White (4)

Weiss flipped over the drone encircling her, locking a chamber in her sword and giving a large but graceful swing as frost and ice engulfed multiple small, humanoid drones, freezing them in place. Looking round the room were the remains of a dozen of these machines, either burnt, frozen, pierced or split in half.

The room itself was octagonal, a robust grey with white highlights and bright blue lighting. On two sides lay large metal doors around fifteen feet tall that protruded slightly from the walls, on the far end was a mostly blank wall with an observation deck viewable through a small line of glass windows, opposite to this was a large window structured in the shape of a castle with the roof inclining up towards the centre of the room.

Stretching her stiff neck slightly, Weiss heard claps reverberating out of the small speakers implanted throughout the wall.

"Splendidly done Miss Schnee." Up in the observation room the secretary clapped haughtily.

"As expected of the Schnee Heiress." He continued; his voice slightly distorted from the speakers.

Weiss could only look up at the cameras with a scornful glare. She had fought three waves of these drones now, they were amazing creations, only appearing to the public eyes a couple of years ago. Donning an extremely precise targeting system and being able to carry out a limited number of pre-set commands, it's no wonder Atlas had the strongest military presence on remnant. Other kingdoms predominantly used small militia, guards or huntsmen these days since the war ended.

Though she hadn't come here today to be lectured and praised.

"You sure have a lot of flattery today." She remarked. "Worried I can handle whatever you throw at me?"

"If you are that eager to continue your combat academics then Atlas academy is a perfect institution and would welcome you dearly."

"I have already said I will be attending Beacon."

"You must understand that Mr Schnee is merely looking after your well-being, if you truly want to graduate as a huntress, we would not be able to respond appropriately if an unfavourable situation occurred. Atlas would reduce the necessary danger in such a profession and provide with ample opportunities for other, more refined walks of life if the life of a huntress would not agree with you."

Weiss just scoffed at his words, perking up a smug smile.

"Then it seems you just can't understand anything at all." Looking up directly at him. "Truly a will-less puppet after all."

A tense atmosphere filled the room as the mans slight grin dropped. His usual façade slipping slightly.

"I see you also have a talent for irritating people."

"Why thank you." She replied with a court bow. "You actually have the ability to sense irritation, I'm so happy for you." She shot out sarcastically.

She could see the man whisper something out to the others in the room that didn't get put through the speakers before leaning back into view.

"Well, I suppose we shouldn't keep the test waiting. Good luck, Miss Schnee."

Looking back at one of the large doors she could hear the gears clicking and whirring.

'Time for the next round then.' She murmured in her head, aligning her rapier and giving it a quick flick.

Though as the door jarred open a giant slab of metal crashed through just beside her, crushing down some drone bodies and indenting the floor.

With a slightly panicked look she followed the slab of iron up to find a large hand grasping a hilt connected to it. Before long the door had opened wide to reveal a crouched set of armour, jittering and moving away as dull black smoke leaked from its joints, holding onto a long iron sword. Though what she noticed most prevalently were its bright red eyes.

"Grimm!?" Weiss blurted out. Taking back a step as the armour continued clambering into the room.

"Indeed." A cocky voice leaked out from the speakers. "A Grimm is an obvious choice for an aspiring huntress such as yourself."

As Weiss stared daggers up to the room the secretary just calmly continued.

"It's a huntress' duty to supress Grimm. 'If she's being insistent on her selfishness then I expect her to win.' Said Mr Schnee."

Weiss span on the spot just in time to dodge a large swing from the creature as the blade split into the solid ground again. Though she managed to right herself enough to get her thoughts back on track, how could she have expected her father to throw a Grimm at her! She had panicked at first since she had never even seen a proper Grimm before, it was either stories from her sister or warnings and dark tales from books in the library. She managed to regain her senses after a bit of rational thought, its said that even the initiation for beacon had some lower tiered Grimm in its midst. So, she should be able to take this one, right?

She broke out of thought at a wide swing missed by inches as she ducked underneath.

'This isn't the time! I've got to win this!' She shouted internally. A huntress was supposed to kill Grimm, a step into that school and she'd be fighting things like this all her life. Now wasn't the time to be getting cold feet.

Sprinting in her crouched position she dived in and nicked the side of the creature, jumping back as its other arm swung round viciously, landing on a materialized glyph and leaping back off to scrape its back. She continued her flurry of hits towards the joints as the creature twisted round and swiped with its empty hand.

Having dodged again she managed to put a little bit of distance between them.

'Stupid, I can't just rush in like that.' She chided herself. 'Think, I need to think!'

Continuing to dodge its blows she assessed the situation as calmly as possible.

'There's a bunch of different types of Grimm, so this one is clearly either donning the armour or inhabiting it.'

