Chapter 3 – Chicken Noodle

Weiss is nursed back to health by a helpful stranger who might just become even more helpful to her.

It was fortunate that Weiss awoke slowly rather than abruptly. Had her return to the realm of the conscious been a thing of rapid speed, she might've jolted out of bed and reached for her sword. Under normal circumstances (normal for the standards of the past year), that would have been an appropriate response, but as she discovered from her lethargic, gradual coming to, these were not normal circumstances.

She was in a location that she hadn't arrived in of her own power, but atypically of such a situation, she was not immobilized in any way. Weiss was tucked into what appeared to be a simple bed and mattress with a quilt covering her up to the neck. There were no guards, no watchmen, no armed troops or murderers with knives at the ready.

What was there was a blond-haired man sporting a long ponytail whose dress code immediately outed him as a huntsman of some sort – normal civilians rarely wore such cutting-edge fashion, nor did they bear mech-shift hand gauntlets. Based on age, Weiss assumed he was probably similar in situation to her – a young recruit on their way to the academies.

And he didn't kill me in my sleep, meaning he isn't as corrupt as I need to fear. Needless to say, I won't be trusting this man with everything, but he's probably a safer bet than the dead man and the angry man.

Weiss wasn't usually so trusting, but at this point, she basically had no hope beyond securing help from the outside. She was fairly certain that she had sustained some sort of internal injury from the crash and was in no shape for fighting, and the captors who'd brought her to this place were still out there, somewhere.

A huntsman, an incorruptible one who'd had Weiss at her mercy but chose to spare her? That could be a godsend. Weiss may have considered herself jaded, but she wasn't fool enough to throw away an advantage.

"Ah, you're finally awake," said the man. For some reason, he raised his eyebrows at that, slightly expectantly.

"What?" Weiss asked.

"Ah, never mind." He shook his head. "Glad to see you up and att'em."

For a muscular huntsman who most likely relied heavily on strength given the melee weapons on his wrists, his voice was surprisingly feminine. Weiss looked around her surroundings, hoping she might be able to discern something about where she was other than 'Grimm territory' but failed to notice anything of note. As far as she could tell, it was a relatively small abode, presumably the huntsman and his family's home.

I'm most likely on the frontier and lucked out by running into this gentleman. I believe that the angry man said something about an island…could we be on Menagerie?

"Are you a Faunus?" Weiss asked. She knew they had Grimm, and if this was a White Fang hotspot…

If this is Fang-controlled territory, maybe I might be able to bargain something out. Play it off as me reluctantly surrendering information on the Schnee in exchange for resources or aid, when in reality I get them to do my bidding and fight my father for me.

The White Fang was never so big that it could topple the entire SDC, but Weiss didn't want the entire thing toppled. A distraction in the form of idealistic radical Faunus might be enough to get her past father's defenses and into SDC Site 14. Weiss could promise them whatever bodies they collected along the way.

Gods, how low I've fallen. But it's about more than me or my father's ruthless enforcers at this point. The contents of my pocket could change Remnant's way of life as we know it…

"A Faunus? I…I made sure there was no brain damage."

Weiss tried to get up, but her strength failed her, and she had to remain laying. "Forgive me for any misunderstanding. I thought I might be on Menagerie, sir. Where…Where am I, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Sir, lol. Nah, you're on Patch, the nicest island on this side of…well, the world, since there aren't many islands," said the huntsman. "Name's Yang Xiao-Long. And, if you don't mind me asking, what were you doing lying face-down in the middle of the road last night? You must've been really out of it if you're that lost."

Weiss tried to get up again, and this time the huntsman noticed. "Oh, here. I have some soup for you, if you want." He handed Weiss a mug filled with some manner of broth and chunks of food. "It's canned."

"Thank you, Mr. Xiao-Long." Weiss sipped the drink, only to realize that it was far hotter than she'd been expecting. So as to not lose any valuable nutrients by spitting them out (or offend her potential new benefactor), Weiss let her aura protect her tongue, minimizing the use of it to prioritize healing her injuries.

That got a face. "M-Mister…y-you joking? I mean, you were joking? A-Are you joking, that is?"

Weiss blinked at the stuttering huntsman.

…the stuttering huntress. Shit.

No wonder the voice is so feminine, even if the body isn't.

"I'm a girl," said the woman, even though Weiss already had figured it out.

"I understand," Weiss said. "Thank you for the food."

"I have tits," she went on. "They're bigger than yours."

