Chapter 74

The air out on the training ground was warm, but not excessively hot. A nice, late October day, actually. Her new windbreaker kept the little breeze that there was out of her body, but she'd have been fine in just her fancy new grey Atlas Strong army shirt, given to her by her sister. It was the first time she'd ever had a breathable cotton t-shirt. The thick camo-coloured cargo pants had been her sister's idea as well, along with the matching boondockers. Not her usual style, by any means, but fitting for what she was doing.

And who she was meeting.

She could see him off in the distance of the training ground, sitting at a picnic bench with a few assault rifles set out in front of him. Not that she'd have missed him, he was enormous. The ginger hair was a beacon of colour as well, a stark contrast from his dark green military uniform and boots. After being out of school for so long, she'd mostly forgotten what her classmates had looked like, and this was no exception. The only people she'd kept close tabs on where Ren and Ruby, seeing as he was a close business associate and she was basically her neighbour. Well, by twenty-seven kilometres. But that was closer than literally everyone else by a factor of eighty.

He stood up when he saw her, marching across the training grounds to where she'd been instructed to meet him. His smile was as wide as his shoulders, and he set down one of the rifles he was in the middle of field stripping to hold his arms wide.

"Little Weiss!" he called, making her flinch.

"Sergeant Winchester, good morning." she said back. She still wasn't sure how she felt about the large boy. He did have a history.

"Oh, come now," there was disappointment in his voice. "You were always so cold, why must you greet me this way?"

She stopped just short of him. He held out a hand for her to shake, and after a moment of hesitation, she extended hers as well, his ma-husive paws absolutely miniturizing hers. His handshake was stiff but solid, like Ren's but with the texture of sandpaper. Made her realize that her business associate used probably more moisturizer than she did.

"I am here for a reason, and I'd appreciate your co-operation, Sergeant."

"Man, you're a real tough egg to break, aren't you?"

"It's to crack," she corrected. "The saying is 'tough egg to crack'."

He let go of her hand, a beaming smile still on his face.

"I take that back. You're no egg, you're a vault door. A very small vault door, however."

She straightened her back and scoffed. Whatever intimidation she was trying to go for was wasted on him, seeing as he stood close to twenty inches taller than she did. And weighed close to triple what she did.

"I am not small."

"Atlesian average for women is five-six."

"This is how tall I am, so please refrain from mocking me, Sergeant Winchester."

"You can call me Cardin, you know."

She turned her face away. "It's a sign of respect to be referred to by rank, is it not?"

He rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

"Well, yeah, but when it's your friends, or when you're on furlough, first names are fine. This isn't Vacuo, you don't have to call me by my last name exclusively."

"Yes, but-"

"Actually, if this was Vacuo, and since I think I'm older than you if I remember correctly, you should be calling me Winchester-Senpai, actually. If my wife's preferred reading material is to be believed."

Weiss's face flushed red, and she recoiled into herself, pressing a hand to her chest.

"Excuse you, Sergeant Winchester, I never-"

He ignored her protest and turned around. "Come, come, sit down. Have a chat with me, my dear."

My dear? My dear?! She was fully red in the face. How absolutely dare he? Though she didn't quite want to disobey an order from the army, she didn't really feel like listening to the huge brute of a man who disrespected her so easily.

So she followed his instructions and sat down at the picnic bench, behind a few hundred pounds of brass and stamped steel he'd layed out on the table. She frowned.

"I thought you were going to teach me hand-to-hand combat, not shooting."

"You thought right, I had these here for me from before you arrived."

Weiss looked at her watch. "But it's eight in the morning! How long have you been here?"

"Since about four-thirty." he replied, picking up one of the rifles. Her mouth fell open.

"Wha-"

"Military time, my dear. Military discipline." He held up the rifle to her. "Do you know what this is?"

"Uh, a sub-compact anti-material carbine?"

"Chambered in?"

"Uh, seven-six-two by thirty-nine?"

"Correct! I'm surprised you knew that."

"My sister works for the army, she talks to me about guns like it's all that matters about life."

He shrugged. "Sounds like someone else you might know."

"You mean Ruby, I assume."

He pointed at her with an empty magazine. "You're very good at this. Now, can you tell me what's wrong with this gun?"

He passed it over the table and into her arms. The gun was heavier than she expected, but she was 'used' to lightweight milled aluminum and carbon fibre furniture, quite different from the stamped steel and wood construction of the rifle. With a taught flick of her wrist, out came the folding wood stock and locking into place, she took a peer down the gun's iron sights.

"I'm not-" she held it up again, and pulled back on the left-side charging handle, letting it spring shut. "Wait..."

She cycled the bolt a few times, trying to pull the trigger. The hammer never clicked forward, no matter how many times she sent the gun into what she thought was battery. With a frustrated grunt, she slammed her palm against the charging handle. It clicked forward, passed a blockage. She frowned.

"There's something jammed in it?"

She handed the weapon back over to him, and he immediately pulled the two takedown pins and separated the weapon into two halves.

"I thought so too," he said, pulling the gas plunger out of the tube. "I thought it was leftover sludge and metal slag from overuse in the discharge tube, but it's clear and polished. Then I thought it had to be the sled with a bent roller or something since it's getting stuck back."

"Wait, I thought that Atlas uses the AWS 63G assault rifles, like these." she said, confused all of a sudden. She gestured to one of the other, sleeker, newer guns on the table.

"We do, this isn't army issue, it's from my personal collection." He held up the gun again, giving it a pleased smile. "This weapon was used in the Faunus Revolutionary War, manufactured here in Anima for the resistance forces. See here?"

He held up the gun, twisting it so the bottom of the foregrip was visible. Something had been carved into the wood, and varnished by hand.

"Vive la Revolution!" he said, his accent surprisingly sharp. "This weapon was owned by an infantryman by the name of Etienne Tout-Blanche, a man no older than you or I, and a brave soldier."

"How would you know who owed a gun in a war? Weren't there millions of them?"

