(A/N): If you would've asked me before I wrote this chapter who my least favorite RWBY character was, Whitley would definitely have been a runner-up for the list.

After writing this chapter, which takes place entirely from his perspective…safe to say, that's no longer the case. This was hands-down one of my favorite chapters to dream up and plan out in all of Dutiful Destruction, for reasons that should hopefully become apparent as you read, and I did my darnedest to make the execution as great as the idea deserved. Hope you enjoy!

"Watch where you're walking, half-pint."

Whitley Schnee rolled his eyes as the big, burly Vacuan man pushed past him, nearly shoving him off the narrow elevated walkway they both had the misfortune of using right now. It wasn't the first time he'd almost been thrown off this bridge during his commute today - why did this miserable city have so many paths without guardrails anyway? - nor was he certain it would be the last. But he most certainly was getting tired of it.

"If you're going to insult and belittle me," he barked with a scoff, "at least come up with something a little more clever."

That got the attention of his much-larger aggressor, who whirled around to face him with a single non-scarred eye. "You wanna say that again, runt?"

"See, now you're just proving my point." The youngest Schnee folded his arms and leveled a flat stare at the one-eyed Huntsman. "You're picking pejoratives for me based solely on my smaller stature in comparison to you, which at your absurd height includes just about everyone. An insult shouldn't just be something you say to anyone - it should be tailored to the individual you're trying to hurt to make yourself feel better. Why not get a little more creative? Why not call me 'colonizer'? Or 'prince'? Or even 'Sir Moneybags Junior'? The boys at my old boarding school all loved that one."

A growl escaped a cracked pair of lips. "I could call you 'pancake,' if you want."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, cause it's what you're gonna be once I push you off the bridge. Which I will do if you keep sassin' me."

Whitley smirked and gave the slowest, most sarcastic clap he could make while still producing a sound. "Now that's what I like to hear, good sir. Lateral thinking…a remarkable development, especially for a man your age."

The grizzled Huntsman took several steps closer, clearly intent on following through with his threat. "Don't patronize me, Schnee. My kids are already going to bed hungry 'till the next harvest, all 'cause your kind and those weird little robot people are eating what's supposed to be their rations this week. So I sure as hell don't need some pampered, pathetic little weasel like you mouthing off and making my day worse."

His gaze snapped down to the edge of the walkway, which was coming alarmingly closer with each backwards step as the man moved in. "And you really think that a crime of opportunity like murder will make you feel any better?"

"Considering the target?" The Huntsman grinned a rotted grin. "I think it just might. After all, there's already a couple thousand of your kind here…I don't think any of them would miss a snippy little one like you."

"I would."

He didn't need to look over his shoulder to know that his sister was hovering behind him, eyes ablaze with icy-blue fire and delivering a frosty glare at the Huntsman. Clearly unwilling to fight or verbally spar with a Maiden, he scowled, snarled, and spun to walk away. As grateful as Whitley was that he wouldn't be a splatter against the distant sands, he was quite annoyed at the need to be rescued from the bloodthirsty locals. Again.

"I had it handled, dear sister," he said with a long sigh.

Winter touched down behind him and let the magic fade from her glare, now turning it towards the youngest Schnee. "Obviously. What are you doing, Whitley?"

"Well, I was getting seeds and mineral solutions for the hydroponics garden I'm trying to build," he answered brusquely as he kept walking. "You know, so I can be helpful. After all, fighting the Grimm like you and the other Hunters isn't exactly bringing much food into the city - and I'd rather not find out whether Skrall meat is edible, thank you very much. Trying to digest those mole crabs was bad enough."

Maybe having the same keratin allergy as Mother is a blessing in disguise. We might just outlive everyone else here.

His eldest sister kept pace with him. "That's not what I meant and you know it," she intoned harshly. "We're trying to smooth out tensions between Atlesians and Vacuans, and your attitude is making that harder."

"Yes, because clearly how I behave is the key to undoing hundreds of years of exploitation and resentment." Whitley rolled his eyes. "And here I thought you were supposed to be the realistic sister."

Winter sighed, and he could tell she was cradling her forehead in her fingers. "Look…" she said with fatigue belying every word. "I understand that you're frustrated. This isn't a great situation for anyone, especially given what we're used to. Our family name brings nothing but scorn…our Kingdom is gone, and this one doesn't accept us. But this is an opportunity for us to do some real good for a change, Whitley. This is our chance to do better. To be better. To redefine what it means to be a Schnee -"

"Now that he's gone, you mean?"

The Maiden stopped in her tracks behind him. He turned to face her, unwilling to meet her eye.

"Tell me this, dear sister," he said in a voice that felt a lot more choked up than usual. "When Weiss disappeared, she was missed and memorialized and remembered fondly - especially by you. But when the same thing happened to Father…did you ever even mourn him? Did Mother? Did anyone? Were there others grieving his loss…grieving our loss? Or did everyone celebrate when you were the last one to come through the portals, with nary a sign of Jacques Schnee among the survivors?"

Winter was silent for a moment, which only confirmed what he already knew.

"I thought as much," he said with a bitter sigh. "I know what he was…what he did…and I don't take pleasure in remembering it. But you cannot possibly expect me to simply carry on like the rest of you, and pretend that Father never existed. He was family…he was part of our family. Whatever that means these days."

"My own feelings towards Jacques are…complicated…" admitted the Maiden after a moment. "But I hope you understand that he was a true monster, Whitley, as vile as the Grimm themselves. He never cared about you, or Mother, or anyone but himself. There were only two things he loved - money and status - and you were simply a means to an end for both. Just like the rest of us."

The youngest Schnee huffed and spun back around, leaving his sister behind with tears barely held back. He knew it was the truth, but he didn't want the truth right now. He didn't want a reminder of how little he mattered to everyone. And he certainly didn't want a lecture from the high-and-mighty Winter Maiden struggling to mend her own heart.

"That's true…but unlike you and the rest of our little 'family,' at least he pretended to love me."

The words were finally enough to get Winter off his back.

For now.

The rest of the trek home was thoroughly miserable, but uneventful.

