Update time.


The winter had arrived, it was cold outside, the only light illuminating the city was purely artificial, and Mantle's biggest internet café was already nearly empty.

Technically, it should have been completely deserted by this time of the day, but a passing relationship she had made with its owner, throughout the last couple of months, had allowed Ilia to visit it at this very odd hour.

If there was one thing she should have been glad for picking up gaming as a hobby, aside from meeting Snow and Knight, it had to be this.

There was no doubt in her mind that if she had tried to use one of the computers here, without previously acquainting herself with the slightly overweight man who owned this place, at this hour, she would have been simply rejected.

She almost wasn't allowed to enter as it was, already.

The only reason the older man allowed her the access to his café was because she told him exactly what had happened, and why she so desperately needed the connection to the internet, at the moment.

She sniffled with her runny nose, as she stared at the screen before her in silence.

When she had come here looking for help, she was desperate to find anyone to talk with her. She knew that it was incredibly late, and that there was a possibility neither of her two friends were going to be online, but she still did that anyway.

What other option did she have?

Both of her parents, which were her only family, had just died today, and none of the so-called friends she had in real life were close enough to her to be trusted with her pain. All those immature brats were more likely to laugh, and make jokes, at all the poor people who had died in the mineshaft, than be respectful of their deaths, instead.

No, she couldn't go to such people for help, not when she was a faunus, as well.

Although, she might have never experienced any active bullying herself—mostly because her faunus parts were easy to hide, and she was quite good at pretending to be a human—she did hear all the racist jokes those kids were making.

The moment all her non-online friends learned exactly who she was, all the already insignificant pity they might have felt for her upon hearing of her parents' death would probably turn into a cruel mockery.

As such, the only people she could trust to help her were Knight and Snow.

It was quite a pity didn't manage to catch Knight before they left, but, thankfully, Snow was more than willing to lend her a shoulder to cry on.

Metaphorically of course, neither of them had really the ability to meet each other in person, and they weren't exactly seeing one another, to have a proper face to face, right now, either.

Still, the fact Snow was willing to listen to her woes was already far more than any of her other friends.

"I-I'm sorry." Snow's quiet, and surprisingly pained sounding, voice echoed from the headphones, the owner of the café allowed her to borrow for some privacy. "I-I'm s-so really sorry."

She could hear Snow choking, no doubt feeling nearly as much grief at her loss as she did herself.

Her mouth twitched upwards a bit, despite the pitiful state the rest of her was in.

It was truly a miracle, she had found such empathetic friends. She dreaded to imagine what would have happened if Snow turned out to be some cold-hearted Atlesian elite, like those Schnees whose mine killed her family were.

A deep frown appeared on her face at the mere thought of those heartless monsters.

Those were the type of people who didn't even bother to inform her of the death of her parents. The only reason she learned of it, at all, was because one of the very few survivors of the incident had been an old friend of her father, who gave her their final message.

"W-What should I do now, Snow?" She choked out, in anger.

If she was perfectly honest with herself, she probably wanted nothing more than to hurt all the people responsible for the mine disaster back, but she knew it wasn't something she could just do.

She didn't know how, after all.

"I-I don't–" Snow swallowed something, most likely her saliva, in nervousness. "I don't know, Chammy. I-I really don't know."

A small part of her wanted to chuckle at the answer she received.

Of course, Snow wouldn't know what to do, the girl was her age, and surely as lost in the situation as she was. Neither of them had the experience or maturity to deal with a situation like that, they were both only eleven.

When she had noticed that Snow was online, Ilia had hoped she would be able to receive some guidance from her senior, as the girl usually did write in a very mature way.

It didn't take long for all her hopes to be shattered by the reality, once again.

Her stomach rumbled.

Whether it was in anger or in hunger, she didn't know.

Normally, by this time of the day, she would have already eaten the late supper-dinner with her family after they both returned from work, and got ready for sleeping.

Now, she had no idea what she was supposed to do.

"Y-You need to file a lawsuit!" Snow shouted frantically, after a moment of thinking.

"W-What?" She asked, not sure from what Snow meant.

"The S-Schnee family is obliged to pay reparations for any harm done to their workers." Snow quickly explained. "This is the standard insurance Fa-Jacques set to encourage a growth of his workforce. It includes paying a sum of money to any remaining family member of the worker if they die."

"Uhm." She leaned back a little.