"It was a sign of honour in the Faunus forces to have your name engraved in the receiver." He again flipped the gun over to the right side, showing off the engraving work just below the fire selector switch. Done by hand, of course, but with surprising accuracy for what looked like work done with a dremel. "And this soldier, showed honour. Having your name on your gun meant you had meaning after you died, because whoever picked up your gun was also picking up your fight and continuing your legacy."

"That's... surprisingly romantic."

"I know, I thought so too."

"How'd you come by his weapon, then?"

"It was for sale at a gun store for like, two hundred lien. Absolutely disrespectfully low price. Someone else was going to buy it just to use as a range bitch and destroy it without ever learning the history of it. So I had to buy it and restore the old gun and make memory of Lieutenant Tout-Blanche."

Weiss sniffed and crossed her arms.

"Why would you care about a weapon from the Revolutionary War?"

"Well, when you fall in love with a faunus, marry her, and spend so much time listening to her talk about the history of her people, you get a little interested in that subject. And being a man of military honour, I thought it necessary to combine the two and have a beautiful piece like this. I've never actually fired the gun yet, today was gonna be my first time, but as you can see..."

"It doesn't work."

"No, ma'am."

"That why it was so cheap?"

Cardin shrugged his massive shoulders. "Probably. But more than likely it's because these were produced for so long and in such huge numbers."

"Did you go out looking specifically for a soldier's gun?"

"No, I originally passed the gun up since it was so beat up, but after doing a little research on the name on the side of the gun and the history of, I stood up from the kitchen table, said 'Vel, I have to go buy a gun', and left the house to go buy it."

A small smile crossed her face.

"Well, that's a contrast to what I know about you."

"Oh yeah? What, you assumed I was still the big commanding bully from high school all these years later?"

"W-well, Ruby has said some pretty nice things about you, but I guess I'm still being a little presumptuous."

"You know, don't worry about it, most people still think the same way. Big guy, history of violence, resting bitch face, I don't blame you."

"I do apologize."

"Ce n'est pas une probleme, Weiss. Even my wife took a while to warm up to me."

She turned a look to him.

"I didn't know you spoke Mistrali."

"There's a lot of things you don't know about me."

"You know, I'm actually quite impressed."

He chuckled. "Thank you. I like to think that my strength is not the only impressive part about me, but also my glowing personality."

Weiss rolled her eyes. "You haven't proved that quite yet, Sergeant."

He stood from the table, unaffected by her jabs. How he could just let each word she said roll off of him as if it had been in jest was equal parts impressive and infuriating. Like a brick wall of relaxation and cheerfulness. He gestured for her to stand up as well, and she did, following him back over to the training area. He'd drawn a large square in the dirt with spray paint, with a traffic cone at each corner.

"Step into the ring, and I'll see if I can change that."

His smile remained. She rolled out her neck and did as instructed, walking in to a corner of the 'ring'. She stretched out her arms, pulling her left arm across her chest with her right arm, then doing the other.

"Alright, how are going to start?" she asked.

"First," he said, pointing in her direction as he pulled a set of fingerless workout gloves on. "Are you gonna keep the coat on or not?"

"Uh, I guess I should take it off?"

"Better if you do. Better freedom of movement. And you'll be sweating like a pig in about ten minutes."

She shrugged, and stripped off the coat and hung it neatly on the orange cone she was standing in front of. She too pulled on a set of gloves that she'd had in her coat.

"Okay, I-"

"Wear these." he said, tossing two of something in her direction. She caught them and held them up.

"What's this?"

"Bracers. Stops your wrists from snapping."

"Oh! Is that something I should be worrying more about?"

Another shrug as he pulled on a set of his own. "Depends who you're fighting. It's good for training, especially against stronger targets."

"Does Ruby wear these into battle?"

"Those are actually hers. I found them in her locker back at the barracks. Helps her with weapon handling and parachuting."

Weiss's breath hitched in her throat. Ruby's bracers? Ruby's? Could she even wear these? Very slowly she pulled them on, realizing quickly that Ruby's forearms were quite a bit thicker than hers, having to pull the straps tighter by two holes on the buckles. She readjusted her hands in the gloves, flexing her fists and forearms to get the garments to sit properly.

"Okay. they're on." she breathed, a little shaky. "Why were you in Ruby's locker, though?"

"She takes her lock home with her when she's not on duty, and she has a habit of leaving stuff in it. I take it and store it for her so no one steals anything of hers."

"Awfully kind of you, Cardin."

"I do what I can for my unit, and for my friends."

"I appreciate that. And I'm sure they do as well." She put herself into a fighting stance, loose but assured. "So, how are we to start?"

Cardin didn't change his position, keeping his hands on his hips. "Well, not like that, for sure."

"Excuse me?"

"Your stance is already wrong."

She stood up straight, trying to not let annoyance fill her voice. "No, it's not!"

"Okay, no, it's correct according to the Atlesian guerrilla warfare stance favoured by the ASF, but you're not going in to battle against bandits and terrorists. I assume you were trained by your sister?"

"I was."

"Do you know how tall your own sister is?"

"Six-two?"

"Yes. That fighting stance is made for people who's opponents are as tall as or shorter than they are. It protects the chest and stomach over the face." He copied the stance, using one hand to demonstrate each of the weak points and guarded parts. "See, here and here. Not so protected. Not great if you're fighting someone with longer legs than you."

"So, what do I do instead?"

"Try something like a Vacuan boxing stance." He changed his stance, lowering his shoulders and bring his hands up to his face. "Put one foot further forward than normal, bring your guard down towards your hips, like so."

Weiss attempted to copy him, pushing out her right leg and crunching up her stomach. "Like this?"

"That's better." He stood up, and closed the distance between them. "See, what you've done there is shorten the distance between your elbows," he tapped her on the knee. "And your legs, which makes your stomach a much smaller target. You've also made that target deeper, meaning your opponent has to come further into your guard to hit you. And the further they come into you guard, the further into theirs you can get. Make sense?"

Weiss shrugged. "I guess?"

"Good." Cardin returned to his spot on the square. "Now, with what part of your arm should you block with? Say from where I am, I'm going to punch you. How do you block?"

"With my forearm, brought up to the punch."

"Sure, sure. Do what you just said."