Weiss found herself turning red for some reason. She'd thought herself grown past juvenile concepts like embarrassment that could only hinder her survival, but apparently not as far past as she'd thought.

"For the record, Ms. Xiao-Long, you were the most feminine man I'd ever encountered."

Xiao-Long took two seconds to stare at Weiss, then burst out with a roar of laughter. "Oh, the most…well, at least I didn't run over your sense of humor."

As a matter of fact, it hadn't been a joke, at least not intentionally, but Weiss decided to just roll with it. Better to appease the huntress than to offend her.

"Not gonna lie, I was kinda into it for a sec there," said Ms. Xiao-Long. "But, um, fun aside, I do kinda want to know if you're doing okay. I found you passed out in the road…a-and…I'm real sorry, but you were just lying there, and I didn't see you at first…and I kinda ran you over with my bike."

Weiss blinked, and Xiao-Long took that as some sort of rebuke and began spilling out excuses.

"I really didn't mean to, i-it was a big mistake, the double yellow lines were faded out, what's a few skid marks between frien–"

"It's fine," Weiss said. "I don't even remember it." She did wonder why this huntress admitted to it rather than just saving face by never bringing it up. She could have easily just covered it up rather than disclose her actions the night prior.

"Is it fine?" asked Xiao-Long. "I…you don't exactly seem okay right now."

"It's…other stuff," Weiss said, forcibly weakening her vernacular in the hopes of sounding more natural. "The same reason I was passed out. A personal matter."

If she's just a standalone huntress in whatever Patch is, I highly doubt I can coerce…convince her to join me. I'll ask, if she's willing, but this won't likely go anywhere.

A huntress on Weiss' side would be a great advantage, but she'd survived thus far without anyone's aid but her own. She still had Myrtenaster, meaning she still had hope. Weiss patted her sword if only to confirm that it was still there.

As familiar as her own heartbeat, her sword may as well have been her own beating heart at time for how vital it was to keeping Weiss alive. Without it, she may as well –

Wait.

Weiss patted her sword again. It was still there.

But…But…But…!

"M-My Dust!"

The crystal, the singularly important Dust crystal that all of this had been for – it was missing!

"I can getcha more," said Xiao-Long.

Weiss managed to keep the sheer horror off of her face, but only just barely. Instead, she probably exhibited a look of much more moderate fear.

I know she isn't an assassin, but there's no telling that she won't immediately realize how valuable what I have is and turn on me. I can't tell her, not just yet.

"I mean, Dust should be relatively easy to come by for you, Weiss."

Alarms started to ring within Weiss' head, alarms built up over years of trusting her instincts. While she didn't immediately recognize what was wrong, she knew something was wrong. Her hand went for Myrtenaster, but she moved too fast and grimaced as pain coursed through her shoulder blade.

"Cool your jets, princess," said Xiao-Long, apparently not perturbed by Weiss' actions. "You're famous. That's why I know your name."

Weiss would probably have snickered if not for the danger she was in from all directions right now. This girl had figured out why Weiss was bothered before Weiss herself had.

I never told her I'm Weiss Schnee, but I wouldn't have to. I'm more famous than any other seventeen-year-old aside from the Invincible Girl herself, and father's been recycling archived footage and images to keep up the illusion that I'm still around.

Weiss imagined that once she was dead, he would fabricate some illness or other tragic death for his darling daughter. If he had his way, the world would never know of his filicide.

But it shall only be his attempted filicide. This I vow.

"Yo, Schnee, you still on Remnant?" asked the huntress. "You're kinda spacing out a bit."

"I…I apologize," Weiss said, drawing upon her more polite tendencies. She no longer was obligated to abide by them, but that didn't mean she'd lost them. Like many skills, they simply remained in her back pocket until such time as she needed to draw upon them. Weiss lowered her head. "Forgive me for my rudeness, but as you may expect from someone involved in an accident, I find myself rather…light-headed. Please attribute any misspeaks to my condition."

"I…y-yeah. Sorry." Xiao-Long audibly gulped. "But, uh, well, I'd offer to comp you for the lost Dust, since I was the one who dropped it when I…ahem…when you…ah, screw it, it was my fault. I dropped it when I was lugging you here, and that's on me. I'll pay for it, rich bi– rich heiress or not."