Looking at the creature it was a bit strange, some of its joints seemed a little incorporable, just moving on smoke and small tendrils while other gaps had thick black innards. Though the one thing thade gave it away were its glowing red eyes that floated slightly in place.

'It's mostly incorporeal so it must be a subset of possession type Grimm.' She concluded, still dodging and scraping by the attacks at a safer distance, occasionally sending it a couple dust powered projectiles through her glyphs to test its defences.

'It must have permanent residence in the armour since the core isn't visible, though luckily, if I remember correctly here its in the perfect spot.' She stared down at the helmet carrying the two red eyes. She remembered reading that all possession type Grimm have some sort of core, usually the head, though this becomes a bit more annoying when the Grimm permanently possesses an object. But if she's right, the eyes are a key signifier.

Flipping back out of the way of another swing she readied herself in stance and finally lunging back into the opponent with her target decided. Using a glyph behind her to push her momentum forward, she slammed onto the sword that it had pulled back to defend its head, altering her course off to the side.

She side stepped another hit and flipped past the other as the Grimm turned a little more aggressive.

The Grimms arm flew into sight faster than she was expecting as she lifted her rapier and doted on that and her aura to take the majority of the blow for her. She felt the attack slamming into her as her body flew back.

She stood with her guard up, panting heavily. That hit was much heavier than she was expecting, probably took a good chunk of her aura even with blocking. The Grimm readjusted itself towards her again as the speaker flared up.

"Please do not misunderstand, Mr Schnee loves you very much." The secretary mentioned through the static and pain. Weiss just tried to block it all out.

"He once told me how much he liked your singing, though with the white fang, the company and the family he has many duties to fulfil much like himself."

"Do not try to manipulate me using my father!" Weiss screamed as she leapt back at the creature.

With a fire dust powered swing she parried the sword to the side and quickly altered the chamber as she summoned a line of thick ice that wrapped its feet. With another wide swing she jumped over and slid down the blade to finally get a clear shot at the head, thrusting the sword with more dust propelling the shot, taking of the side of the helmet.

'Damn!' She backed off as the creature flailed.

It was good at redirecting attacks, so it missed the centre, she needed to immobilize it somehow.

Lunging forward she stumbled a bit, landing on her knees.

'What!?' She overexerted herself a little more than she thought, especially after the training earlier today and the concert.

Instinctively she lifted her sword up the side to barely block a wide sweep of the Grimm's sword, sending her flying and bouncing off the wall.

'Shit!' She cursed, struggling to lift herself with her body screaming out. One more hit and her aura would break, there would be no fighting after that.

"Miss Schnee, please relent. Your aura has en-"

She just filtered the voice out of her mind somehow.

'No.' She stumbled up. 'No, I refuse!' Without the energy to talk she lifted the blade back up, the sound of blood pumping through her ears drowning out any noise.

'I refuse to be him!'

As the Grimm towered over the shaking girl, it slowly hoisted its sword into the air. Seeing the girl frozen still it cleaved the sword diagonally.

Weiss' eyes lit up moments before contact, violently bending her body underneath the blade.

'I want to be me!'

As dust was ejected through her blade, she viscously thrust it forward, piercing through the creature's wrist and into its arm. A large torrent of ice burst out of its arm as the injected dust reached all the way through to its shoulder as it staggered back with a low, hoarse groan.

Flowing round the creature she let loose a barrage of quicks thrusts at its joints with it still protecting its head. As its knee buckled underneath it, she raised her hand upwards, a glyph materializing under it, slightly lifting it off the ground, unable to bear the weight for long. Weiss followed through with her movements quickly, summoning up a dozen chunks of ice that she sent flying into the creature, puncturing through every crack in the armour and expanding to hold it in place.

Weiss leapt up into the air, jarringly redirecting herself back down with an extra boost in momentum from a glyph.

"AAAAAARGGH!"

With an ungraceful roar she yelled as she leapt down, piercing the creature through the head!

Panting heavily she watched the mist fizzle out of existence as she watched the armour clumber to the floor, she tried to redirect herself but her body just wasn't listening to her as she clumsily dropped down next to it with a thud.

"Hehe…" She chuckled as her eye lids grew heavy, she could see people rushing over as she slipped into unconsciousness with a large smile on her face.

She used to think she was special, but her sisters' words and skills showed her the truth.

All those praises and hearty greetings from her childhood were only because of her Schnee family name

She used to carry that distorted view. 'The Schnee Family Pride'. Because of that she never had a sense of self.

She's not just her name.

And she falls into unconsciousness with one last thought.

'I'm not just a Schnee, I'm going to become someone I can be proud of, just like my sister…'

Beacon is her chance to become who she wants to be. And she's not going to disappoint.