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“Ruby, shut up you dolt, it’s late.” I hated how Ruby would constantly talk during the night. I’ll admit, sometimes it’s cute, but tonight, I wasn’t in the mood.
“Weiss!” she grumbled in some sort of elongated manner. If I didn’t like Ruby, she would have gotten a slap across the face, even if it meant Yang would hunt me for eternity. “I just want a hug.”
“I’m not in a good mood, especially since Jaune has just tried to ask me out for the millionth time. Just leave me alone for the night, dolt!” My harsh tone meant I probably should have been gentler as Ruby would normally persist, yet tonight was weird from her instantaneous conceding of defeat. I wasn’t usually one to feel guilty, after all, being a Schnee helped me block out my emotions, but I couldn’t stop myself from feeling incredibly guilty from just verbally shooting my partner down.
“O-okay…” She sounded hurt. I won’t deny it, she really does care and wants her team to be happy, but sometimes her eternal optimism is a bit too much, especially when I’m tired and grouchy after a bad day. She shuffled up to her bed, through her Semblance, partially covering me in her rose petals while a small pile lay on the floor beside my bed.
I caught one of the rose petals in my left palm, holding it for a moment to observe its innocent beauty. I suppose that is one thing I could give Ruby, that and her optimistic outlook on everything. Hell, even as I lay dying in the antechamber to the antique-styled Haven Academy, she urged me to pull through the impaling with Jaune amplifying and restoring my Aura. I watched it as it rolled slightly in my palm, before placing it close to my chest to hold a part of the little red dolt close to me.
To my surprise, I heard Ruby’s bed squeak as she rolled around, I don’t know which way she faced but I could only assume it was to the wall as I heard small sniffles escape the girl. She was crying from what I had said to her, or rather the way I said it. Each sniffle tore through me and hearing her cry hurt. I sighed at myself. “Great fucking work, Weiss. You upset Ruby,” I chastised myself before going to see her. Through the use of my glyphs, I made a small stairway to peer over her bed and as I suspected, she had her back to the room crying as quietly as she could. “Ruby?” I whispered to her.
"Piss off, Ice Queen.” Okay, I deserved that. It still felt alien hearing the baby, no, youngest of the team use such vulgar language. The only times she ever indulged in the use of profanity was when she was upset, like now, or— no, not entering that avenue tonight. My team-mate was most certainly upset.
“I want to apolo—”
“Just fuck off.” That one hurt. I decided to concede defeat and go back to bed. She was still crying and I couldn’t possibly go to sleep knowing I did that. But I hadn’t slept too well the last few nights, and my body felt very heavy. So, I resigned down the glyph stairs, flung myself under my blanket and just fell asleep. It took a little while for me to fall into a deep sleep, but once I was gone, I was gone. I would have to wait for Ruby to wake up in the morning before I could talk to her.
***
I couldn't recognise the area I was in. Something felt familiar with it, but also very hostile, perhaps a memory of times past coming back to haunt me. That had to be impossible, I remember falling asleep in my bed, Ruby in the bunk above me, crying--
That made a lot of sense now, I upset Ruby without any sort of reason and my mind decided I needed to take some degree of punishment. Luckily, I had Myrtenaster, my trusty multi-action dust rapier, in its sheath on my belt, a rare reassurance in this, well, whatever it was. I almost jumped when a loudspeaker public address system played, the grating voice of my asshole of a father commanding over it.
"Ladies and gentlemen of Atlas, I present to you, Weiss Schnee."
Fuck! Not another recital. Biting the bullet, I walked onto the stage, noticing my combat dress wasn't that of what I currently wore, but that of my Beacon days. When I lost contact with Team RWBY back then, I put the dress away, never to wear it again. Instead of being greeted by an audience applauding my entrance, I just saw a girl. She was in my dress, had my hair, my eyes, even my Myrtenaster, filling her form.
"Ah, the frigid bitch finally shows herself." This figure sounded exactly like me as well. Shit.