Whitley pushed open the front door of his new home with a forceful shoulder shove, wincing as the rusted hinges let out a piercing squeal of protest. Living among the other Atlesian refugees in the Glass District was far too dangerous for the Schnee family; as his earlier encounter had demonstrated, their neighbors weren't too thrilled with the fact that they'd gotten out of Atlas when so many "better" families had perished. So instead he, his mother, and his eldest sister had the "privilege" of living in a two-story house that was a few blocks away from Shade Academy, one that boasted four separate bedrooms, a modest kitchen and dining room, and a single bathroom with a working shower. It was no Schnee Manor, but it was still leagues more luxurious than the prefab shelters forming the backbone of Vacuo City's newest district, and more spacious than the dorm rooms afforded the blossoming Huntsmen and Huntresses. He knew that he had a more comfortable home than the rest of the Kingdom, and that not even Headmaster Theodore himself lived a more cushy lifestyle.

He absolutely hated this damn house all the same, and everything else it represented.

As soon as he stepped inside, he was greeted by the cheery yellow eyes of Klein Sieben. "Ah, Master Whitley. Welcome home."

The youngest Schnee didn't feel very welcome, but he nodded all the same. "Is Azina here? She said she'd be coming over to help with examining that seed Weiss left for me, the one from Mata Nui."

Where she ran to leave me. Again.

"I've already directed your new Agori friend to your room," said the old family friend with a warm smile. "I believe she and Albus are already getting acquainted - he's warmed up to her rather quickly, I must say."

"Klein?! The fuzzy little sand-stalker is touching me again! It's making a rumbling noise with its throat this time, too! What do I do?!"

He raised an eyebrow at the shrill female voice coming from up the stairs, to which the former butler shrugged as his eyes shifted red.

"…I never said the feeling was mutual," said Klein with a mischievous smirk.

"Right…I suppose I'd better head upstairs and rescue our alien guest," mused Whitley with a sigh. "Thank you, Klein. I'll be in my room if you need me."

The unofficial butler smiled, his eyes returning to their golden gleam yet again. "Best of luck to you, Master Whitley."

I'll need a lot more than luck to make a miracle happen.

Rather than voice his bitter thoughts, he shuffled up the steps and turned the corner to enter his own private bedroom. Well, "bedroom" might've been a generous term in the best of times - personally, Whitley would've used words like "broom closet" or "walk-in pantry" to describe it, and that was before he'd dedicated all but one corner to his growing hydroponics lab. One entire wall was full of steel shelves that held trays of middling plants and mineral water, while the one next to it had a Dust-fueled generator powering an air humidifier (to lighten the load on the house's piss-poor electrical systems). A metal desk was nearly buried under a cluttered mess of borrowed research equipment, computers with hard-light screens and keyboards, and boxes filled with various kinds of powered Dust. Glass beakers, micrometers, scales, mortars and pestles, and various other lab tools were strewn over every possible surface, left where he'd last set them down without ever bothering to pick them back up.

Normally he'd work harder to keep his room tidy, for fear of getting in trouble with the man of the house.

But then again…Father wasn't exactly around to care about his son having a messy bedroom anymore, was he?

Whitley sighed as he gingerly set his sack on a tiny little bed, his gaze falling on the green-armored Agori sitting in the middle of the room. Azina's crimson eyes were wide with terror as they darted around, and her metal hands practically trembled as they hung in the air. The source of her "freeze" instinct was all too apparent - a fluffy kitten with a long white coat had curled up onto her crossed legs, and the fact that Whitley could hear him purring from this far away meant he had no intention of leaving.

"Oh, Spirits Above, now it's on me…" whispered Azina fearfully, as if speaking too loudly now would make the family cat fly into a xenocidal rage. Her gaze fell on the young man. "Help."

If he was in a better mood, he might've found the display comically endearing.

"Albus, come on," Whitley heaved another sigh as he stepped forward and plucked the kitten out of the Agori's lap. "It's not nice to torment our new neighbors. We don't know if they're vulnerable to disease or animal-borne allergies yet, so you need to keep your distance for now."

"Mrow?"

"Yes, even if their laps look warm and inviting."

"Mrow…"

Freed from the paralyzing power of Albus's presence, Azina pulled herself to her feet and shook loose white furs off her hands. "Thanks, Whitley. Still not used to the wildlife on this planet…didn't expect to see a tiny sand-stalker here, of all things. Guess instinct took over…"

"You had cats on Bara Magna, as well?" asked the youngest Schnee, idly cradling the kitten in his arms and scratching him under the chin.

"Yes, but they weren't little fuzzy creatures like that," answered the Agori. "We had sand-stalkers. Imagine your 'cat,' but with metal spikes instead of fibrous strands and whirling blades in their maws instead of teeth. Oh, and they could grow to be several yalms long. It'd take nothing less than a Glatorian to repel them - and as it happens, Agori were their favorite prey."

Whitley nodded as he listened to the descriptions, then hummed thoughtfully as he made his way to a backless office chair. "What is a yalm, if you don't mind me asking? I'm not quite familiar with your measurement systems yet."

"Oh!" Azina blinked in surprise, then laughed in embarrassment. "Of course. I suppose I should define that, if we're going to be working together. Well, to start with, we have four different units of length - ilm, fulm, yalm, and malm. It was the main measurement system that was used by the Great Beings before and during the Core Wars; after the Shattering happened, us surviving Agori and Glatorian kept using it for lack of…well, anything else."

She extended a single finger, which had several metal segments each a little more than an inch long. "An ilm is our smallest unit, the length of one section of our digits," she explained as she pointed to the joints. "Most Agori use standardized parts and hand-me-downs - no pun intended - for augmenting our hands, so it's easy enough to keep track of how long an ilm is. That is to say, our fingers are three ilms long."

Then she traced a line from her middle finger down to her elbow, speaking as she did so. "A fulm consists of twelve ilms, like so, and usually stretches the length of our forearms. It's not the most exact measurement, as Agori can come in a bunch of different shapes and sizes, but it's common enough that we can use our own arms as a quick reference when building or measuring things. A little variance here and there isn't the end of the world; we don't exactly do much precision work out in the desert, as you can imagine."

"Unless you're building spaceships," noted Whitley.

Azina chuckled. "Yes…that project was a real headache to try and get standard measurements for. We basically had to find sticks that we all agreed were a fulm long, and use those for reference and defining larger units. But fulms and ilms were just used for the more minute detailing - the scope of what we were building was a little too big for measurements with them to really mean anything."

