The Beacon ice rink.

After the 40th Vytal Festival, field exercises, and finals, Ruby had been itching for a break. Having barely scraped together a B-, she could only wonder how her other teammates—even Yang—could keep up. Most importantly, she survived the first half of her sophomore year. That was her triumph.

She wanted to go, but where to, exactly?

Weiss had apparently gone ice skating at some point and Ruby thought it sounded fun, kind of like how Neon did it. Granted, she had never gone skating before, but still. Blake wanted to visit a museum, but she thought that was boring. Yang said something about going to her first nightclub in a long time, but Ruby was reminded of how badly she always danced.

Ice skating it was.

But first, she had to get Weiss... and unsurprisingly, that was easy, given she wasn't particularly busy.

The ice rink was lively from the looks of it; lots of people coming in and out, plenty others skating on the ice. There was a roller rink blocks away, but they could always go there later.

Ruby showed up at the rink in a black hoodie, a red scarf, and her Huntress outfit's combat skirt, tights, and boots. Adjusting her black gloves, she looked back at Weiss who was wearing a skinny sweater, a red scarf around her neck, and knee-length pleated skirt—all in white—as well as black stockings and white wedge heels. She had also brought along a duffel bag, which Ruby suspected were skates.

"Nice dress!" exclaimed Ruby.

Weiss smiled. "Thank you."

She smiled back. Then she turned again to the glass double doors and started walking there. "Well? What are we waiting for?"

Weiss obliged and followed her steps inside.

. . .

They paid for admission and Ruby's rental skates. Weiss was able to pay for both with her company credit card—a relief, considering the whole deactivation debacle.

As Ruby sat down, she took off her boots and examined her rental skates: red, plasticky-looking, a bit beat up. No laces, just straps. But they were ice skates: they were like roller skates but with a blade in place of wheels. Weiss's own pair, however, was much fancier; white leather and laces, wooden soles, and—

"Lady stilts on a knife?" an incredibly incredulous Ruby asked. "Are you crazy?!"

"A Huntress needs to be agile and flexible," Weiss explained, "and a Huntress needs her challenges. What good is one if she's not accustomed to them?"

"Yeah, yeah..."

Ruby looked at the skates again. Did Weiss just... add high heels to them?

Whatever, she can ask about them later. For now, she put on her rental skates, made sure the straps were properly fastened, and stood up, but not before holding onto her white-haired friend for comfort. She was wobbly; thin, straight lines were all she was standing on. Weiss was helping, though, and soon enough, they were about to step onto the ice.

Neon made it easy, so she was expecting it to be easy. Besides, how hard could skating be?

. . .

"AH!"

Kind of hard, actually.

Ruby fell on her bottom once again, forcing Weiss to turn around, stand her back up, and then sling her arm on her shoulder—or at least try to. This was already going bad; Neon made it look easy, so why wasn't she repeating that success? The bigger news, however, was that Weiss was also struggling. She was as stiff as a board. Her legs were dead-straight and she was holding her arms out.

Then she fell on her face trying to help her up. A fate more humiliating than Ruby's.

Something clearly was wrong.

"Weiss, I thought you were good at this?" Ruby swore.

Grunting, Weiss tried to pull herself back up, grappling the wall's railings. And she did, but she was barely standing; her knees were trembling and she was heavily breathing, looking down at her feet, then at the railings. She snapped, "Shut up."

She had to admit, it was kind of hard not to laugh. Weiss Schnee, the icy cold Huntress who truth be truth was kind of mean to people, struggling with ice? What's next? Yang not handling spicy food? "Heh, fine..."

Then, she had an idea.

"Hold my hand, please?"

Ruby held out her hand to a suspicious Weiss. She hesitated for a moment, but then gave in and grabbed.

It was downhill from there. Almost literally.

Ruby pulled Weiss along in skates as hard as she could, falling down quite eventfully. However, as she fell, she held onto her wrist, taking her down with her, sliding across the ice.

She burst into laughter. As passersby skated by, some making a cursory look, Weiss facepalmed while she blushed. Ruby tried to get up, using the railing for support, but then she felt a sudden sharp draft on her scarf—"Wah!"—dragged down onto the ice, almost as payback.

"I hope you never do that stunt again," Weiss warned, her palms muffling her voice. "Do you hear me?"

"Alright, alright... heh."

