I'm back!

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! And all the great other holidays you could have celebrated in my absence.

We're going back to the story.


It was difficult to state just how much more convenient using a voice chat was to writing everything they wanted to say in a chat, instead.

No longer were they forced to awkwardly stop whatever they were doing, and delay their complex strategies by precious seconds, to send simple messages to each other in a middle of the game. Now, if they wanted to share some information with their friends, they only needed to say it out loud, and that was it!

Weiss grinned widely as she built a couple of defensive buildings near the map's centre, knowing full well that Knight and Chammy were going to use her buildings as a strategic choke point later in the match.

Surely, now that they could communicate with each other properly, they would easily defeat any opponents in the ever competitive casual game mode of the Sci-War.

"Scouts are coming from the right." Knight warned, after noticing movement with some of his smaller units.

"Understood." She nodded, before selecting a couple of her units and giving them orders to deal with the scouts.

The choke point she was creating would only have the chance to be useful if none of their three opponents noticed it before it was completed. An outward base was useless if the enemy destroyed it before anyone had the chance to use it, after all.

She shifted a little in her chair, as she watched her units slowly making their way towards the enemies Knight warned her about.

The Last Kingdom, the faction she played as, didn't have many truly mobile units so early into the game, so there was a high chance she wouldn't have the chance to stop them before their base was revealed.

"Don't worry, Snow. " Chammy's voice suddenly quickly cut it, as her units were already moving to intercept the enemy scouts. "I've got it."

The couple of light soldiers, which Chammy had sent to help her, managed to quickly defeat all the wayward scouts of their enemies. She was pretty sure they managed to deal with all the scouts far enough from her buildings for them to remain hidden, as well.

A small huff escaped her out of relief at the resolved situation.

"Thank you for the assistance, Chammy." She said.

She heard her friends let out two quick chuckles in response to her gratitude.

"W-What?" She asked, a little bit self-conscious of herself.

Usually, they wouldn't have the time to talk about too many non-game related things during their matches—doing so took too much of their attention away from the game—but now that they were using voice chat, they could freely converse about anything they wanted.

It was simply yet another thing which made the voice chat so much better than the written massages they were using earlier.

"It's nothing much, Snow." She heard Chammy held down a giggle. "It's just so weird to hear you talking through the voice chat, and yet acting as formal as you do when writing to us. It feels so off, when hearing your voice."

"That is simply how I normally talk, though?" She slightly tilted her head to the side, in confusion.

Chammy exploded in laughter.

"What?"

A small part of her wanted to be somewhat angry as her friend laughed at her way of talking, but a much bigger part of her was happy to hear Chammy laugh for any reason whatsoever.

It meant her friend wasn't being tormented by the death of her parents.

"Don't worry about it, Snow." Knight said in a calmer tone, although she could hear him holding a laugh too. "We are friends. You can talk to us in any way you want."

"Even if that does make you sound like you're trying to butter up to a teacher." Chammy chimed in with a chuckle.

"Wha-?" She couldn't help but ask.

"I think it sounds nice." Knight said, coming in for her defence.

"Of course you do, you boy." Chammy retorted.

In the end, she could only huff in indignation as she brought her full attention back towards the game. If her friends wanted to distract themselves away from their game by talking about the way she talks, then she would simply have to win this match for them, all on her own.

It wasn't like it was impossible for her to beat all three of their opponents at once, or anything.

During their short conversation, a couple of her starting scouts had managed to reach the bases of their enemies, but the only information she had managed to get from them was that their foes were planning on using a rather defensive strategy.

At least, that was what she managed to gather from the fact she had seen a layer of walls being build and a couple of turrets which near instantaneously dealt with her units.

She would have grumbled in annoyance at the prospect of a stretched out defensive game, but she managed to keep calm at the thought of her friends helping her deal with that later in the game.

For now, the only thing she did about it was making sure that she had the upgrades to the artillery, and heavy weaponry, units ready in case she would want to attack their opponents at any point in the recent future.

"The Nomads are preparing some airships." Knight reported, no doubt, seeing the enemy actions with his hidden Grimm scouts. "Make sure to prepare some anti-air, and artillery, units."

"I've got it." She nodded, as she focused on her artillery units even more. "Chammy, since you're playing as the Nomads, could you make sure we have some good air coverage?"

"Already on it, Snow." Chammy said lightly.

Since all three of them were online, and they were using a voice chat to talk with each other for the first time, they had decided to play a standard 3v3 casual game mode.

