upcoming one – the heiress knew her partner much more than she initially had wanted to, but it had its perks. Weiss did not like the idea of getting deeper inside that cave they were in, though.
"I'll have to take Yang back to camp. The cave is safe, she said, and she'll meet you on the other side," Blake added more silently, but the Faunus was close enough to an opening to be heard. As if she knows we will go in there… the heiress silently bickered. And knowing Ruby, the Huntress was most likely correct in her prediction, unless Weiss could somehow convince her partner to not do it. Reason, however, was out of the question, since Ruby already started looking for a way deeper into the cave.
"We're on our way now," Blake continued, "You're going through the cave?"
"Yeah," Weiss preemptively agreed to what Ruby was suggesting by looking for their way, and finding it in the meantime.
"Alright, I'll tell Miss Grey then. Take care." After saying that, Blake and Yang started to make their way back to camp, as the Faunus had called it, while Ruby and Weiss would venture into the unknown depths of an unknown cave.
"Right, the cave is safe… It was the lair of an Arach – a big one, I might add – a couple of minutes ago," Weiss muttered to herself. As far as she could hear, Blake had already started to bring Yang back to camp, as the Faunus had announced. In the meantime, Ruby inspected the entrance to the deeper parts of the cave, or rather tunnel, they were about to traverse. The little Rose would already have been gone were it not for the hesitant heiress.
"What did you say?" she asked, and returned to Weiss.
"Nothing important, let's just get going," she sighed, knowing that an argument with Ruby would be nothing but a waste of time, because they had no means to tell Ms. Grey that they changed their minds.
"Are you afraid?" Ruby asked in a surprisingly honest and serious tone of voice. Weiss looked at her partner, and shook her head.
"No, just concerned about what could be down there," she answered, and pointed at the entrance, which was large enough for the Arach to have passed through. "So, where did put my flashlight?" the heiress then mumbled to herself nervously. Although she did not lie to Ruby, the heiress was nervous. Her field of view would be very limited, her Dust supplies had been almost depleted during the encounter before, and her hands were still shaking because of the adrenaline rush she had had, or rather said rush currently subsiding. She quickly checked the state of the white Dust crystal, which powered the device, and accidently blinded Ruby, who was just doing the same thing with her own flashlight.
A short protest, an apology, and a playful chuckle later, Ruby and Weiss entered the deeper parts of the cave. They were up to a good start, for the first part of the cave was more or less a giant hall, which could easily house the whole atrium of Beacon – including the roof. Although there were a large number of stalagmites and stalactites, which Ruby just kept mixing up, they had plenty of 'open space' to move around in. The air was what one would expect of a place relatively far away from the surface: Moldy and musty, and Weiss had a difficult time to breathe at first. But the heiress eventually adapted to it. The flashlights turned out to be not the only sources of light inside the rocky cathedral, though, for there were many naturally formed Dust crystals dotting the walls, and even some of the stalagmites. Or were they stalactites?
"Gods damn it. Now I am confused," Weiss muttered to herself as she followed her partner very closely. She had been inside her personal space almost the entire time. Of course the heiress did not even try to hide herself, but the little rose did not mind her being that close anyway – or maybe she did not even care.
"Did you say something, Weiss?" Ruby asked, although the amused grin on her face revealed that she already knew the answer.
"Nothing important," the heiress answered in defeat, "Did you find an exit, yet? I haven't seen anything promising so far."
"No, but I think I hear something," Ruby replied, and listened. Her being that quiet was a very rare occurrence, but now that the little Rose had mentioned it, Weiss believed to hear something herself. It sounded like an underground river, but the acoustics inside this cave cathedral – Weiss believed geologists would call it that – made it difficult to make out clearly.
"It's coming from over there, I think," Ruby then said quietly, and pointed to their right. Since the river's flowing noises were the only lead they had, Weiss silently agreed to check that out. And a few moments later, the heiress and the little rose found themselves in front of a rather wild underground river, which had to be crossed in order to get any further, as far as Weiss knew.
