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They didn’t game the selection.
When Weiss saw Yang across the chessboard from her, her heart sank. She’d been sure she’d be able to get on a team with her girlfriends, but instead here she was paired off with a total stranger.
A powerful total stranger, that was for sure—Weiss figured out that much from the way she was able to kill a Beowulf with those gauntlets of hers, all without apparently breaking a sweat—but not what Weiss had been hoping for.
“Hi,” the stranger said, cheerfully reloading her gauntlets in an admittedly kind of hot way. “I’m Yang Xiao-Long.”
“I’m Weiss Schnee,” Weiss said, bracing herself for one of many different reactions. She sort of recognized Yang from the first night’s enforced sleepover, but the odds were much higher that Weiss had appeared on the other girl’s newsfeed at some point. She had, after all, been nearly assassinated, helped with the arrest of her father, and been present at Winter Schnee’s miraculous ‘return’ from the dead.
“Oh, wow, I did not expect you to end up at Beacon,” Yang said, with a bluntness that reminded Weiss a little of Blake. “I saw your dad got arrested, I’m really sorry about that.”
“That’s honestly why I’m here,” Weiss said, which was sort of the truth. It wasn’t the whole truth, but it was a less awkward truth than ‘I’m still not sure how to be around my sister, even though she’s really sorry about hiring someone to kill me.’ “Just, getting away from all of it.” She put her hand next to her mouth, like people did in dramas when they whispered badly on purpose. “Also, I hear Beacon is better than Atlas.”
Yang laughed. “Well, I agree with you, but I’m pretty biased, since I was at Signal and we all come here, pretty much.”
“You’re really good,” Weiss said, trying not to make it sound like ‘you’re really hot.’ “So clearly they’re also pretty good.”
“It helps that my uncle’s a teacher there,” Yang said. “Not that he went easy on me.”
“Believe me,” Weiss said, as she followed Yang deeper into the woods. “I am the last person to assume your family will go easy on you.”
This wasn’t as good as being paired up with Blake or Ilia, but Yang was at least tolerable. If she stayed consistently that good with her gauntlets, then they might even make for a pretty good combat pair.
Still. She could hope that Ilia and Blake were having better luck than her.
-
Blake and Ilia grinned at each other from across the knight pieces.
“They’re never going to be believe we didn’t rig this,” Ilia said, trying and failing to make the comment a joke.
“I don’t think the headmaster’s going to care at all,” Blake answered. “This is awesome! We just have to hope Weiss and whoever got the matching black pieces,” she continued. “I think that’s how it’s going to work, anyway.”
“I trust you,” Ilia said. “If we’d known about this beforehand, we could’ve gamed it so she’d definitely get the right piece.”
Blake snorted. “That’s why they didn’t tell us.”
Ilia sighed. “Right.”
It was then that an Ursa came crashing out of the woods, making a beeline for Ilia. Blake charged towards it, drawing its attention. As it approached, she faded back, allowing one of her shadow-clones to collide with its claws.
Ilia snapped Lightning Lash into whip form, lightning dust already activated. With Blake repeating her shadow feints several times, the ursa was completely unaware of Ilia rushing up to it until she slashed its side, electricity coursing into the deep wound the lash caused in its side.
It howled. Blake, seizing the opportunity to get closer, used the still-sheathed Gambol Shroud to cut off its head.
It turned to dust immediately after, leaving the two girls grinning at each other.
“Well, we can definitely work well together,” Ilia said. “That hasn’t changed.”
“Yeah,” Blake said. “Let’s see if we can find Weiss while we’re at it.”
-
They didn’t find Weiss. Instead, they found two boys cowering as a Boarbatusk charged at them. One had a strangely basic looking sword and shield; the other was completely unarmed, though a black mace lying on the ground nearby told Blake that this wasn’t by choice.
“Hey!” she called, both to try and get the grimm’s attention and to alert the guys to her presence. “You still have the time to pick up your weapon! Aren’t you going to fight back?”
