Chapter 2: Mr. Blue Sky

"I'm not religious, but I'll pray for you 'cause you need it."

It was times like these that made Robin wonder if Cardin was actually the product of some flubbed super soldier project and not just a regular huntsman training course. Both he and Sky were on either side of the boy as he, without aura, benched enough weight to crush Robin like a bug. Of course, in typical Cardin fashion, the boy did all that while shouting at the top of his lungs, drawing more than a few weird looks from the other students in the gym.

With one last heave, the boy pushed the weight up. Robin's legs carried him over as he helped grab the bar and haul it into position over the bracket. It clattered with a ringing noise as Cardin stood up on the seat and let out heaving breaths.

Robin moved to stand in front of Cardin, pulling his journal out of his bag on the ground. He let Cardin catch his breath some. "Right, quiz time. Grimm that can hide in stuff and possesses objects."

Cardin sat there, nostrils flaring as he breathed. He turned a glare up at Robin, who sighed. "Don't give me that look; you're already mean mugging half the gym. And you are the one who asked me to quiz you randomly on Grimm."

"But now of all times, really?" Cardin complained.

"We only got like six weeks till the tournament. You were the one complaining we were spending too much time studying and not enough training. Now come on, answer." Robin said.

Cardin paused, thinking over it. "Ghost?"

"Close, Gheist. Ghosts possess people, not objects." Robin said.

Cardin grunted and stood, taking some of the weights off of the bar and moving to put them back on their racks, leaving Robin and Sky standing around the bench. The two stared at each other for a moment. For a moment, it looked like Sky was going to say something, his mouth opening slightly, and then his jaw snapped shut with an audible clack.

It had been like this for a while. Things fall apart; the center cannot hold. Neither really wanted to broach the elephant in the room, and so neither did. Neither of the two had really had a serious conversation since… well, since Hamelin.

He should say something, his mind slowly realized. He should do something. He should say he's there for him. Do something, anything. But his mouth refused to cooperate. If he needed to tell Sky that, then saying it wouldn't mean anything in the first place.

Before he could think of much else to say, a shout from across the room tore his attention away. Cardin was towering over another student, weights in hand. Robin's brain vaguely recognized something about re-racking weights. Regardless of the reason, his legs were carrying him to Cardin's side while he was still processing it.

"Hey, big guy, the suns getting real low." He spoke.

Cardin turned his glare onto Robin. Softening slightly out of confusion. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"Stupid stuff, don't worry about it," Robin replied, gesturing at the still-cowering other student to make a retreat. The boy all but scrambled away.

"When aren't you talking about stupid stuff?" Cardin asked.

"Never, now, why don't we focus that energy, let you get a few more reps, yeah?" he spoke as he led Cardin back to the bench. Slowly, the lumbering boy let out a grunt that Robin thought was something like agreement.

Robin would be the first to admit that his team was a bit… dysfunctional after recent events. But they would bounce back from it. They had to, or who knew if any of them would survive whatever was coming their way.

-2-

Robin used to think whiskey was the panacea of the soul. If that was true, then coffee was clearly some ambrosia crafted by the gods. It probably helped that he was sure they put some schedule one narcotics in the coffee at Beacon courtesy of Professor Ozpin himself.

It was also strange, given he used to despise coffee, and no, it wasn't because he spilled a cup of it on himself the first time he tried it. He did not have coffee-related trauma, thank you very much. His tastebuds just didn't jive with it. No matter how much milk and sugar he put in, he could always taste that little bit of nastiness. It probably made sense he liked it now, given his tastebuds were just different in his body.

He was brought back to reality by a hand snapping in front of his face. Oh, right, he contracted the midget; sorry, he asked Ruby for help with his new weapon. As much as he loved his handcanon, he couldn't exactly fight off a horde of Grimm with it. Either dust bullets were obscenely weak, or Grimm only had a weakness to melee for some reason. There had been multiple scientific studies on it, and the closest anyone had come to solving it was an internet user by the name of xX_Chainsaw_Xx boldly theorizing that 'melee is just like cooler dude.'

