Sorry for the long wait! Hopefully you didn't forget too much. Anyway, let's go straight into this!

"Dad."

Taiyang was snapped out of his stupor, and his eyes met two rather expectant looking girls, eager to get fighting.

"So, are you going to count down, or what? 'Cus, you know, we need someone to count down."

Internally facepalming, Taiyang said "Ah - yeah, right. I was literally about to do that."

Yang rolled her eyes and walked off to her starting position, on the opposite end of the large space to Ruby.

"So how do I do this?"

Yang whipped around and looked at Taiyang with eyes of disbelief. "Are you serious?" she asked, "You literally have to go '3-2-1 go', and that's it. It's not hard, dad. Have you forgotten the sparring rules? It's not like you're a retired Hunter or anything," Yang winked at that and received her father's smile in return. Turning back on her heel towards Ruby, who had already gotten Crescent Rose off of its holster, she watched the bulky rifle transform into the huge, over-sized scythe. Easily the most intimidating part, Yang found, was when the segmented pieces of metal of the blade itself unfolded and clicked into position, with a 'clackclackclack' that said to her "You're about to get chopped to pieces."

Of course, she was Yang Xiao Long, and there was no way that she'd lose to her little sister.

"Right. Uh," Taiyang began, quite clearly seeing the tension filling the room, ready to be released in a flurry of blows. "Three?"

Yang bent her knees ever so slightly.

"Two.."

Ruby's grip on Crescent Rose tightened.

"One…"

Both girls' eyes narrowed.

"Go!"

And like a bolt of lightning, Ruby had instantly shot off from her position in a streak of red, heading directly towards Yang. Said girl was also making her way forwards, somewhat cautiously, but with Ember Celica cocked and ready, she was more than ready to meet the girl in gauntlet-to-blade battling.

Sure enough, not even a few moments later, Yang was beset upon by Ruby, who was initiating her secret "Rosy Tornado" move, which quite literally involved circling her opponent and striking them from all kinds of invisible angles. Not only did her semblance of super speed make it incredibly difficult to spot her, but it also made her strikes that much more lethal.

A woosh of a rose and the singing of the curved blade alerted Yang to the girl's position, and she deftly ducked, kicked the feet out from under the girl, and launched herself into the offensive. Ruby, having just been tripped over, was recovering with moderate speed, but not quite fast enough. All she heard was a whistle and the world exploded around her, as punch after punch from Ember Celica produced the explosive flares she helped her sister design.

Angling her sweetheart downwards, Ruby pulled the trigger and was promptly pulled up by the heavy kick of the weapon, sending her flying. Yang had by now stopped her barrage of buckshot, and was taking the fleeting opportunity to attach a new belt of shells to her gauntlets. Pulling down hard on the trigger again, Ruby was barreling towards the floor, and with another spent round, she spun vertically.

Barely avoiding the dangerous attack from Ruby in an inelegant roll backwards, both girls were back on their feet, and glaring non-malicious daggers at one-another. Each of them were analyzing the other's subtle gestures in excruciating detail. A tiny movement of the arm, the slightest tilt of the scythe, shifting of the weight…

Yang exploded into action, tearing down the rebuilt tension with rings of buckshot which whistled their way towards Ruby. Ruby too had shot off at this point, running around the side of the makeshift arena, still on constant look-out for-

A sharp pain bloomed in her face, and a great force knocked her straight off of her knees, flying into a small pile of somewhat expensive looking gym equipment.

No! It was a distraction!

With little time to mull over her mistake, Ruby had begrudgingly gotten back onto her feet where a smirking sister was casually walking towards her.

"Haa- come to finish off the job, h-huh?" She clutched at her side and tried to explode Yang with her mind or something, but nothing was quite working. Contrary to popular opinion, running around with her semblance whilst swinging Crescent Rose took a hell of a toll on her body.

"Ah, well, if you say 'I surrender and Yang Xiao Long is the bestest and sexiest sister ever', then I'll consider not having to completely wreck you!"