Once more, Ruby got back up, this time pushing the ends of her scarf forward in the process. Holding onto the railing as usual, she helped Weiss stand up, this time for real. And then on they went, stumbling about in circles as the rest either went about their day having fun, or sitting down watching everyone else around them.

As Ruby stopped to take a break, she saw a familiar-looking girl with black twintails and green eyes enter in a black-and-green jacket and pants. What was her name again? Last she saw her, she had the usual bows, blouse, gloves, and skirt...

Wait. That was Trivia.

She was struggling as well, having gone off to a not-so-great start herself.

"Hey, this one's like us," Ruby teased.

Weiss, who had apparently fallen and just barely managed not to hit the floor, watched. Hanging from the railing, she saw her struggle with the ice as Mercury, another member of Team CMET (or rather, Comet), came up skating much better than she was and offered her help. "I suppose we all have to start somewhere," she stated like a matter of fact.

Trivia gave her and Ruby a brief cursory glance, but Ruby figured she simply saw themselves having trouble and, well, shrugged, pulling out her Scroll to take a high-angle selfie. "I guess..."

"What the—"

Ruby looked down to Weiss's sudden surprise. She was about to ask what was going on when she looked back at Trivia and saw her seemingly effortlessly gliding across the ice, doing a twirl, and then giving them a smile and a wink.

Weiss's blood was boiling.

First, she found out that her skills had rusted to the point of outright flaking. On top of that, she decided to fly even closer to the sun with those stupid custom-order figure skates. Now this Trivia bastard had gone from humiliating herself to showing off just to get a rise from her and Ruby.

It was a miracle that she had kept herself from snapping. Now, she had enough.

She pulled herself up. "Stay back."

This worried Ruby. Not that she cared. "But Weiss—"

"I said. Stay. Back!"

She let go of the railings and pushed off towards Trivia, staring her down. Watching her stop to return the favor with that hateful grin, she slid to a stop to give her the icy-cold stare some feared she would give them. It barely affected her, but she continued to look her in the eye, frowning.

"You've got a lot of nerve for someone who just started skating," she said.

The enemy put her hands behind her

and leaned in, still with that damned smile.

"Well? You want to go?"

Trivia scratched her chin. Then she nodded.

"Your funeral."

Weiss took off across the ice, circling around her once before going backward, then twirling a couple times in rapid succession, then circling her again, this time in reverse. 'This is just the warmup,' she thought, 'but if she tries, I'll make her regret it.'

Trivia's turn. She skated in a curve, then bent her knees, preparing herself for something, and leapt, spinning in midair. Then she landed, hands held out, one leg up.

All she could do was shake her head. Yet she wasn't too worried; she had something much better in mind.

So, she skated, took a deep breath, then started her second act: a series of jumping spins with alternating legs for each one. Each twirl got more and more intense, and she felt it; her heart was pumping and sweat was building up as she had to increase the spin of each successive twirl. Then she got to the final one and, what do you know, nailed it.

At this point, the skaters stopped to watch. The cheerful festive music faded away as the PA system came alive.

"Oh, what do we have here?" Coco's voice announced. "A whole impromptu ice skating contest between Weiss from Team RWBY and Trivia from Team CMET?"

Weiss stopped in front of Trivia. The tension was as high as ever, only now against the backdrop of people watching, eager to cheer on whoever might win. All that mattered now was to put this Trivia girl in her place. The skills had rusted away, but the determination, defiance, spite, and anger were all that fueled her skating to the point of maneuvers she had never done before.

Let up for a moment and the total failure would be all the students would remember her for.

Finally, Trivia made her second move. The sickening smile aside, she pushed off backward, then performed all sorts of alternating twirls leading into a series of sitting spins leading into a final standing spin where she held her left leg up at the side and bent near her middle.

And she spun with nearly meteoric speed.

"Oooooh! How will Weiss keep up?" Coco commentated.

Ruby was on edge. She had just watched Weiss and Trivia go from struggling to matching the athletes of Vytalic Games in the blink of an eye. She couldn't believe it: was she in a dream? Had she entered someone's dream and not realized it the entire time?

Just as she was about to question reality, two familiars—Blake and Yang—had come up by her side, both surprised.

"You seeing this?" Yang asked.

"Y—" She gulped. "Yes..."

Weiss heard a whistle from behind.

She turned on her heel to face Trivia, who had the audacity to wag her finger. She furrowed her eyebrows.

"Still at it?" Weiss asked.

