Issue #9

The time was finally there and Vermilion could hardly contain herself, it was the day she got her very own personal weapon. Even despite Jaune's brutal training she'd been counting out the days until her sword and shield combo weapon was complete. Her father had gone down into Vale to retrieve it, citing the danger to her as a reason not to bring her so she was stuck in Beacon until he had gotten back. For the last hour and a half the silver eyed girl had been bouncing around team BSK's dorm room, well it was her dorm too, now. The headmistress had said that since she was spending so much time with the team, the guest room they had made for her was going to waste and just made that her official room.

Living with three other girls was definitely a big change from her old life even if she did lament at not having much privacy anymore. Willa was constantly helping her study up to Beacon's standards, and that in and of itself was a monumental task that sometimes she felt dizzy just from thinking about how much she would need to study.

Four weeks. It had been just over a month since she had met her birth father, though she hadn't known it at the time. Since then she'd been almost killed twice and put through a training regime from hell, an academic one too though she'd never admit that to Willa's face. Vermilion didn't feel any closer to Jaune in that time even though they spent so much time together, considering she spent the ends of their sessions together puking her guts out sometimes, maybe that was to be expected.

The results were coming in fast, however. With aura's natural regenerative traits and how hard Jaune was pushing her she could feel how lithe she was becoming. Muscles becoming more pronounced and fat being burned away. Her mother had always had a fairly healthy lifestyle, with a soft spot for sweets, that had rubbed off on her. This, however, was something else. The training wasn't what she expected either. The movies made you think that you could become strong with pushups and crunches and although that was a great way to exercise, it would put muscle in the wrongs spots as well.

Jaune had pounded that notion out of her quickly. Sparring was the best way to build up the correct muscles needed for utilizing whatever unique weapon a huntsman or huntress used. Swinging the sword and practicing with a shield until her muscles gave out from exhaustion made sure that the muscles she would be using the most got built up while others, that would only get in the way, weren't. So it was that she'd not only gotten physically stronger, but faster as well.

Jaune had taken to letting Noel or Willa spar against her so that she didn't pick up bad habits as well. Her father kept saying that experience was invaluable and she should seek out as much of it as she could get. With the involvement of her newfound friends came begrudging training with them as well and while he wasn't happy about it at first, Jaune eventually relented and accepted team BSK into his training as well. Though they may have succeeded in getting him to train them, they may have regretted it once they realized they would be beginning each session with a run that lasted until they couldn't anymore.

"Will you stop that?!" Willa finally snapped at Vermilion, growing tired of the sound of her fingers rapidly tapping against the desk. With a great exertion of will, the brunette forced her hands to stay still as she read from the textbook the Schnee had given her. Already having waited a whole month, Vermilion was fit to burst from impatience.

Which is why, when there was a knock on the door to the dorm, Vermilion tripped over herself when getting up from the desk. Picking herself up off the floor with a bright red face, she answered the door while trying to ignore Noels not so hidden titters. To her relief it was, in fact, Jaune who was there and if he noticed her red face he didn't make a show of it. Slung over his arm was a long, brown, cloth wrapped object, she knew what it was but asked anyways.

"Is that it?" Silver eyes didn't take themselves off the object or else she would have caught the quick smile Jaune flashed.

"Of course." he said, sling it off and handing the object over laid flat on the tops of his palms, "Your very own weapon. Your mother is probably the only person who'd be more excited than you about this."

Vermilion felt the heat return to her cheeks as she looked down, pushing the tips of her fingers together. Jaune laughed at that, actually laughed, and the young silver eyed girl could only stare in wonderment at him.

"Don't mind me, Vermilion. You just reminded me of Ruby. Go on, take it." He urged.

Biting her bottom lip, Vermilion slowly took the weapon from him and almost didn't notice the half-cocked smile he wore when she did so with the utmost reverence. Her heart was beating a staccato in her chest while the weapon itself seemed so heavy. Crocea Mors hadn't felt this heavy, though maybe she just wasn't remembering it right. This wasn't Jaune's weapon, it was hers. Her very own weapon, designed by her mother for her father. If she was still alive, would they have built one together? The thought sent a bittersweet pang through her core. She really did wish her mother was there.

Her father was.

Jaune was distant and most of the time felt like someone who had no idea what to do with a teenage girl, and he probably didn't. However looking at him now, he looked like a proper father smiling proudly at his daughter and Vermilion felt her feeling twinge. Her mother should be here, they should never have been ripped apart. It just wasn't fair. Seeing Jaune like this, having this glimpse into the person who he could be if he wasn't so afflicted by his loss was heartbreaking. What would life be like if her mother hadn't died? If they had all lived together as a family?

Her mother would have built her a weapon, perhaps they would have worked on it together. They could have trained together as a family. Some of her thoughts must have shown on her face because suddenly Jaune was looking worriedly at her.