"This policy is usually followed quite strictly for all the high position humans, but they are known to ignore it for faunus if no lawsuit is sent!" Snow said, and she got an impression that if they were talking in person, she would be shaking her violently while talking.

"O-Okay." She said shakily, with a nod of her head.

"I-I know it's not going to bring your parents back, but you have to do it." Snow whispered. "You can't be left with nothing."

Moments like these were the reason why she trusted her friend so much. Snow might not have all the answers in the world, and often fumbled quite badly when it came to long time strategies, but she always had some plan of action, no matter the situation.

Although, she had to admit, the way her friend shared with her all this information brought a question to her mind.

"How do you know about all of this?" She asked with genuine curiosity.

Snow stayed silent for a moment.

"I-My family is rather involved with all the legal issues of Atlas and Mantle." Snow said slowly. "My father especially deals a lot with more shady legal deals of bigger Atlesian companies."

Her eyes widened in surprise.

Snow, revealing so much about herself to her, was the last thing Ilia expected. Usually, it was her and Knight who were more keen on sharing the information about their lives with the others.

From what she knew, after their multiple days of playing games together, Snow tended to keep such things private.

"I-I guess, I picked up some things from them." Snow whispered quietly, as if ashamed to admit it.

A tiny smile appeared on her face.

It was clear from the way she talked that her friend wasn't too keen on talking about that. Yet, despite her obvious reluctance, Snow still offered her assistance on what to do, and it undoubtedly was a decent advice, as well.

"Thank you." She said softly.

"W-Wha-?" Snow sputtered.

"For telling me this." She clarified, in a calm manner, or at least in a calmer manner than she had used for the rest of this conversation. "I will make sure to do as you said, Snow. Without you, I would have ended up with nothing after this tragedy, you know?"

Snow mumbled something from the other side of the screen.

"You're welcome." Snow said shyly, before abruptly changing her position so loudly, Illia could easily hear it from her headphones. If she were to guess, her friend was probably leaning forward, directly towards her computer, right now. "Wait! Do you have any place to stay at?! Will you be fine for tonight?!"

A slight chuckled escaped her.

Having someone visibly worry and care for her, seemed to have been precisely the thing she needed in order to start feeling better. She supposed, she was lucky, her friend was doing exactly that.

"Don't worry about this." She reassured her friend. "The owner of the internet café, I'm currently using, said that I can use this place for a night or two. The few friends my parents have promised to help me, after that."

The struggle to survive wasn't really the biggest issue she was facing, anyway.

It was the loss of her loved ones.

"I-I ca-" Snow started to say something shakily, but after a quick breath, she ended up stopping herself. "Good, I would offer you a place to stay myself, but unfortunately, my parents wouldn't really like that."

She frowned a little.

Although, her friend rarely did talk much about her home life to her and Knight, the fact that Snow's family situation couldn't be called to be the best, wasn't really a secret among the three of them.

At first, she had believed that the reason Snow didn't talk about their family often was because they simply wanted some privacy, but it didn't take her long to realise that something was wrong.

People from happy families usually didn't avoid all the conversation about said families like a plague.

Sadly, she couldn't just ask her friend what was going on directly, right now.

Not only was she not in the right state of mind to ask something like that, at the moment—she was still recovering from the deaths of her parents, after all—but she knew that even if she did ask something, Snow would simply end up evading the question.

A sigh left her.

"Thank you for thinking about me, but, as I said, I don't need the help with finding a place to live." She said. "The only thing I want from you is to lend me an ear sometimes, okay, Snow?"

"Y-Yeah, okay." Snow said. "If you need me for anything, I will always be there for you."

She smiled.

"I know."

While she might not have a clue as to what was going on in Snow's family, her friend did help her when she needed that. If at any moment in the future she was going to be asked for help in return, she would be sure to repay that favour tenfold.

"I guess, I will be calling it in for today." She said. "Goodnight, Snow."

Of course, there was no reason to say any of that to her friend, just yet. If there was anything she knew about Snow, it was that she hated when people suggested she needed their help for something.

"Goodnight, Chammy."

With a click, she ended their voice chat, and the game, before glancing at the clock.

It was past midnight.

Some guilt washed over her as she realised that she kept her friend online for so long. After briefly remembering the typical hours during which Snow played video games, however, she began to feel a bit better about that.

A yawn escaped her.

It didn't mean that she was used to such ridiculously late hours, though.

She should go find the bedroom, she was promised to have here, and rest as much as she possibly could. There was a lot of work she had to do tomorrow, on top of that, she had to go attend her parents' cheep funeral, too.