She was squirrely, but Weiss was fairly certain she understood why. From her perspective, the girl in front of her wasn't the product of over 400 days on the run from the SDC. She was the presumptive owner of it, and while Weiss hadn't asked for anything, the implication she'd left by not saying something like 'it's fine' or 'it doesn't matter, I can get more' left Xiao-Long with the obligation to buy Dust for the heiress to the SDC itself. A paradox in and of itself in some ways.

Weiss would need to be careful. Right now, she was one of many things – the rich, snooty tycoon's daughter who wanted her way and would insist on nothing less; the eclectic elite girl with her odd habits incomprehensible to a 'normal person;' maybe even the airheaded ditz who was too dumb to not help out of pity.

What she could not afford to become was the girl who'd 'dropped' a treasure worth more than all of the lien on Remnant.

"The Dust vial I stored on my person was not…it possessed great sentimental value to me," Weiss said. "It…belonged to my grandfather. He gifted it to me on my birthday, and I've held onto it ever since."

Nicholas would probably forgive the white lie; Weiss imagined he was a kind enough person to understand if the histories she'd read of him were true.

And if they weren't, and he'd side with my father, then piss on him and his memory.

"Oh, was that why it was encased in glass?" Xiao-Long asked.

It was definitely the Dust in question, then. That small, vacuum sealed glass chamber Weiss had stored the crystal in hadn't been breached for upwards of a year. There was no mistake, no accident where Xiao-Long referred to a reload for Myrtenaster.

The most valuable Dust in the world is lying on the road somewhere in this Patch Island place. Gods, I hope that the dead and angry man don't stumble across it first.

"Would you be so kind as to take my there?" Weiss asked, folding her arms in the bed. "I would very much like to reclaim my Dust. The Dust my late grandfather bequeathed to me."

"W-Well…" The huntress scratched her head. "I don't exactly know…I mean, I know it was on the way to the shops, and it has to be between here and the turn I drove over you on, but it's one bottle of Dust in the entire island. It's probably rolled off to the side of the street. It'd take days to search for it."

"I am willing to invest days," Weiss said. "I have nowhere else to be."

That was true, technically, as while Weiss deigned to not spend another second on this island where her two enemies currently lay in waiting, she didn't have a destination in mind that would be any safer.

"If you could simply point me in the direction of this street where you drove over and injured me, I may search on my own. As a huntress, I am fit to see to my own affairs." Weiss rotated her sore shoulder as much as she could without incurring further damage. "You've already done very much for me, not leaving me out there to die and generously providing me with the mug of broth."

The sheepish look on the huntress' face told her that her plan was working. Weiss didn't want to emotionally manipulate this woman, but her literal life was on the line here. For one thing, she was injured beyond whatever this young woman's car had done – airship crashes tended to be more devastating than automobile incidents. All of what Xiao-Long had said was true, and searching on her lonesome for the crystal could actually take days.

The men are out there. They're probably looking for me, and I need an escort until I've regained my strength.

Furthermore, leaving this girl in her house after visiting her may as well have been a death sentence. The few people who Weiss had turned to for help and not been double-crossed by hadn't had long lifespans after aiding the former heiress.

"No, no, I should…I should help you find it," the huntress begrudgingly conceded. She didn't seem angry at Weiss, more peeved at the prospect of all the work ahead of them, and possibly guilty for her role in it.

Weiss smiled as best she could. "That would be very kind of you. This was all just a big accident, after all, and I wasn't truly harmed. If I can recover my missing possession, then I see no reason why we cannot all go our separate ways without incident."

Hopefully the promise of no police involvement motivates her. It's to my benefit too, but she doesn't know that, so it shall appear as an equal exchange – help finding my Dust for silence regarding…driving over me.

Truly, Weiss was barely inconvenienced. She'd passively coated her body in aura upon passing out, and while it wouldn't have protected her from a Grimm or a direct kick from the dead man's mechanical legs, something simple like two tires rolling over her did next to nothing. Most of her weakness came from the lingering effects of the asphyxia combined with the airship crash.

The latter must sound more dangerous, but the truth was that the dead man righted the airship before I could bring it down. We were probably exposed to a nitrogen-rich environment for upwards of a full minute. That may not be long, but imagine breathing in water, smoke, or any other substance for a solid minute, and you get a better picture of the damage.

"I'm really, really sorry about running you over," repeated the huntress. "I know I must seem like a real dick right now, but I swear that I had my eyes on the road and was doing my best. It was so late at night, and I didn't expect a person to be –" She abruptly stopped speaking and cocked her head. "Hey, so I am kinda curious. Why were you passed out in the street? I don't think you said."