"You zoned out again," Ruby said, arms crossed as she started up at him. The two were stood in Beacon's forge—a surprisingly large room in Beacon's basement, of all things.

"It appears I did," Robin said as he sipped his coffee.

"I was trying to tell you important information about weapons," Ruby said with an expression that looked like a cross between a pout and a glare.

"You were regaling me with the so-called benefits of mecha-shift weaponry." He returned. "You know, I'm not sure Professor Ozpin would approve of sabotage."

"Sabotage!" She exclaimed. "How in the world was I trying to sabotage you? It's not like I'd need any help; you shoot yourself in the foot often enough as is."

"You were recommending that I take up an entirely new weapon with only a few weeks before the festival. No one can learn a weapon in a few weeks, so if I followed your advice, I'd be shooting myself in the kneecap and handing any chance of a win away."

Ruby rolled her eyes. "A weapon lasts for more than just one festival, idiot. A good one lasts someone for a lifetime."

Robin nodded in agreement. "I'm acknowledging your authority as weapon nerd but ignoring your advice on the basis of my gut."

Ruby scoffed. "Fine, no mechashift. Didn't you say you were going to get me a drink?"

"Oh yeah, you see, I got you this coffee." He holds up the cup of coffee he had been drinking out of for the past several minutes. "But then I got thirsty and drank some of it. Then I figured, well, you probably wouldn't want to drink it after I did it, so I just kept it."

Silence reigned between the two as Ruby stared up at him, her brain slowly processing his words. Only for her to suddenly reach up, grab his coffee out of his hand, and throw it in the trash. "Coffee is bad. I demand a better drink."

"One, rude. Two, that's not how it works. The effort put into buying the coffee is what matters. Something, something journey, not the destination." Robin retorted.

Ruby stood there momentarily and then brought her hands together, her eyes expanding almost cartoonishly. "Robin." She said, an odd inflection in her voice.

"Please stop looking at me like that." He pleaded dispassionately,

"You know what would make me really happy? A hot chocolate." It looked like her eyes started to water under the strain of keeping them open like that.

"Will you stop making that face if I do?" He asked.

"Yes." She said.

"Fine, back away, witch." Robin held his hands up in surrender. He wasn't about to admit that the puppy dog eyes were actually working. It reminded him of one of his friends from back home.

-3-

A few minutes later, he came back, his tribute of hot chocolate offered to the midget as payment for her help with the weapon crafting. While he was gone, she had taken the liberty of gathering the needed materials from around the forge.

Ruby adopted a lecturing pose in front of him while the forge began roaring in anticipation of the project ahead. "So, what do you know about weapons?" She asked.

"Uhh, you use 'em to hurt people, or Grimm?" Robin hazarded.

She made a so-so gesture with her hand. "A lot of people think a weapon is an answer. That it's something that you imperially decide on, then build." She paused for a moment. "It's not like it's not that. It is, in a lot of ways, but it's also more than that. A weapon is more than that because it has to be. It has to be something your soul recognizes as part of you. It's like… I want to say art, but I don't paint. You have to put something in if you want to get anything out of it."

Robin raised an eyebrow. "Seems a tad over dramatic for making a sword."

Ruby sighed. "In ancient times, people would put the bones of their beloved animals, their horse, their hound, into the forge. They thought that the spirits of these creatures that they loved in life would protect and assist them in death. Though they didn't know it, the carbon in those bones helped make steel with the iron they used. But that aspect of the ritual meant that their aura easily flowed into them. Because, of course, it would. They weren't just weapons. They were their friends. There's a reason a huntsman crafting their first weapon is such a big deal. You stick a flimsy piece of steel against a thousand-pound Grimm, and it'll shatter. So their weapons have to be more than just a piece of steel, more than just a weapon."

Robin stared. "And how does this help me in getting a new sword?"