"Is something wrong Vermilion?" His blue eyes didn't shine with hurt for once, in them was just pure concern.

"Nothing, D- Jaune. I was just thinking of Mom." Jaune understood, of course he did, and his expression softened as he pulled the fabric apart for her. Underneath it was revealed a gleaming black sheath with gold and red painted on it. The grip was covered with a tightly woven scarlett cloth with a matching tassel hanging from the pommel. Unable to resist, Vermilion drew the blade and admired the craftsmanship in it, though she did notice a key difference between it and Crocea Mors in design. There was no traditional fuller along the blade but instead a seam ran all the way from hilt to tip.

Deciding to ask about it later she expanded the sheath into it's shield form and felt her breath leave her body at the design on the gleaming black surface. The red and gold that had been on it were the symbol that was on Jaune's shield and inside the center of that was the rose symbol from her pendant. It took a great amount of effort to rip her eyes away from the design and look at the back of the shield and there was another thing there that her father's weapon didn't have. Arrayed above where one would hold the shield were empty sockets for something. Looking up at Jaune in confusion he smiled at her.

"Dust cartridges. Ruby designed it to be usable with dust." Jaune pointed at a small button that was out of the way, but near enough to where she held the shield that it could be easily pressed, "Pressing that will infuse the selected dust into the blade and that," pointing to a switch next to it, "will cycle through the cartridges."

After pressing the switch experimentally, an indicator moved one slot over, indicating which cartridge would be selected. Jaune pulled something out of his pack, a set of dust vials. Vermilion recognized them all, dust theory had been something Willa had gone over with her extensively, and quickly sheathed the sword into the shield before taking the vials from her father to slot them into the weapon.

"What's it's name?" Silvia spoke up from the side.

"Rosa Mors."

"We're weapon sisters now!" Noel shouted with a triumphant smirk before grabbing Vermilion by the shoulders and pulling her into a one armed hug, "We both have weapons designed by Ruby Rose." With a flourish the girl extended her own weapon, the collapsible spear telescoping to it's full length. Feeling giddy, the brunette tapped her shield to her friend's spear with a light clink.

"Want to go test it out?" Jaune asked, a faint smile playing over his lips as he did so.

Vermilion didn't think she had ever nodded harder.

The next six months passed in the blink of an eye with Vermilion continuing her tutelage under her father and she was quickly getting the hang of things. Academics, on the other hand, were much more difficult for her even with the constant help from her friends. The girl was starting to feel stir crazy, cooped up in the admittedly massive academy. Jaune wouldn't let her go down to Vale, even if she had the help of her team. And wasn't that the word. If all went well on her first mission she'd be assigned to team BSK as their official fourth member, though what that would do to the team acronym she didn't know.

Currently she was sparring against the leader of the team, Noel Belladonna, who's command over her weapon was almost unreal. The more she learned about combat from her father the more she realized how large the gap was between her and her friend. Circling each other Vermilion deftly spun her sword about, watching for an opening. It wasn't easy as numbers weren't on her side. Facing across from her paced two Noel's, whom she called #1 and #2. The girl's semblance certainly was unfair, the brunette considered as the two Noels split up to surround her.

Knowing it would be the end of her if she did, Vermilion charged them both. #1 split to the left just as she reached her while the spear tip of #2 slammed into the surface of her shield. They had surrounded her anyways but she had taken the initiative, meaning Noel didn't have complete control of the flow. Working to prevent that she tried to capitalize on the true weakness of her friend's semblance.

In the last few months she'd become acquainted with the other three's semblances as they sparred more as well as having a few heart to hearts. Willa's was a rare hereditary semblance, passed down by blood related members of the Schnee family. The Schnee glyphs required years of training to master and extensive training to utilize the extremely versatile semblance. The strengths of her semblance was only restricted to her imagination though from how she told it she specialized more in melee and direct application of her glyphs than her mother did.

Silvia's was simple, she could neutralize her own mass to give herself no weight and with enough concentration it could be applied to other objects though that was difficult to pull off in combat. The combat applications for her semblance were somewhat more restrictive than the other two's but Silvia found her way around it. The green haired girl tended to take to the skies using her staff which had a couple of gravity dust crystals embedded in it and by using her aura she could control it to move herself in any direction she chose. Often her tactic was to take to float above her opponent and use dust to bombard the enemy from afar. Vermilion had learned the hard way that this in no way meant the girl wasn't trained in close quarters combat either, she had bruises for days thanks to her. The gravity crystals could be used in reverse, lending her strikes extra oomph.

And finally there was Noel who had a rather simple, if not interesting, semblance. She called it Duet and it created a perfect clone of herself capable of independent action. The drawback to this was that both Noels shared aura. Most wouldn't consider this a huge drawback but there was one, other, weakness in it. She had slower reaction times. It wasn't by much but in a fight between hunters it was significant. If an opponent could put enough pressure on her then they could overwhelm one of the Noels, and any blow landed would be dealt to their shared aura.

