Update time.

Sorry, there wasn't an update the last week, but a sneaky exam happened on Friday, so I couldn't really publish anything.

I technically have one test today, as well, (It's from damned Latin of all things) but It's in the evening and I had the time to finish it.

The word 'Victory' was proudly displayed on the computer screen.

It was their third game this evening.

It was their third victory as well.

Apparently, the experience and know-how they have gained from playing the game mode since its creation have been more than enough for them to absolutely dominate any new players who barely knew how to play. It was almost sad how easy it was to defeat most other players for them.

They had barely even noticed that one of their teammates was actively trying to make them lose during the first game they played today.

Thankfully, they only had to deal with a single teammate like that throughout all their matches.

Weiss grimaced a little.

That guy had been a real jerk.

She had been lucky; her friends had managed to discourage her from inviting him to their voice call. There was no saying just how uncomfortable that game would have been for them if not for that.

"Yeah, another effortless victory for us!" Chammy cheered happily. "I almost feel bad for all our opponents. They wouldn't stand a chance against one of us, let alone three of us working together."

Weiss chuckled.

If there was one thing she had to agree with Chammy on, it was that defeating all those new players in the game mode they helped to make felt beyond cathartic.

There was simply something so satisfying about winning those matches that couldn't be found anywhere else.

"You can feel bad for other players?!" Knight asked with a fake gasp. "How come you've never mentioned it when you were absolutely destroying them with your over-levelled character?"

Weiss snorted.

"Hey! I did say almost!" Chammy protested.

Knight let out a sigh.

"W-Well, we did turn it into a learning experience for all of them, right?" Weiss faked a cough as she tried to defend her friend. "They wouldn't get any better if we went easy on them."

"You too, Snow?" Knight asked.

A quiet grumble escaped her as she turned her head away from the screen.

What? It wasn't her fault that she was so competitive. All her teachers were the ones responsible for developing such a competitive edge in her through their lessons in the first place.

The Schnee heiress had to be a winner, after all.

"Ha! It's two on one, Knight!" Chammy shouted excitedly. "It proves that you're the weird one among us for going easy on the other players. Snow and I are the ones correct here."

"I'm sure all of our opponents would surely agree with you after the games they had to suffer through." Knight said with a sigh. "We were meant to be the responsible ones here. We are the ones responsible for the game, in the end."

"Oh, shut it." Chammy grumbled.

All three of them chuckled a little.

"Do you have the time for one more game, Snow?" Knight asked. "I know you might want to prepare for your exam."

Weiss quickly glanced at the clock on her computer screen.

It was already getting late, and she might need to log out soon. The fact that it was still a bit earlier than the time they usually started their gaming sessions sadly didn't matter when she had the entire concert to prepare for.

She lightly bit her lower lip in hesitation.

There was still some time to play with her friends, though.

"Sure, I can play a game or two." She said.

A little bit of procrastination hadn't killed anyone yet, had it?

"That's great." Chammy said. "Let's destroy those newbies as quickly as possible, to fit in as many games as possible, then. I'm sure it won't be an issue for us. All the other players are weaklings, anyway."

Weiss nodded her head.

"No, we are not destroying them this time." Knight said with a stern tone. "We were supposed to test the networking issues of the game today. It's impossible to do when every one of our games ends in less than half an hour."

"Oh, come on!" Chammy whined.

Weiss giggled.

"Treat it as a relaxing experience, Chammy." Knight said. "Not everything needs to be a competition."

"It is so much more fun to give your best during the game, though." Chammy said. "Playing casually is nowhere near as entertaining. I'm sure Snow agrees with me on that, right? Snow?"

A low hum escaped Weiss as she went over the question in her head.

Although she did agree with Chammy on the issue, it didn't change the fact that they were technically supposed to be still testing the game. It was yet to be finished, after all.

"Let's go easy on our foes this time, Chammy." Weiss said. "We will be able to go all out against the other players anytime we want after the full release. Right now, we should make sure everything will work properly at that point."

"Alright, we will do it your way." Chammy sighed.

"Thanks." Knight huffed.

The game started again, and it was immediately searching for other players for them to play with.

Despite the fact that the game mode was still in its pre-release state and only a handful of people had access to it, they never really had to wait long for it to find the other players. Since the opening day for the network test wasn't over just yet, practically everyone with the ability to play was currently trying to play it against other people.

Knight's sisters did make it very clear that the network test would be limited in time. After it was finished, everyone would have to wait for the full release, so nobody wanted to miss out.

Frankly, it was quite a genius marketing strategy.