"I'm a huntress," Weiss said. "A training huntress, that is."

"Oh, me too!"

Weiss nodded and lay back down in the borrowed bed she was in. "I noticed your weapons and thought you might be. I was hoping to train on this island, given that it purportedly has elevated Grimm levels, but I overdid it at the end and collapsed from exhaustion. It was my own fault."

Xiao-Long blinked confusedly. "I…didn't you not know where you are?"

Weiss shook her head. She was too practiced at hiding the truth from interrogations to react outwardly. "Between you and me, I think I really overdid it. Between that and the crash, my head was so dizzy that I wouldn't have remembered my own name if you'd asked."

Xiao-Long nodded, looking away. "Gotcha. So, do you wanna leave right away or rest up first?"

"I'm able-bodied enough to ride along if you drive," Weiss said. "Thank you for your assistance, Xiao-Long."

"Please." The blonde woman turned a little red, reminding Weiss of mixed strawberries and bananas for some reason. "Call me Yang."

"Yang, then. You may call me Weiss, if you wish, or Schnee. I'm not picky."

"Weiss," Yang settled on almost immediately. "I've got a spare helmet for Ruby that's probably just big enough for you, so suit and we can ride, friend."

Helmet? What kind of car needs a helmet?

"Let's kill her," Mercury said.

For his genius idea, he received a cuff to the back of the head.

I should've known better than to speak. He does the talking speaking and the thinking for us both.

Mercury was a weapon. Nothing more, nothing…more, as his father routinely beat it into him that he absolutely was less.

"Let me learn you something, boy. Don't ever throw away an advantage." Marcus struck his son once more. "Big man up north wants confirmation of the crystal. Young Schnee is injured, and we can kill her anytime we want."

He pointed a calloused hand towards the house, then dragged it in the direction of the road.

"It's too valuable to not have on her person. You say you searched her, but I doubt it was enough."

It had been enough. Mercury had felt up every inch of that bitch and come out dry.

But his place wasn't to say no. Mercury learned from his father's lesson, and this time he didn't speak.

"I'd wager she has it somewhere on her person, or maybe she had it on her and lost it in the wreck. If there were nothing tying her to this island, she wouldn't be taking a leisurely cycle ride with her new friend. She's choosing to stay for some reason, in spite of the danger of you'n'me. We all survived the crash – and before you say something dumb like how she won't know that, I can guaran-damn-tee ya that she does, you empty-headed lump!"

Mercury hadn't said that (even if he'd thought it), but his father backhanded him just the same for it.

Don't even think. Just don't.

"So we –"

"We follow her and see if she loops around for the crystal," Mercury finished for his father before he could help himself.

Why? Why do I…?

Marcus' eyes narrowed. "You talkin' back to me?"

"I'm…" Mercury swallowed and tried not to let his fear show. If he wasn't talking back, he had no reason to be afraid. "I'm trying to follow along. Trying to keep pace and not slow you down, sir."

His father clearly didn't buy that, as Mercury wasn't nearly smart enough to sell it, but Mercury was spared another blow by the Schnee bitch and the other bitch driving off on their bitch-cycle.

"Time to go," ordered Marcus. "Keep pace, but don't be seen."

"Yes, sir."

"I ain't jokin', boy. If they see you, I'll assume it's you yearnin' for combat so much that you can't get enough of it, and I might just give you another weapon to wield as a present. Yer birthday's comin' up – how's about a fancy metal hand to go with the feet, son?"

"I won't be seen, I won't be seen," Mercury breathed through clenched teeth, not in anger but in true fear this time. There was no hiding it, nor was there a point in doing so. His father wanted him afraid right now, and he'd succeeded.

"Good," Marcus spat. "Just to make sure I can keep an eye on ya…you go first."

Next Chapter: Turtle Shell

Yang must decide whether or not she wants to help her new roadblock/friend.

Author's Notes

The fated lover's meet-cute, at long last. My opinion? Too much cute, not enough meat.

Yang 'call me sir' Xiao-Long takes little offense at being misgendered. Weiss lets out some rather transparent lies, but she still secures the aid of her new friend. Only time will tell if they'll be in love faster than Summer and Raven from CIMITS?. The race is on!

I know this may be a controversial take, and it's my own headcanon so take it or leave it, but guys...I always thought Marcus Black might just be an abusive father. Thus, this fic rolls with that assumption. Poor Murky - he's just a boy, but his father can the evil.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!