"Oh well, that's just great," she complained. As the heiress looked around, there was no natural bridge anywhere to be seen, let alone a man made one. "Do we really have to get over there?"
"I don't have any better idea, Weiss," Ruby replied, and looked at her partner, "You can make a bridge with a few of your platform glyph thingies, right?"
"They actually are platform glyphs, Ruby," Weiss said a little bit annoyed. Of course she could create a way to pass that river with about three or four of her glyphs, but she had to be careful. The river was flowing very fast, and if someone was unlucky enough to be caught by the stream, that someone would definitely be swept away.
"Huh, can I?" Weiss asked rhetorically.
"So, can you-" Ruby asked again.
"Of course I can!" Déjà vu…
What had been said was done just mere seconds later. Weiss decided to take the safe approach to it and created four white platform glyphs, with a diameter of one and a half meter each. Those glyphs were placed in an overlapping fashion, so that they created a continuous path over the water. Of course Ruby crossed the river first, and beckoned the heiress over with a courtly bow, and stretched out her left hand in the process. Weiss just played along, took Ruby's hand into her own right, and performed a formal curtsy, just because she could.
"Shall we continue then?" Ruby asked.
"We shall," Weiss answered in her most polite tone of voice. Why is my face getting warm all of a sudden? She then asked herself silently. Although she had been very close to Ruby in a physical manner, she had not felt like that before crossing the river. Maybe it was the close proximity of Ruby's chest to Weiss' face that made the heiress a bit uncomfortable; or nervous at least. The fact that they were holding each other by the hands surely had nothing to do with it, although neither of them seemed to have any intention to let go any time soon. Even as they silently agreed to follow the river, they kept holding each other's hand, like there was nothing to it.
"Look," the little rose exclaimed after a short gasp. "Daylight!"
They had entered another large chamber of the cave, which had a bunch of red Dust crystals surfacing at the walls, and illuminating the area in an almost romantic red. Because Ruby had stopped so abruptly and turned to Weiss, who was walking a bit behind her friend, the heiress bumped face first into the little rose's chest.
"I-I-I'm sorry…" Weiss immediately stuttered, and felt herself losing her balance. Did I trip over something? Then why am I not falling? What's that on my back? Why is my head so hot all of a sudden?
The heiress took a few moments to realize that Ruby was holding her waist with the right arm, while her left hand still held the heiress' right one. In fact Weiss had not tripped, but slipped on a patch of moss under her right foot slightly. Her thoughts had been anywhere but the current situation again, and thus she put her partner in potential danger. Luckily, there was none, except for a slippery cave floor.
"Wh-what did you say again?" Weiss asked. Her face was still hot, which could mean only one thing: she was blushing. The reddish light of this part of the cave concealed it rather effectively, though.
"D-daylight…" Ruby stuttered in return. It appeared that both of them were equally embarrassed about the stance they were currently in, and Ruby finally let go of Weiss – after making sure her partner was standing firmly, of course.
"We found the exit?" Weiss asked just to make sure. She tried to focus on the situation, but thoughts of Ruby's warmth kept getting inside her head. The little rose just nodded, and pointed to said exit she had found. It was a short climb there, but nothing Weiss would have to use her glyphs on – and the exercise proved to be a good distraction from her feelings she was currently wrestling with.
Weiss took in a deep breath of fresh Forever Fall air, after they finally made it through the cave in one piece and without any noteworthy incidents – aside the one near the exit, the heiress decided not to speak of to anyone.
"So, where are these castle ruins?" Ruby asked, and dusted off her beloved cape while doing so.
"You actually want to finish the artifact retrieval mission?" Weiss asked in return, despite not being surprised about it in the first place.
"Yeah," the little rose said while shrugging, and then used her semblance to rush the next tree.
"And what is this supposed to be?" Back to normal already… I thought we could… Wait, stop it right here, Weiss! What are you thinking? The heiress actually had questioned herself the entire time since being as close to Ruby as she had been during their cave transit, but it was not the proper time for something like that – if there was such a thing to begin with. That kind of physical contact, especially the last bit, was new to her, and for some reason it felt… Good. But to the question of why the heiress had no answer.