She brought up her arm up to block an imaginary right hook, holding it in place as he approached to scrutinize. He stood for a moment, before reaching out and grabbing her blocking arm at the wrist.

"You mean, block here, right? With your wrist?"

"Yeah, is that not right?"

Without another word, he rotated his hand, and brought her arm with it, across the front of her body. She winced and pulled back out of his grasp.

"Ow!"

"See the problem?"

"Yeah, you're a dick!"

A smirk. "No, you just blocked with the wrong part of your arm. Using your wrist and forearm provide too much leverage for your opponent, and you arm can just be rotated away, rendering the block useless."

"But... my sister said-"

"She fights with kicks and swords, meaning that she's already expending rotational energy. Blocking a kick with your forearm is different than blocking a punch. A kick is already at the end of the torque arm since the leg is straight, so it's better to block it with your forearm so you can quickly grab the leg."

"So I should block with what, my shoulder?"

"Ideally, yeah actually. But that puts you too close to your opponent in practice, so we substitute our shoulder with our elbow." he brought his arm up to demonstrate, slapping himself on the outer edge of his bicep. "The closer you can catch the blow to your shoulder, the more force it takes to move your arm out of place, and the more assured the block will be. So when you block, roll you fist in towards your ear like so and point at your opponent with your elbow."

She tried. "Like this?"

"Much better." he stepped in and grabbed her by the elbow. "See how much firmer the guard is? You could stop a tank with these biceps now."

"Thank you?"

He laughed. "Right, well, hopefully you'll not have to use such a block very often. You'll find more often then not that a palm-down block is more effective against your particular target."

"Wh-what do you mean, what is that?"

"Palm-down is a slap."

She paused. "What?"

"The kind of hook-swing, around the head, theatrical punches you see in the movies aren't used very often in the real world because they're just that, made for the movies. Sure, you can block them no problem, but the punches coming from a man who knows how to fight will be different."

"How so?"

He got back into stance, and lined up his fists. "Because a proper punch is a roll-through affair. Keep the elbows in, and roll the punch over and forward, not around. Uses the triceps and pecs instead of the shoulder muscles. You get a significantly more powerful hit with the roll-through."

"So why would you teach me how to block the other kind of hit then?"

"For kicks."

She scoffed. "Just for your entertainment?!"

"No, dummy, for when you get kicked in the head."

"Oh." she recoiled a little. "So, how do I block the other kind of hit?"

"Like I said, palm down and away." he stepped towards her. "Here, fists up again, I'll show you what I mean."

She followed his instructions.

"Right, roll your fist out from your face like you were going to punch me."

"Okay..." she held her arm straight out in front of her.

"Now, I am going to hit your hand with a fair bit of force, so be prepared to be thrown off balance a little." he said, lining up in front of her. She nodded her approval, to which he swung his hand down at hers, knocking it across her front and rotating her body down and away with a yelp. "See which way you just turned?"

"Hey, not so hard!"

"Fighting is hard. Get used to it. Now, did you see which way I made your body turn?"

Weiss was still pointing away with her arm. "Uh..."

"This is a cross-over slap, sending the impact from your opponent's punch across his own chest, leaving him no guard to his dominant side, unless he can coil back faster than you can deliver a hit. Now, if you're going to do this, always palm-down with the opposite hand your opponent is using for the hit, left for right and right for left. This leaves the attacking side open, meaning you can deliver a swift kick to the ribs or punch to the face, whichever you prefer."

"I see."

"Now, the opposite of the palm-down is the palm across, which means slapping down with the same hand they use to attack. This unfortunately leaves you open to a second hit, but from my experience, no matter how trained the opponent, the follow-up shot will always be an off-hand haymaker, that you can elbow-block and then chop down on."

"Why always?"

"Because your opponent's body is now rotated away and guard-open, meaning they have no means of blocking their face since you've widened their guard with the palm-shot. The only shot next is a haymaker because that's the only way their arm can physically move."

"I will make an assumption and say you used to box?"

"Five years, Atlas army intramural championship. Even bested your sister."

Her eyebrows wandered upwards. "That's not possible."

"Sure it is, she's actually pretty easy to beat when she's not allowed to use her semblance. There's no way in hell I could move as fast as she does, so we fight in the Anti-Chamber. It saps us of semblance and makes it so we fight like civilians. No powers, just skill."

"That's... a neat piece of technology."

"Yeah, it's meant for training. The Vacuan military developed it, we just bought a couple. If you ever want to know just how badly out of shape you actually are, try doing a workout without having aura to replenish your muscles almost as fast as you can injure them. You ever wonder why we never get tired?"

"Because of aura."

"Yep. So when we're without it, we're weak as hell."

"Huh." She pondered his statement for a moment. "Any way we can weaponize that?"

"Not sure we'd need to. The Grimm don't have an aura to deplete."

She waved the thought off. "No, nevermind, it's not important. Please, Cardin, keep teaching. I won't interrupt again."

"R-right, anyways, shall we continue, then?"

"Please."

"Okay, so your opponent will stand about six foot three or four, not quite as tall as me, but almost, and certainly a lot taller than you. You're gonna have to get quite a long way inside his guard circle if you want to hit him. How much do you know about kick-boxing?"

"I trained in fencing and grappling as a girl, never anything with punching or kicking. I relied a little heavily on my sword during school."

"That's fine, we can learn you up. Fighting with a weapon will be your most likely course of action against him anyways, since he won't be very likely to drop his sword. And that makes his guard circle even bigger."

She flinched. "Then how the hell do I get anywhere close to punching him?"

He pointed at her with a sly smile.

"That's what I'm going to teach you."

/.../

She brought her arm up, curling her fist back to protect the side of her head and using her right hand to brace her arm, deflecting the heavy right hook from the large gentleman. A left-hook followed swiftly after, and she was quick to crouch down and under it, letting it sail over her head. Not one to be thrown off balance, Carding turned to the left and let his leg fly out to the side, aimed squarely at her sternum.

