Chapter Text
Focus
All combat took focus.
Weiss Schnee spun her sword’s dust chambers. Myrtenaster clicked in response as the weapons rotating vials glowed a rainbow show of potential energy. Across from her, her partner for the next three years, raised her own weapons in response, ready for the beep to sound and the spar to begin.
Weiss had only ever beat her partner twice in the half a year they had known each other. It was frustrating at first, but she was an unbeatable champion for a reason.
The mechanical beep roars out across the training room, and the two women fly at each other. Weiss launches herself with a glyph, sending her careening at her opponent.
Her partner was a solid wall, and the two swords clashed, ringing out in the spacious grey room. Weiss didn’t let up her attack, spinning Myrtenaster to give her sword a red glow, as fire spit out of it in a protective wall. Once again, Myrtenaster clicked in response.
Weiss dodged the second the wall was up, and she was right to do so. Bullets tore through the flaming wall as her partner let off a salvo. It was something she had done before, and something Weiss had been hit by before.
Next…
A shot cracked off in the opposite direction, she had guessed wrong, and Weiss was in an excellent spot to counter. Her sword clicks back to ice as she releases several sharp icicles towards her opponent, then launches herself.
She hasn’t tried this yet, it’s worth a shot at least.
The icicles are blocked easily as her partner comes back into view, and as the swords clash again Weiss moves to lightning dust. She prepares to release a zap of electricity through her sword when…
There’s no click…
Instead, Myrtenaster separates, opening as if it’s being reloaded, and Weiss falls face first past her partner.
How?
She hears a gentle laugh from above her. At the beginning of the year, she would have heard the laugh as an insult, but now she knows that her partner didn’t have a mean bone in her body.
Weiss grumbles as she rolls over, and sees Pyrrha Nikos staring down at her. With her red ponytail falling next to her head as a smile full of warmth lights up her face.
“Everything all right Weiss?”
_ _ _
Weiss growled down at Myrtenaster as the weapon once again refused to clip shut, and the barrel refused to spin. Every good huntsman knew the basics of weapon repair, but this…
“Any luck?” Weiss looked up to take the offered water bottle as Pyrrha sat down next to her. Her partner had been full of concern once Weiss dropped in the middle of their spar. Weiss was fine of course, maybe some wounded pride, but that was it.
Myrtenaster on the other hand… was barely usable.
Weiss sighed, “The rotation mechanism is snapped, I can’t even begin to guess why. It might just be overused, I haven’t replaced the piece before…” Weiss shook her head, the why wouldn’t help her right now, “And with our midterms in three days…”
Pyrrha’s sigh matched Weiss’ own, “It’s certainly an issue… But I’m sure the mechanic here could…”
“Absolutely not! Those brutes don’t know how to treat a weapon like Myrtenaster! They’ll probably make it even worse!” Pyrrha put her hands up placatingly at Weiss’ outburst, which only led the heiress to sigh again as she put her head into her hands, “This is top of the line Schnee technology, and an art piece at that. I can’t let just anyone get their grubby hands on it.”
Pyrrha shook her head, “The smiths are top of the line here Weiss. But I’m sure there’s someone else in the city who could fix it for you.”
Weiss groaned, “I suppose I don’t exactly have time to send it back to Atlas… Fine. Perhaps someone in Vale is up to the task.” Weiss gently cradled Myrtenaster as she stood from the bench, her water forgotten as her precious sword lay broken.
Oh to hell with it… It was so much more than a sword to her.
Myrtenaster was the symbol of her freedom. Her self reliance, her competence and seeing it broken like this…
Pyrrha’s voice snapped Weiss out of her trance, “We should ask Velvet, you know the upperclassman?” Weiss just nodded as she followed her team leader out of the training hall.
One way or another, she would fix Myrtenaster.
_ _ _
Velvet’s technological prowess was well known among Beacon’s students. No one except for her team was quite sure what her weapon was, but it was at least extremely complicated with how long she’d been working on it.
It didn’t take the pair long to find the fanus third year. Really, it was just easier to find the giant Yatsuhashi, and then go from there. They finally managed to track down team CFVY in the mess hall.
Coco spotted them first, “Welllll if it isn’t my favorite half of team Poisonberry! What can I do for my underclassmen?”