"I'm looking for that white tree!" Ruby yelled back down. "Maybe we can see it from here!"
"You do realize we're supposed to wait for Miss Grey here?!" Weiss reminded her partner about their current circumstances. While it would possibly be appreciated that Ruby wanted to continue, they were still being rated for their performance – which Weiss assumed to have to be good, if not perfect.
"I can still look for the way!" Ruby protested, and Weiss decided to let the little rose occupy herself with scouting, knowing that sitting around idly would just be more frustrating for everyone involved. However, Ruby's search turned out to be in vain, right before Ms. Grey appeared above the cave exit.
"There you are," she said, and smirked clearly in the shadow of her fedora. Before Weiss could ask what it was about, her friend Blake showed up behind her, and jumped down to the heiress, before she went straight to Ruby.
"Yang's arm is broken," Blake then repeated what Ruby already knew anyway. The Faunus then went into more detail. "It's a comminuted fracture, both the radius and the ulna have been shattered," she said. Weiss just stayed silent and at a short distance to her friends. It was only natural for Blake to inform Ruby about Yang's health, since both were more or less equally close to the blonde in question. Weiss on the other hand stood on the side lines, accompanied by Ms. Grey. The Huntress gave the heiress a small, gentle push towards the two. As Weiss looked back at Ms. Grey in confusion, she just crossed her arms, and nodded towards the little rose and the Faunus. Weiss then got the hint, and approached her team mates.
"She's going to be fine, Ruby," Blake reassured her team leader in the meantime. "It will just take a while."
"Alright," Ruby replied to that, and took a brief pause, before continuing. She addressed the Huntress, much to her surprise: "Do you know where the castle ruins are, Miss Grey?"
"Well…" she answered and scratched her left temple, "They should be somewhere around that area," she then added, and pointed to the east.
"So, team, let's go and finish our mission!" the little rose then cheered, which earned her a smirk by everybody present in that moment.
How do you stay this positive, Ruby? Weiss thought to herself, while she and her team accompanied by Ms. Grey made their way towards the castle ruins. If I would've learned something like this, I would be more concerned than anything else…
On the other hand, Weiss had proven more than once that she was working much differently under stress, for example during the encounter with the Arach inside its lair. Something was driving her against all odds, which had been stacked against the heiress and the little rose – Ruby had been driving her, or the desire to protect her, to be more accurate. And it was the same thing during the fateful night in the woods where they eventually had met Ms. Grey, who now flipped right in front of the heiress' face.
"Eyes and mind to the surroundings," the Huntress plainly said, and moved on. Weiss had been vacant almost the entire way from the cave exit to the castle ruins, and thus found herself in the middle of the courtyard, looking at the white tree which had been described during the briefing.
"Sword and shield, where are you~?" Ruby sang as she started to literally dig through some rubble near the tree. Weiss just snickered to herself quietly, before starting to look for the set of artifacts herself. She decided to take a more reasonable approach, and looked for the armory, which Blake happened to find mere seconds before the heiress. What they found inside, however, neither of them expected.
"Miss Grey!" Blake immediately shouted with urgency, while Weiss was still grasping the sight. The armory was filled with weaponry – so far so normal – but there were a bunch of modern day assault rifles, pistols, shotguns and ammunition for those kinds of weapons – not so normal at all. Ms. Grey answered the call quickly.
"What is it, Blake. Did you actually find arms in an armory?" she jested, winked and nudged the Faunus with her elbow, and then looked at what had been found. "Now that's a surprise," she commented, and entered the armory. When the Huntress started rummaging around inside, Ruby appeared with an old sword in her dirty hands.
"Look what I found," she exclaimed proudly.
