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Requested By : Polemoduke

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"But you're… Feeling better?" Ruby asked, sitting on the edge of the little grey Bullhead they were using for their trip. Pyrrha was a few yards away, squatting on her haunches and alternating stretching each leg out to limber up while Weiss and Jaune fussed over their packs for the mission. Watching the two - and pointedly not Pyrrha - she rambled, "I-I mean, getting stabbed probably takes more than a few days, I'm sure. A-And, uh, the guy didn't even win the election…"

"Heh…"

"What?"

"I pointed that out, too." Nora rumbled, voice oddly scratchy considering she hadn't been hurt anywhere near her throat. "Blake said that 'wasn't the point'. They just wanted the law to be fair, was all."

"Did you get that…?"

"They're considering it." She sighed, "Supposedly…"

"Right…" Ruby sighed, pursing her lips and swinging her feet, scraping the bottoms of her boots on the concrete where she just managed to reach it from the edge of the Bullhead platform. Shaking her head, she asked, "How are you feeling, though?"

"Better, like you said." She sighed, "Chest still hurts a bit. Itches, too. But I'm just about healed up. Thank fuck for Aura, yeah?"

"Y-Yeah." She chuckled, pumping her fist a tiny bit and smiling. "Thank frick."

"Ruby," Nora sighed, "you're allowed to say 'fuck'."

"My dad said I'm not…" Ruby muttered, flicking Pyrrha, and then Weiss, looks and adding. "I don't think the others would like it, either."

"...You are such a precious frickin' bean, I swear to-"

"Oh, Professor Port is finally here!" Ruby chirped, watching the heavyset man trundle up, dragging a few cages along behind him.

"Oh, Port?" Nora snorted, "Based."

"Yang mentioned you liked him, yeah."

"He tells the best stories!" Nora argued, the smile audible in her voice. "And come on, who else catches Grimm for us to smack around in class?"

"We do…?"

"Yeah, but for him." Nora scoffed, "Oh! And he helped me-"

"Everyone, gather up!" Port called out, waving them towards the cages while the work droids lingering nearby got to work fitting chains to them and hooking them to the Bullhead, rolling their cart around to behind the Bullhead for lift-off. "We need to clarify a few things before we go!"

"Gotta go, Nora, byeeeeee."

"Byeeeee!"

She clicked her Scroll closed and flashed over as the other three got to the man, rematerializing between Pyrrha and Weiss in a shower of red petals. Pyrrha snickered quietly, covering her mouth as always, but Weiss scoffed when the petals flew all over her and sighed. "Really, Ruby…? I'll be finding them in my hair all day…"

"Sorry…"

"It's fine, I guess-"

"I packed the fine brush!" Jaune added suddenly, smiling from Weiss' other side until she crossed her arms and shot him a sharp look that even Ruby knew said 'not the point'. Chuckling, he scratched at the back of his neck and muttered, "Uh, sorry? I mean that's still bad, Ruby!"

"Mhm." Weiss hummed, "Better."

"Sorry." Ruby said through a smile in spite of her apology. Watching the two of them was… Nice, now that Weiss had simmered down a bit and Jaune had relaxed. But before any of them could say anything else, Port spoke up.

"I'm certainly glad to see you well-stocked for your woman's hair care, my boy, but I do hope that you brought supplies as well. Food, water, bandages- I'm sure you all know what you should bring on a mission like this." Port only waited long enough for the two of them to nod before he harumphed loudly and clasped his hands behind his broad waist. "Well then, to the task. Miss Nikos, I trust you informed your team about our little venture and its point?"

"I gave them all the brief I was given," she nodded, "yes."

"Very good." He grunted, "I require a lesser Beowolf, a Boarbatusk and an Ursa Minor. Nothing troublesome to catch, at least for me."

"About that…"

"Yes, Miss Rose?"

"Don't Grimm…" She grimaced, "Die when you catch them? How are we supposed to-"

"Think, girl." Port cut her off, holding up a single finger to pause her and then using it to toy with his moustache idly. "I am one of the only professors in the academy with any real examples of Grimm physiology on hand for teaching. Why? And, more pressingly - how?"

"You use them to teach, obviously." Weiss answered quietly, flicking Ruby a look and pursing her lips. "As to how-"

"A Semblance." Pyrrha answered for her, "And a rather… Er, unique one at that."

"Try 'monstrous to plenty' and 'rather useless'." He laughed, shaking his head and sighing, "You wound them or lure them into their kennels, and I will use my Semblance on them. A night to heal, and they'll be right as rain! Same as always."

"How-"

"How do you dematerialize into flower petals, dear?" Ruby grimaced and nodded her understanding and the man clapped loudly, "Well then, let's not idle any longer than we have to! There's Grimm to menace!"

