Oh hey, I'm back with RWBY fics! Well, sort of. Have suffered from severe writers block a few days now.

It was with a certain sense of wondrous nostalgia the woman walked through the corridors of her old alma mater. Having graduated over twenty years ago, it was hard to imagine just how little Beacon Academy had changed since. As she passed the rocket lockers, she couldn't help but walking over to her old sanctum. As her fingers gently caressed the gashes from the claws of a Beowolf that had nearly bisected her had she not called upon her locker, a voice from behind shook her from her memories.

"Excuse me ma'am, but what're you doing with my lo-" as Weiss straightened up and turned to face the new voice, she was met with a lanky, redheaded girl clad in a Beacon uniform. Her eyes was wide with shock as her mouth opened and closed, desperately trying to form a coherent sentence. Completing the rather comical sight was two fox ears set upon the girls head, twitching in surprise.

"You're… You're Weiss Schnee, aren't you?" the fox girl walked closer to her locker, now standing just half a metre away from Weiss.

"… What would the chairwoman of the SDC want with my locker?" Weiss smiled fondly as she stroked the door of the locker.

"Believe it or not, this used to be my locker when I attended Beacon." The fox girl's eyes went wide again.

"I have the same locker as the Weiss Schnee?"

"Yes. I could even prove it, if you'd unlock it." The young girl practically jumped at the keypad. Weiss leaned in beside her as she swung the door open.

"See that hatch on the right-hand wall? Normally that's secured with screws, but I got curious one day and opened it. There's actually a secret compartment behind there. Remove those wingnuts, will you?" the fox girl did as instructed and lifted away the cover. Weiss put her hand in the hatch and felt around.

"Heh, always did wonder where this one went. I guess I owe you thanks for safeguarding it for me." As Weiss retracted her hand, she was holding a small, light blue notepad.

"My… Pleasure?" Weiss dropped the notepad into her coat pocket and turned back to the fox girl.

"Well, finding this after all these years sure was fun, but now I really must go find my daughter Bianca. It was a pleasure meeting you, Miss…?"

"Matlal. Xipil Matlal." Weiss smiled warmly.

"Right. I'll be seeing you around, Miss Matlal."

And with that, Weiss turned on her heel towards Beacon's smithy halls.

A wave of intense heat struck the face of the young girl in smithy 7G as she opened the forge's oven hatch to retrieve her piece with the tongs in her leather-gloved hand. She carefully lifted the red-hot piece of metal towards the anvil, reaching for a hammer with her free left hand. Focusing her aura, she collected it in her hands before gently pushing it into the flat slab of metal on the anvil before her. She knew she had to be very particular about the shape, making sure that there would be just enough room for the dust sliver rig inside the two blade side pieces without compromising the cutting edge of the dagger once she'd put the two halves together. On the other side, smithing was easy when you had aura mix into the process – the blade halves would connect perfectly, if only she maintained the visuals for her inner eye. Satisfied with her work, she lifted the almost finished blade from the anvil with the tongs and let it sink beneath the surface of the cooling tank's waters with a loud hiss and a cloud of steam and flames.

"So… what are we working on here?" Bianca jumped in surprise at the sudden voice. Turning towards the doorframe of her workstation, she was met by the smiling face of her mother.

"'We' aren't working on anything. I am working on a prototype for a new type of weapon that may revolutionise the lives of future Huntsmen and Huntresses for generations to come."

"Oh? Care to show your concept to your dear old mother?" Bianca reached for the already completed hilt piece with the dust sliver magazine.

"Basically, it's an evolution of Myrtenaster." She held up the sliver drum to Weiss' eye level.

"This will fit inside the blade. I'm currently shaping the left side of the dagger blade. Once I'm done with that, I'll connect the two sides of the dagger blade over this mechanism." Weiss regarded the thin drum with a clear sense of deflated excitement.

"Oh, so it's just a dust-powered dagger then? How will that 'revolutionise the lives of future Huntsmen and Huntresses for generations to come'?" Bianca scoffed at her mother's exaggerated air quotes.

"Don't underestimate your daughter's ingenuity, mother dearest. While this sure may work as any dagger when not activated… well, let's just say this particular weapon will be one of a kind."

"Does this mean you'll abandon Aquilonis Miniscula? It was your first weapon, after all." Bianca instinctively reached for her small Derringer-style dust revolver that had accompanied her for as long as she had been allowed to carry weapons.

"No no no, of course not! I'd never throw her away!" Weiss chuckled at the flustered girl.

"If I recall, you based her design on Myrtenaster as well… Are you trying to deliberately copy mother dearest, Bianca?" Weiss asked with an exaggerated facial expression, to which Bianca merely smirked cheekily.

"Does this look like a scythe to you?"

"Ouch. Low blow, Bianca. I'll be docking your allowance for that."

"I'm sure you will." While they bantered, Bianca once again had lifted the final blade half from the cooling waters and put it back into the forge for one final heating. After a few minutes she moved it back to the anvil one last time for shaping.

"I can't wait to see what's so special about this dagger."

"Patience, mom. Almost done." Once she was satisfied with the overall shape, she lowered the blade into the water basin one last time. A few minutes later, nimble fingers expertly assembled the two blade halves over the sliver cartridge, completing the final shape of the dagger – a comfortable, slightly curved grip with a small trigger just under the guard, seamlessly flowing into the 12 centimetres long blade.

"Ready to be awed, mom?" Bianca beamed proudly at her mother.

"Ready when you are, Bianca." The young woman handed her mother a long steel bar.

"Hold this out from your body horizontally, please." Weiss did as instructed, just as Bianca stepped back and aimed the dagger slightly above the bar.

"How are you supposed to cut through this if the blade isn't anywhere near it?" To answer her mother's question, Bianca moved the dagger downward as she pulled the trigger. With a loud click, a long, bright red beam of energy shot out from the dagger blade and neatly cleaved Weiss' bar in half without as much as a small hint of pressure on Weiss' end. Weiss chin gaped open in surprised astonishment.

"It's a blade made of dust particles, held coherent by way of an electromagnetic field. I trust my demonstration was… satisfactory, chairwoman Schnee?" Bianca teased her mother.

"I'm not even going to pretend to understand your explanation how it works, that's more of Ruby's department, but… You're absolutely right this way of thinking will revolutionise the Huntsmen and Huntresses work. You just leave any funding you'd need to me. We cannot allow this technology to fall out of our hands." Bianca disengaged the blade and tucked the dagger away under her belt as she walked over to the forge and shut it off. She hugged her mother's arm as they walked towards the door, making sure to turn off the lights before exiting and walking down the hallway.

"Wouldn't want it any other way, mom."

AN: Geh, that opening was cringeworthy beyond measure. Remind me to attempt a rewrite someday.

The claw gashes weren't that deep, it was a glancing hit. Weiss did have some trouble shutting the locker door for a few months though.

Yeah, Weiss is sort of a celebrity now in the Faunus community for turning the SDC from the definition of "Faunus Hell" into a place where they are treated with equality and respect.

Xipil Matlal is an alternate universe take on /u/MoxFy's character Miira Matlal's daughter. Xipil is Nahuatl and means "noble of the fire".

"Aquilonis Miniscula" literally means "Little of the North". It's basically the Noisy Cricket from the Men in Black franchise.

Yep, Bianca made a lightsabre. Or maybe technically a dustsabre, IDK.

I do not own RWBY, that's RoosterTeeth and Monty Oum.