Taiyang was watching, completely bemused. He almost missed the arrival of Mrs Schnee, as well as Weiss and Winter - the former of whom had given up trying to nap a long time ago. "Are they fighting, Mr. Xiao Long?" asked Mrs Schnee, who took up residence on a bench. Winter stood next to her, leaning against the wall with a foot on it, and Weiss stood up straight, watching the spectacle before her with a slight frown and folded arms.

"Yeah - they're doing a great job of it too, my girls!" His open mouthed grin was evidence enough of the fact that he didn't mind watching his two daughters spar with each other at all.

Suddenly, a shot rang out and bounced off of the walls of the room, followed by a shriek of "You've got to be kidding me!"

Yang was not at all happy with the fact that, once again, Ruby had taken flight with her scythe, and had so easily avoided being pummeled. "I should have just mercilessly tickled her, until she begged me to stop, but no, we gotta be difficult about it, don't we?" Yang's ramblings to 'nobody in particular' were cut off by a sharp cry as the blunt end of Crescent Rose found it's way into her stomach and winded her.

"Oof!"

"H-Haha! Score one to Ruby Rose, better watch your back sis!"

Yang's eyes slowly melted from a beautiful lilac into a terrifying red, and she stood up with more conviction than ever. "Oh, but should I? You want to fight? Let's do it!"

Ah. Err. I didn't think about that. Yang's glowing blonde hair, flicking with embers, assured the young girl that Yang had in fact had her semblance activated, and she was about ready to beat the younger girl into the ground for denying her tickle fight. "WellwhilethisislovelyI'drathernotdiebye!"

Just as Ruby's feet left the ground, instead of disappearing in a cloud of rose petals like she had so many other times during their bout, she was instead jerked backwards by her cape, held in place by an unknown force.

An unknown force with red eyes, flaming hair, and flying towards her with a fist reared in fire.

The expected blow was certainly not soft - not that she had expected it to be - but, wow, Ruby hadn't quite remembered her sister's punches hurting just so much. It probably didn't help that Yang was pretty much as strong as she could possibly be, and that she herself was low on aura already, but hey. Little details.

The Schnees, minus Weiss, looked on with horror apparent upon their faces. "She'll kill her!" Winter cried. Weiss knew that Yang wouldn't do anything of the sort, no matter what, and Winter was just overreacting.

Below her, Ruby was coughing, and Yang's arm was raised once again. Her eyes were still deep pools of crimson, and her hair was still set ablaze, and with a low voice and hard gaze, she said "I'll ask again. Say 'Yang Xiao Long is the bestest and sexiest sister ever', and I'll consider sparing you."

Head lolling to the side, she saw the mortified Schnees, the somewhat worried Taiyang, and the completely bored Weiss. She knew she couldn't surrender before the Schnees, so she had to find some way-

"Too slow."

Yang's hands dived…

...straight to Ruby's sides.

Ruby let out an ear-splitting squeal as her sides were mercilessly assaulted by feeling fingers. Pushing deeper and deeper into her sides, the girl wriggled around helplessly on the floor, crying in laughter.

I knew it. Weiss facepalmed - she had been with the two long enough that Yang wouldn't actually hurt her little sister, but any kind of physical tickling assault was fair game. The other day was proof enough, when Taiyang arrived, and the two had once again divulged into a tickle fight, this one much more one-sided in the calming Yang's favour.

Looking to her side, Weiss saw her mother and sister's faces - they were priceless. Did they think that Yang would actually finish her off? How naive they were. Mrs Schnee looked fairly confused, whilst Winter was huffing in a sigh of relief. Oh, how Weiss would poke fun at her later. Taiyang simply looked on with a smile, and he wasn't surprised in the slightest. He had stood up and started to clap.

Ruby was completely breathless at this point - she couldn't feel her sides anymore, and all her senses just seemed to dulled and mixed together. She was vaguely aware of the sisterly figure straddling her who had still yet to cease her relentless assault, but Ruby wasn't even sure what was happening anymore.

Then, form the corner of her eyes, she noticed the two Schnee sisters and their mother standing next to her father and her face instantly turned white. Yang noticed the change in Ruby's behaviour and looked behind her. She instantly recognized the problem and let go of Ruby. After lifting herself off the motionless and expressionless Ruby, she offered said girl a hand to help her rise.

