Chapter 42 – Team Effort

In which Weiss Schnee refunds Ruby Rose for an ill-thought-out equine acquisition.

"In the one corner – half Faunus, half human, all pain. You know these girls after their leader made a vibrant statement in the face of those who would do our illustrious stadium harm. Give you applause for the one, the only…TEAM RWBYYYYY!"

The audience ate up Port's words with eager interest, providing a deafening applause that could've drowned out the sound of a volcanic eruption.

"In the other corner – it's Team Who Gives A Fuck?!"

Okay, Port didn't actually say that, but he may as well have. The Team they were up against, Team ABRN, were basically nobodies on the world stage, and while that wasn't something to be ashamed of, Weiss could honestly say she had no clue who they were. Never before had their team distinguished themselves in any meaningful way, and she couldn't say she recalled meeting any of them during their entire time in Beacon. On top of that, none of them had volunteered during Miss Goodwitch's spars, none of them raised their hands to answer the professor's questions – they didn't stand out. They were nobodies because they chose to allow themselves to be nobodies.

It wasn't the first round of the tournament – that had been Team Juniper utterly demolishing the poor schmucks they'd been placed against. This was actually the fifth round out of sixteen for the full team portion of the tournament. It was very nearly fifteen, following Team Sun's disqualification for bribing, but apparently the judges accepted the bribes and let them back in, so they had a full docket.

The arena's automated randomizing system caused all of the digital banners projected into the air to start spinning like slot machines at a casino, switching from icons of fire to water to plants to sand and more. It was honestly slightly reminiscent of the different types of Dust to Weiss, but only for a moment. When the symbols of things like nuclear waste and skyscrapers appeared, the comparison failed.

In the end, their arena settled on one half frozen tundra (home sweet home) and one half skate park of all things. Honestly, Weiss had no idea how that particular addition even made its way into the pool, but it evidently had, and she had no doubt that she hoverboarding student on the enemy team was practically drooling as the side of the arena on Team RWBY's side turned into a construction of ramps, large pipes, and other such nonsense that Weiss barely even knew the terminology for.

It gave the appearance that their enemies had the initial advantage, but Weiss honestly thought that this was going to be less of a fight and more of a mopping up session. Yang alone could probably destroy the four of them, Ruby could run circles around them, and Blake and Weiss went together like social media and oversharing personal details.

The countdown from ten started the very second that the arena finished changing. In place of the elemental or structural icons came a large two digit number, followed by a one digit number. It was taking far longer than one second for the number to change, giving the large audience enough time to join in and shout alongside the countdown.

"EIGHT!" they roared.

"This is it, team." Weiss drew her rapier, and the rest of the girls followed suit with their own weapons. "We either make it or we break it."

"SEVEN!"

"Or we make it and break them," supplied Yang, punching her sisters together as her shotguns cocked. "That's an option as well."

Weiss took in a brief breath and forced herself to not do another double check of her weapon's Dust. She knew it was there, and checking for the millionth time would do nothing to aid her.

"SIX!"

Okay, she caved and checked one last time. But it was the last time, for real.

"FIVE!"

Just one more check of the Dust. Now she was done.

"FOUR!"

"Weiss," Blake said, her breath shaky. "If we don't make it out there…"

"THREE!"

"We'll be fine," Weiss reassured her.

"TWO!"

"I know," Blake said, her eyes dark. "But if we aren't for any reason, I just want you to know that I…I…"

"ONE!"

"…I'm gay."

"ZERO!"

"Wut," Weiss said.

Team ABRN all ran straight towards them in what could easily be described as a tactical display of stupidity. While it was certainly in their best interests to get their third member, Reese Chloris, towards the skate park on Team RWBY's side, there was no advantage to all charging in a line like a crash of inebriated rhinoceros.