The man brushed past them without another word, and Ruby turned as Pyrrha sighed, "Well… I suppose menacing Grimm does sound better than Grimm menacing."

"Technically," Weiss muttered, "those are the same thing without a target in the-"

"Jaune," Pyrrha sighed again, "please control your Weiss."

"What does that-"

"I have your tea!" He grunted, offering her a thermos and beaming when Weiss looked at it, scowled, and shot him a look. He shook it gently, smiling and singing, "Chamomile with mint~"

"...Shut up." She sniped, snatching the thermos and hopping onto the Bullhead. "Come on. Let's get this over with."

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By evening, the Bullhead had dropped them off along the cliff they'd fought at in Initiation - albeit a few miles away from the actual site along the ravine-top. Mr. Pilot had left and, at Port's suggestion, they'd set up their tents a few yards away from the cliff-top, circled the cages around them, and gotten to work tracking down the first, biggest target.

"I still don't wanna go…" Ruby complained, earning a sigh from Weiss before she could catch it. "I hate parties."

"I know, and I'm sorry." Pyrrha answered, "But… I'm afraid I have contracting. After what happened with Jaune and Weiss' father, we need good press. For all of us."

"I'm still not sorry."

"I know." Ruby sighed, "You shouldn't be, Jaune. He was a bootyhead…"

"I am not quite sure that is the word I'd use…" Weiss sighed, shaking the topic off and asking, instead, "Jaune, do you see anything at all, or are we just traipsing blind through the woods?"

"Ursa are heavy. Heavy steps, deep tracks…" Jaune rambled quietly as they followed Ruby along a winding, mostly overgrown trail that meandered through the forest. "C'mon, books, don't fail me now."

The sun was low by now, casting the shadows from the leaves and tree-limbs overhead long around them, but they could still see.

For now.

"Ruby..." Pyrrha finally cut in after a few more minutes of walking, searching the ground for anything they could identify as an actual Ursa track.

"Yep?" The girl asked, flashing back past Weiss to where Pyrrha had taken up rear-guard - at least for their team - in a shower of petals that Weiss tried to ignore getting caught in her hair.

Again…

"Can you get up, into the trees?" She asked, doing her obvious best to ignore the large man lumbering up to stand behind her. Ruby flicked them a look and Pyrrha went on, "Run along, see if you can spot… Anything. More tracks, an Ursa pack, whatever you can."

"Sure." She nodded, "How do I let you know where-"

"Here." Weiss said, grabbing a little cylinder off her belt. It was about as long as her index finger and just a bit more than twice as thick, with a screw-cap and a 'Warning : Incendiary' label slapped on the side. Ruby took it and she explained, "Unscrew it, hold it up, and it'll fire a flare. One flare. If you don't see us, we'll see you."

"Got it."

"Good," Pyrrha nodded, "go."

Ruby didn't waste time on anymore words, turning and flashing away and up, trailing flower petals along the forest behind her. In her wake, Pyrrha waved them forward but, before they could move on, Professor Port cleared his throat to capture their attention.

Quietly, he asked, "Why would you send your youngest off on her own?"

"Ruby is the fastest among us." Pyrrha answered frankly, waving them forward and speaking as they went, her quiet voice echoing faintly in the woods around them. "And has told me that, where she lives, she travelled the woods aplenty. Between her Semblance and her experience, I am confident that she will be alright."

"And the others…?"

"Jaune is the sturdiest, even beyond me." Pyrrha shrugged, "And Weiss is our best support, with myself in the rear. A strong front either way, and with the other two able to easily turn and help whichever side needs it."

"Hmmm." Professor Port hummed quietly, "And your fellows are happy with this? Young Mister Arc, for all his sturdiness, isn't as adept as you in a fight. Why, he strikes me rather as a simple blunting force in this. And the Miss Schnee I met would balk at being called 'support'."

"Hey, I know what I'm about right now." Jaune argued, flicking a look over his head and smiling when Weiss met his gaze. "Weiss?"

"I… Have learned better than to let base pride color my decisions." Weiss said after a moment to collect her thoughts and pick her words. Even if her pride was still very much there, and still rebelled at being seen as mere support, even by her team… "My team comes first and foremost. I can improve beyond supporting them when our lives are not on the line. Pyrrha has to make the best decisions for all of us, not the ones we like the most."

"Indeed." The Mistralian said, "Thank you, Weiss."

"Of course." Weiss nodded, pursing her lips and adding, "You get to take the child shopping for something to wear to your little boat party, though."

