Even Ice Burns

It was like the Siege all over again.

Her arm outstretched, mouth open in a silent cry of warning, muscles straining as she pushed herself as hard as she could.

Knowing that there was no way she was going to get there in time.

Weiss had always had the weakest Aura out of team RWBY. She wouldn't be able to withstand a bullet to a vital area like her.

Yang was going to have watch helplessly as another precious teammate was killed right before her eyes.

But Weiss was spinning, a swift hand motion forming a haphazard glyph in the air before her, angled awkwardly in her haste. She must have felt the danger. The bullet slammed into the glowing pattern and skimmed off to the side, burrowing itself into the computers behind the heiress. A thin trail of crackling lightning trailed behind the small projectile, and for a moment, Yang couldn't understand what she was seeing. When it clicked, though, she felt her eyes widen.

Dust round.

Lilac orbs focused on the row of terminals as blue arcs of electricity skittered over the entire line. Screens went dead as the front panels blew off of each one, spilling a cascade of sparks onto the carpet. Yang reached the wolf faunus, whose finger was about to pull the trigger again, and smashed her fist into the side of his face with abandon, letting him experience the full force of her blow and the accompanying shotgun blast. He must have had a decently strong Aura, as his skull didn't collapse, but as he rocketed across the room and crashed into a cubicle, the brawler didn't doubt he'd be in a coma for a long time. The threat was eliminated.

Unfortunately, it was too late; the damage was done.

Yang turned her attention back to the computers as a series popping noises signaled their final moments. All lights across them were out, and no noises sounded from their chasses. Smoke drifted lazily from their clearly scorched insides, and the smell of burnt metal and melted rubber assaulted her nose. They were fried, with little to no doubt that their contents would be completely unsalvageable. Weiss turned slowly, glacial eyes taken in the destroyed equipment as they grew deathly narrow. She spun around, fire burning behind her iris the likes of which Yang had never seen before. Weiss was beyond pissed, beyond angry.

She was furious.

The temperature in the room plummeted drastically, and suddenly the blonde could see her breath fogging in front of her face. Yang was aware of Blake giving an involuntary shiver, but she didn't even glance at her partner; she was too fixated on the impending danger in front of her. Her instincts screamed at her not to look away. For if she did, she was sure she'd be dead in an instant. Ice was beginning to form beneath Weiss' feet, tiny crystals spreading rapidly out from the white boots, coating the grey fabric of the floor and dousing any remaining hints of sparks or flames from the destroyed consoles.

A shiver crawled up Yang's spine. Whether from the cold or fear, she was unsure. This was a side of Weiss she had never seen. She had seen the shorter woman angry before, yes. She had seen her agitated, peeved, upset, and downright livid. But never, never, had the Schnee heiress been so furious as this. Her Aura was flaring violently, encasing her in an ethereal light. Blue energy crackled around Myrtenaster's Dust chamber as her grip on the rapier's handle turned viselike.

"W-Weiss!" Blake spoke worriedly, her teeth chattering in the below freezing temperature that now pervaded the room. Her teammate didn't seem to hear her though, as a snarl pulled at her lips and her pupils disappeared entirely, washed out amidst the white glow of her Aura. "Weiss!" she called again, taking a shaky step forward as a forceful wind sprung into existence around the heiress.

The faunus threw her arms in front of her face as harsh blast of icy air threatened to topple her over. She glanced to the side, to Yang. Her partner was rooted in place, lilac irises wide and showing nothing but horrified surprise at Weiss' transformation. She had no idea what was going on. The reasonable side of Blake's brain argued that that was entirely understandable, as the blonde had most likely never seen anything like this before. Blake had. Or at least, she had seen the aftermath and heard the account of events. She had to calm Weiss down, and quickly. Last time, they had nearly lost another friend. The faunus could only imagine how bad it would be if Weiss' out of control Aura activated her Dust.

She refused to let that happen.

Blake pressed onward through the growing pressure and resistance surging around her. The floor beneath her was now entirely coated in ice, but it did little to affect the faunus' gait. She had long since mastered the art of keeping her balance in almost any situation. When the snowflakes appeared and began to whirl about in the unnatural wind, Blake knew she had very little time remaining. Once this condition progressed past a certain point, it required a large shock to bring the subject out of it. For instance, the shock of almost killing your dearest friend.