Weiss was not in the mood for Coco right now, “Hi Coco. I need Velvet’s help…” Velvet perked up as she looked over at Weiss’ broken sword.
Velvet reached for the blade with utmost gentleness, something Weiss appreciated at the moment. The rabbit eared girl looked over the broken mechanism for a moment before shaking her head and handing it back to Weiss, “I’m sorry Weiss. I don’t have enough time to fix something as fine as this… The mechanism is pretty specific… I could make one… but not before midterms…”
Weiss groaned, she knew her weapon was special, but this was the first time it was actively causing her trouble, “Thank you for looking at it at least… Do you know anyone who could?”
Velvet put her hand to her chin as she thought, “Hmmm… Not anyone who comes to mind. I know most of the smiths in Vale, and even most of them would have trouble with something like this… Or balk at the time crunch.”
When Weiss’ head hit the table, Pyrrha rubbed her back, “You know Weiss. Jaune was looking into the Vale smiths to upgrade his weapons… He might know one Velvet doesn’t.”
To put it simply… Weiss HIGHLY doubted that, and she let Pyrrha know as much, raising her head to look her leader in the eye, “I refuse to believe that clod knows anything that Velvet doesn’t.”
To her surprise though, Velvet came to Jaune’s defense, “She may be right Weiss. I don’t know every smith in Vale, there’s just too many. Jaune might know of someone I missed.”
Weiss groaned again and let her head fall back on the table, this time just because she REALLY didn’t want to talk to Jaune. She had enough going on without having him try to flirt with her.
Pyrrha just patted her on her back, with seemingly very little sympathy, “Thanks anyways Velvet, we’ll talk to Jaune.” Weiss let her leader pull her to her feet, and lead her away, once again cradling her sword.
If Jaune ended up being her literal knight in shining armor, she was going to cry.
_ _ _
Luckily for her own fragile ego, it quickly became blatantly clear that Jaune would NOT be her savior.
Oh he tried for sure, but the leader of team JNPR was just as useless as she expected.
Jaune tried giving her a wink, “Well, I don’t know if any of them could help you in three days… But I’m sure three days with me…”
“No.”
Jaune pouted, “Come on, that one was good!”
Pyrrha pat Jaune on the back, “Jaune, if you can’t help what about your teammates?”
Jaune scratched the back of his head as he thought, Weiss thought his brain might overheat, be she digressed, “Well. Ren and Nora aren’t from Vale, so I doubt they know. Peridot is, but… I never really know what she’s thinking.”
Weiss immediately turned away. She would just have to hop on the C.C.T.S herself and find a high quality smith who would let her significant finances sway their opinion on a rush job.
It wasn’t the best option… But it was her only remaining plan.
_ _ _
Weiss stormed into team P.S.B.Y’s dorm, and practically threw herself onto her bed.
Nothing.
She would barely count any of the weapon smiths in Vale as qualified, and those who were refused her case out of hand, saying that they had plenty more to do. One of them was even a fanus smith who dismissed her the moment she mentioned her name!
Which, she supposed, was fair enough.
Unluckily for her, her dorm wasn’t empty, and her loudest teammate happened to notice her scene, “Damn Weiss, they run out of your favorite caviar at the dining hall or something?”
Weiss only growled from her bed before turning to face Yang Xiao-long. During the half a year team P.S.B.Y had been together Weiss had started to come around on the girl. The blonde was a brute, an oaf and incredibly annoying. But she had an incredible combat talent, and could be smarter than she looked… when she decided to be at least.
Most of the first few weeks had been filled with Pyrrha breaking up fights between the heiress and the blonde.
Although that had been nothing compared to the storm that their last teammate had caused.
Blake Belladonna sat calmly on her bed, reading one of her books. They weren’t something that Weiss would be caught dead reading… but she supposed to each their own. Blake and her had only barely made peace after all.
A twitch of Blake’s black cat ears reminded her of that fact. Pyrrha had managed to soothe things over… But the discovery of Blake’s fanus heritage had been quite the shock to the team. Weiss still didn’t understand everything about the quiet girl, mainly why she had tried to hide it… But she figured she’d never know.
At least she wasn’t a White Fang member.
That Weiss knew of.
Weiss finally deigned to respond to Yang, “It affects you too you brute! Myrtensater is broken. I can’t fix it, and neither it seems can any smith in Vale! Useless the lot of them!”