"It's a yacht, of which I'm actually rather proud. I fixed its engine up myself, one summer after I bought it." Pyrrha corrected her, sighing and adding wearily, "And… I feel like that will very much end up being a 'Yang will end anyone that takes it away from her' type of thing. Do you not?"

"Hmm…" Weiss hummed, "What do you think, Jaune?"

"I agree with you."

"I haven't said anything yet…?"

"I know." Jaune shrugged, eyes flitting between the ground and the forest around them. "But you will, and I know the Laws of Boyfriendland. So, I agree with whatever you say."

"Ugh." She groaned, smiling in spite of herself, "Dolt…"

"You three," Port chuckled, his voice echoing around them in the silent woods, "are adorable. Why, you remind me of my own team back in the day! Once upon a time, we were in these very woods when three Deathstalkers fell upon us and-"

The quiet whistle of the flare cut him off and Weiss turned, watching the tiny, pale purplish light shoot up into the sky for a dozen or so yards before flickering out. It didn't do much for light, of course, it was merely a marking flare. But it gave them a heading and Myrtenaster shifted in her grip as Pyrrha raised her voice and barked.

"Jaune, let's go!" She snapped, "Weiss, go ahead - back Ruby up!"

"Right." She nodded, jumping up and materialising a Gravity Glyph beneath herself that she rapidly strengthened and inverted, hurling herself up where she spun to land on another to do the same, rocketing forward at a speed that rivalled Ruby's own.

Sometimes…

Even in the low light, she spotted Ruby quickly enough as she came down on a Glyph to stand on and let it invert, hanging her upside down and letting the gravity Dust keep her steady. She was a red blur, streaking in a wide pattern along the edge of a rough, long and uneven clearing where four Ursa were lumbering in a small circle, snarling and swiping when she darted close. Their claws only ever found petals, luckily, but moving so quickly Ruby was struggling to do much with Crescent Rose other than plant the blade to check her momentum and toss herself at sharper angles, or turning to fire concussive rounds that helped her reverse course or launch in otherwise impossible directions while she kept the Ursa's attention on her, and the pack in the small clearing.

And, pointedly, paying Weiss no mind at all.

She spun the Glyph and crouched, curling Myrtenaster against her shoulder and her arm against her side as she launched herself down at the Ursa Major lumbering in the center of the group. Her unexpected thrust buried itself deep in its back, just below its shoulder armor and collar plating, and dragged a startled, pained roar from the beast as it staggered to the side and Weiss' Aura flared, taking the impact of her cannon-balled strike for her. A twist and fire burst to life in its wound, searing and boiling away dark flesh while Ruby siezed her own chance to strike, rocketing by and hooking Crescent Rose across its throat as she went, breaking her momentum suddenly as the blade bit deep into dark flesh and Ruby hung suspended horizontally above Weiss.

A gunshot split the air and she kept going, beheading the Major in one fluid, experienced strike as Weiss leapt away, skating across several of her Gravity Glyphs as she danced away from one Grimm and up, over the rest. The three Grimm, enraged at losing their leader, roared and stood on their hind legs to claw at her glyphs as she circled them and Weiss smirked.

Ursai were big and powerful, and durable - but they were fast and lethal.

"Ruby!" She called, watching the rose petals bouncing along from tree to tree around them all. "Get one's legs, I'll take their eyes!"

Ruby didn't waste time answering, and Weiss didn't waste time waiting for her to. Instead, as Ruby shot past her and down, landing in a crouch a few yards from the Grimm and waiting until they noticed her and turned, eager to charge a target they could reach. As soon as they did, she took off, firing her rifle behind her to propel herself forward to bring the back end of her scythe-head into one Ursa's forehead. Its armor plating cracked around its nose and it staggered back, into the other two, and Ruby bounced off it and spun in the air, firing another round to propel herself past it, her scythe-blade ripping along its upper thigh, ruining the muscle. As it sagged, Weiss shot down, spinning her Dust cylinder as she alighted on the ground right in front of the Ursa as it fell onto its forelegs.

It met her eyes for a moment, and she smiled as Myrtenaster flickered, "Burn."

Fire melted through bone-armor, then meat, then more bone as the Grimm threw itself away from the pain. It scrambled away, claws ripping at the ground on pure instinct to destroy as it scrambled back the way Weiss had come, shoving aside its feral fellows. Its pain was short-lived, mercifully - for it, at least - thanks to two rounds from Pyrrha as she arrived, turning on a heel to come to a stop and raising her shield, bracing her rifle on it in the same fluid motion to fire.

As it began to dissolve, Pyrrha looked up at one of the two survivors coming and barked, "Jaune - battering ram!"