Blake considered herself a fairly unlucky person, having not gotten the best lot in life. She had very little memory of her family, the White Fang brought her up harshly, and nowadays she was subjected to Yang's relentless puns. She wasn't being a pessimist in her eyes, but rather a realist; she was just a generally unlucky person - Black cats were the sign of bad luck, after all.

Never could she have been so unlucky as to be paired against Nora in the tournament, however.

It was one thing, fighting a foe like Cardin who had a weapon slightly bigger than your own but without an awful lot of skill using it, especially when it wasn't particularly lethal. Fighting against someone who had a much bigger and much more lethal weapon however, was a different story entirely, not particularly helped by the fact that the ginger wielding it was particularly lithe in movement even whilst lugging around her huge hammer, Magnhild.

Grenade after grenade exploded in plumes of pink all around her, whilst she struggled to maintain her bearing on the shorter girl - the ground shook like the force of Yang's Ember Celica, but amplified by a magnitude much greater. A magnitude more terrifying, a magnitude that said "Well, I heard you needed an earthquake - have at it."

The relentless, frankly veritable artillery of fire had only stopped for a brief second, as Magnhild slowly folded from its grenade launcher form, which was terrifying enough, to it's hammer form, which much like Crescent Rose screamed "over the top". The second was long enough for Blake to weigh up her options, consider how much the hammer would hurt at point blank, formulate a plan of attack, and disappear into the shadows as an overly brazen clone took her place, heading directly towards the ginger.

Nora eagerly swung the hammer straight at the clone, the great momentum in her strike showing no signs of slowing, as the head of the weapon crashed straight through the now dispersed shadows. Little time was provided to her to look around, but the numerous hacks and slashes of a wickedly sharp sword and sheath tearing at her back told her that yes, Blake was indeed now behind her, and that silly mistake had cost her a lot of aura.

Choosing not to overstay her welcome in the danger zone, Blake's blade bent itself backwards as she shot off a round of the pistol, throwing the makeshift grapple and tugging herself along with it. Up from above was one of the girls weakest areas, she had decided, as the great effort needed to heft the sizeable hammer above her head clearly impacted heavily upon the girl's aura, and whatever poor piece of floor was below it.

Yanking her hold straight out of the roof, still falling through the air, Blake's body gracefully rolled and trained Nora into her sights, firing off every round in the admittedly small magazine. The attack, whilst not wholly futile, didn't seem to take as much effect as she would have liked, and this quickly put her on the defensive as her feet touched down and an immediate roll backwards was needed, to avoid a surprise hammer.

Nora, somewhat annoyingly to the faunus, had predicted a move like this before it had actually taken place, and was several meters closer than Blake remembered her being not long before. Split second reactions could not cover a large distance in a minute amount of time however; and only served to brace Blake as the full force of Magnhild smashed into her and left her rolling across the floor in a tumbling heap.

Searing pain shot across the whole girl's body, and she daren't look at her aura levels at all - Blake imagined that the feeling was somewhat similar to being crushed under several tons of concrete, and perhaps an airship or two, before being repeatedly slammed into the cold and unforgiving ground. Shaking arms slowly pushed the girl in black up as her foe approached; a cruel yet sickly sweet smile belying her features. She probably doesn't even know she looks like that.

Much the similar could be said from Nora's perspective; Blake looked a lot worse for wear than when she started, the match having dragged on for a few minutes now. Her hair was a mess, a jungle of black tangles, while her somewhat lackluster posture reflected the horrid blow she'd just received.

Leaping back into action, Blake instantly met the girl in the middle of the arena, and dealt more than a few slashes back at the ginger. Nora quite clearly understood that as giant as Magnhild was, it wasn't particularly effective at blocking two swords at once, Blake having unsheathed Gambol Shroud and now wielding both the katana and sheath in hand.

Twirling the giant weapon in her hands, Nora had effectively created a full body shield whilst simultaneously attacking the girl before her, as for Blake it proved difficult to get a hit in. Blake had to give her credit for that - not only was it a creative method of defending and attacking all at once, but it also took an immense amount of strength if Magnhild was as heavy as it looked. This heavy weapon would soon be colliding with the faunus once again lest she acted fast.