Weiss remembered quite a few business lessons that went over similar marketing schemes in the past, and it was quite entertaining to see one unfold in person.

Hopefully, it would prove to be as successful as all of her teachers always claimed it would be, because she really wanted to see the custom game mode succeed in the future.

It would be her first successful project if it turned out like that.

"It looks like we've got our opponents." Knight remarked, as the game found them the five players necessary for the game mode. "Please remember to go easy on them this time."

"We get it; you don't have to remind us every few seconds." Chammy said, her tone suggesting that she was rolling her eyes.

"I'm just making sure." Knight said.

A smile appeared on Weiss's face.

In spite of all the bickering that happened between them, she could easily tell that neither of her friends truly meant to annoy each other with their conversations. At worst, it was only some harmless teasing.

Before she could reminisce about their friendship any more, however, the game had already loaded fully and the character selection screen appeared in front of her.

"What character are you going to play as, Snow?" Chammy asked.

"I'm not sure." Weiss hummed as she looked over all the characters before her.

They promised to go easy on their opponents this time, so she didn't have to choose the character she was most experienced in playing. It was the perfect time to try some different characters and experiment.

Who knew? Maybe she could try to play a completely different role on the map as well.

Usually, she played as the main damage dealer of the team, with Knight as her support. It worked really well for them, especially when they couldn't count on their teammates being good enough to work with them, and they rarely changed from these roles.

The only exception she could think of to that assignment of roles was the very first game they'd played.

It didn't take them long to realise that supporting a bot, or a completely inexperienced player, wasn't exactly the most effective way to play.

She chose to play the support character.

They could experiment a little right now, though.

"I will try to be your support, Chammy." She said.

"Yeah, that could be fun." Chammy said happily. "I'm sure we will be the best team in the whole game. Our foes will not stand a chance against us, especially not with all our experience!"

Knight faked a cough.

"I mean, we will be the best team to go easy on them, yes." Chammy spluttered.

Weiss laughed.

"Good." Knight said. "In that case, I will be taking your role in the forest, Chammy. I'm sure it won't be too difficult for me. You never seem to have an issue with it when you play there."

Although she wouldn't exactly say it out loud, Weiss did have to agree with Knight on that.

The game did appear to be easier to play when one was responsible for the forest in the middle instead of the lanes. Not only did the players there not have to worry about the waves of their minions, but they also had plenty of space to run away from any fight they couldn't win.

"We will see about that, Knight." Chammy grumbled, feeling annoyed at her main role in the game being called easy.

With everyone having chosen their characters, including all the new players on the enemy team and their singular teammate, the game started, spawning them in the top right base.

Throughout the last two years, there have been a lot of changes to the game mode, and one of them was the placement of the bases, which moved from the edges of the map into its corners. There was simply no need for all the additional space in bases that the edges of the map would provide, and doing the map like that allowed for a lot more things to be put in the middle of the map—where the majority of the game was going to happen anyway.

Personally, Weiss didn't mind the change.

In fact, she welcomed it since she was the one to propose it.

"Ugh, all the players are already rushing forward." Chammy cringed. "They haven't even bought any items. Are we sure that we want to go easy on them? I'm sure we would be able to defeat them in twenty minutes."

Weiss sighed.

"Yes, we are sure, Chammy." She said. "We are expected to test the networking of the game properly, so having one long game is the least we can do."

"It's going to be so boring, though." Chammy whined.

"It is what it is, Chammy." Knight chimed in. "Think of it as a tutorial for a different role. I'm sure that if we played against someone close enough to us with their skill, then we would have been destroyed playing the roles we are. At the very least, you would have been destroyed for certain since you changed from an easier role to a harder one. I'm not sure about Snow or me."

A slight grin appeared on Weiss's face.

"So it's like that, is it?" Chammy asked.

"What's like that?" Knight asked back, feigning innocence.

"Oh, it's on." Chammy said.

Weiss giggled as she saw the characters of her friends rush forward onto the map.

Although the competitive fire in Chammy had been ignited, there wasn't actually a way for her to do anything about it. They were all on the same team, and no matter how hard they tried, they wouldn't be able to go directly against each other.

It didn't mean that Chammy wasn't going to try, though.

"We only need to make sure the game is long to test the networking, right?" Chammy asked.

"I guess." Knight answered.

"In that case, I bet I will be able to teach the enemy how to play in the forest, better than you, in the span of this single game." Chammy said cheekily. "After all, with my experience in that role, I will surely be a perfect teacher for them."

"I-I don't think it's a great idea, Chammy." Knight said.