There was a difference, however, between knowing what to do and doing it. Angling the shield of Rosa Mors to deflect the spear tip rushing for her face, Vermilion slid under and into #2's guard. The shining blade came whistling up towards Noel's chin but she dodged back easily, bringing the tip of her spear back with her, before spinning it. The butt of the shaft crashed into Vermilion's temple causing a burst of pain and leaving her just aware enough to leap to the side in an awkward tumble, hearing the sound of a spear impaling the floor paneling where she'd been but a moment ago. After struggling to her feet she barely diverted a thrust from #1 only to be hit by #2 from her right.

The fight went downhill from there with the two alternating thrusts to not give her any breathing room. Vermilion was losing ground fast and needed to pull something off to salvage the fight. Slamming the blade back into the sheath part of her shield she thumbed the activation switch of the cartridges. Pulling the shield low, she drew the blade back out in a horizontal slash but this time it was accompanied by an additional effect; fire dust. The flames exploded outwards and hit both Noels directly, causing her aura to tank a good portion on the readout.

Following it up she charged with her shield and hammered it into one of the two Noels, bowling her over before she turned to the other who was still recovering from receiving fire dust to the face. Noel #2's eyes widened as she avoided her thrust and blocked the next slash. Forcing Rosa Mors to the side, Noel buried the butt of her spear into Vermilions gut before rotating it into a slash with the tip of her spear. Despite throwing herself backwards Vermilion still took damage as the blade swept down onto her collarbone. Wincing at the pain she chambered another attack before feeling something impact the back of her knees, driving them painfully into the ground.

In the blink of an eye she had one blade pressed against the back of her neck and another hovering in front of it. Without another thought she gave the spar up.

"Your semblance is bullshit, you know that?" Vermilion grumbled as Noel helped her up, the copy dispersing into a sort of mist as she did so.

"Right." Noel said sarcastically, "At least you got a good hit in, that blast really stung."

"Stung?" The brunette asked incredulously with a raised eyebrow at the raven haired faunus, "That's it?"

"Hey, that move took a quarter of my aura with it."

This was the moment that the professor chimed in, "Which why, Noel, you need to be more careful with your positioning. If your opponent has an attack that can hit you and your clone you shouldn't put them both together like that."

Noel took the criticism well, merely chuckling in embarrassment and scratching the back of her head.

Professor Xiao-Long turned to her niece with a professionally neutral look, "Vermilion, you've been improving a lot. You're probably good enough now to get into Beacon on your own now. Good job, but don't let it get to your head. Keep pushing your limits."

The girl in question nodded enthusiastically. She'd yet to beat Noel in a spar but that was the most damage she'd dealt to the team leader to date. Rumor had it that she'd never been reduced past half her aura in combat spars yet by anyone except Willa. The heiress only ever managed it by utilizing time dilation to make her fast enough to counter Noels Body Double. It really was unfair.

Vermilion had yet to find her own semblance, much to her own frustration. Everyone told her, over and over again, that it was only a matter of time and that some semblances were only discovered in times of great stress. She'd spent a lot of time wondering what hers would be like, when she found it. Would she be able to heal people like her father? Maybe she would take after her mother, not that she knew what it was. Vermilion made up her mind to ask Jaune sometime, or maybe Professor Xiao-Long would be better. The blond teacher certainly loved telling old stories about her little sister.

The locker rooms were bustling with activity as Vermilion entered them to get changed. Combat class was held at the end of the day because it allowed them to be able to clean up and rest. The spar between them had been held at the end with Noel being the one to choose her opponent. While some may have seen it as her picking on a weaker student, the silver eyed girl knew better. The faunus girl really did want to help her improve and these spars were her way of keeping track of progress.

The first few times it had happened several students had laughed at her loss, though they were soon silenced with glares from Willa that could have frozen Vacuo in the middle of summer. Apparently the class still had the memory of the two's victories in the ring as a reminder of just who was the top of the year. The professor, despite being close to them, by no means played favorites. It just wasn't hard to be impartial about a one-sided beat down, especially when said beatdown was delivered by a hundred and thirty pounds of lithe huntress.

The plain and simple fact was that both Willa and Noel were easily at the level of a second year or beyond which left the professor in an awkward spot as most second years were going on more missions that grew in frequency as real world experience took precedence over schoolwork. Professor Xiao-Long often said 'A day out there is worth a week in here. Just because you're done here doesn't mean there isn't more to learn.' While not particularly profound it definitely served to try and keep the younger students' perspectives in check.