They technically weren't forced to each play as a different faction, and they could have simply chosen to each play as the same ones. However, for the sake of variety, they tended to always make sure their team would have every faction in the game, whenever they had the chance to play Sci-War with all three of them on the same team.

It wasn't like making sure each of them chose something different was difficult, either.

Thankfully, both hers and Chammy's favourite factions were different ones, with her favourite being the Last Kingdom while Chammy's being the Nomads, and Knight usually didn't care too much that he was forced to play as Grimm as a result.

Their opponents typically weren't as spread out through the factions of the game, though, and they were currently playing against an annoying combination of two players playing as the Last Kingdom and one playing as the Nomads.

Would she and her friends be able to deal with them?

She certainly thought so.

Although, it didn't mean that it wasn't going to be an annoying game to win.

"I'm moving my units to the choke point in the middle." She stated, as she saw the first couple of her artillery units finish spawning. "I don't want us to lose it so quickly after I built it."

"Good idea." Knight said. "I will send some of my Nevermores, as well."

A subtle grin appeared on her face.

Good, with both her and Knight's units supporting their base in the middle, they should be able to deal with the attacks on it rather easily. With Chammy protecting their main bases likewise, there shouldn't be anything to worry about for now.

"They are keeping to the right, guys." Chammy called out, as the girl's units entered a combat with the opposing nomads. "I'm pretty sure they are aiming for an early attack on your base, Snow."

"Do you think you will be able to handle them alone?" She asked quickly.

"Hm, I think so." Chammy answered.

She nodded her head, despite knowing her friends wouldn't be able to see it, before quickly selecting a couple of her units, and ordering them to attack the main base of the Nomad player with whose units Chammy was currently dealing.

There were only a few infantry, and artillery, units she could spare for that attack, and she was rather certain that her charge wasn't going to accomplish much.

In spite of that, however, if there was a single thing that her multiple teachers, and the experience she had in this video game, had managed to taught her, it was that she should always make use of any chances she was given.

"Wait! You are attacking!?" Knight asked in surprise, no doubt noticing her units leaving their choke point in the middle and moving towards the base of their opponent.

"Of course." She said, as she already queued another groups of units to be created in her main base. "We know their army is busy with trying to get past Chammy's defences. It's the perfect moment to strike!"

Having placed their armies already closer to the middle of the map than their opponents had, they had the perfect opportunity to launch an offensive before the ambitious Nomads would be able to get most of their army back there. It wasn't like their foe could simply create a new army in a moment or two, either, since the airships were quite expensive units for such an early game.

A grin on her face widened.

Surely, her ability to strategise, and exploit any advantages of her enemies, was beyond praiseworthy!

"What about the armies of the other two players?" Chammy briefly cut into the conversation. "I've only seen one of them sending an army towards us, the others must have units defending their bases, too."

"Exactly!" Knight added.

Her grin wavered a little.

Okay, maybe she was a bit hasty in her judgement, but she was holding onto her conviction that her plan was, at the very least, a decent one.

It wasn't like she could safely back down, anyway. Her units were already so close to the enemy base, she was certain some of the enemy scouts had to have seen her by now. If they haven't yet, they certainly would the moment she actually tried to retreat.

Whether her friends liked it or not, her plan would have to proceed at this point.

She did feel a bit bashful at her little oversight, though.

"I will be a distraction, then!" She quickly said, trying to salvage the situation. "Quickly, Knight, order your grimm to attack one of the other two enemies, and we will surely be able to damage at least one of them!"

Yes, with both of them attacking at the same time, they were bound to succeed!

"This sounds just as risky as your original idea!" Knight shouted.

"It is going to work perfectly, trust me." She said.

An amused chuckle came out of her speakers, as Chammy reacted to their little problem.

"Don't laugh, Chammy!" She hissed quietly.

Her hiss didn't appear to do its job, however, as the laughs she heard from her speakers only intensified for a moment, right after it.

"I guess it's going to be one of the shortest games we've ever played, huh?" Chammy asked with a snort, before groaning a little as if she had just stretched her muscles. "Alright, I'm up for it. You two send your armies first, and the moment my newer units finish spawning, or I somehow deal with the enemy airships before our bases completely, I'm joining you, as well."

"Argh, I can't believe we are doing something so risky." Knight groaned, before sighing. "Okay, I will send my grimm to harass the other guy. Who knows, we might even win this match if everything goes well."

A huff escaped her, as she calmed down a little.