And move any slower than she had, and it would have connected, she though as she brought both hands down together on his ankle, pushing his foot back down towards the ground. This left his left flank exposed, and she jumped at the opportunity, driving a swift right kick towards his kidneys. His left arm twisted and caught her by the ankle and snapped it away. Bringing it back down, she twisted and sent a left kick towards his face. An easy hit to block, but that was what she was going for. He caught the top of her boot with his forearms, bouncing her off like her leg was a bamboo shoot.

"Bad move, Weiss, that leaves you open to-"

She silenced him with a left drive to his cheek, which he only barely brought his hands up to block.

"Woah! I'm impressed! I almost caught a hit there!"

She tried a right shot, her fist catching the inside of his palm. She pulled back fast enough to be not be thrown off balance.

"That's what I'm trying to do!"

"I know, keep going, keep going!"

She hadn't landed a hit on him once in the last hour or so. To her credit, neither had he. Her arms ached from the impacts of Cardin's punches and kicks being deflected off them. Ruby's bracers had protected her wrists from being snapped in two. He may not have been her sister, who's kicks could shatter concrete, but he was certainly close.

"Can I ask a question?" she asked, flipping sideways and re-positioning.

He caught two of her punches easily. "Yeah, of course."

"Why did you-" she blocked what might have shattered her ribs. "Woah! -bully him? If he was already one himself?"

She sent a rather acrobatic kick towards his face, which bounced harmlessly off his palm. "You know, I'm not so sure anymore." His fist came around, and she had to use her knee to block the incoming hit instead of her arm, as it was almost worn-out. "I think I saw something within him that made me angry."

"Angry?" She tried two more roll-through punches into his chest. Both were palmed-down.

"Yeah, I think I could feel the bad things inside his character, and that made me angry. I was bullied at home by my brothers because I was small and weak, and I figured I needed to do that to him as well."

She scoffed, catching his fist on her forearms as his came for her head. "You were the small one? How's that possible?"

"My family is huge. Trust me, I'm small comparatively. Vel doesn't like visiting my family during the holidays because she feels miniature."

"Shit, eh?" She ducked away under a powerful left-hook. "So you bullied Jaune because you could see he was a bad person?"

"No, I couldn't see that, but I knew in my heart that he wasn't quite along the straight and narrow. I could see the way you four seemed to dislike his attention, yours being vocal and Red's being more..."

"Implicit?"

"Yeah, I don't know. I sometimes feel that he took his anger out on her because of me. And that made me feel like he needed even more punches to the stomach."

Weiss bounced back to her corner and stood up all the way. "...Jeez."

Cardin huffed and wiped his brow off, standing up straight and stretching his back out with a pop. "I like to think I was doing the right thing, though."

"Bullying for justice?"

"Yeah, something like that. Bad people usually don't respond to anything except violence. I remember once telling him I would snap his neck if he even so much as touched her, and then out of nowhere he stopped going near her."

Weiss cocked her head at him. "So... you stopped him from... doing that?"

"I don't know. I just know that he made me angry." His voice wavered a little, getting irritated. He sighed. "Sorry, I shouldn't raise my voice. You're doing the right thing, wanting to bring him in like this."

Weiss sighed. She was sore. "I certainly hope so."

"You are. It's better this way."

"Why can't you face him?"

He shrugged, and shambled back over tho the picnic bench slowly. "I couldn't. He's a member of the military. It would be an abuse of power and I could get dishonourably discharged. Not to mention, I'm not certain I'd survive that encounter. Two things my wife wants me to avoid."

She looked him up and down as she sat down at the table as well. "Well, fuck, if you aren't going to survive, how the hell am I supposed to survive?"

"Because you have a plan, so Ren tells me. And you have prepared and trained, and have allies on your side. I don't. I have my wife, and that's pretty much it. So we're trusting you to bring him to justice. To bully the bully I couldn't. Sweet roll?"

"I understand." She took the frosted bun from him. It was warm and delicious. "Fanks."

"We'll get you built up into a weapon in the next few weeks."

She sighed, drooping her head, realizing this meant more physical torture.

"Great. Looking forward to it."

/.../

"Well, if it isn't my favourite rapscallion!" she shouted across the wide football field.

"Who, me?" the man said back, turning to face her as she approached. "You can't mean me, I'm no rapscallion! You must be referring to someone else!"

She picked up her pace, starting to jog over. The stadium was vast, and vastly empty, save for one man in the centre of the field, surrounded by sports equipment. She followed along a painted line to were he stood, eagerly awaiting her arrival.

"I dunno, you look pretty rapscallion-like to me, big guy. You sure you don't know the guy I'm looking for?"

"Fairly certain."

She closed the distance, skipping to a stop in front of him. His hand came out of his pocket, and hers swung swiftly around to meet it, slapping across his palm with a resounding clap. She followed this up with the back of her hand to his, curling her hand into a fist and popping it against the now-curled fist of his own. They twisted, opposite each other, so their knuckles intertwined, pulling away and fluttering their fingers. Up came his elbow, and hers came up to meet it, almost missing but finding a reasonably solid purchase as they again collided. With a flourish, their hands came back down and their thumbs caught on both hands, arms crossed, as an impromptu thumb-war broke out for a moment, before they separated.

And as the grand finale, and with as masculine a grunt as she could muster, their chests came together with a hearty but clothy whump. Weiss had to jump a little higher than he did, having a full ten inch height handicap compared to her lofty associate. As she landed, she stumbled back a step, rubbing her sternum and wincing.

"Y'all right?" he asked, placing his hands on his hips.

"Yeah, yeah. They're just a little sore."

"Puberty hit a second time?"

She gave a single, dry laugh. "Very funny, but no. I took up boxing with Cardin."

"So I heard."

"After a few hours, you start taking hits just to get a little closer to him. So I'm a little beat."

"Jeez, you can still stand after his punches?"

"Why, you ever box with him?"

He shrugged. "Well, no, but I have met him. His biceps are like, three feet around!"

"Yeah, you just kinda shrug them off because otherwise you get sent into and then through the ropes. You just gotta take it."

"Wow, you're tougher than I gave you credit for. Like, significantly."

"You saying I'm weak, monkey-boy?"

"No, not at all, I'm saying he's lethal, and you're not a huntsman."

"I am!" she said, taking mock offence and placing a hand to her chest.