The enemy leader, Arslan Atlan, attempted to charge into Blake and tackle her, but she ended up eating a face-full of shadow clone instead. One of the boys (Weiss had yet to determine a way to tell them apart) went for Ruby with his staff, but Ruby just disappeared, and he too was left eating rose petals. The other boy went for Yang, and she allowed him to tackle him to the floor and start wailing on her as he charged up her semblance.

The last member, the hoverboarder herself, tried to bypass the team altogether at the last moment, hoping that her own three partners would be enough to handle them as she made a break for more favorable terrain. Weiss let her pass and instead turned to aid her own teammates. Their initial tactic to blitz Team RWBY wasn't working as well as they'd hoped, but they'd clearly only done it to get their fourth member past them.

Let them have the skate park.

"Yang!" Weiss barked. "Towards the ice!"

Yang nodded and sat up straight. Her fiery head knocked right into the boy who'd been wailing on her, and with her augmented strength, she pushed him instead now instead of the other way around. Grabbing him by the collar, she flung him like a ragdoll across the arena.

The other two who had missed their targets tried to flee, but Weiss blocked off their avenues of escape with a carefully placed corridor of Glyphs that put them face to face with Yang. Arslan tried to punch the Glyphs, and she did succeed in making Weiss stumble from her location, but the Glyph held.

Yang went for the other boy first, blocking a hasty hit from his staff and using his overextending against him to yank the weapon from his hands. Arslan got a good punch on Yang's forehead, but it only made the fires of her golden mane burn even brighter.

"Oh, and that's a vicious knockout of Mr. Shiko, having failed to defeat the team-up of Ms. Belladonna and Ms. Rose!"

The announcement came from Oobleck, and it was all Yang needed to know. Grabbing the other boy (Bolin, by the process of elimination) by his wrist, she chucked him in the direction of Ruby and Blake in the ice fields. Weiss' aura flickered as her semblance faltered slightly, but she just barely managed to hold the Glyphs keeping Arslan from interfering.

At this point, Team ABRN had to be regretting their choices. Sure, they'd taken Reese into the skate park, but into doing so, they'd allowed themselves to be split up, and in a manner that gave Team RWBY the advantage. Now, Ruby and Blake were doubleteaming Bolin, Yang was fistfighting Arslan with Weiss' Glyph-based assistance, and Reese was struggling to decide whether it would be best watch her team be wrecked or to give up the advantageous terrain she'd sacrificed so much to gain.

Bolin went out by aura loss next, as Yang continued to use her miracle semblance to keep Arslan at bay while Weiss took a second to catch her breath. Now that it was four against two, she only needed to keep up the Glyphs that kept Arslan from rejoining Reese, not a full cylinder of them shepherding her towards Yang. The overuse of her semblance had drained her, but she was best utilized as support in the early rounds.

If she gave away too much of her technique when it came to close combat and swordplay, they'd be sacrificing the duos round. Weiss' job was to maintain an element of mystery until then, at which point she could tap out and let Yang go the rest of the way in the tournament and lose to Pyrrha on Team RWBY's behalf.

Seriously, why they're even bothering to throw this thing when she's present beats me.

Blake and Ruby had nor rejoined Yang using Ruby's semblance to triple their strength against Arslan, and Weiss was focused exclusively on keeping Reese at bay. She'd decided that, with her team reduced to her and her leader, it was now time to step in, so Weiss dropped the Glyphs and fly her way, keen on pestering her and occupying her attention using the last lingering dredges of aura she had.

At this point, her best bet would be to remain in the skate park area and try to outmaneuver us using the terrain, but that would only accomplish survival for her, leaving no ways for her to beat us. It must be humiliating – she gets the ideal arena chosen on the first round, and she can't even use it. That's the cost of myopia, I guess. Hyperfocusing so much on one singular aspect isn't conductive to victory. I work with Blake best due to our years of experience, to the point that we can predict one another's movements without having to speak, but we split up, as did the sisters, because that was what the team needed at the time.