With both of her friends supporting her reckless charge, she might have the chance to salvage this game, in the end. The Knight's Grimm were a perfect faction for swarming the opponents with units, after all, and a quick help from the Chammy's Nomads, later in their assault, was going to be a great help too.

It certainly wasn't going to be an easy victory, but it wasn't going to be impossible, either.

Of course, even if they played their assault as perfectly as it was humanly possible, they still could end up loosing, if their enemies prepared any good enough countermeasures of their own.

In the end, all they could do was keep their units coming, and hope they would be able to defeat their foes before they found a way to counter them.

She saw the first units of her small attack group die to the mobile base of the enemy nomads in seconds, as another group of enemy units began approaching the base to chase her off, and she immediately focused as hard as she could on the game.

"I'm attacking one of the Lost Kingdoms." Knight reported.

"Some of my units are already coming to help." Chammy called out.

Her expression turned serious.

Hopefully her risky gambit was going to succeed.

(...)

Weiss was actively sulking as she struggled through the process of eating the breakfast with her family in the morning.

The reason for her sour mood didn't have anything to do with the food she was eating, or the tiring day that was ahead of her, like one might think upon looking at her, however. Instead, she was sulking solely because of the game she had played with her friends the previous evening.

They had been so close to winning!

Not only had the initial charge she launched against the Nomads player worked near perfectly, but Knight and Chammy had managed to damage one of the kingdom players so much they practically defeated them, as well.

Had everything gone according to her plan, and they played against a reasonable opponent, they would have practically won the game at that point!

Unfortunately, the third player they had played against was some sort of turtling master, who somehow managed to out-resource all three of them and won by practically hiding in their base the entire game!

Words couldn't describe how furious she was the moment that game had ended.

She still felt bitter, even today!

A sigh left her, as she took a bite of some pretentiously named high-class food they were served for breakfast again.

At the very least, she could definitely say that all the conversations she had with her friends during that stupidly long game were rather enjoyable. It was only a pity that because of how long that single game stretched out, they didn't really have the chance to play anything else the last evening.

A gaming session during which they won at least once would have surely been far more worthy of their first evening with a voice chat on.

She made sure to stop herself from sighing again to not anger her father.

Well, it had been a somewhat memorable evening, she supposed, and it wasn't like there weren't going to be another ones later.

"Is everything alright, Weiss?" Winter asked, from the other side of the table, causing her to flinch a little in surprise as she was brought away from her musings.

"Y-Yes, everything is fine, sister." She answered. "Is anything about the way I look unsatisfactory?"

Her older sister looked at her with visible concern in her eyes. Quietly, she was already expecting to either hear a scoff, or receive a scolding, from her father about the way she had just stuttered.

Actually, it was quite weird she hadn't heard anything already.

"Father had already departed the table, Weiss." Winter said.

She blinked slowly.

With a quick glance to the side, at the seat her father would usually take, she confirmed that what her sister said was true, and the only ones remaining at the table were her and her siblings.

"Huh, I haven't noticed that." She admitted.

"He left a couple minutes ago, after you've answered his every question with single word responses." Whitley said. "You are lucky he didn't see anything unusual about that, or we might have ended up with solid scolding."

An absent-minded hum escaped her.

It was already quite a normal thing for her to go through the entire days on an autopilot as she waited for a chance to play with her friends, so it didn't come to her as a huge surprise that she might have also done the same for a single breakfast.

The only truly unusual thing about it was the fact that she managed to do it while her father was nearby.

Normally, no matter how invested she was in her gaming life, she tended to pay at least the minimum attention to her father in order to be able to answer any of his questions without angering the man too much.

After a moment of thinking, she decided to relax a little.

As long as she hadn't found herself in any trouble, then everything was alright.

It wasn't like she could do anything about it by now, anyway.

Although, it was fully possible that the last evening, when she finally had the chance to hear both her friends for the first time, did have a bigger effect on her than she thought it might have.

"You're dozing off again, Weiss." Winter said.

She jumped in her seat a little.

Okay, maybe she was focusing a bit too much on her games right now, but it wasn't her fault!

Anyone would have been just as distracted if they were in a similar situation to her, especially so soon after one of their only friends had gone through such an ordeal. She still found herself worrying about Chammy, whenever she had the moment to let her thoughts wander.

"I'm sorry, Winter." She mumbled. "I had a rather taxing evening last night."

Whitley twitched a little to her side, no doubt realising what she was talking about.