Finally, she stretched her arms out from side-to-side until her fingertips were five feet apart. "Next biggest is the yalm, which consists of three fulms like so. That's the most common measurement we use, because it's so universal - most Agori are a little under a yalm tall, while Glatorians typically stand at two yalms in height. There's only one metric that's bigger: a malm, which consists of a thousand yalms. But that one's only useful for defining territory…or, as you've already guessed, constructing and measuring the Ark itself."

"Interesting…" Whitley mused, continually showering Albus in scratches. "The sizes might be different, but here on Remnant we have a very similar metric for measuring lengths. We call them inches, feet, yards, and miles - don't ask me why, I have no idea. And a mile is typically defined as over five thousand feet, for some reason."

"Those are very strange names indeed," noted Azina. "There's no symmetry or elegance to them at all."

"Tell me about it." Whitley rolled his eyes. "Atlesian cartographers and mathematicians tried making a new, more formalized measurement system that used base ten numbers as a standard metric, but nobody else across Remnant cared enough to adopt it for more than niche usage. Certainly not after the Great War ended…our Kingdom, and its ideas, weren't very popular after Remnant's bloodiest conflict in recorded history."

Though at least back then, they were still around to be hated.

A bitter pang shot through his heart as he furrowed his brow.

Azina must have noticed his crestfallen expression, because she gave her best attempt at an understanding smile. "Well…if it's any comfort, your greatest wars and tragedies have never ended in a planetary shattering. That won't happen unless this…Salem woman gets all four Relics, which your Great Beings left behind so carelessly. So your people still have a chance to make things right, Whitley. You still have a chance to make things right."

It didn't make him feel much better, but he still put on a smile of his own to at least acknowledge her efforts to console him. "Thank you, Azina…and speaking of making things right, we should get to why I called you here today. Let's talk about plants."

The Jungle Tribe Agori gave a far more genuine grin. "My favorite subject, behind spaceships and ancient ruins of course. How can I help?"

Whitley set down his feline friend and rolled his chair across the room-turned-lab, swiping a black ball out of its glass casing before pushing himself back over. It fit comfortably into his palm with a surprising amount of weight and heft, and it was shaped like a perfect sphere with a metallic film over its smooth glossy surface. If he didn't know any better, he would've assumed it was a pool ball that had yet to be painted…or the world's biggest, most boring-looking marble.

"This is the seed of something called a Vuata Maca berry," he intoned clinically as he passed it over to his guest. "My sister Weiss said that it's a rare plant native to the island of Mata Nui - the world where she and her team ended up during the evacuation of Atlas. According to her, it's a rather bitter fruit capable of restoring a Hunter's Aura to full strength within seconds, and eating just one ripe seed can reinvigorate a tired body as much as a full day's rest can. She gave me this a few weeks ago in the hopes that I'd be able to make it grow here on Remnant, but so far I haven't had any results…and even Oscar and Ozpin, in all their combined knowledge, didn't have any ideas or answers when I consulted them. I was wondering if you could help fill in the gaps - have you seen anything like this on Bara Magna?"

Azina gingerly took the seed and turned it over in her hands, humming thoughtfully and rapping her metal knuckles against its hard skin. A series of concentric lenses suddenly popped out of her helmet to cover her left eye, serving as a built-in magnifying glass to better study the strange object. Albus gazed at the Vuata Maca seed with a playful stare, hind legs already primed and ready to pounce…but Whitley saw his cat moving and tossed a well-worn rubber ball at his bed instead, making the mighty hunter pursue that and not the miracle waiting to be uncovered.

"Hmm…" the Agori finally reported after a moment of pensive silence. "Definitely doesn't look like anything from back home, and we didn't have anything that matches what you described. The closest thing I can think of would be the hydromelons, which only grew in Tesara's tallest jungle trees and took over a hundred years to ripen. People from all over the planet valued them highly, as they would for anything that can be both food and water at the same time. But we never did figure out how to make the seeds grow elsewhere - apparently the sands outside our village were too dry for the trees to form, so the roots would just wither away within a decade. Our agricultural methods were limited to basic crops that barely needed water to thrive; foraging and hunting were the main ways we got food between each meager harvest, and even that only got us so far."

She handed the seed back to Whitley with a disappointed sigh. "That's about all I know, though. Sorry if it's not enough."

"I see…" Whitley hummed disappointedly as he spun the black orb in his fingers. "Do you think you could help me research it, regardless? A fresh perspective might be just what we need to crack the mystery of this thing."

"I'd be happy to help." Azina's lenses popped back into her helmet as she smiled. "What do you need me to do first?"

Several hours later, Whitley was at the end of his patience.

He hadn't expected Azina's presence to be some kind of silver bullet that would solve the mystery of the Vuata Maca seed, of course, but he'd hoped that they'd at least get somewhere during all the tests they'd run. But no matter what they did, no matter what they tried, the bulb from another world refused to give up its secrets. It didn't absorb water, even when the surface was softened. The blade that tried to shave off a sliver for analysis snapped when it tried to cut through the skin. Exposure to the hydroponic sunlamps just made its black metal film grow extremely hot, cutting that experiment short for fear of damaging whatever was inside. Plugging electrodes into both ends to test its conductivity had burned out the voltage regulator - and nearly started a small fire right in his room, one that Klein was quick to put out. And despite possessing a computer that could scan the material structure of just about any kind of plant, and run thousands of controlled simulations on its rate of growth…the young duo had failed to find a single one in which the seed grew in anything less than a few centuries.

Whatever this damn thing was, it wasn't a miracle.

It was a thorn in his side.

His anger burned and his mood worsened with each failed test, with each ruined piece of lab equipment, with each flat line on the projected growth chart that the computer spat out. Was this some kind of cruel joke on Weiss's part? Had she given him some unsolvable mystery to keep him distracted and out of the way, while everyone else did the important work? Were Mother and Klein just humoring his attempts to "help" using science and ingenuity, like he was nothing more than a child playing with cups of water and dirt? His eldest sister could make thousands of seeds grow in minutes using only a fraction of her incredible magic - why couldn't he make one stupid bulb do anything besides sit there and be useless?

Then again…why was he so surprised, when that was all he'd ever done?

Whitley's brow furrowed as the computer spat yet another dream-shattering report onto his Scroll, clutching the otherworldly seed in one trembling hand. "It's hopeless," he growled, tightening his grip on the metal ball and clenching his teeth. "Pointless. Useless. Worthless."

Just like your family. Just like your father. And just like you.

