Bloody Rose

If any of the students in their hallway were awake then they'd have heard the shriek that came from Ambur's throat as she finally woke up. Her hands flew down to her thighs and she felt another person's hands on her shoulders and back.

"It's okay, shhh, common Ambur it's alright," he said softly, trying to soothe his partner's nerves, "Everything's okay, your alright..."

"I'm sorry," she sobbed, trying to calm down as best as she could. "I can't stop them...every time I go to sleep I see him die!" She yelled as her grip on her legs tightened.

"Ambur please calm down," he said softly as he ran his hand through her hair, " it's alright."

"No, it isn't! It's not okay! It's all my fault!"

Mydnight took hold of her shoulders and forced her to look at him, but her vision soon dropped to her lap as she continued to cry. "Look at me..." he whispered to her and lifted her chin with his right hand, forcing her to look him in the eyes. "It wasn't your fault, it doesn't matter if you told Ozpin that we were ready. He knew that we weren't and shouldn't have asked us to go on that mission in the first place," he pleaded with her as he wiped the tears from her cheeks and her breathing began to slow. "You're okay, you're safe, your legs are fine Ambur..."

"...Okay," she whimpered as she looked down to her legs one more time before moving them around a bit to be one hundred percent sure. "..Sorry for waking you up again..."

"It's okay, don't worry about it alright?" He said as he lied back down and stared up at the ceiling. As he closed his eyes though he felt Ambur lye back down beside him. She only remained there for a second though, before he felt her prop herself up and hover over him. Before he could say anything to protest, she pressed her lips to his and she brushed his hair from his face.

"It's not okay for me to keep waking you up every night and make you lose sleep over it...but I can make it up to you," She said playfully and scratched behind his wolf ears after breaking the kiss.

"Ambur I don't want to take advantage of you while you're like this and you know it," he said with a smile but felt one of her hands traveling down his chest and abdomen under his blankets.

"I do believe I'm the one taking advantage of you Myd," she said with a weak smile. "If you don't mi-" she began before she hesitated. She had been leaning down to kiss his neck but when she'd got there she'd found the small imprints of nails in his skin. Her breath hitched in her throat. "Wha...what is thi-" she said and he could hear her breath catching as she began to panic. His fingers moved to her cheek and pulled her back up to look him in the eyes.

"Don't do that to yourself alright...I'm fine," he said before he brushed some hair from her face.

He could tell she was holding back tears but she did her best to give him a silent nod. She leaned down again and pressed a kiss to each of the marks she'd left on him before she moved to his collarbone, steadily headed south. "I don't care if your Faunus instincts take over, in fact, I'm counting on it," she said softly up to him, "so enjoy yourself for once, that's an order."

"...Fine," he sighed out as he felt her fingers wrap around the waistband of his shorts. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

/

It was mid-morning when Mydnight finally woke up again. He found Ambur asleep, her head and chest rested on his own chest, with very few solid memories of the night before. While he had almost no idea how he'd treated Ambur, he could see that she was sleeping soundly with a smile on her face for once, so he shook away any thoughts that he had harmed her in any way. He carefully slipped out from under her, retrieving his clothing from their various places around the room and got dressed.

After he had quickly run down to the closest dorm bathroom, taken a shower, and cleaned himself up, he returned to his room to find Ambur awake and sitting on their double bed, leaning against the wall with a blanket covering her from her bust down. As he shut the door behind him she spoke up with a soft smile, "thanks for helping me last night...do you remember any of it this time?"

"...Not much, I remember you having the nightmare again... but nothing specific after we started...sorry."

"Don't worry, I'll just have to try harder next time," she said with a devious smile, "you seemed to really enjoy everything that happened, I know I did. I wonder why you never remember though, it's kinda strange."

"I don't know, I'm more wolf during sex than I am human...maybe since I'm someone else during it I don't remember any of it," he shrugged his shoulders.

"Going somewhere?"

"Yeah, meeting Ruby for our first practice session," he sighed as he reached for his form keys and his wallet on their dresser.

"...Myd," she nearly whispered as she stood and crossed the room, bringing the blanket with her to keep herself covered. "You really aren't going to tell her are you..."

"...I can't, not yet at least, she's not ready to know..."