Trivia crossed her arms. Yet, she was no longer smiling. Instead, her cold gaze met hers.

It sent chills up and down her spine. Once the smile dropped, that's when she knew that she was no longer playing around. Little Trivia's playtime was apparently to pull dazzlingly impressive moves out of thin air, but now, she seemed serious about beating out Weiss.

Well then.

The two pushed off from the ice and commenced their final acts.

Alternating between forward and backward, Weiss entered a series of intricate pirouettes, spins, leaps, and gestures, the air brushing against her scarf, brushing against her hair, brushing against her face. Everything blurred to her, reduced to brushstrokes, streaks of light, and somewhere in between. Still, she kept her focus on Trivia, who might as well be yet another blur.

Those on her side chanted her name. Those on the other side chanted Trivia's.

She accelerated, reaching a steady sprint. Still, she kept up her routine, even crossing several of her movements over with ballet moves in real time. Everything around and within her threatened her flow:

The custom skates she never properly trained herself in.

The Trivia bastard who dared cross her.

The insecurities of years past.

Memories of childhood.

The voice of the PA.

The exhaustion.

Her watchers.

Her feelings.

Everything.

Yet, she kept calm.

Something had awakened in her.

No matter what, she was going to make Trivia wish she had never chosen this day to show off.

Having done everything she could, she closed out her final act with a ballet pose: arms outstretched, legs crossed, leaning back. From what she heard, Trivia had likewise stopped.

The whole rink had fallen silent. Even the music, which she swore had switched to something more exciting, had stopped.

Weiss was trying not to show it, but her endurance and energy had reached its limits. Any more push and she would risk destroying her own elegance—and dignity.

Regardless, the only questions she was asking herself now were: Had she done it? Had she blown it?

She waited. And waited.

And waited.

She heard a clap. Weiss turned her head to its source: Ruby herself, excitedly clapping for her teammate and friend. Several more followed in the act. Then, some skaters came up to her. Now, the whole crowd on the ice was coming to her, propping her up to the air. Ruby and her teammates in particular had somehow managed to be at the forefront of it, being the ones to lift her to the skies.

Weiss pumped her fists into the air. It was like making Winter and Klein proud.

With her teammates celebrating, it might as well be.

After all that was done to celebrate Weiss's overwhelming victory, Ruby sat in the bleachers with her. Almost everyone had gone home for the night, even their two other teammates, leaving just the two remaining. She could never get over the sudden turn of events: Weiss showed up with her looking all assured, then made a fool out of herself, then went on to smoke Trivia like nothing happened.

The only thing left to ask her was: How?

"Weiss..."

Weiss's eyes perked. She looked up from her Scroll as she put it away.

"How did you do it?" asked Ruby. "You were doing really, really bad just like me. That makes no sense."

She took a moment to think. "To be honest, I have no idea," she explained. "Maybe it was the fact that someone would show off just as we're having a hard time. Perhaps something in me had awakened."

"I guess..." She sighed. "Do you... wanna get back on the ice?"

"Yes."

Weiss stood up to step off the bleachers, then as she stood at the entrance, she took a deep breath. Ruby watched her step inside... and then immediately fall flat on her bottom. Then she barely got back up, pushed off holding onto the railing... and wiped out against the wall.

Ruby burst into laughter. This time, she just couldn't help it, after the intense duel that had occurred an hour ago. "S–Sorry!" she exclaimed. "I just can't—"

"I know!"

As her laughter died down, Weiss returned to the bleachers, sitting where she was before. Then she sighed. "Ruby, can I tell you something?"

Ruby slowly looked back, and nodded.

"The truth is, I haven't gone ice skating in a decade. And I'd only gone ice skating five times total before. I just..." Weiss shook her head. "I didn't think how out of practice I would be."

"Wow..." Ruby said, starstruck. "And you still beat her?!"

"I suppose."

"You suppose?" She stood up. "But you were doing all sorts of cool, ooh-so-beautiful stuff—and you even won!" She held out for a hug. "Hey Weiss, come here?"

Weiss stood up, then stepped forward. And the two hugged each other for a good while.

For a moment, she didn't want to leave this moment.

. . .

With the rental skates returned and their shoes back on, Ruby and Weiss left the rink. They may have not skated so well, but for a moment, Weiss shone so brightly, it illuminated the night for her, her team, and everyone else around her. And the best part was that she got it all on video.

Whatever happened, it was going to be the night to cherish.