"…Atlan, via…"

Weiss didn't even hear Port's announcement aside from the keywords that told her everything she needed to know. Reese had seen her coming and reversed course, finally deciding to use the landscape to her advantage. There was no way Weiss could catch up to her, but she didn't need to. Her only true goal had been to patrol the boundaries and make sure that the three on one advantage didn't turn into a three on two advantage. Weiss didn't give chase, instead only choosing to make a line in the snow that Reese wouldn't dare cross.

Now that it's just her, we're going to have to engage her, but that's hardly a problem. My aura is going to drop red on the next hit, but that's okay. Yang's semblance is now fully spun up, and Ruby and Blake probably haven't even broken a sweat yet.

Now that there was only one remaining member of Team ABRN, Weiss backed away, regrouping with her team along the border of the tundra. Reese was hoverboarding around, keeping herself in motion at all times far away from them.

"Can you snipe her, Ruby?" asked Blake. "No need to take unnecessary risks."

"Prolly, but her aura's full. It'd take a lot of bullets."

"I can smack her," said Yang, her eyes blazing with energy. She cracked her knuckles with enough force for the echo to reverberate about the stadium.

"You'd need to get to her first," Weiss said. "Let's make this easy on ourselves. Ruby – shoot out the hoverboard. Immobilize her, and she's done for."

It happened without any hiccups. The youngest member of Team RWBY looked down her scope, eying Reese and her board for a good forty seconds before firing a single round. It hit directly on the rear end of the board, cracking something that Weiss presumed was important, because the board stopped moving. Reese, at full momentum, tumbled off of it and skidded facefirst into a skate park feature that Weiss didn't know the name of. It would've been perfect if they could've had her fall out of the ring, but that would've been asking too much of Ruby.

"Yang," Weiss said, merely nodding her head.

"Gotcha, boss." The she-demon of flames and fashion stalked out into the other side of the arena. "C'mere, girlie! Momma Yang's gonna flatten ya!"

It was a resolute victory for Team RWBY, assuming Yang didn't somehow flub it in the last minute, and it was a perfect allocation of the team's resources. Weiss felt a small swell of pride in herself as the leader – they hadn't even lost a teammate.

That said, my own aura is at 30%. I probably ought to work on expending it more efficiently. Not just because of the tournament; it'd be a great way to improve myself as a huntress for future endeavors.

Without her board, which Ruby had thoroughly disabled in that one shot, Reese was far less mobile. The winding, uneven terrain suddenly became a weakness for her, and Xiao-Long was upon her within moments.

"That was kinda fun," said Ruby, watching her sister obliterate the enemy down the barrel of her scope. "I think I get why Pyrrha did this for so long."

"Don't get to use to it," griped Blake. "It's our last round."

"Well, yeah, until the joust," said Ruby.

Of course, until the…wait, the…the…

Both Blake and Weiss turned to look at Ruby. "The joust?"

"Tournaments have two rounds," Ruby explained. "A melee and a joust. The melee comes first and features hand to hand combat as small groups, and the joust is the second part." She ran her hand down the haft of her weapon. "I think I'm gonna have to mod Crescent to get her to work as a lance, but Qrow can help me, and working weapons is my jam."

The two Faunus exchanged a look with one another.

Then, they stretched out their hand, shook them up and down twice, and stuck out their fingers.

"Paper," Weiss cursed. "Alright, I'll be the one to tell her."

"GWAAAAH!" Ruby cried, as their victorious team was ushered back to the competitor's box. "I BOUGHT A PONY FOR NOTHING! NOOOOOTHIIIIIIIIIING!"

"Professor Goodwitch explained the structure of the –"

"But I read it online!" Ruby bawled.

Weiss rolled her eyes. "In the interests of your continued sanity, and because money is no object to me, I can reimburse you for the horse, but I'm afraid there's no chance for you to go any further in the tournament."

"Yeah, yeah," Ruby said, folding her arms as Team CRDL and the Menagerian Athletes were called up to the stadium. "You and Yang are gonna go on next. We decided it already."