"Okay, just...be careful okay?" She said as she wrapped her arms around his neck and he took hold of her waist before she pressed her lips to his. "I'm...sorry about your throat," she said shyly and nuzzled her face into the crook of his neck. It was still a little red in a few places and she was shocked that he hadn't complained about it at all.

"It's okay," he smiled and moved his arms up to her back so he could hold her tighter. "I knew what I signed up for Ambur. Besides...you saved me from my own share of nightmares last night," he sighed.

"I did?" She asked in surprise.

"Yep," he said as he backed away toward the door, "I'll be back around one to help with setting up for the party okay?"

"Alright, other than that I think some of the other senior teams have the drink runs covered," she said as she tried to distract herself from guessing what he had had a nightmare about. "I'll more than likely be getting some food prepared with Liv and Caroline."

"Okay see ya then," he smiled and walked out of the dorm and headed toward the locker room to retrieve his scythe. Once he'd grabbed it and it's sling that held it on his back he headed to Beacon cliff for his training session with Ruby. However, when he got there he found that little red was not alone. Weiss had seemingly followed her, not willing to let her partner go into the forest alone with Mydnight. "Sorry, I'm a bit late."

"It's okay, we just got here," Ruby said, barely able to contain her excitement. She was practically vibrating in place.

"We've been waiting for twenty minutes, Ruby..." Weiss muttered, still uncomfortable with this entire idea.

"Weiss..." Ruby said sternly as the heiress threw up her hands and backed off.

"Sorry," she huffed as she crossed her arms.

"Ooookay then..?" Mydnight sighed before he turned to the edge of the cliff. "So, today, I am going to evaluate your skills more closely, I will watch you defeat anything we run into in there, jumping in if absolutely necessary. Once I have a good understanding of your fighting style then I will attempt to show you some new moves or techniques that will mesh. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to teach you in the long run since, while we may both wield scythes, they are very different breeds from each other."

"You don't have any ranged attacks do you," Ruby asked as she looked over his scythe over more closely than she had been able to thus far.

"No, none at all, even my semblance cannot be used as a ranged attack."

"...What exactly is your semblance," Weiss asked haughtily, finally speaking up, genuinely curious. "I took several tours of this school before coming here, and I know most everything about you and Ambur since you were the strongest team in the school, but there are two things about you I don't know."

'Oh boy here it comes,' he thought to himself nervously.

"Your semblance, and your last name." She said as she got closer to him with a glare that sent shivers up his spine. "How can someone possibly spend four years at Beacon without any of their school records showing their last name?"

"I...don't have one, I abandoned my last name when my family died...everyone else is gone, it's just me."

Weiss' stare soon turned softer and she looked away from him, embarrassed by her own directness, "Oh...I'm...sorry." She backed away from him and his vision shifted to Ruby who, folded her arms across her abdomen and looked away as well.

"...Anyway," he started, wanting to get back on track and leave his past behind him. "My semblance is shapeshifting," he sighed as he looked away from them quickly. He was trying to find a lie that wouldn't just satisfy Weiss and Ruby, but also himself. "If for some reason I am unable to effectively fight something with my scythe, I can alter my form into that of a dire wolf."

"Wow really?! That's so cool!" Ruby blurted.

"Hah...I guess ya, sometimes I need to, plus I can run a lot faster in that form, and I'm a lot bigger in that form than a normal wolf is, so I can carry someone on my back if I need to. Though if I become too agitated I can lose control of my actions..."

"...Then should we really be going into the Emerald Forest to train?" Weiss asked nervously.

"No need to worry about that, there's nothing in those woods that'll cause me to get too angry, never mind transform in the first place. I can handle anything this place can throw at us, no sweat. So you ready?"

"Yeah let's do it!" Ruby said, getting pumped up before pulling Crescent Rose out of her small holster and having it transform into its scythe form. Weiss too pulled Mytenaster off of her belt and readied the rapier at her side.

"On your mark, Red," he said as he took Bloody Rose from his back and prepared for the descent off the cliff.

Almost before he was able to finish his sentence Ruby was already over the side of the cliff. Weiss was close behind her though, not wanting to let her partner out of her sight. Mydnight flipped a small switch on the hilt of Bloody Rose and two small platforms, no bigger than the size of his boots, jutted out from the bladed section of the scythe. Once they had, all the teeth in the scythe's chain saw blade extended outward a few more inches than normal.