"The Sword of the Dirt," Weiss commented mockingly, and could not stop smirking at the sight of her partner, who had a small stone tangled in her hair. "Are you sure this is the one we're looking for?" she then asked more seriously, approached Ruby in the meantime, and untangled the stone without even asking permission to touch her – Weiss herself would have demanded that at least twice by the moment Ruby noticed there was a stone in her hair.
"I think so. There's a bunch of others lying about over there, but this one looks sort of special," the little rose answered with slightly red cheeks. "What's Miss Grey looking for in there?"
"I don't know," Weiss answered, "Blake and I found a weapons stash in there, and now she's rummaging through it, like it belongs to her."
"But it belongs to White Fang," Blake stated, and pointed at one of the assault rifles. "See their symbol there?"
Now that the Faunus mentioned it, the heiress could see the symbol of that political group, as well as the disgust on her friend's face. Although White Fang fights for equal rights for Faunus – at least that's what they claim to be aiming at – Blake obviously hated them. But Weiss deemed it not the time to ask such delicate questions, although Ms. Grey literally looted the weapons stash in front of the three girls.
"Now, will you look at that…" the Huntress commented after a while, and beckoned the Huntresses in training inside the armory. When they approached their tutor, Weiss and her friends saw what Ms. Grey just had found: Three perfectly functional Scrolls.
"Is there data on them?" Blake immediately asked.
"They're encrypted, so that's most likely the case," Ms. Grey answered.
"Maybe it's just a list of what's in here," Weiss added.
"Possible, but I have a feeling these were not supposed to stay here, unguarded," the Huntress replied, and handed one of the Scrolls to Blake.
"I suggest we take the Scrolls with us, and destroy the weapons?" the Faunus said, and put the device in her hands into her pouch. Ms. Grey appeared to silently agree, as she handed over the other two Scrolls to Ruby and Weiss, who put them away immediately. Weiss turned around, and while doing that, kicked a metal object accidently. Upon looking down to her feet, the heiress found a shield lying on the ground, partly under one of the weapon racks.
"Huh, this thing is where it belongs," she remarked quietly.
"I wonder if this is the other artifact," Ruby then added, and held the sword next to the shield, which Weiss had picked up in the meantime.
"They do look like a matching set," the heiress assumed.
"Priorities, ladies," Ms. Grey warned Ruby and Weiss, "Save the artifact hunt for later, help us with this first."
'This' was mainly the act of piling enough firearms and ammunition for an entire company up, so that Ruby could blow them all up with her explosive ammunition – from a safe distance, of course, and after a thorough search of the castle ruins. As it turned out, Ruby and Weiss had found the set of artifacts team RWBY had been tasked to find. It was the least they could do, since Yang literally had broken an arm for these items of questionable worth.
"Another mission completed. Alright, team RWBE, time to move on," Ruby exclaimed, excited about the successful artifact retrieval.
"What?!" Weiss and Ms. Grey protested in one voice, and exchanged very skeptical looks.
"Well, it sounds a bit off, but until Yang's back, the team needs a name," Ruby somewhat explained her choice of the new, temporary team she had created. For reasons Weiss could not possibly grasp, the Huntress disliked the idea so much, her hostile body language and behavior returned almost instantly after Ruby's explanation.
"Just don't get used to it," Ms. Grey sighed, and then simply walked off. The heiress could see the impact of Ms. Grey's change of demeanor: Ruby appeared to be largely disappointed, and Blake seemed to be something between intimidated by, and afraid of the Huntress. However, that did not last long, and after a short time things between the students and their tutor were back to the usual again.
"How does she do that?" Blake asked Weiss, while Ms. Grey instructed Ruby in her approach to blow up the armory.
"What do you mean?" the heiress inquired.
"That change of… I don't know… Presence?"
"Oh, that. I think this is kind of her thing, something defensive, I assume," Weiss explained.
"Defensive?" Blake inquired then.
"I've only encountered that kind of behavior when she wanted to be left alone, I guess. Back in her house she was like that almost all the time, and even said it openly. She even said she would throw us out after five days, because Ruby would be able to move again," Weiss summed up the encounters she had with the Huntress way back when rather roughly – it had been a while after all.