"Why not?" Chammy challenged. "Are you scared?"

Weiss was pretty sure she could have heard the scoff forming on Knight's face through their voice chat.

"I'm not." Knight said.

"Then take the bet, Knight."

Their voice chat turned silent as Knight was contemplating the bet and Weiss was quietly giggling to herself.

In all honesty, Weiss would have probably taken the bet if she had been in Knight's place.

As far as she was concerned, there was no easy way for Chammy to actually win this bet in the first place. It wasn't that easy to teach someone a new game mode with absolutely nothing to use as help material, and it was going to be even more difficult to do that through the game messages—especially when the receiver of those messages was the enemy team.

"Alright, I'm in." Knight said after a while, likely coming to the same conclusion as Weiss did. "What will I get when I win?"

"You're confident, aren't you?" Chammy asked.

"I'm confident enough to take that bet." Knight answered.

Meanwhile, inside the game, the first blood was taken as Chammy and her effortlessly outmanoeuvred the singular opponent in their lane and killed them for the first time. Of course, neither of them had really paid any attention to it.

The bet between them was far more important.

"Fine, if you win, I will make sure to try that online RPG you were mentioning recently. We might make it into a group effort, too, after we convince Snow to try it with us." Chammy said, putting emphasis on the 'if'.

"Alright, that sounds good to me." Knight said.

"However!" Chammy interrupted. "When I win, you will have to retract your statement about the forest being easier than the lanes. You got it?"

Knight chuckled, confident in his victory.

"I got it."

With that, the bet was sealed, and Chammy immediately went to write on the lobby chat, giving tips and instructions to all the players in the game.

Whether it would succeed or not would only come out way later in the game, but Weiss couldn't help but be curious about how it turned out. It wasn't every day that they played the role of teachers to other players, after all.

(...)

It had been close to an hour since they started their game, by now, and Jaune had to say that he didn't expect all the enemy players to become as good as they were under Chammy's tutelage.

He could even say that those guys were almost as good as they were themselves.

Of course, he wasn't going to actually say that aloud. He knew very well just how competitive both Chammy and Snow could be if they felt someone was threatening them with their skills.

He still felt bad for some of the people they had decided to go all out on.

There really should never be a good enough reason to defeat someone so convincingly that they almost cried.

It was only a game!

At the very least, they had yet to make people quit the game mode his sisters had made with how they played against them. Although it was mostly because there wasn't really the time to do that yet.

In his mind, he was already guessing the exact date it was going to happen.

With a corner of his eye, he glanced at the game time.

A sigh escaped him.

At the very least, they've managed to get this game to go for more than an hour already.

It should have been enough to satisfy his sisters. There probably weren't going to be that many people who would push the games further than that during the full release of the game mode, anyway.

"Alright, I think that's enough time." Jaune said. "You can go and win this game now, if you want, guys."

If they dragged it any further than that, the only thing they would be really accomplishing would be wasting Snow's time. He wouldn't want his friend to fail their test because of some game testing.

"Not yet!" Chammy protested. "I'm sure that if I gave them just a few more tips, they would be good enough to challenge you in the forest!"

Jaune couldn't help but roll his eyes a little.

Of course, Chammy wouldn't want to stop the game now; she still had her bet to win.

Why would he think otherwise?

"I thought you wanted to win this game as fast as possible?" He asked, knowing that his friend was going to be stubborn. "There's really no point in wasting so much of our time on a single bet between us, Chammy."

"Hey, you're the one who agreed on this bet!" Chammy said.

Jaune let out a sigh.

Although the bet might have been in his favour—he still believed he could easily win it given enough time—the sheer amount of time they would waste on it made him really reconsider taking part in it.

It might be better to simply accept his loss and give up at this point.

He knew how competitive his friend could be very well. The game would easily last for multiple hours before Chammy decided to surrender on her own, and he had neither patience nor the time to sit through it.

"I give up." He said.

"Wha-?" Chammy asked, confused by his words.

"I said, I give up." He repeated. "You win; playing in the forest is not actually as easy as I thought it was. I was a fool for accepting that bet, and we don't have the time to continue it any further."

The moment he admitted his defeat, he expected his friend to shout loudly in cheer or gloat about her victory.

It was something he would have done had he been as invested in the bet as she was.

Instead of that, however, the only thing that he heard from Chammy was quiet grumbling and huffing. It almost sounded as if his friend was disappointed that she won the bet against him.

"Is everything alright?" He couldn't help but ask.

"You give up too easily." Chammy mumbled.