He ripped the pull cord and the motor roared to life before he hopped off the ground and pulled the trigger, starting the chains up before flipping the scythe upside down and shoving the blade down into the dirt. His boots landed on the two platforms as the scythe began to propel him forward off the cliff, leaving a trench in the ground behind him. As he went over the cliff, he was airborne for only a few seconds before he felt the blade reconnect with the wall of rock. He began to pick up speed dramatically, riding the cliff the entire way down.

He looked up to find Weiss jumping from one glyph to another and Ruby firing several shots from Crescent Rose to slow her descent. He soon saw, however, that the younger girls were distracted by his method of getting down the cliff, not expecting to find him riding his scythe as if it were some sort of scooter. As the ground finally leveled out, Mydnight did as well and continued through the forest to find where the partners had landed. He found them in a small clearing and released the trigger on his scythe. The chains stopped and he came to a halt before them, hopping off the platforms before he would lose his balance.

"I...I never thought to use a weapon like that...that's awesome!" Ruby mused as she rushed to his side and inspected his scythe closer than ever before, taking in the new feature she hadn't noticed.

After his old scythe had been ruined after the Vytal Tournament, Mydnight had set about putting together this more finished form of the weapon. He'd had all of last year to work on it and now he was ready to call it done. The sculpted wolf's head still sat at the crest of the hilt with the ripcord for the chain scythe inside its open mouth. The teeth were a little different in the chain blade but they functioned the same. The feature he had just made use of was new though and there were a few more things here and there that he'd thought of recently.

The newest part of it was actually its name. He'd finally figured out what to call the device after so many years of using different variants of it. Bloody Rose. It seemed fitting given the chain blade could cut through almost anything and the Rose had come from his last name. He couldn't tell Ruby that though.

"What else can it do?" She looked up to him, almost hopping in place with excitement.

"Haha, you'll see, common now," he chuckled as he patted her on the head once before flipping the switch again and the chains returned to their normal positions. He then manually kicked the platforms back into their normal places with his foot, an audible "Click" following the action, letting them know they were both locked back into position.

As they walked through the forest, looking for something to fight, Ruby got giddy and began asking questions again. "So, how long did it take you to make Bloody Rose?"

"Well, I wasn't exactly loaded with cash before I graduated from my last training academy, so I saved up the parts I found over time. The first time I finished it was during combat school. Since then I've had to rebuild it a few times, since I have a bit of money now, and I've added a lot to it."

"When did you finish it for the first time?"

"Second year of Signal I thi-"

"YOU WENT TO SIGNAL?" Ruby blurted frantically, overwhelmed with excitement.

"Uhuh, same as you, probably graduated two years before you got there."

"If that's true then you must know my uncle Qrow! He is a teacher at Signal and he is the only other person besides you that I know that uses a scythe."

Mydnight was quiet for a long while before he finally spoke up again. "...Ya, I know Qrow," he sighed.

Before Ruby could question him, however, they heard several growls from the bushes around them. Mydnight's ears twitched several times before he could tell exactly where they were coming from. However, as he looked around he found that there weren't any good clearings around for which to watch Ruby fight whatever creatures were lurking nearby. "Alright Red, you wanna see something else she can do?" He asked with a wicked smirk.

"Of course!"

"Weiss. Put a glyph up and both of you hover on it for a few seconds, ten feet off of the ground is a safe height."

"Oookayyy?" Weiss said confused but did as she was asked and the two girls hovered off the ground, standing on one of the snowflake-shaped white glyphs.

Mydnight then dropped to his knees and pressed another switch, this time on the blade portion of the massive weapon, and the girls hear a loud whirring sound for a second before a loud click. The blades section of the scythe dropped to the ground, only the six-foot hilt remaining in Mydnight's grasps, and the girls could see a large coiled metal cord attaching the two sections.