"It's more than just making a sword, you brute." She hissed for a moment. "It's about getting you into the proper mindset. Weapons are supposed to be a reflection of who we are. Whatever, hope you're good with a hammer."

"I thought you were helping me!" Robin whined slightly.

"This is me helping you, and I'll shout helpful instructions along the way; now get busy!" She shouted as she picked up her hot chocolate, sipping at it slightly.

Forging a sword, it turned out, was a lot more than just hitting metal with a hammer than he thought. Well, granted, it was mostly hitting metal with a hammer and some waiting. Currently, he was on the heat it up and then whack it until it turned into a vaguely blade-shaped thing step, which was positively mind-numbing.

The muscles in his arm began to protest as time dragged on, and the heat sapped away his energy as sweat began to pour down his forehead. An all-too-familiar pressure began to build in his gut as his frustration grew.

This was taking too long; he would be the first to admit he had the attention span of a golden retriever, and this was already testing it. What was it Ruby said? Let your aura flow into it or something?

"Ruby!" He called out as the hammer in his hand fell onto the heated metal in front of him.

"Yeah?" She returned almost absentmindedly.

"I'm gonna try something stupid." Robin declared.

"I'm gonna go sit a few extra feet away then," Ruby said as she started scurrying away.

Robin turned back to the hunk of metal that would hopefully become a sword. He wasn't entirely sure how his semblance worked; he hadn't had time to test it much. What he did know was that it fed on his emotions somewhat. Well, that was his current theory.

His gut twisted as his frustration bubbled to the surface… in the form of a few errant sparks. He needed more. He let his mind wander to Hamelin, and the storm grew. Then, toward the church filled with innocent dead, the storm grew. Finally, toward Dove, the storm grew.

Lightning danced across his body, but only an errant bolt or two struck the metal itself. He needed to direct it. His gut twisted harder, and it almost felt like he had been stabbed as the storm roared in protest, as he forced it onto the metal, which began to turn orange as it heated.

He allowed himself to get lost in the forging as his body turned to autopilot, and his mind continued to dredge up more memories to feed the storm. He didn't know how long it took him to come to, but by the time he did, the storm had subsided, leaving an empty feeling in his gut, and the hunk of metal had become almost a proper blade.

His fingers grasped at the hilt as he walked toward a container of oil. What a funny thought, his fingers. How long ago would he have thought of them as something foreign? Not long, he realized. They were his fingers now, despite the damage they had felt. The pain made them his own. His hands grasped for steel, and he couldn't deny that they were his.

Ruby had said something earlier, and it hadn't entirely stuck then. 'Weapons are a reflection of who we are.' As Robin stuck the blade into the oil to quench it, he saw his own face gazing back at him.

It's his face.

His hands.

His sword.

And as he pulled the blade out, it came with nary a ripple to the surface, so fine it was. Unblemished, his reflection in the oil, holding his sword in hand.

Ruby slowly approached, eyes slightly wide. "What the fuck was that?!"

"I did say I was going to do something stupid, didn't I?" Robin said slowly.

"No, seriously, what the fuck. And why would you do that in an enclosed room? I swear-" She cut herself off. "You know what, we're talking about this later,"

Robin grunted; she was the one who was all on about pouring your soul into a weapon earlier, so he had done exactly that. "What's next then?"

"The most important part!" She said with forced cheer. "Naming it. Every good weapon has a name, and if you say anything about naming weapons being stupid, I'll beat you black and blue."

Robin stood there like he was existing, simply seeing the world from behind his eyes and little more at this moment. It takes him a while before he opens his mouth to speak.

"Polaris." He finally breathed out.

"What's that?" She asked, tilting her head slightly.

"The Guiding Star."

AN: Yoohoo, been a minute, yeah I know the Christmas interlude wasn't really, up to snuff as much, but I been busy with irl stuff, and only just got the motivation to push this out. But, we should be back to our regularly scheduled programming for a bit. As always, call out any mistakes, hope y'all enjoy, and have a wonderful day!