"Show me your license."

"...touche."

"I mean, I know you went to all four years of school and all, but you technically didn't finish. Neither did Blake, Yang, or Ruby, though."

"Ruby became a huntress anyway."

Sun nodded. "True, but that's because she was drafted into a military outside the borders of her home country, so the jurisdiction of the Vale Department of Education couldn't do anything about it when the General of the Atlas military signed a license form for her. She's a special case. The three of you, my wife included, would have to go back to school for another year to get officiated."

"That sucks. I don't want to go back to school."

He shrugged.

"Guess you'll never be a huntress, then."

"Oh."

"I mean, unless you can find someone who'd give you their license, sign it into your name, and allow you to do illegal shit, you're kinda screwed."

A thought popped into her head. "Are you licensed?"

"Yeah, but it's expired."

Her shoulders dropped. So much for that idea.

"Oh. How does one get re-certified?"

He rubbed his nose. "Join the army."

"Guess Blake doesn't want you to do that."

"No, most certainly not. I'm away enough as it is. And I'm not sure she'd be okay with me putting myself in danger like that."

"Guess not. Which military would you join, though? Mistral or Vacuo?"

"Probably Vacuo. I'm still a citizen from there, I actually still don't have a Mistralian passport. So I'm not sure they'd welcome me with open arms, a foreign citizen, into their kinda racist military."

She frowned, turning back to him. "Racist? What, because you're a faunus? Surely, you can't be serious."

"No, being a faunus in Mistral is the least of my problems. Human-faunus equality is actually really high across Anima. It's more because I'm from Vacuo that they'd have a problem with."

"...Why?"

He pointed to his face. "Slanty eyes. Seen as low-class."

Her own eyes narrowed, almost to match his. "Really, in this day and age, we're still discriminating against people from different countries?"

"I'm afraid so. I mean, I don't really look all that different from most people from Mistral. I'm tall, buff, handsome. I'm damn near a perfect specimen!"

"More like perfect simian."

"Hardy-har, Schnee."

"What, I'm just trying to lighten the mood."

He paused for a moment, before whipping his tail around and smacking her in the side of the head. She chuckled, Attempting to block the next few furry smacks, but the prehensile tail was just too quick and agile for her.

"Alright, alright! I'm sorry, stop hitting me!"

"No. It's a faunus right to hit a Schnee, and like Blake told me to, I'm gonna take every opportunity!"

His tail came around again, but this time she was ready and she caught it in her left hand. "Sun!"

He froze, allowing her to pull his body close to hers by the tail. He gulped, nervous.

"Stop."

"Yes, ma'am."

She let go, and pushed her index finger into his chest and moved him gently backwards. He shivered from just the soft, scary tone in her voice. A smirk fell to her face.

"Thank you."

"Right, no more smacks, I got it."

She nodded her head at him. "As you should. You may hit me only during training. Until then, you keep those miscreant hands to yourself."

She brushed past him, entering the circle painted in the middle of the field and stepping on to the huge, painted logo of the local sports team, a massive cartoonish caricature of an ancient Mistralian warrior, complete with pleated armour and a pike. She stopped in the very centre of the pitch, frowning down at the large picture. And then, fulfilling the dream of every Atlas University student and sports fan, she dug her heels into the grass and proceeded to wipe her feet.

Sun chuckled from behind her, stepping up to her side. "Well, that's kinda rude, don't you think?"

"Down with the Mongols."

"Not a fan?"

She turned a gross frown to him. "A-Dogs for life."

"Certainly explains the sweater." he said, pointing down at the letter jacket-styled long sleeve, bearing the Atlas A-Dogs growling logo.

"Don't tell me you're a Mongols fan. Our friendship ends right here, Wukong."

"No, no, of course not. I didn't go to Mistral State, just Haven. I rented the stadium because one of our sponsors owns it, so it didn't cost me a cent."

She levelled a glare at him. She just needed to be sure.

"Look," he said, backing up and presenting is palms. "I tried to get the A-Dogs stadium in Anfang, but they were using it for pre-season practice so it was closed."

"Mmm, likely story, monkey-boy. You're on thin ice."

He shrugged, a chipper smile befalling him.

"Hey, at least it's not thin Weiss."

She paused, mouth agape. After a fairly long ten-second loading time, the jab processed in her brain. She reached out, grabbed Sun's tail, and smacked him across the face with it.

"You! Are not! Yang!" she said between hits, laughing the whole time. She let his tail go, spinning around with a dramatic flick of her hair. "So no puns!"

He stumbled and fell to the ground behind her with a flail and a yelp. "Hey! Don't grab my tail! I can't balance if you do that!"

She turned to face him again, and marched up with an evil grin displayed proudly. "I'll grab you by whatever part of your body most pleases me."

He blinked up at her a few times.

"Is that a promise?"

"Why of course my d-" she caught on to his witty grin. "Hey, wait a minute!"

"You said it, not me, princess. And I'm gonna hold you to that."

"I'm telling your wife on you." Weiss glared down at him. And as if by some miracle of chance, his phone had fallen out of his coat as he had landed, and now rested at her feet. She bent over to pick it up. "In fact..."

"Hey, wait, no nonONONO!" he yelled, his tone becoming increasingly scared as she brought the screen up to her face.

"Why so scared, got some saucy or sappy messages you don't want me rea-" her voice froze in her throat as soon as the little glass screen lit up.

"Drop it!"

She couldn't. She was transfixed. Sun dived for her, but a well raised hand hit his forehead and halted his movement, and kept him out of arms reach of his precious device. She closed her eyes and furrowed her brow.

"...Sun?"

"Please put my phone down."

"Why is that your background."

"She's my wife! I love her!"

For all his strength, he seemed to not be able to get passed her arm.

"Perhaps I should rephrase. Why are her naked tits your background?"

He sputtered. "Buh, she's my attractive wife, and I want to be able to see that everyday, dude! You understand, right?"

She opened one eye. To her relief, a notification from Fumblr had shown up on his screen and covered up the presented female nipples, leaving only Blake's sultry and sly smile and her exposed and scarred midriff and belly button. She sighed and let her arm go limp, making Sun stumble again to the ground and onto her feet.