Before he could stop himself, he screamed and threw the seed against the wall as hard as he possibly could.

CRACK!

Azina cried out and flinched back as the sound of snapping metal filled the air, while Albus yowled and caterwauled and scampered out of the room. Whitley gasped as he watched the ball-like seed hit the bricks with enough force to shatter, its hard black exterior crumbling like dried clay and flying out like shrapnel. Thousands of glowing blue orbs scattered and flew out like marbles, bouncing off the walls and the floor and anything else nearby. His eyes welled up with tears. His heart, his hands, his mouth, his soul…they all felt numb.

It had taken him weeks just to get this far in understanding the Vuata Maca seed, and in less than a second he'd destroyed it in a fit of rage.

What had he done?

What had he done?

The gaze of his alien lab partner snapped between the broken fruit and the broken young man, a scowl slowly overtaking her face. "Well…I hope that made you feel better," she spat after a long moment. "Now if you don't mind, I'm going home - where the only time people throw things is if Berix is bothering Kiina."

And with that, the Jungle Tribe Agori took her leave just as Whitley sank to his knees.

The realization of what he'd done washed over him like a violent riptide. A vulnerable, unripe living thing from another world. A miracle waiting to happen. The last thing Weiss had ever given him before she went off on another adventure, one she might not come back from this time.

Thrown against the wall like a wet paper towel, and shattered like every dream he'd ever had.

A bitter sob escaped his lips as he doubled over and slammed his fists against the floor. Why? Why was he like this? Why couldn't he do this one thing right? Why did he have to break every gods-damned thing he ever touched? Why couldn't anything work? Why couldn't anything he did work?!

All his failures flooded his mind and threatened to drown him in misery. Ironwood had shot down the ships he'd sent to evacuate Mantle. Everyone in Vacuo hated him for the sins of his father, while everyone who'd escaped Atlas saw him and his sisters as traitors to their old way of life. His own family resented him. His own mind resented him. His own mother was scared to look at him, for fear of seeing the ghost of her hated husband. And now on top of all that, he couldn't even make one stupid little seed grow without ruining everything!

How was he supposed to make this right?

How was he supposed to make anything right?

He didn't know. All he knew was that he wasn't wanted by anyone, himself included.

"Whitley? Is everything alright, dear? Azina said that you were upset…"

Great. As if his day wasn't going badly enough already. His ears picked out the sounds of Mother entering his room with a sharp gasp, prompting him to brace himself for the worst. He fully expected her to start berating him for breaking what was supposed to be Vacuo's last hope, to yell and scream and compare him to his sisters who weren't nearly as screwed-up as him. To disown him and curse him and throw him out on the streets where he deserved to rot like his father.

But she did none of those things.

Instead Willow walked over, got right down on the floor next to him, and pulled him into a tight hug.

The emotional dam finally burst as he leaned into her shoulder and sobbed, allowing hot angry tears to spill down his face. "I…I ruined it," he wailed and whimpered. "I ruined everything, Mother…just like I always do. Just like…just like he did…I really am his son, aren't I?"

"Oh, Whitley…" His mother's voice was just as soft as her touch, and brought with it a comfort he never knew he wanted - never knew he needed.

"Why?" he muttered bitterly. "Why can't I be like you, or Weiss, or Winter? Why can't I be happy he's gone? He was awful…I know he was awful. I know he didn't love me…that he never loved me. So why…why do I still miss him?"

"Because you loved him," whispered Willow as she stroked his hair. "So did I, once. I suppose at one point we all did…and though he turned that love against us, it doesn't erase that feeling entirely. It's no simple process, grieving a man like that…not for you, not for your sisters, and certainly not for me. Jacques Schnee was difficult to love and easy to hate…and yet, his absence, I can't feel either."

That caught the young Schnee off guard. "Y-you? But…I thought you'd be -"

"Oh, I'm not sad that he's gone…but I'm not happy, either." He could feel his mother let a few tears flow over him. "I don't feel vindicated, dear Whitley…or free, or glad, or even relieved. I only feel…empty. He was a part of our lives for so long, whether we wanted him there or not…it's only natural that we would still desperately look for reasons to mourn him, now that he's dead. That our hearts would ache, even if they have every reason not to." A bitter, hollow scoff escaped her lips. "I suppose that was his final act of cruelty all along - making us all miserable with him, and even more miserable without him."

The revelation gave him pause, even in the depths of his own misery. In his fourteen years of life, he'd known Mother to be an emotionally-dulled drunkard who downed glasses of wine like a thirsty traveler who'd just found water. Never had it occurred to him before why she would drown herself in alcohol - though given what he knew about Jacques Schnee, it was never hard to guess - nor had he considered that the woman who now tried so hard to keep their family together was falling apart from within. How long had she been concealing her own grief? How long had she been holding back her own tears? True, there was the outburst when Weiss brought Ruby over for their first dinner date, but he'd written that off as an isolated incident. Now, however, he realized it was a moment of the mask slipping…and that the Willow Schnee that held him now was who she'd been all these years.

Lost. Afraid. Sorrowful. And yet, still full of love and warmth.

He'd been so lost in his own shame and self-loathing, he never noticed that the women of this house were drowning alongside him.

Tentatively, Whitley reached up and did his best to return the embrace. The action was instantly rewarded with a wave of warmth across his skin, and a soft glow in his heart. Gods, when was the last time he'd given a proper hug?

"…well, at the very least, we can all be miserable together," he managed to choke out. "If you still want a failure like me in the family, that is…"

Willow sobbed as she squeezed tighter. "Oh…Whitley. My dear, dear little Whitley. You're not a failure - you're my son. You and your sisters are the only…snff…the only good things that he ever gave me. I should have fought so much harder for you, for all of you, rather than selfishly try to dull my own pain…yet you've all grown into such wonderful and strong people, in spite of my failure and his cruelty. You are the legacy of the Schnee name, my dear…no matter what you choose to do with it, I know you'll find a way to be great. Not because it's in your blood…but because it's you."

A small hiccup wracked his frame. What was that thing normal families always said to each other in moments like these? …ah, yes. He remembered now.

"…I love you, Mother," he whispered before the words and the courage to speak could leave him.

He could have sworn he heard Willow Schnee gasp, before sobbing for entirely different reasons.

"I love you too, my dear little Whitley."