"So Ruby must've hit a nerve there," Blake then assumed, to which Weiss agreed by nodding.
Eventually, Ruby had started a chain reaction inside the armory, which literally blew up everything inside there. Team RWBE left the castle ruins in order to return to camp shortly afterwards, and since the navigational skills of the three students Ruby, Weiss and Blake were still being evaluated, Ms. Grey simply let them do the work of finding the way. As before, Blake scouted the surroundings and the terrain ahead, looking for an optimal path through Forever Fall, while the rest, Ms. Grey included, secured the immediate surroundings. Luckily, there was no other encounter with any sort of Creature of Grimm on the way to camp, and when the team finally had arrived Ms. Grey immediately guided them to Yang, who was sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree.
"Babe!" she greeted her girlfriend, tried to wave at her with her right hand, and immediately regretted that decision: She flinched, and groaned in pain, but kept up the smile towards Blake.
Seriously, Yang? THAT is her nickname? Weiss thought to herself, while all three of them approached the injured blonde.
"What did I tell you about calling me that?" the girlfriend in question started berating the brawler, while placing a short kiss on her forehead. But before Yang could make any witty remarks or react otherwise, Prof. Goodwitch approached the team.
"Professor," Weiss greeted her, while Blake and Ruby helped Yang on her feet.
"Hello, students. I see your mission was a success," Prof. Goodwitch replied, and pointed at the weaponry Ruby and the heiress had recovered. "However, I dare say your combat performance today was rather lacking," she then added in her typical harsh demeanor, while looking at Yang. "Miss Belladonna informed me that you, Miss Schnee, somehow drove the Creature of Grimm off. How did you accomplish that?"
As the Professor looked at Weiss, the heiress started to retell the events of the encounter as accurately as she could do – from that point onward, including the traversal of the cave and the search of the castle ruins. While the heiress wanted to keep this report on a professional level, Ruby seemingly could not resist adding some more details in a very excited fashion. At least the little rose did not exaggerate in what she told, but it appeared to Weiss as if her partner was trying to make her look extra good. After she finished her report, Weiss waited patiently for a response by Prof. Goodwitch.
"Good work there, students – all of you," she finally said, "I will leave the grades to Miss Grey. Except for Miss Xiao Long, you will secure the perimeter until the other teams return from their respective tasks."
"Right away, Professor Goodwitch," Ruby answered.
"There ain't no rest for the wicked," Ms. Grey commented from the side lines, as the team moved out to look for any signs of danger.
A few eventless hours later, team RWBY – without Yang, of course – and Miss Grey were standing in front of Prof. Ozpin's desk, who took a close look at the three Scrolls they had brought to him. Ms. Grey took the liberty of phrasing the report to their findings inside the castle ruins to the Headmaster, and everyone involved agreed that these devices probably contained useful data in regards to the White Fang's plans of action, or at least other stockpiles of supplies like the one where the Scrolls had come from.
"I will have a team of specialized individuals see to the data," Prof. Ozpin said, "I think you deserve your rest, students. You are dismissed for today."
Weiss immediately prepared for bed after returning to the dorm room with Ruby, while Blake would stay with Yang in the infirmary for a while, until the broken arm would have had received the proper treatment. Without any word, and ignoring Ruby's babbling rather efficiently, the heiress almost threw herself onto her bed, pulled the covers over her head, and fell asleep almost instantly. However, before she had drifted away into the realm of dreams, Weiss could clearly hear Ruby wishing her a good night's sleep. To that, the heiress smiled a bit. The following days would be filled with studying, but not in regards to their education as Huntresses, but in regards to herself.
The next chapter: Ghost-Hunters
Hello dear readers
Thank you for taking the time to go through this chapter. I had much fun writing it, although some segments underwent several changes, some minor, some have been replaced completely.
As always, feel free to criticize and even suggest content, if you wish. However, be constructive while doing so. That way, everyone benefits from it.
Sincerely
Erythreas