Throwing her pistol, now in a controlled form of desperation, she felt the ribbon pull taut and the click of the gun as the next round fired, directly into the ginger's head.

Amazing as aura was, a bullet to the head was still a bullet to the head, and this proved to be another sizeable chunk of Nora's seemingly endless aura reserves depleted.

Maybe that's her semblance or something. Infinite aura and energy. Sure seems like it.

Stumbling backwards, the time Nora spent trying to regain her footing proved more than enough for Blake to take control of the fight in every aspect, going so far as to knock the poor girl around the arena with some particularly vicious hits. Payback, she thought to herself subtly, remembering the crushing blow Magnhild dealt unto her barely a few seconds earlier. The variable chain scythe effortlessly disarmed the ginger of her hammer, with ingenious use of momentum carrying not only the weapon away but Blake towards victory.

Down to but only her hands, Nora was helpless as Blake's shadow clone waned her hope to a smidgen and the real girl appeared from thin air, a devastating strike lining her torso delivered with ethereal efficiency.

Not a moment sooner, the whistle sounded, as Professor Goodwitch came upon the stage.

"As you can see, Miss Valkyrie's aura levels have dropped to the red zone," she said, prompting Blake to take a peek at how close the fight was. Nora's aura meter was flashing in red, unsurprisingly, and looking at her own, it totaled a fair amount below half, a lacking orange greeting her eyes. "This means that the winner of this bout is Blake, and she moves on to the finals."

A roar erupted from the crowd, as the large turnout of people stood up and began to clap, cheer and whistle. Blake wouldn't know, but she had to guess that it was a great spectacle to behold, the two girls fighting.

All the pressure flooded out of her body as she relaxed herself, having won a hard-fought battle with the slightly manic girl, who was currently torn between being happy for Blake's victory, and sulking for her own loss. Offering a hand, she Nora up with a smile and took a second to catch her breath.

Of course, Nora being Nora, she apparently didn't require any extra energy or oxygen like most others.

"Blake! I can't be-lieeeveee you won! I was so sure I'd win, too! You're really clever with your sword-thing, you know that? It's really small but its gun reeaalllyy hurts!" Blake suddenly felt a twinge of guilt for shooting the poor girl in the head. "Like, it's so much smaller than Magnhild, but so awesome at the same time! Maybe you could teach me how to a cool ninja like yourself one day too, so I could be all like - mfff!"

Ren stood behind the girl, muffling her mouth. "That's quite enough Nora," Ren spoke kindly, as if tending to a small puppy. "I'm sure Blake is glad that you fought well and would probably like some rest."

Blake flashed the taller boy a smile of gratitude for getting the crazy hammer wielder to calm down for just a second. She wasn't wholly sure she could survive the antics the girl had to offer much longer. Ren certainly had given her a good idea, though - rest certainly sounded like a priority right now. Blake's legs felt like a substance most closely resembling jelly rather than bone, and her arms ached with strenuous movement.

She just wanted to go back to Team RWBY's dorm, flop into her bed, and have Yang read Ninjas of Love- or, maybe a tamer book, to her as she fell asleep. That could probably be arranged.

Blake may have also gone deaf, but she wouldn't be certain with the excessively loud clapping and cheering coming from the audience. There were times when Blake thanked her luck for having such good hearing, and then sometimes she wished nothing more than to just curl up and turn it all off. Perhaps it was this rotten luck that brought her to fight Nora in the first place.

After all, black cats were supposed to represent bad luck, right? Maybe Blake was a lucky black cat, though, getting good luck rather than bad; perhaps that's why Yang kept her around.

"Fuck off Scarlet; it was awesome! She was awesome!"

"You've been talking about Blake's fight for the past fifteen bloody minutes, I got the point, Sun."

Sun, Scarlet and Sage sat around one of the many tables in the expansive Beacon dining hall - unofficially renamed as the site of the "Great Food War" by some. 'Some', literally just being Sun, despite his vehement insistence that there were other people who called it that. The blonde haired monkey faunus was excitedly chattering about Blake's fight with the rest of his team, and Scarlet was getting fairly tired of it.