Another step, and she was almost within arm's reach. Blake would not allow Weiss' situation to end like that. There was no way she would let Weiss shoulder that guilt. The faunus reached out and was able to grab her teammate's bicep. "Weiss!" she called, but the wind grabbed her words and crammed them back down her throat. The other woman didn't acknowledge her presence, pupiless eyes still locked on Yang. Pain prickled up Blake's arm, and she glanced down to find ice crystals creeping their way along her skin. She had to end this now.

The Huntress summoned her Aura, sending a sharp spike of it through her hand and up her teammate's arm. The white glow surrounding Weiss flickered for a moment. "Weiss!" Blake said as she sent another pulse to the heiress. Weiss blinked a few times, and her ice-blue irises slid back into view. She glanced confusedly at Blake as the winds began to die down. Blake didn't release her hold on the heiress' arm. The aura around Weiss faded out, and she stumbled forward, muscles suddenly drained. The faunus caught her easily, helping her to stay upright. Weiss looked at her, and Blake was pleased to see that although thoroughly dazed and unsure, her teammate appeared to be back to normal.

"Blake…what…?" Her voice was laden with exhaustion, words slightly slurred.

Blake wrapped an arm around her shoulders, sending gentle waves of her own Aura through the shorter woman. "Take it easy, Weiss. You went into Aura Rage."

Weiss' eyes widened in horror. "Oh god…oh god, what did I-"

"Nothing. Calm down. I was able to break you out of it before anything happened." Blake rubbed her shoulder comfortingly. "You just made the room a bit colder, is all." The faunus expertly hid her right arm behind her back; she was sure the angry red skin would upset Weiss, should she see it.

"I'm sorry," Weiss mumbled, bowing her head. She couldn't believe she had done that. Weiss Schnee was not a woman who was allowed to lose control.

"It's alright. I'm just happy I got to you before…" Blake let the thought die out, but Weiss completed it mentally.

Before anything terrible happened.

Aura Rage was something they had only encountered once before, but they had been sure to research it as much as possible following that incident, in case either of them should ever fall victim to it. It was a spontaneous condition that appeared when someone completely lost control of their emotions. An Aura was a powerful tool, capable of great and dangerous feats. It required training, concentration, and discipline to use it effectively in combat. However, it came with stipulations. As an extension of one's soul, anything that influenced a soul to a great extent also influenced its Aura. It was why Yang was currently incapable of utilizing her Aura or semblance. Ruby's death and her subsequent campaign of revenge had fractured her soul on the deepest level. Aura Rage was almost the exact opposite.

Rather than being damaged and closing off access to Aura, the soul grew powerfully incensed, and an overproduction of Aura took place to the point of uncontrollability. This led to the individual possessing a terrifying amount of power and defenses that made them nearly invulnerable. The tradeoff was that there was no known way to control it; one was a slave to whatever emotions put them in that state. More often than not, that was anger, which is why it had been dubbed Aura Rage. They became roiling whirlwinds of destruction and death.

It never ended well. Few cases had ever been reported, and even fewer still had ended with the raging subject alive. Normally, the excessive use of such vast quantities of Aura killed them in any number of gruesome ways: burnt their nervous system to a crisp, melted their organs, turned their bones to dust, disintegrated their muscles. None of them had happy endings. The ones who snapped out of it often had serious health issues that persisted for the remainder of their lives. In some cases, they made sure that wasn't very long; they couldn't live with the guilt of what they'd done while berserking.

Ironically, huntsmen and Huntresses with exceptional Aura control were always the most susceptible to Aura Rage.

"I…I'm sorry," Weiss whispered. "I didn't mean to, I just-" she glanced up, her gaze landing on Yang, who was still hunched over defensively, watching the pair of them with wary eyes. Instantly, the temperature dropped off again, and Blake physically felt Weiss' Aura surge.

"Weiss!" she exclaimed and shook the other woman's shoulders. Weiss blinked again, and Blake sensed the energy receding. "You need to focus, get a better grip on yourself."

The white-haired woman closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nose a few times as she tried to calm her frayed nerves and the roiling rage burning through her veins. Her Aura rustled within her, pulsing through her body and setting every nerve on fire. She now understood why it was so hard to escape Aura Rage once it had begun. That much power, that much life…the body craved it intensely. If it hadn't been for Blake, she honestly didn't know what she would have done. More than likely, killed everyone in this room, especially her blonde ex-teammate. Not to mention how much collateral damage she could have caused with her Dust.

Her eyes opened and focused on Yang. White hot anger once more flashed across her mind, but she doused it this time. She would no longer let her emotions direct her actions, no matter how badly she wanted to act on the boiling pit of fury festering in her chest. Instead, she would rely on venting verbally. She locked eyes with Yang, rage-filled pale blue on awed lilac, and her lips pulled back to bare her teeth in a vicious snarl.