As far as she was aware, her brother was the only one who had any idea about her online friends, for now. The boy was probably still in awe of her ability to find friends, up to this very day.

Winter sighed.

"Of course, you did." Winter mumbled quietly to herself, to her and Whitley's surprise, before speaking louder to her. "If you feel too tired to do anything today, you should take a day of rest, Weiss."

Her eyes widened at her sister's words.

"What do you mean, by that?" She couldn't help but ask.

It was the first time in her life she had been offered to take a break from her lessons by anyone. The only times she had been excused from the lessons before, was due to a serious sickness, or her teachers not being able to arrive to the mansion on time.

"I mean, you should rest a little bit, Weiss. I've seen how tense and tired you were yesterday. While can't say I know the reason why, I'm certain you need to relax right now, or you'll work yourself to the ground." Winter answered, but she wasn't quite sure if taking a break was such a good idea.

If she wanted to take a single day of break—or make any form of alteration, big or small, to their strict timetable, really—she would need to report it to their father.

It wasn't something she was willing to do.

"Don't worry about dealing with father, Weiss." Thankfully, Winter managed to notice her worries. "I will report your change in timetable myself. There are a couple things I wanted to discuss with Jacques, regardless."

Her chair was shoved back, as she promptly stood up, her eyes shining with excitement.

"You would do that for me, Winter?!" She asked.

Winter smiled.

"Of course, sis."

Had she not been a heiress to a Schnee family, she would have jumped forward to bury her older sister in countless hugs of gratitude, but since she was taught to be as dignified as possible, she only sprinted towards Winter to squeeze her once.

"Thank you, Winter." She said, as she buried her head into her older sister's body.

Truly, she had to be amongst the most dignified people in the entire world.

"You're welcome." Winter said with a smile, before turning towards Whitley. "Do you need to talk with father about something too, brother? I might be able to do it for you at the same time."

She heard the boy behind her shift a little, before shaking his head.

"There's nothing I need father for, sister." Whitley said. "If I find myself in need of your help, I will remember you offered it, however."

"Alright, just remember to tell me if you need something sooner rather than later." Winter nodded her head. "Our father might not be as favourable to my requests after my conversation with him as he is right now, anymore."

She couldn't help but raise one of her eyebrows in confusion as she let go of Winter's hug.

What could that possibly mean?

"What are you going to talk about with Jacques?" She asked.

The expression on her older sister's face softened a little at her question, and the older girl looked towards her with barely noticeable melancholy on her face.

"Nothing too important, sister." Winter said while gently patting her head. "If I'm going to get what I want from that conversation, you will hear about it from either of us, tomorrow. If it's not going to work, however, it won't be important, anyway."

A frown appeared on her face as she looked at Winter talk to her like that.

It was incredibly rare for her older sister to be so secretive and dismissive about something. Usually, Winter was more than happy to share everything with her, especially if she asked about it on her own.

"You don't have to worry about me, Weiss." Winter smiled softly. "Go and have a rest for now, okay?"

Her eyes narrowed as she looked at Winter with slight suspicion, but in the end she could only sigh as her older sister didn't appear to be willing to share any more information with her and Whitley.

"If you say so, Winter." She said. "Promise me, you won't do something that will make father too furious about you, however."

The smile on Winter's face turned wry.

"Don't worry, Weiss."

It wasn't a promise.

All three of them knew it.

"In that case, good luck trying to talk to father, Winter." She said, before heading towards the room's exit.

At this point, the only thing she could do was hope her sister wasn't going to get punished too severely by their father. Despite Winter helping her get a full day to relax, she found herself with yet another thing to worry about.

She sighed.

Well, a couple hours of playing her video games were sure to take her mind off all those issues.

(...)

Jacques Schnee's office was a cold place.

No sympathy or love was ever shared inside of it, as all the possible reasons one might visit it were solely business related. It didn't matter whether one was an employee of the mansion, or part of the Schnee family themselves, nobody was ever pleased about visit this place.

Up until now, Winter had only really the chance to experience the true heartlessness of this place once before in her life.

It had been back when she was still a young girl, who had just heard that she would become an older sister. Back then, the reason behind her visit had been to receive a punishment from her father, for trying to sneakily find out whether her first younger sibling had been a boy or a girl.

A shiver went through her as she observed the door before her.

To this day, she could clearly remember exactly how gruelling and painful the months following her visit to father's office had been.