Since the damage to the arena had been minimal as compared so some of the more destructive rounds, there was no need for a cleaning crew to remove the debris, so the next round could happen almost immediately. There was no set schedule for the early rounds, especially since protracted battles between groups of eight students could sometimes take several hours, with some of the more defense oriented students slowly wearing down their aura over gradual combat rather than the intense bursts of battle that Weiss' team had just seen.

"So, Adam," Ruby said awkwardly. "I remember that we agreed to fuck him, but that was a while ago. Can you tell me more about him?"

Yang nearly spat out the contents of the water bottle she'd picked up. "You what?!"

"Oh, you weren't there," Ruby said to her sister. "Yeah, back when you were on probation and all, Weiss and Blake told me about their friend Adam, except he might not have been a friend and more of a rival for Weiss. Anyways, Weiss said we'd fuck him in the tournament, but you said he seemed like an okay guy when you met him, Yang, so I wanted to know who's right."

"…in the tournament," Yang said, after catching her breath and coughing out the water in her gullet. "In the tournament. The tournament."

"Adam isn't evil," Weiss explained. "He's just –"

"Hold your hastily-bought horses, Schnee," Blake cut in. "Not evil makes it sound like he's 'just' vile or wretched or something. He's not bad."

"He's an idiot."

"He is kind of a White Fang hero."

"He's the living embodiment of every fraternity 'bro' on the planet, Blake. If a brain eating parasite came his way, it would make a U-turn for the government of Atlas."

Blake's hands went to her hips. "You're exaggerating."

"He, uh, did seem like a bit of a dunderhead when we spoke," said Yang. She couldn't meet Blake's eyes…nor Weiss' for that matter. "But not a bad person. Just a well-meaning douche."

The two teams were now at the center of the arena, shaking hands and whatnot. Both teams were smiling broadly at one another and seemed to have truly accepted the spirit of friendly competition that this whole thing had been founded on.

Weiss found herself feeling slightly bad for Team CRDL for what was about to happen to them.

"Adam's not a bad person," Weiss said. "He just rubs me the wrong way. I met him in a White Fang meeting eight years ago, and he turned out to be a huge, huge fan of my father. Called him a 'chad alpha male' and said he was a real friend to the Faunus. It…left an impression on me, knowing what I truly know about the man. I just don't like him, but that doesn't mean you all can't."

The arena began to change, having been selected by the randomizer to become a cave-like environment filled with pointed stalactite-like rocks on one side and a thick jungle filled with vines and trees on the other.

One member of the Menagerie team, a young male Faunus with gopher ears, was holding out his scroll and pointing it in the direction of the arena.

"Chat, the arena's a jungle and a cave," he said to the device, his voice audible from the distance at which Team RWBY sat. "Chat, is this real?"

Yang rubbed at her eyes. "Is…Is he livestreaming the fight? This is the team they sent?"

"The Menagerian athletes aren't huntsmen and huntresses in a registered academy, so they don't have to follow the same regulations we do," Blake explained. "That means far fewer restrictions on what they're allowed to get away with. I think they're even sponsored."

"By who?" asked Yang. "SDC?"

Weiss shook her head. "Nah. Raid Shadow Legends."

"Chat, what kind of Dust should I use?" Team Cardinal charged towards the unsuspecting Faunus. "Chat, help me!"

"Oh no!" Ruby cried, but she needn't have worried.

Adam was on the four humans in a flash. His sword cut right through their armor like it was made of clay and directly impacted their aura. Cardin tried to strike him with the massive mace, but Adam sidestepped out of the way, gripped him by the wrist, and kicked out his leg. The human warrior fell to one knee, at which point Adam wrapped his arm around Cardin's neck and squeezed.

"Get a load of this chad. Chat, are you seeing this?"

Adam, still holding Cardin in a choking headlock, nodded to the other three Faunus. "Triss, Harridan. Hold off the rest until I'm done with this one. Angelo, get my good side." Adam turned his head slightly, posing for the camera. "Sup, chat? It's ya boi, Adam."