"I am fucking done already." I had to let this bitch, whoever she was, know that I was not willing to play ballet with her. Almost subconsciously I drew Myrtenaster, a glaring spotlight blinding me to my surroundings as I readied myself. I wasn't going down. Little did I realise that the other girl mirrored my movements, her imitation of Myrtenaster in her left hand, and at the precise moment, a spotlight illuminated her. "You've got to be fucking kidding me."
"Too cold for you, little miss failure?"
"No, but it will be for you, you cheap imitation bitch!" I knew what was happening now. She was dressed identically to me, even looked identical, except her hair was kept in perfect symmetry. Her dress, however, was all-black, some hints of burnt orange at the hem of the skirt, a black jacket and black boots filling her form. Good thing she saw some sense and copied the red inlay I had on my jacket. My darkest desires were personified in the form of a dark assassin, and I was about to fight her. Me. Fuck it.
I dashed at this dark version of myself, wanting to stop the fight quickly and get some normality in my sleep in the real world, however that wasn't to happen. Dark Weiss had parried my attack just as I used to during sparring sessions at Beacon. The clash of metal to metal got some sort of high out of me, as I had been pushed onto the defensive. The floor around me opened to some sort of large floor as I retreated quickly to gather my bearings.
"Come on, Schnee, fight me like you mean it," Dark me called through
"What exactly do you want?" I called out, blade ready to attack.
"Control."
"Oh, fuck that." She didn't like that answer as I had to dive out of the way from a series of icicle spears. She must have studied me pretty hard to perform that. I had to gain the upper hand quickly or she would kill me.
Gathering my composure, I walked around the arena floor, hearing the chants and jeers from the stagnated action. I observed my rival as she eyeballed me, trying to get a read on each other. She must have seen a chance as she came dashing in on a series of glyphs, her blade in the same reverse grip I would use, holding it up to her chest as she lunged forward, blade tip pointed toward me. A quick exchange of swipes and parries were met with an impasse. Her blocks just fast enough, her strikes more easily read. She was toying with me. "No real fight, Weiss?"
I tried taunting her, but she either didn't register or had some sort of plan. Taking a moment to compose myself, I closed the distance and opened up with a probing offensive, refusing to activate one of my dust chambers in case she was probing my style. I had to hand it to the cold bitch, she was good. But she was no Schnee. I knew I was better.
After I finished my probing, I had to step it up. With a quick glyph deployment, I launched myself high up, catching myself with another glyph, before charging in with a dropping impale strike, to which my doppelgänger must have read from me, as she had deployed an icicle spear for me to smash into, allowing her to escape and set up a more aggressive counter-attack, a series of swipes aimed for my chest, stomach, face and arms. Bitch did it now. I deflected each strike, kicked her in the stomach and sent her reeling backwards before I made some more room and spun Myrtenaster’s chamber. It landed on red, so with a simple swipe down the blunt end of the blade, I drew the dust stream along the blade, giving it a red glow as I readied myself for the next move.
“Still too chicken to press your advantage, child?” She had changed up, a long stream of glyphs led to me, with her set to charge, her Myrtenaster copy pointed at me, her left hand by her chest in a reversed grip. Uncivilised cow. She hadn’t hesitated to charge for me either, giving me very little in options. If I clashed blades, I’d blow both of us up, but if I blocked…
The latter option happened subconsciously. A single glyph impacted with alloy, just missing my face, giving me just enough time to impale the floor and launch a stream of flames at Dark Weiss.
“FUCK!” She didn’t like that in the slightest, forcing her to abandon her jacket, slowly smouldering. No way in hell was this bitch getting the advantage over me. I spun the chamber, bringing my ice dust to the forefront, firing a couple of rounds at her feet. Narrowly missing, she had set herself on a gravity glyph, watching me like a predator watches her prey. I knew what she was ready to do, so I had to lay down a layer of black ice, just thick enough to make it look freshly cleaned. Good thing it worked, she fell flat on her ass as she charged, allowing me to swipe her with the blade before she crashed into the wall. As she stood, she had her right hand over her left eye.