"Yeah, well, why don't you - uh… Yeah. I got nothin'." Sun accepted defeat as he realised his ramblings had perhaps stretched on for a couple minutes too long.

"Dude, just remember. One finger, two finger, open up, step inside…" Sage made obscene gestures with his hands indicating the opening of something and Scarlet was in stitches before he was even finished.

"Shut the fuck up, Sage."

"You definitely have a crush on her, bro," Sage offhandly remarked.

"Naawh, Sun, can't you see that she's completely in lesbos with Yang?" Scarlet offered his two lien on the situation. He pointed towards the table where team RWBY sat, plus the visitors from the Vytal Festival. Ruby sat next to Winter, with Blake, Yang and Taiyang on the other side of the table. Weiss and Mrs Schnee were nowhere to be seen, probably bathing in gold or swimming in dust drugs according to the mad mind of Sage.

"She's totally blazing it," he'd say.

While Scarlet reckoned Yang was 'in lesbos' with Blake, there wasn't really any outwards display of affection between the two. Maybe the odd hand sliding behind Blake's back, being quickly swatted away by the girl herself, but not much else.

"Yeah Scarlet, you're right, they're totally fucking right now."

"Piss off Sage."

"Lads!" Sun stood on top of the table, inadvertently causing a scene. "I just remembered something, something mildly important."

"You're gay?!" Sage shouted, a little bit too loudly. Scarlet was doubled over in his seat, crying something along the lines of 'I'm gonna piss meself'. Sun had gone beet red and shoved himself back into his chair, averting his gaze from the others around the room and staring directly at Sage.

"You. Fuckin'. Prick."

"Wait, you're actually gay? Oh man, I didn't even kno-" Sage was cut off by Sun.

"No, I'm not fuckin' gay! I was going to ask where Neptune had gone until you opened your dipshit mouth!"

"Oh. Well, it's basically the same thing."

Scarlet looked up. "Wai' a minute. Where is Neptune?"

A few barely audible screams could be heard outside over the sound of the hustle and bustle in the hall. Team SSS, as it were, looked out of the windows to where the source of the noise would (most likely) be. They almost missed it, but Sun's sharp eyes just managed to spot the blue streak running outside. Barreling to the window, leaping over more than a few disgruntled students trying to eat, he stuck his head out of the window with Sage and Scarlet quickly in tow whereupon they say what had to be, for them, comedy gold.

"AAAH! OW- WEISS! I'M- OWW!"

The screams belonged to their blue-haired friend Neptune, which seemed odd, considering how girly they sounded. He was being chased up and down the paths by a certain Weiss Schnee, who looked more than a little bit pissed off, and had Myrtenaster in hand.

"YOU ARE NOT SORRY AT ALL! GET BACK HERE SO I CAN DRAW AND QUARTER YOUR STUPID FACE!"

Sun, with wide eyes, spoke with a surprisingly quiet voice for the cheeky personality with which he usually upheld. "Wow. I, uh. She seems… angry. What the fuck did Neptune do now?"

Said boy ran past the window, still wailing in terror. He cried out as Weiss tackled him to the floor, and stood atop him, her rapier Myrtenaster pointed straight at his throat.

"Neptune Vasilias," she growled, voice low and terrifying, "If you even think about flirting with me, or trying to touch me, or get up and close to me, Myrtenaster here will be going even closer - through that thick skull of yours. Do I make myself clear, mister?"

His head rolled over, looking up to the window where Sun, Scarlet and Sage had perched themselves. His sullen eyes cried out in fear and desperation, and nonverbally begged for their assistance. Of course, as was the policy on team SSSN, every action was for the greater good, be it stealing food or making a getaway. This was a policy that, at the very moment Neptune needed the lads most in his life, they decided to take action upon.

Sun jumped to his feet and pointed in a random direction, shouting "Team lads action news team!"

Oh no, not now. Please. No. Not now. I'm begging you.

Sage ran to his side, holding his microphone in hand. "There's news, Sun! Over there!"