"No, I understand plenty. I also understand that coworkers and associates might see the screen, so I keep that kind of stuff personal, you goddamn degenerate!"

She kept her tone joking, to ease his suddenly scared look.

"B-but-"

"No buts, and not even hers. You have a notification, here."

She hit him square in the back with his own phone, and watched him squirm and roll over. He grabbed his phone and held it close to his face, opening it and looking at the notification, embarrassment vivid on his face. His expression softened as soon as he opened the app that requested his attention.

"What's with the look?" she prodded, crossing her arms.

"Oh, one of the blogs I follows just updated for the first time in a while. Something you might want to see, actually."

"Is it Blake's porn blog."

He rolled his eyes and stood up. "No. You know what, you've lost privileges. Find Yang's blog on your own."

"Oh, eat a dick."

"I might be flexible," he shot her some finger guns. "I'm not that flexible."

She shivered, and gave him her best 'talk to the hand.'

"Right, come help me set up."

"Okay." she said, following him over to his car, which he'd parked just outside of the centre circle of the grass. Attached to the drawbar was a little trailer, full of supplies and one very long and very thick bar, wrapped tightly in brown high-traction vinyl.

"Grab one end of the bar, will ya?"

She did, watching him hop between the little yellow Bantam off-roader and the front of the trailer basket, having to do an awkward hip-wiggle to not catch himself on the end of the long bar. She came around to the back, squatting down to get her left shoulder under the end of the bar, and preparing her legs to lift the sixteen foot long beam.

"Kay, I'm ready."

"Alright, lift."

She pushed upwards, lifting her end of the bar off the edges of the trailer basket, making sure Sun was getting his end too. It slightly concerned her that he was standing in the trailer and lifting with his hands and not with his shoulder, but she let it slide, thinking he would hop out and shoulder his side.

"Stand still for a sec."

"Wh-why?"

Without explanation or warning, he shoved his end of the bar towards her, the vinyl easily sliding through her grasp and along her shoulder until it was roughly balanced entirely on her. He let go of his and, and suddenly the whole weight of the beam was pushing down on her, making her legs want to buckle.

"Hey!" she panted, teetering wildly. "Grab the end of the fuckin' bar!"

"Nah, you got it, right?"

"Not for very much longer, you cretin!"

She stumble-stepped backwards a few feet, so the end of the bar cleared the trailer, and tilted her load forward so the far end touched the grass. She strained under the weight as the edges dug into her neck.

"Hey, one of us needed to grab these," he said, holding up the beam's support legs.

"We coulda made two trips!"

He shrugged. "Nah." hopping down from the trailer, he grabbed the end of the bar again and lifted it back up so she was forced to play the balancing game a second time. She tried to express her distaste, but she feared dropping the bar or having it land on her.

"Be careful, that thing weighs like three hundred pounds."

"Three hu- wait, seriously?"

"Yeah, it's solid oak with a plywood runner. That falls on you it'll snap your leg in two."

She readjusted, realizing that despite being in pain from the load, the weight wasn't really an issue.

"I'm holding three hundred pounds on my shoulder."

"Yeah?"

"Wow. My workout's paying off. I'd have crumbled before all this."

"Bet you would have. Bring it over here."

She stepped slowly over to the middle of the pitch once more, very careful to not drop the huge beam into the soft dirt and grass and potentially gouge it. Not that gouging the face of the Mistral Mongols logo would be bad, of course. Sun came around the front side of the bar with one of the supports, very carefully slotting the pin into the bottom of the beam and spinning the oversized wingnut until it stopped, giving it a good solid whack for good measure. Weiss let the weight of the bar go forward and onto the legs, giving her shoulder a little bit of reprieve.

"Kay, just one more, hold on."

"I'm holdin'."

He went around back and did the same, and she assisted by lifting the bar up with her arms enough to let him slide the two pieces together. When she finally let go, the bar was fully supported by the two triangle-shaped leg pieces and firmly in the grass.

"There. One more thing. Well, kay, sorry, two more things, and then we can get started."

She followed him back over to the trailer, and he dropped the tailgate into the grass as carefully as he could, despite her insistence he drop it. Only two things remained in the trailer, a tennis ball cannon and a large purple crash mat, both bearing the Atlas Army insignia in spray-painted marks. She assumed they were on loan courtesy of Cardin or her sister, so she didn't question it.

"Grab that end," he said, picking up one of the mat's belted handles in both hands. She stood next to him, and did as she was asked.

"You're not gonna make me carry this by myself too, eh?"

"This mat weighs close to six hundred pounds, I'd be afraid it would crush me, let alone you. Now, pull."

As hard as they could, they yanked the big purple three-foot-thick mat out of the trailer and onto the grass, with quite a lot of heaving and a very minimal amount of ho-ing. The canvas bottom of the mat didn't exactly drag well across the grass, even with the slick coating of morning dew that still hung on it, so it took them a few minutes to get it the twenty or so feet to the beam, and a few more minutes to get it positioned underneath. At fifteen feet long, it sat snugly between the support legs of the bar with little room to spare. She stepped back from the bag and bar.

"The mat's a nice touch, but do you really think I'm gonna fall?"

"Oh, I know you'll fall, I just don't want you to get hurt when you do."

"You know I could catch myself using my glyphs, right?"

He frowned down at her. "I'm training you to rely on your body, not your semblance. You might find yourself without it in this kind of fight."

"That's suspiciously ominous."

He shrugged. "You never know. C'mon, one more thing."

Back over in the trailer, they grabbed the tennis ball cannon and a giant sack full of the little green balls, affectionately labelled in permanent marker as 'BALL SACK' in what was clearly Sun's messy handwriting. She scoffed as she picked up the ball sack, unable to not smile as she hoisted it over her shoulder.

"So I'm painting a picture in my head of what you want me to do here, and I'm not exactly liking it."

"We'll leave the machine on low for the first little while," he chuckled. "Besides, this is how my dad taught me and my sister, so that's how I thought I'd get through to you too."

"It's not going to hurt, is it?"

"Only if you get hit."

"Are you planning to hit me?"