“You stupid bitch!” She screamed at me. Pissed at me, she charged for me, but she made me fall for a classic trick. I slipped on the black ice, fell toward her and, as luck would have it, she slashed me across the face. Once I slammed the wall legs first, I looked about. I had to keep my left eye closed, placing my hand over my left eye. A familiar warm trickle met my hand. Wiping the blood from my eyelid, I stared at the dark version of myself. It turned out that she and I shared eye slashes. She hadn’t bothered to clean the blood away, the scruffy bitch she is, making her look like she just got in a fight with an Ursa. That shit-eating grin she had after she seen my scar pissed me off.
“Try me, frigid bitch.” I drew Myrtenaster ready to stab the bitch right in her icy heart. She had already beat me to the punch, sliding toward me, the black ice patch gone now, allowing her a free run. Shitting myself, I blocked her with Myrtenaster, sliced at her arm, making her drop her fake copy, before a quick twirl and I impaled her chest. She glared up at me, smirking.
“Are you willing to kill the stronger side of yourself?”
“That would be suicide, you bimbo.”
“You think you’ll be better than me?” She thought she was smarter, more powerful, better than me. Yeah, fucking right. I pulled Myrtenaster ut, slashing over her neck, killing her. Oddly, she disappeared into dust, just like a Grimm.
***
I woke up the following morning, surprised not to hear a whistle of some sort blasting. It took me a good ten minutes to stir properly, and I had to think back. “I fucked up…” I quietly whisper. Ruby looked over, before looking away. She must have been upset from last night. “Ruby, are you okay?”
“Meh.” She still sounded upset. Forgetting about my lack of dignity, I walked over to her and hugged her from behind.
“Ruby, I feel terrible for what I did last night. You’re my best friend and I shouldn’t have blown you off like some little kid.”
Ruby looked over at me, the pain in her face still present. She glanced at me, noticing the lack of dignity I had for myself. “Erm, Weiss, isn’t it a little cold for just underwear?”
“Oh shit, sorry.” I tried dashing to grab my robe, but Ruby still had ahold of me, probably wanting to keep me warm. I had to hug her, still hating my dumb ass for making the adorable dolt cry. I gently rubbed her back as I hugged her. “I heard you crying last night. I’m so sorry.”
She hugged me a little tighter, her face in my shoulder. I could feel a little bit of wetness running onto my shoulder, she must be crying again. It still broke my heart hearing her cry, but she didn’t let go. “I’m sorry, Weiss. I shouldn’t have bugged you.”
“Ruby, don’t worry. It’s my fault, I should have been more considerate of your feelings.” I wanted to cry, but I needed to stay strong for her. It would tear her apart seeing me cry, just like it was tearing me apart right now. I placed my hand on her face, gently guiding her to look at me. My ice blue met with her twinkling silver and I smiled lightly in reassurance.
“Come on, Weiss, we should get dressed. We got that meeting with Ironwood soon.”
“Shit, I forgot about that. Also, erm, thanks for not waking me this morning.” We broke the hug, giving me a chance to grab my toiletries and a change of clothes. It hadn’t taken me too long to get showered, changed and my hair brushed, tying it back as I normally did. However, I hated the idea of having my hair permanently long, so I used my hair trimming scissors to cut my long ponytail, making sure I kept it neat. I did trim very close to my scrunchie, about two inches, I could safely assume, before untying it. As it fell to my shoulders, it fluttered more to my right side, allowing me to keep my asymmetrical style. Despite my scar looking pretty old, well, it had been a good few years since I got it from that Arma Gigas, but it still felt fresh, just like it did— wait, that was just a dream.
“Weiss, you ready in there?”
“Yeah, coming out now, Ruby.” She was in for a surprise. I opened the door, brushing the remnants of my hair to sit tidily across my right shoulder.
“WEISS!” She almost screamed the whole room down from the shock.
“Relax, I cut it myself.” I smiled lightly to reassure her.
“You look so… so cute!”