Scarlet trailed slightly behind them with his camera, wires drooping along the floor. "Wait up lads!" he shouted as Sun and Sage ran off in one direction, initiating a wild chase around the site of Beacon.

Team SSS, as it were, had left Neptune behind, with important news waiting to be found and reported. The sight was nothing short of crazy as the boys leaped over hedges, fell over wild benches, and crashed through small groups of people, all the while shouting things incoherent from the distance at which Weiss stood, above Neptune.

"Well, Neptune. It appears your friends, your 'Team lads action news team', can't help you now. Isn't that unfortunate?" Weiss spoke, her smooth voice instilling the utmost fear into Neptune.

"Weiss- I'm, uh, I-I'm sorry! I promise I-I'll never even get close to you a-again! At all! Please, just don't kill me!"

With a shrug of the shoulders and the sheathing of Myrtenaster, Weiss let out a small "hmph" in affirmation, sure that Neptune would now stay true to his word after the near death experience. She made her way back inside the hall, back into the regular hustle and bustle, as if nothing had happened at all. She didn't even take notice of Neptune going into the fetal position and crying like a baby. He'd probably be scarred for the rest of his time at Beacon, now.

At least he won't get close to me now. Him flirting with me every other minute was getting annoying.

She took her seat back at team RWBY's table, Ruby giving her a cheery wave, Blake nodding and returning to her book, and Yang continuing to stuff whatever food was being served into her mouth. Winter was looking at her nails, as was her usual 'indifference' pose.

"Girl's gotta eat."

"Yang, please don't talk with your mouth full."

Team SSS chose the same moment to kick down the door of the dining hall, camera and microphone still in hand, to come charging up and down the lines of tables, being chased by a rather angry Mrs Goodwitch, who was not best impressed by the team's antics at all. As they were stopped where they were, and their equipment confiscated, Sage made some desperate plea, shouting "But there was news to be had! News, miss!"

Between Weiss' wrath, Team SSS' shenanigans, and the number of spars which had taken place, it was just another day at Beacon Academy, Weiss supposed.

Lojzek: So, I hope it was worth the wait. This chapter is almost exclusively written by JackThePegasus, praise be unto him. And now for a word from our sponsors...

Sponsors (actually Jack): The following applies to, like, two people who have posted reviews. If you read the story then bugger off, it doesn't matter to you. Read it if you want.

So here's the deal. Lojzek writes the fluffy bits, I (Jack) write the fighty-bits, he gives me cups of tea as payment, and this fic gets posted. Simple enough; but people giving Lojzek shit in the reviews is not part of the deal.

This story is ours and we write it how we want – if we want Ruby to fight/bang/cuddle with Weiss, then that's what we'll write. Then, you lovely people post reviews on the story, on what you think and maybe even constructive criticism. And then there's this one arsehole. You know who you are, 'Guest'. Constructive criticism is nice, and lets us know what to improve. People being dickheads doesn't tell us what to improve. By shouting about how much you hate Winter, you aren't changing anything. We usually end up writing more of her just to spite you. I couldn't give two shits about how you don't like what she's doing, or how she acts. It's our story and we're going to write it however we want to.

It's all the more entertaining when 'Guest' over here doesn't even have the balls to stand up and post the review non-anonymously. Like, come on, grow a pair and complain like you mean it. Throwing shit from a distance under an anonymous veil just makes it funny. Please do voice your opinions on the story, we love to hear it, but don't bother shitting all over everything. It makes everything smell and nobody likes it when you do that.

TL;DR: I don't give a fuck about what you think of our story. Post your constructive criticism, post your ideas, but fuck off with your harassment and whining. This has been a Pegasus service announcement. Ta-ra.

Lojzek: Wow. To the point, as usual for Jack. Anyway, on a serious note: we really appreciate reviews. Especially ones that offer some criticism and ideas to improve it. But really, if you can't be bothered to criticise our work with your actual username, don't bother criticising at all. Especially when you don't say anything but "oh god not another shipping fic". Guess what? The title is Caught in a Blizzard. Given that everybody knows that Schnee means snow in German, I thought it was obvious from the title.

Until next time!