He roared to the affirmative as he broke through the woods behind her and Weiss smiled as Pyrrha pivoted, pouring her Semblance into him to add her own power to the weight of armor and mass that was Jaune's charge. He hit the Grimm shield-first and his sheer momentum took it by surprise, making it stagger back a step while the second turned and slammed a claw into Jaune's side. He grunted as he was thrown away, but Weiss forced herself to pay attention as Pyrrha spoke up.

"Weiss, break its back! Ruby, the knees!" She ordered, "I will take the throat! Jaune, tie down the last!"

Again, none of them wasted time calling back to her. Instead, she and Ruby leapt up, the Rose fluttering around the fight and raining petals on them while Weiss bounced off of gently-inverted Gravity Glyphs. When she was high enough she flipped over, standing upside down again and watching Pyrrha dance between clumsy, oafish strikes while Jaune got behind it, cutting a shallow groove in the other Ursa's flank to take its attention and then stonewalling it with his shield, circling to the side slowly while Pyrrha backed away, working to separate them.

While she watched, Weiss focused and waited, kneeling on her glyph and summoning another, slowly forming a blunt-tipped lance of ice that slowly expanded while she waited, pouring Aura and Dust into it.

Below her, the Grimm was standing on its hind legs, its spines and broad shoulders warding Ruby away from its legs as it shuffled forward, half-squatting under its own mass. Standing like that, Ruby couldn't get at it from behind without risking ramming into a spine of bone with enough force from her own charged that her Aura would struggle. Weiss, in the same manner, couldn't get at its actual spine with how it was standing. The bone plating of its shoulders would break under the blow, but protect it from the bulk of the attack.

So, she grit her teeth and summoned a third Gravity glyph and called out, "Pyrrha! The spines!"

The Mistralian flicked her small, flickering glyph a look and then the Grimm one and seemed to understand the problem. Pivoting and sinking to a knee she spun on, dodging under a clubbing swing, she came up and hurled her shield into the glyph. Weiss didn't so much catch it as spin the glyph on impact, inverting and directing the shield where Pyrrha couldn't see and then adding force to the strike, driving the shield down with titanic force that shattered several of the long spines on its flank.

"Now, Ruby!" Pyrrha called out, turning to thrust her sword into the Grimm's wrist as it swung for her, its own momentum nearly cleaving the hand off.

"Yeeeeeeppers!" She squealed, rocketing down its flank and cleaving along its side, opening its ribs and thigh and crippling it.

As it fell, Weiss released her second Glyph, spinning several smaller, accelerating ones ahead of her to propel the strike down and into the small of its back as it fell. The blow nearly broke it in half entirely, and Pyrrha's sword opening its throat finished it as Weiss turned her Glyph to orient on the other Grimm a few yards away where Jaune had lured it.

"Jaune, keep it! Weiss, Ruby, ruin its shoulders! I have the knees!" Pyrrha called out, "Pin it for Port!"

This time, Weiss spun out four longer, thinner rods, tapering to lethal spear-points like javelins. Aside from one, which she formed into a broad hammer-head and hurled down, shattering the protective spines over one shoulder to open space for Ruby to safely charge. Which she did, burying the head of Crescent Rose in its shoulder and planting her feet on its back to stay on while Weiss' spears cut down and into its other shoulder, shattering the bone and ruining it. It bellowed and staggered to the side as Pyrrha joined the attack, driving her spear into, and then through, one of its knees with a roar as it collapsed and she turned.

Weiss dropped two more spears as she fell, punching through its side and into the ground as Port appeared, brushing fingers along his moustache.

"Impressive." He said simply, swaggering up to its side and laying a hand on it. Suddenly, it froze and he turned, "Miss Nikos, fetch the first cage, if you please. I shall help you secure it."

"Right…" She sighed, turning and nodding, "Weiss, Jaune, watch him. Ruby, you and I will get the cage."

"And hurry!" Port called after her as she left, patting Ruby's head as the smaller girl flitted around her and Pyrrha shook her head wearily yet fondly, "We have several more to track down!"

Weiss just rolled her eyes as Jaune joined her, rolling his shield-side shoulder and grunting, "We… Don't have to catch them all tonight, do we? We have a few days…"

"True." Weiss smiled, "But if we finish early, we could… Enjoy a fire together."

"I did pack the beef weenies." He nodded, smiling and bumping an arm into hers. "Good job, by the way, Miss Artillery."

Weiss just scoffed and rolled her eyes - of course she did a good job.

She was Weiss, after all.

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SD Phantom :

She EARNED her crown.

Mog the Gnome :

Nah. Prepare yourself for…

MECHA ADAM!

The Right Price :

I actually rolled that back, for now. I wanna do a better pacing for that story and didn't have time, so I shelved it. Regardless, this isn't that kinda story lol.