Mydnight pulled the trigger and the chains roared to life as the blade began to dig up random sections of the ground as it bounced around, unguided by the hilt. On the opposite side of the trigger on the hilt was a small button, which Mydnight began to press and hold down before he started to swing the hilt around himself in a circular motion, the cord's slack tightening. Soon enough the blade was off the ground and swinging around in synch with the hilt. As it got up to an adequate speed he released the button he had been holding and the cord extended to its full length, just shy of ten yards.

The blade started to slice through every piece of brush and tree effortlessly, clearing out a circle of nearly thirty feet with no trouble at all. After a few passes, he pushed the same button he had been holding down before, and the cord retracted back into the hilt of the scythe. The blade was pulled back with it crashing and clicking right into place atop the hilt as if it had never split in the first place. The girls were dumbstruck as Weiss let her glyph fade away.

"That was...amazing," Ruby gasped, looking around at the de-forested area, "even the stumps are ground down almost all the way."

Soon enough the monsters that were heard before stepped out into the clearing, revealing themselves to be a small pack of Ursa, only six of them present. "Okay kiddo your up," he smirked and patted Weiss on the shoulder and led her toward the nearest still-standing tree.

"...Be careful Ruby," she said as she looked back to her team leader before Mydnight gave her a boost up into the tree, "Don't look up my skirt or I'll kill you."

"Wouldn't dream of it," he gagged a little as he shook his shoulders, feeling a shiver go down his spine before he jumped up and pulled himself onto a separate branch.

/

Back at the dorms Ambur had finally gotten dressed in a slightly warmer outfit than usual to compensate for the winter weather. She'd gone across the hall and collected Olivier and Caroline from their room and the trio had gone around as needed, helping some of the other students put up decorations for the Vytal Festival Eve party, set to start in just a few hours.

They'd heard stories from older students, that had since graduated, about the tradition of throwing this party every two years and had wanted it to be as special as possible. They hadn't had the chance since the last Vytal Festival had been held in Atlas and the campus was so locked down at night. This time though they would put on the best party they could for the younger students who got to participate.

Eventually, they made their way to the kitchen to help some of the other students prepare several different snacks to munch on throughout the night, and before long the guys who were sent into Vale on drink runs return as well.

She helped them take it all into the main hall of the dorm building and sorted all of the different non-alcoholic drinks into coolers placed around the large open room.

In the end, they all agreed to hide all the alcohol in team AMBR's room, since none of the younger students would be dumb enough to go inside. Not to mention, with only two beds that were smooshed together, they had the extra space. She then walked back out onto the banister of the second floor of the main hall to look out over all the decorations. In moments Liv had found her.

"Everything looks great," Liv mused as she leaned into the railing beside Ambur.

"Everyone did a really good job yeah," Ambur sighed.

"You okay? You've seemed a little...down today?" Liv asked as she looked over into the Amazon's face.

"Yeah I'm okay I just…" she began but trailed off. "I've been having really bad dreams lately…"

"...About your legs?" Liv asked softly and she saw Ambur silently nod her head.

"How'd you guess?"

"Because I have them too…" Liv nearly mumbled too quietly for Ambur to hear her.

The girls fell silent as Liv leaned her head into Ambur's shoulder. Ambur opened her stance up a little and let Liv slip between her and the railing. Ambur leaned forward and rest her head on Liv's shoulder as they stood and watched as the older students kept at their jobs. "I'm sorry I've been so...weird lately…" Ambur sighed and Liv felt a jolt shoot down her metallic spine. She'd felt Ambur's breath on her ear love and had to shut her eyes tightly to ignore the sensation.

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"All the fake flirting and...not talking to you much…"

"Well, you've been busy with classes and stuff…" Liv made the excuse for her but she heard Ambur huff.

"Not THAT busy…" she stressed. "I've just been doing stupid old Ambur shit…" she grumbled. "Hiding shit from my best friend and...being afraid of myself...you know...stupid shit…"

"Old habits die hard," she felt Liv shrug her shoulders beneath her. "It's okay," She said as she rubbed her hands up and down Ambur's forearms. "Thank you for telling me."

"Thank you for not making me," Ambur snorted and rubbed her cheek against Liv's.

/

"I thought you said you didn't have a ranged attack," Weiss asked Mydnight as they watched Ruby stand up straight, her scythe collapsing back to its easy storage mode as she holstered it.