The pair sat there in the middle of the lab for a moment longer before he finally withdrew and wiped his face. Albus made his grand return seconds later, as if he could sense the sorrow of his humans from across the house - and a few quick brushes of his tail against their tears and his chin against their faces helped correct that. Whitley chuckled as he stroked the little cat down the length of his arching back, feeling waves of warmth and relief wash over him even as his mother reached over to do the same. He suspected it was no accident that her hand found his while petting the fluffy feline.

"Well that was, um…therapeutic?" he choked out after a moment. "Is that the right word?"

Willow sobbed one more time with a nod before blowing her nose into a filthy handkerchief, which made Albus decide to crawl into her waiting lap next.

"Yes…" Whitley muttered with a small attempt at a smile. "I…I think that was good for both of us, Mother. Thank you. But…I suppose we should start cleaning up my mess here. Or get Klein to come in here and do that for…us…"

It was at that point that he finally noticed that one of the marble-like objects had tumbled over to him, sitting inches away from his dusty pant leg.

After wiping his eyes one more time he scooped up the little ball, rolling it around between his fingers and observing it carefully. It too was a perfect sphere like the now-shattered black orb, yet it was soft…much softer than what it'd come from, as if it was a marble made from gelatin. Trace amounts of juice flowed over his fingertips whenever he squeezed with the slightest of pressures, leaving a sticky yet harmless cyan residue behind. And as he toyed with it, he noticed that its gleaming silvery-blue glow never diminished - it seemed to shine with its own inner light, the source of which must have come from somewhere in its core.

"…curious," he mused.

Willow tilted her head as she watched her son, idly scratching the cat's belly. "What is it, dear?"

"Weiss said that each Vuata Maca berry consisted of multiple edible, energy-rich seeds along a metal stem," he said as he stared in wonder at the orb. "That's what she and her teammates ate to restore their Auras; perhaps they assumed that the black ball would eventually grow into something similar. But what if they were mistaken? What if that sphere was actually just the skin of another, smaller fruit…and these are its seeds?"

His mother blinked in realization. "You mean that the seeds act as the main flesh of a fruit? Like a pomegranate?"

"Exactly." He got to his feet as his eyes shone once more. "Perhaps that was why it wasn't growing in any of the tests Azina and I simulated…it would've been like trying to plant an apple wrapped in plastic, and expecting a tree to sprout up. Let's try analyzing these, and see what we can find. Will you help me, Mother?"

Willow's eyes twinkled as she stood up as well. "It would be my pleasure, dear. What should we do first?"

Whitley's own gaze brightened as a small smile spread across his lips. "Let's start by gathering up the fallen seeds and running them through the material analyzer. Quickly, now - I'd rather that Albus not try to eat any of them just yet."

"Mrow…"

After setting the family cat outside with his favorite toy and some appreciative belly scratches, the pair of Schnees dove headfirst into scientific rigor.

They quickly and carefully scooped up every marble-like seed, rinsing them off in a tub of water before depositing them in a beaker and setting it on the desk. Whitley took one out of the thousands in the pile and ran it through Polendina's material analyzer, furiously tapping away at a hard-light keyboard as he manually entered as many of Willow's measurements as the program requested. Mass? Extremely light. Diameter? Tiny. Volumetric displacement? Minimal. When the computer spat back the results in the form of a Scroll full of formulas and observations, it left both mother and son scratching their heads in confusion.

"These seeds…" mused Willow. "According to this readout, they behave a lot like…like Dust deposits that haven't been elementally charged yet. Like they're missing the essence that makes Fire Dust burn, or Ice Dust freeze, or any other type of effect. Those essences are usually forged by the environment and pressure within the deposits in their raw form, or they're created when other elemental grades are combined in certain ways. With these, however…it's as if they're waiting to accept a core."

"That is strange, yes," Whitley said with a small nod. "Not nearly as strange as the fact that the projected growth rate on a single seed is measured in seconds, instead of days or weeks. It seems it already has all the nutrients and energy required to grow into a new plant - it just needs an activator from the outside to trigger the process."

"Like what?"

"No idea." He picked up a mortar and pestle and clinked them together meaningfully. "I suppose we'll have to get creative in order to find out, Mother."

And so the duo once more got to work, with less-than-encouraging results. Smashing one orb did nothing but spread juices everywhere. Warming up another did nothing, and freezing a third did the same. Whitley and Willow tried everything they could think of to activate the seeds - draining, stabbing, inducing an electrical current, channeling Aura into a bare ball, even throwing it against the wall for good measure. No results. Unlike before, the youngest Schnee felt no frustration bubbling inside him with each failed experiment. No rage. No self-loathing.

Only resolve and determination.

"There must be something…" Whitley muttered after several more hours, wiping strange splatters and sweat out of his brow. His eyes fell on the boxes of powdered Dust as he idly took another seed from the half-empty beaker, humming thoughtfully for a moment before gasping sharply.

"Oh…of course! Why didn't we try this first?"

He scooted his chair over to the table and carefully rolled his seed in Plant Dust, gently massaging it in circular motions until it was covered in a thick coat of sticky olive-green powder. When he was certain that nothing was left bare on the little orb, he once again slid his seat across the room and passed it to his newest lab partner. Willow looked up from her own experiment just in time for Whitley to drop the ball into her palms, regarding her son with confusion for a moment.

"You said that this reminded you of unaspected Dust, yes?" He tried to keep the excitement out of his voice. "We know that Dust can be activated with Aura to generate a burst of elemental energy, either in its raw form or when woven into clothes. What if that serves as some sort of trigger for the seeds? Could you try channeling your energy into this, to find out? I'd try it myself, but…well, you know that I'm no Huntsman."

The mother of the Schnee household blinked several times as she processed what he was saying, then nodded tightly. A ripple of ice-white energy pooled around her hands, focused by the woman's will and transferred into the Dust surrounding the seed. The coat began to glow faintly green, which was overtaken by a silver burst of light -

And then immediately the orb grew into an edelweiss flower, right in the palm of the Huntress's hands.

Willow gasped, first in shock and then in awe.

"Remarkable…" he said, trying to keep his voice even despite the giddiness welling up inside him. He took another seed and carefully rolled it in powder again, this time using a box of finely-ground Fire Dust to make a crimson coat. When Willow channeled her Aura into the scarlet-stained seed, it too sprang up into a flower with a flash of silver light - but this time, it formed a rose that promptly burst into flames without withering away.