After getting out of a quick shower Vermilion leaned in close to inspect herself in the mirror as she dried her hair. Just like she'd thought, her roots were beginning to show their original color again. For the last few months she'd been getting by having Aunt Joan buy her some dye from Vale, since she couldn't go into town. With a wary silver eye she examined the blond that was showing through her hair. The girl had always died it from a young age, to be more like her mother. She considered her blonde hair to be a reminder of the father she'd never had but with Jaune in her life now she couldn't help but notice how it matched his.

"What's botherin' ya?" Noel exclaimed from behind her causing the girl to jump, but it wasn't her presence that did so. It was the fact that she had slid her arms around Vermilion while doing so and poked her head over her shoulder. The faunus was overly friendly sometimes and didn't seem to notice how much displays like that affected her, in fact she seemed to enjoy getting a rise out of people.

To avoid thinking about the arms suddenly around her Vermilion quickly explained her thoughts to her friend, who wouldn't let it go once she caught onto something, "I was thinking of letting my hair go back to its original color."

Thankfully Noel leaned back and away, inspecting her friend's hair with a careful amber eye, "Blonde right?" Vermilion nodded, "Why?"

It was a simple question but one that dug deep and Vermilion squirmed, Noel may have had her heart in the right place but she could be as subtle as a battering ram.

Looking in the mirror she saw Noel's curious expression, it was an innocent one. The girl had yet to demonstrate any kind of cruel streak, except to those that looked the wrong way at her friends. They'd all talked, of course, about Vermilions past. The other girls had shared some as well. Silvia always kept her past vague but the other two were very open about their childhood. Noel had a younger sister, Noir, and Willa was an only child with her mother being a widow. The two of them had definitely shared the pain of losing a parent. Vermilion had never had a true friend her own age like she did now. It was an odd thought because she'd never considered herself lonely before with all the people who cared about her in Northrend. But as for children her own age? There weren't many and she never had gotten along with them all that much, especially after her mother died.

"You know I grew up without a dad." Noel nodded along to show she was listening when Vermilion finally got around to answering the question, "Well Mom wasn't blond. I didn't look like her. Or, well only sorta looked like her, but once she died I saw my hair as a reminder that I had a Dad out there who didn't care about me. I started dying it, both as a point to say I wasn't like him and to be more like my mom."

It wasn't until years later that she'd realized the reasons for why she'd died her hair to be more like her mother. All Vermilion could remember was not liking her hair. Now, though? Now she had two blonde aunts and her father was blond.

"So I'm guessing you can't decide whether to keep your hair like your mom's or not?"

That was as good an explanation as any so Vermilion nodded to her friend, "I don't want to lose what I have left of Mom."

"You already have plenty of your mom left." This caused Vermilion to look at her friend suddenly, Noel continued with a smirk, "For one thing you've got Rosa Mors. You're mom designed that. I think she'd be really happy you were using something she made. But the biggest thing is this." Noel tapped Vermilion between her eyes, "And this." She tapped the middle of her chest, "Your eyes and your memories. Mom's shown me pictures of her team back when they went here. You're the spitting image of your mom. If you want to show a bit of your dad… "Noel shrugged, "I think it's fine."

Vermilion hadn't thought of that, that she already had so many connections left to her mother. On the other had her connection to her father was tenuous at best and she began looking at the blonde in her hair in a new light. She could always dye it again later right? There was no harm in letting it grow out.

"Anyways, the real reason I came over here was that I just got a notification." Noel held her scroll out for Vermilion to see but the silver eyed girl had to grab it and pull it a little farther away from her face in order to even see it. On it was a message headed by the headmistress to their team.

"Missions will be handed out tomorrow?" Vermilion looked

"Yup!"

Vermilion felt a nervous pang in her chest and this time it wasn't her barely clothed teammate that did it. Her first mission was a big step and something she'd been both looking forward to and dreading for the last six months. She'd finally get outside of Beacon for the first time in months.

Again her thoughts returned to the reason why she was at Beacon in the first place. The Cult that was hunting here. They had been quite in the time since the incident at the docks. They had come to her home and even followed her into Vale.

She just hoped she'd be strong enough the next time they found her.

A/N: Well here's the next OMJ signaling the start of something new in the story. So far I've been establishing Vermilion as a character and now it's time to take her somewhere. Of course I'm not leaving Jaune out of things, he is a very important character with his own growth to go through as well.

This chapter was only two scenes, really, and it needed to be that way for the transition into the mission arc. I hesitated with the time skip at first but realized that quickly going through her training for half a year would be pointless and basic filler. I'd be skipping weeks at a time and not accomplishing much with it. Maybe a better writer than I could have done more, but I can't at the moment. I wanted to explore Vermilion's team some more and flesh them out a little more as well as how Vermilion is fitting in with them. V is finally letting her hair down so to speak. A lot of crazy things happened to her at the start and she's finally back to normal, or at least accepting that this is her life now.