Weiss leaned over to Ruby and Yang and began explaining a little bit more about the Faunus athletes as Adam continued to pose next to a slowly-losing-consciousness Cardin.

"This is the second year they've sent a team from Menagerie, but it's Adam's first time due to a loophole from Ironwood. It's also his last time due to age, meaning it's his only chance to win. Menagerie is training some other child teams up for next tournament, but none of them have Adam's raw talent."

"He isn't that good," grumbled Yang.

"That's because he's grandstanding," said Blake. "And, yes, I'll admit, I did forget how much of a douche he is. But he's a douche with a heart of not as douche."

"He's also the douche who's slated to take over as the councilman for Menagerie's Karora District when the current octogenarian in charge steps down from the helm," said Weiss, referencing the information ever Menagerian Faunus knew.

"Wait, the council guy is an octopus Faunus?" asked Ruby.

"How exactly does Menagerie work, government-wise?" asked Yang. "Is it the White Fang?"

Blake shook her head. "The White Fang is big enough that it pretty much is the Yhi District, but it's a separate organization. Well, distinct. They're intrinsically tied together and run by the same person, but they two organizations have separate policies and intentions. Dad is the ground councilman, making him the chieftain, and he earned that position because he set up the White Fang with Mom, meaning that they would all naturally vote for him."

"It's like this," Weiss said, switching to the timeline for Ruby's low attention span's sake. "Menagerie is founded after the Faunus Rights Revolution, but the local Faunus have no government. They just have land, freedom to govern it, and no clue where to start. While they're writing up laws on how to elect leaders, the Belladonna family sees that Faunus worldwide are still receiving the brunt of the hate for their people's victory over the human side in the war. So, he simultaneously makes the White Fang, with local offices around the world but run from Menagerie and by Menagerian Faunus. When the position of chieftain, the leader of the council, is created, who better to choose than one of the Belladonnas?"

"Dad got elected chieftain and was given the position of councilman over the Yhi District, which has the White Fang headquarters. Mom goes abroad to…well, mostly to team up with Weiss' dad and handle Atlas, the most racist kingdom. Menagerie gets split into four other districts – Binbeal under Fennec Albain, Gaiya under his brother Corsac, Karora under Cleaver Tasmin (the grandfather of Triss the athlete), and Bunyip under Saber Rodentia. When Corsac stepped down to aid the White Fang full time, Sienna Khan replaced her as the District Councilman."

The sad truth of what Blake was saying was that it inevitably meant that Weiss would have to work with Adam. The passing on of power from one generation to the next had already begun with Sienna. Blake would probably be the one to replace her parents as chieftain of Menagerie, Adam would succeed his teammate's grandfather due to his insane popularity, and Weiss would take over the SDC and be in charge of its work on reforms alongside the White Fang. That meant regular meetings with Adam…hopefully his lunacy would be tempered by the presence of Blake and her decency.

"The White Fang itself is controlled by Ghira and Kali, but the former focuses mostly on day to day action and things like missions, while the latter passes legislation," Weiss elaborated, pushing thoughts of working with Adam to the future. "It may have started in Menagerie, but it's a worldwide operation." Weiss pulled out her own membership card. "I'm even a part of it, as is Blake."

Ruby eagerly took out the card and began to fawn over the picture of Weiss they'd taken when she was eight, calling it every synonym for adorable that one could find in the dictionary. Blake wisely held onto her own, knowing that the world couldn't handle Ruby having been exposed to an image of her kitten ears.

"So Mrs. Blake works with Mr. Weiss up in Atlas?" Yang asked, folding her arms.

Blake nodded.

"They ever boink?" Yang asked.

"They ever…ugh!"

Both of the Faunus nearly vomited at the question. Weiss actually had to clutch her stomach.

"Hey, I'm just askin'!" Yang said, raising up her hands in mock innocence. "Mr. Bella's big ol' Donna is far away in Menagerie, the missus is trapped up north with a handsome Schnee devil, man and a woman, big empty manor…these things happen."