"Does it hurt?" asked Whitley as he looked with concern to his mother, who was holding a flaming flower against her skin.

Willow hummed as she gingerly poked the blazing petals. "No…it feels warm. Not hot enough to burn…yet warmer still than the air around it." She blinked. "It's behaving like…"

"…like Fire Dust," finished the youngest Schnee with a nod. "In a sense…it is Dust."

Spurred on by this development, the pair began repeating the process not just with Plant and Fire, but with every other elemental powder they had at their disposal. Sure enough, each resulting flower mimicked the properties of its coat, constantly exhibiting a lower-intensity version of its active effects. Ice Dust blossomed into white tulips that generated a cooling mist. Lightning Dust created vibrant yellow sunflowers that crackled with static electricity. Earth Dust grew into daisies laden with sediment-like pollen. And most amazingly of all, seeds coated in Water Dust formed bellflowers as blue as the sea, with a small trickle of fresh cool water spilling out of the drooping petals.

Soon an entire shelf was filled with flower trays that fed the strange plants with fresh mineral solutions and artificial sunlight, with labels hastily scribbled out and pasted on the sides to denote which Dust did what - if the effects and elemental residues wafting from the petals weren't already obvious enough.

Willow smiled as she filled a glass from the water flower, as if it were a faucet. "Seeds from another world that react to our Dust…fascinating." After taking a small sip, her face lit up. "Mmm. If nothing else, we can tell Theodore that we may have just solved Vacuo's water crisis. Perhaps even the Dust shortage, if we can grind up the petals to make powder for bullets."

"True, but I still think we can do better," said Whitley as he dug out a handful of seeds. "We know what one seed becomes when coated in Dust…but what if we try activating clusters of multiple bulbs all at once? After all, these seeds presumably all grew together on Mata Nui if they were all part of the same fruit…surely they'd do the same here, would they not?"

"Careful, dear," said Willow with a soft laugh. "Klein will complain if he has to clean around a tree that you grew in the middle of your room."

"Well, you know how much I've always wanted a hammock." He chuckled and shook his head. "Don't worry, I don't intend to turn my domicile into a full greenhouse just yet - I want to find the minimum amount of seeds it would take to create a small tree that bears some kind of fruit. Because if my theory is true, then that means that even a single fruit could have thousands of seeds inside…and that means we'd have more samples to work with."

"A fair enough idea. How many were you thinking of using?"

Whitley expanded his Scroll and opened up a note-taking application. "Let's start with two seeds of the same Dust type, then increase it by one until we reach ten. From there, we'll go up by five until we find something both viable and edible…or until your Aura runs out. Whichever happens first."

"The latter won't be an issue," promised his mother. "I have plenty to spare."

"Excellent to hear." He nodded with a hum. "Perhaps we should keep using Plant Dust for now, just so that whatever we make doesn't accidentally burn or freeze us. We can try the other types once we have a baseline for where to start."

With a plan in mind and hope in their hearts, the mother and son duo went to work doing just that, noting the number of seeds they used and what was produced at each cluster size. Leaves and petals were plucked from the edelweiss plots to wrap the seeds once the elemental powder tray ran dry, confirming their theory that the flower parts did indeed act like Dust even when separated from the stem. Using less than five seeds only resulted in a slightly larger flower than the one that came before. Between six and ten yielded a bush with thumbtack-sized buds. At fifteen seeds, those buds shifted into hard, inedible little berries. Twenty made the bush bigger and stand straighter, while the berries themselves were slightly softer but still unpleasant - and worse, still bore no seeds. The results remained consistent at twenty-five seeds. Thirty. Thirty-five.

Finally, forty seeds activated all at once resulted in a fully-grown tree the size of a sapling, one whose purple-barked mossy branches were heavy with teardrop-shaped fruits that looked remarkably like pale green figs. Plucking one off the tree revealed that it was cool and damp to the touch, as if it was coated in a permanent blanket of morning dew. Cutting it open revealed a collection of glowing green seeds within, identical in all but color to the orbs that had come from the Vuata Maca shell…seeds that behaved exactly like Plant Dust when ground into a fine powder, and grew into edelweiss flowers when touched by Aura.

"By the gods…" Willow breathed, covering her mouth as the implications dawned on her.

"And now for the moment of truth," intoned Whitley as he picked up one half of the unknown fruit. "Might be best to have the first aid kit on standby, in case this ends up poisoning me."

Remembering Weiss's horrifically vivid descriptions of the Vuata Maca fruit - especially its awful bitterness and its metallic aftertaste - he pinched his nose, squeezed his eyes shut, and hesitantly took the smallest of bites from the jade-skinned fruit.

It was…sweet?

Whitley blinked slowly and chewed thoughtfully before swallowing, taking another bite to confirm his findings. Sure enough, a pleasant wave of juices rolled down his gullet, reminding him of a fresh strawberry picked right out of the garden. It wasn't just him, either - upon seeing no adverse reactions in her son, Willow plucked another fruit out of the dozens hanging from the branches and bit into it, her eyes lighting up before closing as a small moan escaped her lips.

"…how many of these do you think we'll need for further research?" asked the maternal Schnee with pleading eyes.

He laughed as he set down his Scroll. "I think the research can wait, Mother. For now? We feast."

And feast they did, ravenously chowing down on the miraculous fruit with hunger in their eyes and stomach alike. Juices burst with each bite, quenching their thirst and filling them both with a sense of strength and vitality. Surprisingly, Whitley found himself starting to feel full after eating just a few of the sweet fig-like objects - by the time he was done he felt like he'd eaten a full course dinner, with the sweetest dessert on top of it. Willow, too, couldn't eat another morsel past six of them, and a quick glance at her Scroll told her that her Aura - which had gone down to about half its capacity during the long lab session - was now completely topped off from a few fruits alone.

"There must be hundreds of calories packed into just a single one of these," Whitley mused as he examined a half-eaten fruit. "I suppose that makes some sense - if these Toa and Matoran sustained themselves by absorbing their food, then it stands to reason that anything 'edible' by their standards would need to be extremely rich in chemical energy to power their frames for long periods of time." A thoughtful hum escaped his juice-stained lips. "Perhaps that's why Weiss and her team always complained about the taste of their food back on Mata Nui, especially the Vuata Maca berries. It would be like trying to mash up and eat an entire year's worth of food all at once, with no regard for flavor or texture."