He blinked a couple of times in confusion.

"What?"

"You heard me." Chammy said, accusingly. "I think you are surrendering too quickly. It isn't satisfying to win a bet simply because my opponent gives up before anything close to a real competition can begin. You always do that."

"I do not!" He protested.

"Yes, you do." Chammy said. "I don't think I've ever seen you actually try to do something hard enough for you to struggle. You always give up far earlier than that; you are weak-minded!"

"Y-You're imagining things!" He tried to defend himself. "I'm nothing like that. Tell her, Snow."

Their voice chat turned silent for a moment, as Snow didn't support his case.

"R-Really?" He asked.

"I wouldn't exactly call you weak-minded." Snow said diplomatically. "At most, I would simply call you extremely non-competitive when compared to Chammy and me. It might be simply because we mostly interact with each other through games, though. I have no idea how driven you could be in a more serious scenario."

That was not an answer he expected from his friend.

At least he wasn't called weak-minded again—that had to count for something, right?

"I'm willing to bet he is the exact same outside of the games, as well." Chammy said with a huff, no doubt still a bit mad at their bet being cut short.

"Hey!" He shouted in protest.

"What? Are you mad because I'm speaking the truth?" Chammy teased. "Tell me, have you ever had a dream you fought hard to accomplish, or have you simply taken the easy way out every time?"

"I don't know, have you?" He snapped back.

"I-That's beside the point!" Chammy sputtered. "I didn't have the time to find a solid goal or dream for myself ever since I started living on my own! You don't have such excuses for yourself, Knight!"

A tiny smirk appeared on his face.

"In that case, we are currently talking about playing games, and you are simply arguing for the sake of arguing!" Jaune said.

"That's not how it works!" Chammy protested.

"It is how it works!"

Chammy grumbled slightly.

"What actually is your dream, Knight?" Snow interrupted their small fight with a genuine question. "I don't think we ever talked about things like these with each other. I have to say, though, I'm quite curious about that."

Both Chammy and he stopped their little fight to process their friend's words.

"That's a good question, Snow." Chammy admitted. "What is your dream, Knight?"

With the attention of both his friends entirely on him all of a sudden, Jaune couldn't help but let out an embarrassed chuckle and scratch the back of his head as he went over the answer in his head.

It wasn't difficult for him to find what exactly he wanted to do in the future—he had the same dream ever since he was a child.

The difficult part was talking about it, though.

No matter how much he didn't want to admit it to himself, his friends were somewhat correct in assuming he never actually fought that hard for his dream. The most he ever did was ask his father for help and, upon not getting it, do some basic preparations on his own.

It was hardly enough for him to achieve what he wanted.

A small sigh escaped him.

Well, there was no reason he shouldn't tell his friends about it, he supposed. If everything went well and his friends didn't laugh at him for impossible ideas, they might even be more supportive of him than his own family was.

"My dream is to become a huntsman, Chammy." He said. "I want to become a hero who will help as many people in this world full of grimm as possible."

(...)

Weiss shook in her seat at the words she had just heard.

Her friend wanted to become a hero, a huntsman.

It would mean that her friend would end up joining a proper huntsmen academy in order to get the training necessary to accomplish their dreams—huntsmen academies like Beacon or Atlas Academy, just like her sister.

Could her friend accomplish it?

Would it mean abandoning them, similar to how her older sister forced her to become the Schnee heiress?

She didn't want to lose her very first friend to the responsibilities of being a huntsman.

Her body froze as she remembered something far more significant than the new responsibilities her friend might end up having if they end up working as a huntsman.

What if her friend was killed by the grimm?!

She already had to live with the knowledge that her family basically killed the parents of one of her friends. The pressure she would get from hearing that her other friend died to a grimm would destroy her.

Her mouth opened as she tried to say something, anything, about her friend's dream, but she couldn't conjure a single word to say out loud.

What should she say, anyway?

It wasn't like she could simply lie to her friend's face and say she's excited about it. The idea of trying to discourage her first friend from accomplishing their dream because of her selfish desire to always have them available to her, didn't sit right with her, either.

There was nothing she could do.

"Yeah, as if you could do that, Knight." Chammy snorted loudly. "I'm sure that the moment you would have to put some effort into actually becoming strong enough to be a huntsman, you would give up instead."

Weiss widened her eyes in surprise at her friend's words.

D-Did Chammy want to discourage Knight from accomplishing his dream, as well?

"H-Hey, this is serious for me!" Knight said.

"Really?" Chammy asked.

"Yeah!"

Weiss heard a small chuckle from her headphones as Chammy took on a rather amused tone.