He put the cannon down in the grass, and she dropped the ball sack down next to it."

"I'm gonna try my hardest."

She smacked him on the shoulder. "Dick. Say, what are you planning to plug this in to? You have a two-hundred foot extension chord hidden in that truck of yours?"

"Eh, you're not far off. Follow."

In the back seat of the little four-by-four was a black steel box, with two alligator clamps on one end and what looked like a standard Valean-style three prong electrical socket on the other. He circled around to the front of the truck, and pulled off the rubber latch that held the hood to the fender. Weiss pulled the latch off on her side and lifted the RENEGADE-stickered hood up and back against the flat windshield, careful to not drop it into the glass.

"Alright, stand back. This might zap a little."

He pulled the rubber caps off the top of the battery posts, and attached the black clamp to the negative terminal. With a squint, and holding his off hand up to guard his face, and Weiss did the same. He very carefully brought the red clamp towards the positive terminal.

"HAA!" he shouted, tossing the cable towards her.

She jumped back, and flinched, flailing and falling to the ground. "Geez, what the fuck, Sun?!"

He laughed, hard enough to stop breathing, as he grabbed the cable and attached it to the terminal. There was no zapping, no electrical arcing, and no noise. She stood up with a huff, straightening out her jacket and hair.

"And exactly why are you a douchebag?"

"For kicks. You falling to the ground amuses me."

She huffed.

"It doesn't amuse me. What is that thing?"

"A power inverter. Turns twelve volt battery power into one-ten household power."

"I have one of those sockets in the console of my car. Can't use it though, since Vale plugs and Atlas plugs are different."

He frowned. "What a drastic oversight, for a car sold and built in Atlas to have a Vale-style socket in it."

"When they changed the motor out they replaced the fuse panel behind the glovebox and swapped out for a different plug. Don't ask, I didn't make that decision."

"Neat. Anyway, I don't have one in the Bantam, so I have to use this to make do."

She shrugged. "It's a nice little truck, I like it."

"You'd be the only one. Blake hates it. Says it drives like a waterbed, and the steering wheel is too close to the dashboard, and the softtop lets wind in, and a bunch of other things. But I told her she just doesn't understand, it's a Bantam thing, that's just how it is."

"I appreciate that you took the doors off today, even though it's October."

"All weather is Bantam weather if you're brave. 'Sides, I got heated seats."

She rolled her eyes with a little smile. Sun's little yellow off-roader was eyecatching, for sure, but also quite ridiculous for an every day vehicle. Certainly not for long journeys, and the fact he got a seventeen-foot trailer hooked up to it must have made it dangerous to drive at high speed.

"Whatever. Show me what I'm doing over here." she said, turning from him and walking back over to the beam in the middle of the pitch.

"Yes, ma'am."

She pulled up behind the end of the beam closes to her, putting her hands flat on the stepping surface, all of five feet off the grass.

"Here, give me a boost."

"Kay, put your leg up."

She did, resting her foot in his hands as he bent down next to her. With a quiet grunt, she bounced upwards, pushing off with her right leg and pulling down with her hands, launching herself up to the beam. She landed as softly as she could, teetering a little as her weight came down on her feet.

"Woo—ah..."

"Y'alright, Weiss?"

Her hands came out to steady her.

"I'm moderately okay."

"Take your shoes off, it'll let you balance better. You won't have to worry about the flex of your soles."

She attempted to stay upright as she brought her feet together, knocking off one shoe with the toe of the other, then crossing over her legs and doing it again. How she managed to stay upright during this endeavour was nothing short of a miracle. She kicked them off the beam in the general direction of Sun's head, missing completely.

"Okay, This is marginally better."

"I thought you were a fencer, why's your balance so bad?" he teased, leaning against the tennis ball cannon.

"The difference between fencing and- waah" she paused, nearly tumbling off. "-beam walking is fencing is a forward-moving sport on a four-foot wide stage, and you can move side to side a little if you need to. This is just an injury waiting to happen."

"So how do you stand so firmly on your glyphs, then?"

"Glyphs are also wide, so I don't have to worry about falling down. I've never quite had the best balance, Sun. Sometimes I forget that you didn't go to school with us and didn't take combat class with us so you never got to see all the times I would fumble."

"Bet that was funny."

"Shut up. My balance was better before I cut my hair, anyway."

"Yeah, I was gonna say. I like the haircut, by the way."

She smiled honestly down at him. "Thank you."

"Just time for a change, or did you get gum stuck in it or something?"

She shrugged, carefully stepping forward on the beam. She was trying to not look down at the brown surface, but her eyes seemed to be extremely attracted to the downward direction, and it kept throwing her off balance.

"Nah," she said, trying to figure out how to word it without revealing the truth. "I was drunk one night, grabbed the scissors, messed up the ends. When I woke up in the morning I realized most of it wasn't salvageable, so I went to my stylist." she lied, blatantly.

"Never pegged you as a drinker."

"Yeah, me neither. It was right after Pyrrha died, so I kinda went a little crazy."

He nodded, picking up a ball sack. "Looks good. Suits you."

"You're the first person to say tha-AAAH!"

She stumbled, tripping on her own ankle and fell sideways, landing shoulder-first into the thick crash mat. After a second of leather-sting, she rolled over and huffed.

"Glad I brought the mat, eh?" he teased, leaning over her face.

"Shut up. Yes. Ow." she groaned, rolling onto her front and pushing herself upright. She stood, and since the top of the mat was only two feet above the bottom of the bar, she was able to simply sit down on it and get back into a standing position. "Kay, lesson learned. Don't fall off."

"Great, you've mastered step one."

"How many more steps?"

The tennis ball cannon whirred into life.

"I dunno, how many balls do you think are in this bag?"

/.../

With the grace of a swan, she cartwheeled forward, narrowly avoiding being pegged in the face by a tennis ball. Another followed it a mere three seconds later, making her have to flip backwards without letting her hands touch the beam lest she get whacked in the elbow again. She managed to land the flip feet-first, miraculously, keeping her feet close together and absorbing the impact with her knees. She spun around, having run out of balance beam in that direction, and somersaulted forward over her right shoulder, pushing back upright with her left leg, all the while the little green felt-covered balls whizzed by her head.