"And we've barely even cleared one branch off this tree with our snacking," said Willow as she examined the sapling in the middle of the room. "There's so many seeds in just one of these fruits…all the same size as the original orbs. And if every one of those seeds carries the original element used to make its tree…"

"Then we've essentially discovered an entirely new form of Dust," breathed the youngest Schnee as he stood up. "Edible, endlessly renewable, and easily reproducible. All you need to make it grow are a few seeds with an elemental aspect and a bit of Aura. No more risky ventures to locate buried veins. No more hazardous mining. No more clunky, ugly refineries. Who needs all of that when you can just grow both food and ammunition in your own backyard?"

"This…this changes everything." Willow scooped out a handful of seeds from another fig, wrapped it in the petals of a blue bellflower, then channeled her Aura to make it grow into another sapling. Predictably, it had clusters of what seemed to be cobalt dates hanging within its cerulean leaves, but the real surprise was what was inside the trunk itself. Poking a small hole in its soft, damp bark made a spigot of clean and cool water trickle out of the tree like a fountain of liquid sap…and probing just a few inches deeper increased the flow and pressure significantly, making a gentle rain shower that formed a puddle in the middle of Whitley's room.

"Water from sand," gasped Whitley. "Just like a fairy tale. Magnificent!"

Willow laughed excitedly as she pulled her son close, and soon they were both splashing and drinking from the life-giving fluid with no regard for tidiness. When they'd had their fill and their clothes were once again thoroughly soaked the motherly Schnee brought Whitley in for a tight hug, one that he gladly and eagerly returned. And when Klein came in to see what all the noise was about, his eyes widened briefly at the sight of a tree spitting out water like a sprinkler…but then he smiled at both of the miracles playing out before him.

Eventually, Willow pulled away and kissed her little boy on the forehead, brushing through his drenched hair with her hands. "Oh, my dear son…you've done it. You've discovered a miracle."

"I couldn't have done it without you, Mother," he said, hoping she didn't notice that not all the water on his face came from the tree.

She did notice, but wiped it away all the same. "I'm just glad to see you smile again…to see your smile." Then, after a thoughtful hum, she grinned herself. "Only one thing remains, little Whitley. What should we call this? As the one who made this discovery, you deserve the chance to name it - after all, it is your legacy."

Whitley thought long and hard, pondering as hard as his excitement-addled mind could ponder. Eventually…the name stared him right in the face, and thought it felt a little on the nose, he couldn't deny that it felt right.

"Then I shall call it…Dustfruit."

Less than a day later, it felt like the entire city was ablaze with new life.

Whitley had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows as he dug through an ever-growing patch of green with his hands, burying a palm-sized cluster of glowing red seeds just deep enough so the waiting tree would have good roots in its new home. Satisfied, he looked up and watched as dozens of Vacuans, Atlesians, and Agori alike all worked to do the same, accompanied by Huntsmen and Huntresses pooling Aura through their palms into layers of fertile soil - and making trees suddenly spring up in flashes of silver light. Children scattered bags of Earth- and Plant-aspected seeds to expand the borders of the orchard that'd practically grown overnight. Several Glatorian reached up to pick choice Dustfruits from the taller trees, or to lift their smaller companions so they could do the same. Everyone, from the Ace Ops to the Happy Huntresses, from the smallest child to the most wrinkled elder, had at least a shadow of a smile as they worked to cultivate the new miracle in the center of their city.

It had been a hard sell to the Council, at least at first. A strange fruit based on seeds from an alien world that served as food, water, and Dust? Many thought it was too good to be true. Others thought the young Schnee had a hidden agenda, or that he was just peddling fresh snake oil to capitalize on the tragedy. But all it took were a few demonstrations and taste samples to change their minds; after promising that the literal fruits of his labor would be given free of charge to anyone in need, a plan was drafted by Theodore, Raanu, Ozpin, and the other Chairpersons almost immediately to farm and distribute the miracle to a hungry desert.

Yang, Blake, and Emerald had all vouched for the restorative properties of the Vuata Maca berries the Dustfruit was based on, and how this was far more palatable. Robyn and her Happy Huntresses had started heading up a seed bank initiative, to preserve at least some of the Dustfruits and knowledge on how to activate them for future generations. Metus had even approached Whitley privately to extend an exclusive business "partnership," which of course he'd politely declined. Whitley Schnee was not his father. He was adamant that the Dustfruits be an open and communal resource, owned by everyone and no one all at once.

And so far, it looked like that was working out just fine.

"Got another one ready over here!" Whitley called as he wiped the sweat off his brow. "Careful with what comes off this tree - the Fire Dustfruits are a lot spicier than the rest."

One of Weiss's teammates - Yang, if he remembered correctly - came over with a big grin and a soft laugh. "Really? I'll be the judge of that. It's not gonna explode in my face, right?"

"Probably not. But I'd take a few steps back after activating if I were you. Unless you want to get hit by a face full of tree."

"Aw. That's like the one thing I haven't gotten punched by yet!"

The tall, obscenely muscular Huntress laid her non-prosthetic hand down on top of the covered mound, golden energy flowing out from her fingers and into the pile of soil. Less than a heartbeat later a fully-grown tree with mahogany bark and scarlet leaves pushed its way to freedom, scattering a wave of embers before it settled into its new natural height. Several of its warm, glowing branches had what looked like crimson peppers hanging from orange stems; Yang fearlessly reached up and picked one free, then bit into it with an eager grin.

Maybe I should've offered her a drink of water first, if she needed to wash it down.

Fortunately that wouldn't be necessary, because Yang moaned through her sealed lips and stamped her foot appreciatively. "Mmmm…mmm!" She gulped down her current mouthful and grinned, looking down at the rest of the Fire Dustfruit in delight. "Oh hell yeah! That's got just the right amount of kick to it! Hmm…bet I could make a mean chili with this. And some pasta sauces…and some stews…and maybe even some new shells for Ember Celica…"

"By all means, you're welcome to have as much of these as you want," he said with a laugh. "I certainly won't be touching them - far too spicy for my palette."

"Your loss!" The blonde Huntress smiled as she bobbled the half-eaten fruit, humming thoughtfully before letting out a soft laugh. "Y'know…it's funny. I don't think we've ever actually gotten a chance to talk one-on-one like this. Guess I didn't really have much interest in doing so…after all, Weiss made you sound insufferable. Like you were just some spoiled little brat trying to fill dad's shoes." At the sight of his cringing expression, she verbally backpedaled. "Er, no offense."