"You imbecile!"

Ren wasn't terribly surprised to find that they were the first group back. While their location had been the farthest away, it was also the smallest, and had the least amount of space to check. Warehouses were big, but also open. After breaking through into the secret basement beneath the storeroom, it hadn't taken the three Hunters long before they found what they were looking for; a small computer terminal tucked behind several crates filled to the brim with uncut Dust crystals. Ren was willing to bet anything that the Dust was far from legal, and that any information they wanted was probably stored on the computer. Unfortunately, it was locked and encrypted, and neither Sun nor Nora were any better with technology than he.

So while Sun extracted the storage drives, Ren and Nora had a chat with a few of their defeated foes that were still breathing. They weren't exactly forthcoming with information, but that changed rather abruptly when Ren let Nora have a go at questioning. It was amazing exactly what people would do in order to save at least one of their legs. They had gotten nothing useful from any of their opponents, though, so they knocked them back out, alerted the authorities, and left the premises, hard drives in tow.

Now they were waiting in the lobby of their floor of the hotel. They were seated in the lavishly upholstered chairs in front of the elevator. It seemed as though Weiss had planned ahead, as there were eight seats, whereas that morning he recalled only seeing four on his way out. Ren had his legs crossed underneath of him, his hands folded gently together and resting in his lap. His eyes were closed as he breathed deeply, regulating his breathing.

Meditating like this was something he tried to do daily, as it helped him maintain an inner calm. He had lost that once, and he swore to himself that it would never happen again. Immersing himself in his Aural senses, feeling the world only through them, improved his ability to slip into the proper mental state in combat as well, and kept his detection sharp. He could see the other two in the room with him in his mind. Nora was a ball of quivering pink energy, shifting restlessly in her chair as waves of eagerness rolled off of her in waves. Sun was significantly more dulled, his golden hue dim with restrained worry and anxiety as he looked out the windows behind them at the expanse of Atlas . Ever since the assassination attempt on Weiss that earned him his bodyguard position, the monkey faunus became a bundle of nerves anytime the heiress left his sight.

Two familiar signatures pinged off his consciousness, rapidly approaching up the elevator shaft. Seemed like Jaune and Pyrrha had completed their part of the mission quickly enough. Not that Ren was surprised. The pair was incredibly strong nowadays, aptly given the title of the 'strongest duo,' though frankly that was because he and Nora and the pairs of RWBY didn't really vie for the position at all. None of them were particularly fond of the limelight. The elevator doors slid open, and Ren finally opened his eyes. His teammates looked none the worse for wear. Sun spun around, face shining with hope that quickly fell away as he realized it wasn't Weiss.

"Aw, damn," Jaune pouted as they stepped into the lobby. "Could've sworn we were going to be the first ones back."

Pyrrha rolled her eyes before focusing on the three Hunters assembled. "How'd things on your end go?"

"I blew up a warehouse!" Nora exclaimed, grinning madly.

"She blew a hole in the wall of a warehouse. The building's still standing," Sun corrected as he circled around a chair to stand in front of the two Hunters. Ren was happy to let him take the lead on filling in Jaune and Pyrrha as he slid his eyes closed and continued meditating. Sun reached into a pouch at his back and pulled out a thin, rectangular silver box. "None of the guys we encountered knew anything, but we managed to recover this. Locked up real tight though. We'll have to figure out a way to crack its security."

"I feel like I'm having déjà vu," Jaune commented as he, too, extracted a hard drive. "Got two of these little guys just waiting for us to break them open."

"Alright!" Sun exclaimed, and he and Jaune exchanged a high five. A moment of silence followed as both blonds examined their respective hardware. "So…" Sun finally said, "Any idea how to actually do that?"

Jaune shook his head. "Not a clue."

Sun opened his mouth to say something, but Ren didn't hear his words. His attention was completely absorbed by the new presences he sensed approaching from below. It was the final group. Yang, Weiss, and Blake. And something was wrong. Blake was fine. Her Aura was as cool and tranquil as ever, if not a little anxious. He could barely sense Yang. She was a dim flame, a tiny spark compared to the roaring inferno she used to be. It was Weiss, though, that had him worried. Her Aura, normally so well controlled and restrained, was erratic and all over the place. Roiling anger pulsed off of her so powerfully he could feel it from there. What on Remnant had happened?