"My mom isn't cheating on my dad," Blake angrily hissed. "And be careful. He's here visiting! Don't go spraying your stupid bullshit loud enough for him to hear, you bitch!"

"And if she did, it certainly wouldn't be with my own father," Weiss tacked on.

Yang watched their reactions, then looked out into the crowd as though she were trying to locate Ghira. "Oh…you think…is it like a threeway thing? They only do it when he visits, as a group?"

This fucking bimbo! She's gone too far this time. The second my aura's back up, I'm summoning the biggest Arma Gigas the world has ever seen and commanding him to shove his sword all the way up Yang's –

"Sis…" Ruby handed Weiss her card back, which was angrily snatched by the upset heiress. "…you know what they say about glass houses…"

"Damn, you're right." Yang threw back her head and laughed. "Team RWBY's just the product of two separate orgies taking place halfway across the world."

"Let's just focus on the match," Weiss angrily ordered. "Adam's finally done showing off now that Cardin's run out of oxygen, so they'll probably actually start fighting."

True to Weiss' word, Cardin had fully deflated, so Adam gingerly set him down in front of the livestreamer, who dragged him to the edge of the arena to be thrown out like a sack of garbage. Meanwhile, the two other Faunus who'd been keeping Russel, Dove, and Sky at bay saw that he was done with his antics and backed off. Surprisingly, their aura were all full, and so were the Cardinals'.

"Why didn't they win?" asked Ruby, staring down at the arena in disbelief. "If they're good enough to stall, they should be good enough to do more damage."

"Their goal isn't to win," Blake said. "This isn't a hunter team. This is a group of showfaunus who are trying to impress the world on behalf of their kingdom back home."

Weiss nodded along. "And the best way to become a symbol is to have a singular face."

Adam sheathed his sword and stepped forward proudly to the three remaining humans as his team took the backseat. Unlike her own team, these one's didn't seem at all upset at not being able to make grand contributions to the tournament effort.

This is more than a glory bloodsport for them. They've rehearsed it. It's theatre.

Dove, the most talented swordsman on Team Cardinal, dove in first, trying to weaken Adam's base by sweeping out his legs. Furiously roaring with vengeance-fueled passion following the abject defeat of his leader, the first year huntsman threw his full strength into the attack.

Adam lifted a boot and stepped down on the sword, catching it against a rock before it ever reached its wielder's target.

Dove tried to pull it free, but Adam had it pinned. Russel, seeing his teammate in trouble, tried to fire some rocket blasts using his Dust daggers, but Adam merely leaned out of the way to avoid them, his foot still pinning Dove's blade as the projectiles sailed right past him.

Sky charged in next, halberd flopping behind him as he jumped in the air, doing an unnecessarily flashy backflip to enter himself into the brawl. That was the difference between him and Adam – the latter had zero wasted movement. It wasn't a fight – it was an execution of a well-rehearsed dance, much like the kinds of spars Weiss and Blake had in private. But Adam was able to do it against complete strangers.

He really could win this thing.

That would change the world, wouldn't it? Ironwood had only let the athletes in as a concession, never having truly accepted them as a legitimate presence here. If they come out on top, the world would have to acknowledge the Faunus…

Except Pyrrha. The greatest roadblock to Adam's victory came from a girl nearly three years his junior. Wilt and Blush were made of metal, though, and if Weiss were a gambling woman, she knew which one would be a surer bet.

Still, this was only the singles round, so Adam continued to demolish Team CRDL. Dove had already been battered to red aura using Sky's unconscious body as a bludgeoning mace while Weiss was distracted by her own thoughts, and Russel's rocket daggers were clicking on empty.

"Should've bought a refill," Blake joked, nudging the arm of Weiss' chair.

Unlike the last member of Team ABRN, the last member of Team CRDL accepted he was defeated and threw down his weapons in surrender before they annihilated him. Adam nodded in acceptance and made to shook his final opponent's hand as the victory bell rang.