Whitley chuckled and waved dismissively. "Oh none taken, Yang - I absolutely was, is the problem. Still am, in some ways…you most certainly would've punched me in the face."

"Why does everyone assume I just go around punching kids in the face?"

"We all have a reputation we struggle to shake." Then he let out a sigh and shook his head. "Father had his claws deep in me, and I'd always been too lonely and afraid to try and be anything except whatever he wanted. These last few months, I've been internalizing that…trying to come to terms with who I am without him. I don't miss his manipulations, and I certainly don't miss the ills he brought into the world. And yet, is it wrong that there's still part of me that wants him here? So he can see all of this and learn…something? Am I wrong to wish for that, Yang?"

Yang sighed and shook her head. "Nah…I think it's a pretty normal thing to feel. I've got some experience with, uh…less-than-stellar parents, so while I won't pretend to know exactly what you went through, I can definitely relate to wanting your folks to be better than the ones you got. How do you think your old man would feel, knowing what you did?"

The youngest Schnee hummed and cast his gaze across the Dustfruit Orchard, watching as people from all walks of life reacted to his blossoming legacy. A middle-aged woman just about collapsed in gratitude at Blake's feet, sobbing tears of joy as the children around her giggled and ate for the first time in far too long. Ackar fitted an orange-skinned Combustion Dustfruit between a tool consisting of two metal prongs, launching the explosive fruit at a wall slated for demolition and earning a chorus of cheers and amazed gasps as a golden fireball erupted. Kiina and Elm hoisted and balanced small Faunus pups on their shoulders, letting their little wolf-eared friends reach up and pick out their favorite fruits. Azina scrambled up and down a mighty oak-like tree using her natural agility, picking out blue apples and gently tossing the Ice Dustfruits down to where Velvet was waiting with baskets begging to be filled. And a freckled little girl chased an enormous black dog across a grassy knoll alongside Team SSSN, peals of laughter ringing out as they pursued the chaotic canine and the half-eaten melon in its mouth - the latter of which was shooting streams of water from its core like a ruptured fire hydrant.

"…I think he'd be rolling in his grave, if he knew I was giving all of this away for free," he finally said thoughtfully. "And that, more than anything else, fills me with pride."

"Attaboy," said Yang with a soft laugh, reaching over to pat him on the shoulder. "I know I'm not Weiss, but if you ever need a surrogate big sis to talk to, especially whenever Winter's being…well, Winter…feel free to hit me up. I'm always willing to listen, no matter what's on your mind."

Whitley nodded with a small smile. "I'll…consider it, Yang. Thank you."

"Don't mention it." She grinned a mischievous grin. "After all, it might be good practice…you know, for when we're officially in-laws."

"And just like that I'm no longer considering it." He chuckled softly, then blinked as he spotted a rather familiar face among the crowd. "Hmm…those boxes over by Gresh and Yatsuhashi - are they going anywhere in particular?"

"Not that I know of, no." Yang raised an eyebrow in curiosity. "Why? Whatcha thinking?"

"I'm thinking it's time to start rebuilding some broken bridges."

With that he went over to the green-clad duo, hastily explained himself, and came away with a crate loaded with every kind of Dustfruit currently growing under the desert sun. He gathered his courage as he crossed the orchard - nearly getting run over by Reese and Berix on the way over - and set the crate down in front of a gruff man sitting in the shade. The Huntsman's non-scarred eye snapped over to him and darkened in recognition; he ignored the pit forming in his stomach and kept speaking, despite the warrior giving him every silent signal to stop if he valued his life.

"Here," he said in as gentle of a tone as he could muster. "These are for you and your children, as well as anyone else in your community who needs or wants extra food. Talk to the other Huntsmen to learn how to grow them for yourself, if coming here every week is too much of a trek. I won't have anyone going to bed hungry anymore - certainly not when I can do something about it. I apologize for antagonizing you yesterday…I've been so caught up in my own worries in life, I've failed to have empathy for the plights of others."

A quirked eyebrow was the only response the man gave so far. Whitley swallowed the lump in his throat, and dared to meet the warrior's gaze.

"But that's going to change from this day on, so let this be proof of my word. It won't erase the past, I realize, but hopefully it'll help us all build a new future together. We're all struggling against Salem together now, after all. We shouldn't also have to struggle against each other, just to survive."

The grizzled, one-eyed Huntsman looked down at the fruit, then at the person delivering it, then back again. He cautiously took one out, examined it carefully, bit into it, and chewed slowly without taking his gaze off the youngest Schnee. After confirming that it was edible - and that it was delicious - he grinned through a mouthful of seeds and raised his hand, a gesture that made Whitley flinch reflexively. But when the calloused palm rested on his head to ruffle untamed platinum-blonde hair and gently pat his crown, he not only relaxed but outright smiled.

"Heh…damned good speech there, and even better fruit," said the old Huntsman with an affectionate chuckle. "Maybe your kind ain't so bad after all…pancake."

It was the best compliment Whitley could have ever asked for.

(A/N): Well, would you look at that? Therapy and catharsis for the Schnees, roots laid down (pun intended) for the "magic" system going forward, payoff for a story beat planted (again, pun intended) in Destiny's Divide, and a story-changing solution to some of Vacuo's biggest logistical problems. All in just under 11k words! After a lot of long chapters lately, it's nice to have something short, sweet, and savory. (Pun still intended.)

The idea for the Dustfruits comes in part from C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia series, specifically the sixth (or first, depending on which collection you have) book The Magician's Nephew. In that story, after Aslan creates Narnia in the second act, the world still has a bit of magic in it that allows anything planted to grow into a very special tree that resembles the original seed - that's where the famous lamppost from The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe originally came from, incidentally, because a bit of steel bar got stuck in the ground and started growing. I remember experiencing that story back while I was still in middle school and thinking "wow, that's such a creative and cool idea! I'd love to have that kind of thing in one of my own stories!" Twenty years later, I finally got the chance to do just that.

To those of you who were predicting that either Dust and protodermis interactions or Vuata Maca trees would be on the table from last chapter, congrats on being correct! And for those who were thinking that someone's gonna be building a suit of armor in a cave with a box of scraps…don't worry, that's next time. See you then!