"C'mon, Sun, you're gonna have to try harder that that!" she taunted, slipping to the side out of the way of a ball. "You haven't hit me yet!"

"I could turn up the speed if you like," he taunted leaning against the machine and sipping from his water bottle. "This is only setting two."

"Out of?"

"Ten."

"Oh, shit."

He reached down and shut the cannon off, and the loud electric motor slowly spooled down and went quiet. Weiss paused in place, perched delicately on her toes about halfway down the beam. She took a moment to stretch out her left leg. She was certainly feeling the burn.

"What'd you stop for?"

"We're gonna change it up, we've been at part one for long enough."

She bent down and sat gently on the beam, hanging her legs off the edge. "What are we gonna do instead?"

She watched as he grabbed a leather-wrapped case from the back seat of his truck, gently carrying it over and setting it down on the edge of the crash mat closest to her.

"Well, when I was training like you are, I had the balance of a bowling ball in an earthquake. I, unlike you, hadn't already been to combat school and had as much gymnastic training as a huntsman like my dad and my sister." he looked down into the case, keeping the lid up to obscure her from seeing what was inside. Much like Winter had when she pulled a gun on her the other day. "So I spent a lot of time doing step one here and getting pegged in the face with balls."

Weiss snickered.

"Grow up."

"No."

"So anyways after a while, he started insisting that I hit the balls back to him. He was getting tired of having to go shovel them up and up them back in the machine. So he made me this pole. With ping-pong paddles screwed to the ends, and said I had to hit each ball he shot back at him. Any ball I missed I had to go get."

"That's fair. Do you have the pole?"

"I mean, probably, but like, at my dad's house. In his garage somewhere."

She frowned over at him. "Oh. Then why the lecture if we're not even gonna do that?"

"Because I brought you something else."

He tossed a bundle at her. She barely caught it, not quite expecting how heavy it was going to be.

"Geez, wanna warn me first?" she demanded, nearly tumbling backwards off the beam. "What is this thing?"

She looked to the bundle in her arms. Now, she was not weapons expert like Ruby was, but she'd been dragged to enough stores and shows to know one kind of weapon from another. And this, the bundle in her arms, was a very particular weapon. More specifically, weapons plural. And even more specifically, it was four sawed-off lever-action twelve-gauge shotguns, tied up with a button snap and leather strap. The deep redwood furniture and gold-coloured inlays were also telling. She shivered.

"Wait, Sun, is this your weapon?"

"Uh, yeah?"

She gingerly put it down on the beam, scooting away from it. "I can't use that."

"Why not? Afraid you'll nun-chuck yourself in the face?"

"N-no, that's not... it's your weapon, I could never disrespect it like this."

He shrugged. "You need a staff to hit the balls back to me. Figured I'd put it to good use since it's not been out of the case in a while."

"But-"

"Look, it was this or a broom handle. This is correctly balanced and will feel more natural in your hands."

She shivered again, gently reaching out to pick up the bundle of shotguns. Not quite a staff yet, but they could be easily assembled into one if he was to be believed. She never ever expected to be just handed someone else's weapon so nonchalantly. A huntsman's weapon was supposed to be and extension of themselves, an integral part of their very being and fight. And the rule she'd learned at Atlas Prep was that turning over your weapon was akin to turning over your soul.

"I shouldn't..."

"You will. Stand up."

She did, cradling the bundle of guns in her arms the way she might a baby.

"But you're not supposed to-"

"Look, I can understand you not giving up your sword as I imagine it's worth about as much as a small house, but this? Nah, this old thing's made of scrap, mostly."

She chuckled, nervously. Yes, Myrtenaster was quite expensive, and rightfully so. Titanium blade, Grimm-ivory inlay on the cross-guard, all hand-milled clockwork in the trigger and cylinder mechanism, calf-leather grip with carbon-titanium pommel, and sapphire, aquamarine, jade, rose-quartz, and phosphophyllite gemstone inlays in the cylinder itself. The value in parts alone was something close to a hundred and sixty grand, but the billable labour to have it made was by itself close to a hundred grand.

"C-certainly not, Sun. This looks quite expensive on its own."

"Nah, it's four repurposed lever-action... actions from a bunch of my dad's old hunting shotguns, the wood's all stuff I found around our property and cut on a cheap bandsaw and stained, and the chain i bought at a hardware store for like three lien a foot."

"And all the gold?"

"It's not, it's brass. I spent a lot of time polishing my gun."

She levelled a look at him, doing her best impression of Winter's Big SisterTM look. To minimal avail.

"Real mature."

"What, you wanted to know!"

She straightened her back and held the weapon out in front of her.

"Okay. I guess I'll try it."

"That's the spirit. Now, it's got a trick magnetic latch to hold it open, but it will set itself."

"Okay, so..."

"Pull the button snap and hold it barrel-down."

She did as instructed, changing her grip. The snap came undone with surprising ease, but the bundle didn't immediately fall apart when and onto the ground like she was expecting.

"Now what?"

"You've seen me do it, flick your wrist down."

With a shrug, she whipped down as hard she could with her left hand. All at once, the bundle unbound itself and the weight of the three other guns left her hand as they basically were thrown away from her. One by one and in very quick succession, the magnet latches engaged and locked the four firearms into a line, the chains rattling loudly against the brass. She gasped.

"Uh, that too much?"

"No, no, you're fine. Remember, not a particularly expensive weapon, and very durable. You don't have to worry about damaging it. It's seen more action that most others. Go 'head. Be rough with it."

"I'd rather just get on with the training. I'd be upset if I did break it."

"How hard do you think these tennis balls are?"

The machine whirred back into life.

"Have you even asked me if I can hit anything?" She said with a smirk, spinning the long staff in her fingers. She caught it up under her arm and brought out her stance. "Maybe I'm really bad at this, you don't know."

"I trust you."

"You'd be one of the first."

Sun chuckled, and reached down to the run switch, flipping it to the lowest setting. She cracked her neck out, prepped to strike.

"Right, let's try this again."

"Yes, lets."

The balls started flying.