"In that case, what school are you looking to join?" Chammy asked.

"Beacon, of course!" Knight said. "It's the best huntsmen academy in the whole world."

A snort escaped Chammy.

"I'm sure you will be able to easily graduate from the best, and at the same time most competitive, huntsmen academy in the world with how uncompetitive you are." The sarcasm in Chammy's voice was as clear as day. "You will likely fail to even join it in the first place."

"Uhm..." Weiss hesitated to join the conversation.

There was a blurry line between harmless teasing and a proper fight, which wasn't as easily visible as it really should be. Right now, sadly, she wasn't quite sure on which side of that line her friends currently were.

"Watch it!" Knight said. "I am going to join, and later graduate, Beacon without any issues."

"Sure, you will." Chammy said, no doubt rolling her eyes a little.

Knight growled.

"Guys?" Weiss asked quietly, concerned for her friends.

A quiet chuckle escaped Chammy once more.

"In fact, I'm so sure you won't be able to do it that I'm willing to bet that when we enter Beacon together, you won't have half as good grades as I will." Chammy said, with a boastful tone.

Weiss froze upon hearing the words of her friend.

"Wait, what!?" Both Weiss and Knight asked.

Chammy's chuckle turned louder.

"What, you thought you were going to get rid of us simply by attending some huntsmen academy?" Chammy asked with a smug tone in her voice. "Think again, Knight! We will be coming with you, whether you like it or not."

"I-I-That's..." Knight failed to formulate words.

The smirk that appeared on Chammy's face was practically audible to all of them.

"Besides, huntsmen teams are made out of four people, anyway." Chammy said, no doubt feeling smug about her plan. "It will be better if we take over three of those slots by ourselves, will it not?"

Knight choked on his words, unable to say anything due to the emotions he was feeling right now, before finally relenting with a sigh.

"Thanks, guys."

Chammy giggled.

"You're welcome, Knighty."

They then proceeded to converse more about Knight's dream, and their plan for the future. Yet, as the conversation was happening around her, Weiss couldn't help but stay silent as she processed everything that had just happened. Apparently, the three of them attending Beacon together in the future was already a foregone conclusion in the minds of her friends, despite the fact that she hadn't really said anything about it, herself.

A soft sigh escaped her.

It wasn't like she was that opposed to the idea, she supposed.

Joining a huntsmen academy wouldn't be such a different situation from what her older sister did, and it worked fine for her. The only thing she would need to be wary of was making sure she wouldn't harm Whitley by doing so. There was no need to force her little brother into the position of the heir to the Schnee family, it would only lead to misery for the younger boy.

Aside from that, there were no issues about getting to Beacon for her, as she already had almost all the necessary training for attending the huntsmen academy thanks to her combat lessons.

Weiss paused as she thought of something extremely important that her friends seemed to be forgetting.

"Have either of you ever gone through the proper huntsman training?"

The excited conversation between her friends instantly turned quiet as they didn't say anything in embarrassment.

"I'm physically fit."

"I think I have my Aura unlocked."

"What's an Aura?"

Weiss let out a deep sigh.

It looked like she would need to oversee their training on her own. If she didn't, they might do something stupid like try to attend Beacon without their Aura unlocked or join some shady group to get their training.

Surely, it wasn't going to end up being too difficult for her to do.

"How can you not know what's an Aura, Knight?!" Chammy asked. "Are you actually serious about wanting to become a huntsman in the future, or were you simply joking, back then?"

"Hey, there really wasn't anyone in my home village to teach me about things like that!" Knight tried to defend himself.

She glanced up to see the word 'Defeat' being displayed on her screen. They were so immersed in their conversation that they completely forgot about the game, and their opponents simply used their lack of attention to win.

Hopefully, that wasn't a sign of things to come.

With a lazy glance, she looked at the clock on her computer screen. It was already far too late for her to do anything meaningful, now, and she still had the concert she needed to prepare for, next month.

"I will be calling it a day, for now." She said tiredly. "Good night, everyone."

Whatever the case, she wasn't going to be helping them anytime soon.

"Good night, Snow."

With a smile on her face, she turned her computer off before going to bed.

Despite how much she dreaded having to teach her friends how to be proper huntsmen—and how much she worried about leaving her younger brother to the rest of their family—she couldn't help but be excited about the future ahead of her.

As her consciousness was taken over by the dreams, she couldn't help but wonder how it would feel to meet her friends in person at Beacon.

And cut!

There might be another break from chapters later, but I'm not sure about that, yet.

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