After she had survived through all of that, she had promised herself that if any of her younger siblings was ever forced to go through an experience even remotely similar, she would do everything in her might to get them out of it.

No child, no matter how in the wrong they were, should suffer the punishments that Jacques Schnee gave to others, especially not Weiss or Whitley.

She took a deep and calming breath.

Thankfully, if she managed to get what she wanted from her father, then she wouldn't need to deal with his authority for much longer.

With a forcefully steadied movement, she knocked on the door before her.

One of the main rules of the Schnee mansion, that everyone learned at some point during their stay there, was to never enter the Jacques's office without being called. It didn't matter whether one was a freshly employed servant, or the oldest daughter of the Schnee family herself, that was a single rule that everyone had to always follow, no matter the circumstances.

"Come in." Jacque's voice echoed from the room before her.

There was practically no way for her to tell whether Jacques had enough free time to take care of any guests, or if he was simply expecting someone else to report to him around this time.

Hopefully, it was the first option.

She opened the door in a manner that looked far more confident than she felt.

If there was one thing she knew that her father cared about, besides money, it was image and reputation. The Schnee family couldn't afford to look weak even to its own member, and she was expected to keep that in mind.

"I didn't expect you to visit, my daughter." Jacques said from behind his desk, upon seeing her enter. "What is it, that brings you here?"

The impatient, and weirdly heavy, expression on her father's face drilled into her, as she stood in the room's entrance.

"There are a couple topics I wanted to discuss with you today, father." It took nearly all of her strength, and conviction, to not stutter under her father's gaze.

"How many of these topics, that you wish to discuss with me, do you have, Winter?" Jacques asked, in an uninterested tone. "You know that my time is both limited, and exceptionally precious. I won't be able to listen to all of your issues, if there are a lot of them."

"I-I have only two things, I wish to discuss with you, father." She said.

Jacques looked at her with a bored look, contemplated for a moment, and sighed.

"Speak then, my daughter."

Her body became tense for a moment, neither of the topics she wanted to breach with her father was a pleasant one for the man, and she was certain that there was going to be a fight. The most she could hope for, was that she was the one who would win this fight.

"First, I want you to allow Weiss a day of rest, today." She started. Weiss's request was the more peaceful topic of the two she wanted to discuss with her father, so it made sense for her to begin with that. "I believe she needs it to recover."

Her father slowly raised one of his eyebrows.

"Is she ill?" Jacques asked. "I remember her looking presentable during breakfast, and she didn't report catching any sicknesses, either."

It took her a lot of effort to not clench her jaws in anger at her father's blatant dismissal of her younger sister's health.

That man had clearly eaten the breakfast with them, and even listened to all the answers that her little sister have given him. How was it possible that he didn't notice anything wrong with Weiss's behaviour?

She took a deep breath to calm herself.

No, of course Jacques didn't notice anything, he wouldn't notice his own family dying in front of him, if it didn't affect his image, or monetary gain.

It was naive of her to hope for something different.

"With all due respect, father, Weiss was acting visibly stressed for the entire last day, and she is no doubt too tired to do anything substantial today." She said, as politely as she could.

Her father didn't look convinced.

She gritted her teeth.

If the polite approach wasn't going to convince her father to let Weiss rest for a day, then she would simply have to direct his attention towards something he was bound to notice.

"With Weiss so tired and unfocused, she won't be able to fully focus on her lessons, and all the money you spend on her tutors is going to be wasted." She said. "It could also start unsightly rumours about our family, putting the youngest of us under too much pressure."

Her father looked at her in silence for a moment, or two, as he no doubt contemplated her arguments.

"The teachers of the Schnee family are contractually forbidden from spreading any information about us to anyone outside this mansion." Jacques said listlessly, before sighing. "I can see your point, however. After you leave my office, make sure to notify all of Weiss's tutors that they don't have any lessons today."

A tiny smile formed on her face.

"Thank you, father." She said.

"Taking care of our family's image is only natural." Jacques dismissed her gratitude with a simple wave of his hand. "Tell me, what is the other issue you wanted to discuss with me, today?"

The moment she heard her father's question, she gulped nervously.

She knew very well that the second subject of her visit to father's office wasn't going to be nearly half as easy to discuss as the request to grant her younger sister a free day had been.

"After my graduation, I wish to join the Atlas Academy and study there to join the army."


And cut!

Hoped you enjoyed!

(If you are reading my other fic as well, there probably won't be an update for it at wendesday. I couldn't fit an update there, sorry)

See ya!