Her mood worsened at the mere thought of that, but the tiredness she currently felt beat any other emotion out of her.

"Let's just go to sleep, for now." She yawned, as she moved towards the bedroom on the floor above the café.

There would be plenty of time to deal with all her negative emotions, after she had a full night of sleep in a comfy bed.

Who knew, maybe she would even be able to do that while playing some video games with her friends?

(...)

It had been a long time since the last time Weiss felt so on edge while walking through her own mansion.

Every minute, whenever she heard anything louder than her footsteps, she expected her father to storm out of somewhere while loudly complaining about how the children of the families who died in their mines sued them for something.

While she knew that her fears might have sounded rather farfetched to anyone unfamiliar with her father's temper, she felt that they were completely justified considering the situation.

Technically, she did something to provoke them, after all.

Sure, it might have been to help her close friend, who was one of the very few people she could actually trust, but she knew very well that her father wasn't going to care for that.

If anything, she could already vividly imagine father scolding her for showing someone favouritism of any kind. There would undoubtedly be a speech about the importance of separating their company from their lives, and how it was bad for business, or something.

The moment he learned the person she helped was a faunus, as well, there was a high chance her punishment would turn physical, too.

She still had nightmares sometimes after seeing her parents fight, because her mom gave some of their better servants a raise for a good work without consulting the father about that.

It had been the first time she had seen someone bleed.

Hopefully, it wasn't going to come to that in her case.

There was nothing her father could find that connected her to Chammy and her family, right?

A slight shiver went down her spine, before she calmed herself with a couple of really deep breaths.

Whether there was a way for her father to learn about it or not, he likely wasn't going to be looking for it in the first place. It would require him to actually care about something she was doing in her free time.

The only thing about her that mattered to her father was how presentable she was.

As long as she did well enough at her lessons for her test scores to be considered impressive, and didn't do anything uncouth during all the social gatherings she was forced to attend, her father wasn't going to bother her.

It was something she could say with certainty.

Of course, her own safety wasn't the only thing that was fuelling her worries.

If she were to compare her situation with what happened to her friend, she could easily say that she was doing just fine. Chammy, on the other hand, had to live through something terrible.

She didn't even want to imagine what the poor girl was going through, at the moment.

It must be nightmarish.

"Miss Schnee!" A sudden shout startled her.

"Y-Yes?" She asked shakily.

Was she found out already?

The person who called her definitely didn't sound like her father, but if Jacques really needed to find her then he wouldn't really need to do this on his own, not with the many servants they had under their employ.

She gulped nervously as she turned around to see the person calling her.

They did look familiar, although, if asked whether she knew them, she likely wouldn't have been able to give their name to someone.

The terrifying images of a worst case scenario flashed through her mind, as she did her best to recall the person she was looking at. It wouldn't have been a surprise if they turned out to be some random servants, she had often seen in their mansion, that her father asked to call her.

In the end, her father had to figure out that she went against him, and helped her friend get money from their company.

She was doomed!

"Why aren't you on our public speaking lesson, Young Miss?" The person asked. "I've been waiting for you to show for the last dozen minutes. Do you have any excuse for your tardiness, Girl?"

A wave of relief washed over her.

She was safe.

Well, she found herself in a slight trouble with one of her teachers, but that was beside the point. The most important thing was that her father had not connected to any lost money on his part, yet.

Any type of trouble with her lessons was nothing compared to that.

"I'm so sorry, Miss Reden." She said, remembering the name of her teacher solely from her timetable. "I was about to head to your lesson, but I found myself feeling quite off. I must have wandered in a wrong direction due to whatever that was."

The teacher narrowed her eyes at her.

Her body twitched a little under the stare.

Was her excuse not good enough?

It was clear that the woman was suspecting her of something, though, it most likely wasn't about her the help she gave to Chammy, last evening, and even if it was, she doubted her teacher would care too much about it, in the first place.

"I see." Miss Reden said, after a moment of silence. "Are you sure, you can attend my lesson in your current state, in that case? Neither of us would want you to start feeling bad, especially for a lesson as important as public speaking."

She had to stop herself from audibly clicking her tongue at the teacher.

The only reason that woman seemed concerned about her health was because she didn't want to catch anything from her. It had been quite some time since she realises that there weren't any truly considerate people in this mansion.

Aside from her, and her siblings, of course.