Magenta orbs opened as the elevator dinged and released the three woman. Weiss was glaring at Yang full force, and to her credit, Yang was glaring right back. Blake looked worriedly between the two of them, as if preparing to stop a soon-to-be fistfight.

"Snowflake!" Sun cried, running forward with his arms extended. He froze, though, when he saw her face. His arms fell back to his side as his voice turned serious. "What's wrong?"

Pale blue eyes slid to look at him momentarily before snapping back to Yang. Weiss grit her teeth and hissed, "What's wrong is that this irredeemable idiot ruined the mission! Again!"

"I didn't ruin shit!" Yang shot back, eyes glowing crimson and voice hot.

"Oh, really? Would you care to explain to everyone why we're returning completely empty-handed then?"

"Look, it's not my fault that he shot the-"

"Yes it is!" Weiss shouted over her. "You should not have left him free!"

Yang looked almost taken aback. "The fuck was I supposed to do?! Let that other guy fucking shoot me?!"

Weiss' fingers turned white on her sword handle. "If you had been paying the slightest bit of attention, you would have known that Blake was about to deal with him! He wouldn't have even gotten another shot!" Yang glanced sideways at Blake, who only offered a meek nod. It was true, she had been halfway through an attack when Yang had taken the faunus out. "You almost got all of us killed, and even worse, because of you, the files were completely destroyed!" The air around her crackled threateningly.

"Weiss," Blake warned in a low voice.

"What?" she spat.

"Calm. Down." The heiress stared at her for a moment, realizing that at this rate, she was bound to Rage again. Her Aura was still coursing dangerously powerfully through her body.

"No, fuck that." Blake almost screamed. Why did Yang have to pick now? "I'm sick of this. It's time we deal with this. What's your problem with me, Schnee?"

The heiress' Aura flared so angrily Blake was afraid she had crossed that threshold again. However, Weiss still seemed in control of herself, through her face was red from rage, and Blake could physically see a vein pulsing in her neck.

"What's my problem?!" A shrill, hollow laugh punctuated the sentence. "My problem, Yang Xiao Long, is that you're a coward who ran from a reality she couldn't face and abandoned those who needed her! A coward who's now trying to squirm her way back into a life she's no longer welcome in!"

"Ran from-" Yang began indignantly. "I avenged Ruby!"

"You killed one person, and then what? You let your life fall to pieces! Wasted away and drowned yourself in alcohol and misery. You never even tried to honor Ruby's memory or what she died for. You ended one life, and then tucked your tail between your legs and ran. You ran because you couldn't face reality anymore. Couldn't face the fact that your rage and vengeance wouldn't be enough to fill the void your sister left! You left your teammates, people who were supposed to be your family, because you were scared! You're a coward, Yang, and you have no place here anymore!" Weiss' words were scathing, spit with so much vehemence they seared themselves into the very air, harsh accusations that burned their ears. The Huntress spun on her heel and stormed off down the right hand hallway.

Yang bowed her head as silence blanketed the room. It was promptly shattered as the blonde let out a guttural growl of frustration and anger and slammed her fist into the wall beside the elevator, punching a hole clean through it.

Blake stepped toward her, reaching out a hand for her shoulder, gently saying, "Yang…"

"Don't, Blake." Her voice was shaky, whether from shock or anger, though, Blake couldn't tell. Either way, she stopped. Yang didn't turn to face her as she continued. "I just…I need to be…alone, for a while. Sorry," she mumbled, before slouching off into the left hand corridor.

Blake was left behind, staring after her partner, unsure what she should do, unsure what she could do. The little hopeful world she had been trying so tediously to construct seemed to be falling down around her, and she wasn't sure there was anything she could do to fix it.

A/N: First and foremost, before we get into anything related to the chapter, I want to give a MASSIVE, MONOLITHIC shoutout to user Caelux, who has recently begun turning the first book in the Rending Trilogy, Ruin, into a manga/comic! Only the first page is up so far, but it's awesome, and every single one of you should go check it out over on his deviantart page. His username is Caeverto. Go! Go quickly!



Now, what'd everyone think of the chapter? Few more bits and pieces about events during the timeskip. Who do you guys think went into Aura Rage before (it is someone you know, I promise). On that topic, Aura Rage is something that will be making a return, which is why I explained it as thoroughly as I did. Also, finally, FINALLY got to write the big, heated Weiss/Yang confrontation. Been waiting for that one, though I almost feel like I made it happen too soon. What do you guys think?

Anyway, it's good to be back. Hope you guys enjoyed the chapter! Send me reviews :D

I love you all