Weiss checked the scoreboard – the Menagerian athletes were all at full aura.

He didn't even use his semblance. Maybe Pyrrha should be worried…

Because Adam had smashed a few of the stalactites using the living corpses of his enemies, a cleaning crew needed to remove the rubble, so there was a five minute break before the next match. Weiss used it to cover her ears and loudly say 'LA LA LA LA LA LA LA.'

"Did you ever catch them exploring one another's bodies?"

"LA LA LA LA LA LA LA," Weiss said.

"Your pops is a big guy, and Weiss' old man looks skinny as a twig. He'd split him in half."

"LA LA LA LA LA LA LA," Weiss said, her volume raising.

"I guess that means Mr. Schnee is the giver and Mr. Belladonna is the –"

"LA LA LA LA LA LA LA," Blake said, even louder than Weiss. Weiss glanced her way and saw that she'd recruited Ruby into covering her second pair of ears, as Blake's own two hands could only block the first pair.

"Yang, stop!" Ruby cried. "Weiss is at low aura. You might kill her!"

"Hearing that she's secretly Blake's long-lost sister from another mister won't kill her, Rubes," Yang joked, lounging backwards in her seat and throwing back another sip from her water bottle. "It'd even explain why she's Faunus."

The 'LA LA LA's' ended instantly at that, and Blake and Weiss both took their hands off their ears. Ruby seemed to notice the shift in tone and let go of Blake's cat ears.

"Too far, Yang," Blake said.

"Heh, sorry." Yang smiled abashedly.

"Yang," Weiss said, clenching her fists. "Too. Far."

"Hey, just because your folks are –" Yang's head turned to see her teammates and their expressions. "…um…e-everything okay, gals?"

"May I?" Blake asked Weiss, reaching her way.

Weiss shook her head and stood up. "I'd…like to be alone. Please, continue to watch the fights. Enjoy them, friends."

The arena had been cleaned, and the next contenders were coming out. Team CNBR of Beacon was up against some Team PNNY of Atlas; Weiss didn't care to stay for either of them, not after…

Blake stood up as well. "Weiss, at least let me come with you."

"I'm not good company right now. I'll return when I've cooled off."

Yang shifted uncomfortably, looking guilty. "Look, I was joking about you and Blake being sisters. A-And it's not incest if you say no chr–"

"Shut the fuck up," Blake said, venom dripping from her tone. "Shut the fuck up, human."

Yang wisely stopped talking.

"Weiss…"

"I'm fine. I just need a moment. Tell me how the fights go?"

Blake didn't want to let her go, but she also knew that Weiss wasn't going to budge on this, and she could fly away if Blake tried to follow her against her will. Sitting back down, she pulled in her legs so that Weiss could pass by out of the densely packed seats.

Port was announcing the teams, but Weiss was halfway up the stadium stairs to the exit of the stands by the time he finished. Her back was to the arena, and her eyes were focused solely on those two doors at the top of the stairs that would lead to freedom.

Why does this even bother me? I know I'm not a bastard. It's been proven by a DNA test.

Except the DNA test wasn't proof that Weiss was Jacques' beloved daughter. It was proof that, back during that very first moment of her life, she might not have been.

"Let the round begin!" called Port, and the bell rang.

Weiss continued to ascend the stairs, her flight to privacy unseen by the masses, who were more focused on the fight at –

Suddenly, the entire arena turned green around Weiss. It was a bright flash of light from behind her, and it was enough to get Weiss to turn back around. However, when she did, the light was gone, and Team CNBR were all lying defeated on the ground, their aura drained from 100% to 1% in less than two seconds.

"…I…ahem. T-Team PENY is the victor via, uh, a-aura depletion."

Next Chapter: Fowl Play

In which Weiss Schnee must make the toughest choice she was never meant to have.

Author's Notes

So much happens in this chapter (and so much lore is finally dropped) that I sometimes feel like it was two and not just one. Weiss is juggling a lot of subplots at once, and they shall only become increasing in frequency and magnitude.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!