"Yes, Miss Reden. I'm sure." She nodded her head slowly. "No sickness, or weird feeling, is going to stop me from acquiring more knowledge and experience. I only need your willingness to teach me."

The teacher huffed in a very haughty manner, all the Atlesian elite seemed to have mastered.

"Alright, let's get going, then." Miss Reden said, before turning back, and going to their classroom with Weiss trailing right behind her.

Weiss did her best not to grumble.

The public speaking might not have been the worst lesson she could have, but it certainly was far from her favourites. It required a tad bit too much of her direct attention, to her liking.

Thinking about her video games was always difficult on that lesson.

A vivid memory of the conversation she had with Chammy last evening flashed through her mind, and she unconsciously slightly tightened her fists.

Although, now that she thought about it, maybe going to a lesson during which her mind didn't really have the chance to drift off and wonder might be the exact thing she needed, for her current situation.

She would have the chance to play some games later, anyway.

(...)

All her lessons passed in a blink of an eye, and Weiss couldn't help but feel like she had wasted her time by attending them.

There was no way she could have genuinely concentrated on them while her mind was occupied with Chammy's situation, and none of them had been engaging enough for her to take her mind off the issue, either.

The public speaking, the one lesson she was certain would make her push all the issues she had to the back of her mind, ended far too early for it to be worth anything substantial. Meanwhile, every other lesson was far too mind-numbing and easy for her to concentrate on anything else aside from Chammy and all her troubles.

The only reason she could vaguely remember what she was supposed to have learned on those lessons was because none of them bothered with introducing anything completely new to her.

A tired sigh escaped her as she closed the door to her room.

At the very least, all those lessons were already over and done with for today, and she could finally get into playing her video games again. She would have the chance to remember to check how Chammy was doing, as well.

Hopefully, her friend had listened to her, and filed the lawsuit as soon as possible.

She didn't think she would be able to live with herself if her family company ended up leaving one of her two best friends an orphan and penniless at the same time. Just one of those things was cruel enough, as it was.

As she reached her computer, lacking was the usual excitement and giddiness she typically felt before booting it up.

The only thing she was feeling, at the moment, was dread.

It was dreadful to think that she could open the game and find Chammy offline with no explanation whatsoever.

She was terrified of learning that something had happened to her friend during the single night they had to survive without the protection of their parents.

Most important of all, however, she was absolutely horrified of Chammy figuring out that it was her family's company and its insistence on cutting corners, that cost the lives of her entire family.

If any of those three would happened, she wasn't sure she would be able to forgive herself, or if she even should.

With a shaky, and hesitant, finger, she pressed the power button.

The computer began its starting process.

She took a quick breath.

Whatever happened from now on, she would have to face it head on. There was absolutely no way she would choose to abandon her friend, not after accepting to help them the previous day.

It wasn't the type of person she was.

By the time she calmed down completely, the screen before her was already showing the standard wallpaper of her computer, and the icons of the couple games she had currently installed on it.

Normally, at this point she would have been wondering which of her games to open, but, with the situation being as it was, she instead moved her cursor to click on the GrimmBattle icon. If there was a single game she could be reliably sure that Chammy would play to take her mind off something, it would have been it, after all it had been the game playing which they had met each other.

The game started without any issues, and the very moment she could see all the menus, she instantly clicked on the friends menu to see whether the person she was looking to talk to was online.

A small window popped up.

The names of all her friends were greyed out.

Her muscles tensed from nerves.

Had Chammy somehow found out about her identity, and didn't want to be her friends anymore, now that she knew it was her family that killed her parents?

Had something happened to her friend, instead?

She gulped, audibly, as she left the game.

Whether Chammy found out about her, or not, there wasn't really a point in playing a purely multiplayer game with none of her friends with her to share the fun. It would have been simply pitiful.

With a quick breath, she tried to quickly calm herself, again.

There was no need to lose her hope yet, though.

GrimmBattle wasn't the only game they frequently played, there was still Sci-War, as well.

As the first game closed, and she moved her eyes to focus on the other prevalent game icon present on her screen, she couldn't stop her hands from shaking. The nerves were eating her alive.

She booted up the Sci-War.

The starting logos of all the companies responsible for the game began to present themselves.

She held her breath.

If she wouldn't find her friend online in this game, the worries she felt were going to be increased drastically. Chammy being offline on one of their stable games could be explained by her playing something different.

Her friend being absent from both of their games, however?

It was going to make her worry.