“Well, useless here isn’t exactly helping me out!” the unarmed boy shouted back, pointing to the boy carrying the boy holding the sword and shield. As Blake and Ilia approached, Blake realized that he was, to use the technical term, pantshittingly afraid, like he’d never seen combat before in his life.
“At least I’m still armed!” ‘useless’ answered, glaring at his partner.
“That’s not what’s important right now!” Blake shouted back. “That Boarbatusk isn’t going to give out partial credit, come on! Pick up your weapon!”
The unarmed boy shouted a curse Blake couldn’t hear, and dove for his weapon. To his credit, it was an impressive thing to lift, and as he swung it around, the boy with the simple weapons seemed to gain some measure of confidence as well.
“You think they’re going to be okay?” Ilia asked.
“Definitely,” Blake said, with more confidence than she really felt. “They got in, right? They’re not just going to let future hunters die in the woods, that’d be ridiculous.” The human world was weird and made no sense, but a school like this would not be that cutthroat. Especially not to what were clearly a pair of human boys.
Neither of them had noticed that both Ilia and Blake were faunus; that was another reason Blake wanted to get out of there. If they refused her help because they noticed her ears, she wouldn’t be responsible for her actions anymore.
Cheering from behind her told her that at least they seemed to be holding their own.
“If you say so,” Ilia said. She looked back. “Hey, he’s better with that sword than—nope, he’s just acting as a tank for the other guy. Still, brave.”
“Brave’s good,” Blake said. “I just hope they don’t end up being our match.”
-
Finding their way out of the woods wasn’t too difficult, once Weiss got her bearings.
“It almost seems like you have experience doing this,” Yang said. She’d kept pace with Weiss the entire time. Even though she wasn’t either of Weiss’ girlfriends, she was clearly competent in her own right, even if she was a little too dependent on her semblance to keep her safe in battle.
Weiss shrugged. She could joke about this now, though she didn’t quite have Blake’s ability to state awful things in a way that made people laugh. “You could say that” she said. “At least this time my scroll still has a network connection.”
“You’re pretty hardcore for a rich girl,” Yang said. “Your weapon’s pretty cool, too, do you know how the dust tech works?”
“Yes,” Weiss said. “But I think we should probably have that conversation later.”
They’d reached the edge of the woods where the staff were waiting. Weiss recognized Ilia and Blake immediately; apparently, they’d been paired off, which was good and didn’t make her feel a spike of jealousy at all.
“Hey!” Ilia said, waving at Weiss. “Look!” She held up her and Blake’s chess pieces.
“Oh hey!” Yang said. “I think that’s the rest of our team!”
“Yeah,” Weiss said, not even trying to hide the relief that flooded her body. “Thank the gods.”
-
When the teams were announced, Weiss’s stomach dropped. How was she the leader of Team WIYB, when Blake was right there? Blake or Ilia; both had experience in the White Fang, while all Weiss had ever done was desperately try to put her life back in order.
At the last the rest of her team didn’t seem too upset.
“You definitely seemed to know what you were doing,” Yang said, clapping Weiss enthusiastically on the shoulder. The other teams were being announced, but it was hard for Weiss to pay attention.
She was the leader. What did that even mean? It meant they were being bunked together, which meant Yang was going to have to get cool with a few things very first, but other than that, they were all teenagers. What exactly was she supposed to lead?
Ilia’s yawn shocked her out of her thoughts, as the parasympathetic response meant the yawn spread through the newly minted ‘Wave.’
“So!” Yang said, wrapping her arm around the shoulder of a shocked looking Blake. “The three of you know each other? How did that happen?”
“Well,” Blake said, as Weiss and Ilia trailed after them. “I was on patrol in the wood, when I came upon—”
Blake was better at telling this story, and she told it in a way that made Weiss sound a lot cooler than she’d felt at the time, so she didn’t say much as they made their way to their dorms for the first time.
This was not worth almost being assassinated, not by a long shot. And the White Fang’s internal problems hadn’t been solved either. But if Yang really was as cool as she initially seemed, and things stayed their course—
Well. That was a pretty happy ending, especially compared to some of the books Weiss had read.