Yang went quiet, for one of the first times Weiss could remember, but Blake was more than happy to take over, “No time to send it back to Atlas either? Surely you could get a private ship for Myrtenaster…”
Weiss shook her head, “Not in three days, the travel time alone would make it nearly impossible!”
Pyrrha looked up from her own weapon as she cleaned it, “I hate to say it Weiss, but you may just need to use a spare until you can get Myrtenaster repaired. I know it’ll cut into your ability… and using your glyphs would be hard, but I’m sure your skill is more than enough for our midterm combat exam.”
Weiss nodded glumly. Using a weapon other than Myrtenaster felt wrong, but it really didn’t seem like she had another option.
Until Yang finally spoke up, breaking the dorm's tense silence, “What’s actually the problem with it?”
Weiss huffed, “The rotation mechanism broke, and it seems to have messed with the lock.” Weiss held her sword up, letting Yang see how it bent uselessly, “I don’t have the parts to replace it myself, and anyone who COULD make one either isn’t good enough, or won’t do it that fast.”
Yang was silent for another stretch before finally speaking up again, “I… I know someone. She could do it easily.”
“Really?” Weiss doubted that… But… Ember Celica’s upkeep was perfect, and despite the beating Yang gave her gauntlets, Weiss was yet to see them break, or even need any sort of meaningful repairs, “And… who might that be?”
Yang took a deep breath as she looked out the window near her bed, “My… My sister. She’s a genius with weapons. If she can’t fix it no one can.”
All three of Yang’s teammates shared looks at that. There was one real rule on team Poisonberry. No one ever talked about their families. Weiss didn’t know why, but both Yang and Blake had a tendency to clam up whenever the topic came up. She wasn’t exactly one to talk about her family either… So Pyrrha had eventually stopped bringing up her own very loving and supportive parents.
The unexpected had thrown Weiss off guard, but she finally gathered enough of herself to pick the conversation back up, “Y-your sister?”
Yang nodded again, looking more and more glum as she spoke, “Yeah. Ruby. She’s about fourteen, but don’t let that fool you. She’s better than any mechanic I’ve ever met, and she’s always looking for a challenge. I could text my dad and take it to her by tonight.”
Weiss vaguely remembered that Yang came from a small island nearby named Patch. Yang mentioning her family at all actually made Weiss believe even more that the young prodigy could fix Myrtenaster. However…
“That would be nice… But… I want to come with you.”
Yang's immediate glare sent ice through Weiss’ veins, it was more venomous than Weiss had ever seen from the usually sunny huntress. Her eyes had instantly flipped to their fiery red, a sure sign of anger or her semblance activating.
“No way. I’ll take it by myself.”
Shockingly, Blake came to Weiss’ defense, “Yang… Weiss' weapon is pretty nice… I’m sure she can at least meet the smith who’s fixing it… And Ruby might need to ask questions.”
Yang relented, she usually did when Blake asked her something. Her brutal glare softened as Blake’s logic overcame the raw wave of emotion. Eventually she sighed, “Fine. Whatever. I’ll text my dad and we can go tonight…” Yang turned to the rest of the team, “You guys want to come too? Might as well.”
Pyrrha nodded eagerly, she desperately wanted to learn more about her teammate’s families. Blake’s nod was more muted, but no less curious. The cat fanus’s amber eyes were staring directly at Yang, trying to figure out the puzzle that was the blonde brawler.
Weiss nodded, “Very well. I’ll get us a flight to Patch, I’m sure an SDC plane will be faster than the ferries.” Yang waved her off as she texted on her scroll.
_ _ _
The tense atmosphere of team P.S.B.Y’s dorm was suffocating, and it all rode on Yang.
Pyrrha had a million questions about each of her teammates. Why did Blake hide that she was a fanus? Why did Weiss cringe whenever she got messages on her scroll?
And why did Yang not want the rest of her team to see her home?
Pyrrha knew of Patch. It was a popular retirement destination, one that her own mother talked about sometimes. Scenic views and a relatively low grimm population made it near perfect.
She spared another glance at Yang, the girl's eyes had still yet to turn back to her usual amethyst.
Just what was Yang Xiao-long hiding?
And what had her so mad?