"I rarely ever use that to attack, it's too unpredictable, impossible for precision strikes. It's really just for convenience and nothing more. The blade, thanks to the motor, is too heavy and unbalanced to control at that distance." He grunted as he dropped from the branch and walked up to Ruby, "that was really impressive Red, you certainly do move a lot like your uncle." He sighed, crossing his arms over his chest and looking her over thoughtfully. "So, you're quick, agile, you jump around ALOT and your mastery of the momentum of a weapon much larger than you is incredible. We fight nothing alike," he laughed, "doesn't mean I can't try to teach you a few things."

"Well, how do you fight?" She asked as her cheeks grew more Rosey.

"Always up close and personal, I never back off and I never give them space to move. Not to mention I chose to make a chain-scythe because of it's cutting power. You use your momentum and sudden jerks from firing your sniper rifle to cut. All I gotta do is swing and Bloody Rose cuts through almost anything effortlessly. I've yet to run into something it couldn't cut."

The three students headed back toward the dorm building after scaling Beacon cliff back onto campus before they split up. The girls heading to their own dorm room and Mydnight headed to find Ambur to see if she needed him to help with anything. He found her relaxing in their room, sitting down on their bed spacing out until she heard him come in. "Oh, hey, how'd it go?"

"She's amazing, I've never seen someone move like that," he says as he sat down before falling back on the bed, his arms rested on his chest. "I can't believe it but she's the real deal. Her semblance is insane, I have never seen someone move that fast..."

"Her and Yang sure are something, I've never seen such devotion in someone so young. She may seem like a party girl but she would do absolutely anything for her friends."

"...They are exactly like us."

"That's why we need to prepare them for the worst..." She said as she lay down beside him.

"I'm not going to let anything tear them apart like we were, not on my life."

"...Are you ever going to tell her?"

"I don't know...I know I said she wasn't ready but...I think I'm the one who can't take it. What if she rejects me? What if she can't accept that her mother wasn't everything she thought she was...I don't want to hurt her, she's had enough pain for one life..."

"Myd...being a Huntress or Huntsman never gets easier. Just because you're going to keep your eye on her doesn't mean she won't ever have painful experiences again. People get hurt, feelings get destroyed. It happens. You can't protect her from everything."

"I know...but I can try."

"Then chin up, common, the party's about to start," she said as she stood up and looked back to him. "Why the long face?"

"Sorry, she just...she praises Qrow every chance she gets and I hate it, it drives me crazy not being able to tell her."

"Hey," she said as she grabbed his hand and pulled him up into a quick kiss, "everything's gonna work out, okay? One way or another she will find out and then you can tell her everything. Trust me, she's gonna look up to you more than she already does when she finds out, she adores you, and in exactly the right way. Now common," she smiled and led him out of the room and to the balcony over-looking the now gathered mass of the younger classes.

The lights in the massive hall dimmed as they all heard Ambur speak up, "Alright! Nice to see everyone is here. I would like to thank this year's Senior class for being so helpful in setting up for this year's Vytal Festival party," she paused as everyone in the room began to cheer before quieting down again. "Couple of ground rules. Seniors as you know if you get drunk you will be sent to your dorm rooms, underage drinkers will be severely punished, and if you're going to have a heated moment with someone then make it a moment alone in your room. Other than that let loose and have some fun!" As she finished her sentence, surround sound speakers around the building began to play the party mix of "I Burn," and Ambur dragged Mydnight away from the railing to find Ruby and her teammates.

"Crazy to watch you do that," Mydnight laughs out as the pair head down the long flight of stairs to the first floor.

"Trust me the feeling is mutual," she giggled and placed her hand over her heart. "Never thought they'd ask me of all people to talk to a crowd."

"Well you did pretty good," he smirked with a chuckle and caught her staring at him with her face flushed red. As they reached the first floor they easily spotted Yang's golden mane bobbing from side to side, giving them an easy target to walk toward.

"Just don't get too drunk and accidentally tell her okay?" Ambur joked, nudging him in the side.

"I don't drink as much as you anymore and you know it," he laughed, throwing his arm around her shoulders with a smirk, "how about you try to not get smashed and seduce me again," he whispered in her ear.

"Don't tempt me," she sighed happily and rested her head against his shoulder.