The game boot up sequence ended in no time, and the very moment it finished, she didn't waste even a single second before checking whether her friend was online.

The very first thing she noticed upon opening Sci-War's friend menu was that both of her friends were online—to which she let out a loud sigh of relief—and the very next thing she saw was that they were currently in a voice chat with each other, at the moment.

She had to blink a couple times as she looked at the microphone icons next to her friends' nicknames.

That was rather unexpected.

It was already quite surprising that Chammy had been willing to talk to her through the voice chat back when her parents had died, but she simply assumed it was because of the huge distress her friend must have been feeling at the time.

The fact Chammy was talking with Knight not a day later proved that her assumption wasn't entirely correct, however.

She let out a quiet hum in thought.

Was it possible that Chammy was seeking Knight's help, too?

Those two got along with each other individually, about just as well as they did with her, as far as she was aware. It wouldn't have been too surprising for Chammy to ask her other friend for help after her.

It would have been completely normal, in fact.

Still, it probably meant that it was also a rather private conversation between them, and she really didn't want to intrude on that. She had the chance to get her heart-to-heart with Chammy, already.

As she prepared herself to go offline, and maybe try out some other game she had acquired in the last couple of months, to give her friends some needed privacy, she received a chat message from her friends.

She looked at it.

It was an invitation to join their voice chat.

With a somewhat befuddled blink of her eyes, she stopped herself from closing the game.

Intruding on her friends' undoubtedly private conversation wasn't among her plans as she entered the game. If they were already inviting her to join them on their own, though, then who was she to not take the offer?

She accepted the invite, and with a quite noticeable popping chime, she quickly found herself in a voice room with her friends.

"Hello?" She asked in a greeting.

"Snow!" Two voices happily shouted at once in response to her voice.

"It's good to hear you, again." The voice of Chammy was immediately recognisable to her.

Although, it did sound a tad bit different when compared to the previous day, most likely from the complete lack of runny nose, or the slightly happier tone it had, she still could easily picture the young, eleven-year-old girl behind it.

"Hey there, Snow." The other voice, by the process of elimination, had to be the voice of Knight, then. "It's great to finally meet you properly."

She had to say, though, she didn't expect Knight to sound so young. Whenever she saw them chat about their huge family, and all the hijinks they tended to get into, she always imagined Knight to be quite a bit older.

Also, her very first friend was apparently a boy.

Who would have thought?

"It's great to hear you two." She smiled. "I didn't interrupt any important conversation between you two, did I? If you want, I can go offline for a few minutes to let you have your private discourse."

Knight snorted at her question.

Chammy giggled, as well.

"What?" She asked with genuine confusion.

"You made it sound like we were flirting with each other, Snow." Knight said, with a chuckle. "I'm pretty sure I heard some of my older sisters use those exact same words when they wanted to flirt with their boyfriends without an audience."

A blush appeared on her face.

"Wha–!?" She stuttered. "I did not! It was your imagination that instantly rushed to such conclusion! Besides, both of you know exactly what I was referring to! Don't try to put it on me!"

She heard Chammy's giggles grow louder.

Only after a couple good seconds of her friend laughing at her expense, did the faunus girl calm down to talk with her normally.

"Yeah, we know." Chammy said reassuringly. "Don't worry, I already talked with Knight about what had happened, while you were still offline. I-I'm not quite sure if I'm fine just yet, but there's not much to talk about that, for now."

Her blush was replaced with a rather wistful expression.

"That's good." She said softly, before offering her help once more. "If you want someone to talk to–"

"I can always talk to you." Chammy finished. "Don't worry, I didn't forget that, yet. Knight actually offered the very same thing to me, you know? I'm truly lucky to have found such friends as you two."

She nodded her head.

Good, that was what they were for, after all.

"Alright, it's enough of all the emotional stuff for now." Knight said with a clap. "Let's play some video games, and forget about all of our troubles for now, okay?"

A wide smile appeared on her face. Knight was right, there was only a single reason as to why she kept logging on to play her video games every night, and it wasn't to cry herself to sleep.

It was to finally have some fun in her life.


And cut!

It was the first, arguably second, chapter of the story in which absolutely no game was played by Weiss.

Well, sometimes you just have to take a break form playing after all.

Speaking of breaks, there probably is going to be quite a long break for Christmas/New-Year so don't expect chapters for some time. Also this story might return with updates on Fridays, but I'm not sure, yet.

Anyway, that's it for now, see ya later!