Chapter 5

Pyrrha wasn't sure who was more anxious, her or Weiss as they sat together for their meal. Dishes came quickly, and were eaten quickly too, their small size off set by the truly dizzying number of courses. Pyrrha might have savoured their flavours more if she wasn't so focused on her companion.

"I've been studying your technique Pyrrha, your transitions are incredible, did you have a dance tutor help you?"

Pyrrha gulped down the drink a little harder than intended, anxiety biting at her. The question and compliment was much like the rest of their conversation had been thus far. "I did actually, it really helped with my flexibility. I hear you've been training to be a huntress as well right?"

Weiss seemed to sit a little straighter, holding herself back with beaming that she'd caught Pyrrha's attention. "I am. In fact I will be attending Beacon academy this coming semester like yourself. Perhaps we will be fortunate enough to be on a team together."

"Perhaps." She cringed inside. Sorry Weiss, Pyrrha thought to herself, but she didn't have any intention of losing her team. "Though I was intended to simply let the chips fall where they may."

Weiss' face soured, and it wasn't from the piece of fish she'd just bitten into. "Is that wise? I mean, what if you end up with someone not worthy of being on your team? A person of your ability can surely do better than being dragged down by someone who doesn't belong."

Pyrrha's hand clenched tightly around the fork in her hand, the sudden wave of anger coming by surprise. "I think there are those who would surprise you Weiss. One of the best people I've ever met didn't have any training, but I trust them with my life."

Weiss stifled a snort, not a deliberate but reflexive dismissal, and Pyrrha could see the internal battle between Weiss' own stark disagreement, and not wanting to offend someone she so respected. "I must admit, I find that hard to believe. I've been training for years and I seriously doubt I could trust someone to watch my back if they hadn't been doing the same."

"Indeed." Pyrrha was surprised when Winter spoke up, apparently their growingly tense discussion had been more noticeable than Pyrrha realised. "When going into combat, whether as a soldier or a Huntress, you need to have total faith in those by your side. How can you trust someone to keep you safe when they lack the skills to do so?"

"Maybe some people are better at things other than fighting." Pyrrha shot back.

"Fighting is the most important thing Huntsman do." Weiss argued, emboldened by her sister's support.

"A general isn't meant to lead from the front, and not every Huntsman has to either. Their job is to be a good leader, they don't have to be the best fighter."

"Not the best perhaps, but capable at least." Winter cut back in again, eyes narrowing somewhat. "General Ironwood has never let his skills go to waste."

Pyrrha's eyes narrowed back. "I'm sure General Ironwood could tell you plenty of stories about soldiers proving themselves better than expected when the time came."

"And plenty of stories where they didn't." Winter's eyes were fully narrowed back now, not happy at all about Pyrrha's attempted use of her leader as an argument against her. "People have died because they have trusted too much."

"…and people have died because they didn't." She'd died, gone to fight in that tower and pushing Jaune away. Not believing he would be strong enough, that he couldn't help her. What might have changed had he been there, if he had been by her side when it all came crashing down? "A question then. Weiss, do you believe you're good enough? With all of your training, are you good enough to have someone's back in the field?"

"I-…" It had clearly caught her off guard, and her confidence wavered, eyes flicking to Winter before she steeled herself. "I do. My tutors are amongst the best in the world, and I have trained diligently for many years to hone my abilities."

Arrogance. Pyrrha remembered the haughty attitude of Weiss's first arrival at Beacon well, and she had thought herself above everyone then as well, having to be humbled by the likes of so many with skills like her, yet none of the privilege.

"Very well then, would you like to prove it?" Weiss stared at her blankly. "I'm sure you have a suitable room for training somewhere, perhaps you can demonstrate those abilities you speak so highly of."

Weiss looked ashamed. "I meant no offence Pyrrha, I didn't mean to imply I could best someone like you. I just-"

"You don't need to beat me." Pyrrha cut in, forcing herself to calm down slightly. "You just need to prove to me that you are capable of watching my back. That's what a teammate would need to do, right?"

"I- I suppose so, yes, I can do that."

"Then shall we?" Pyrrha made a motion to stand, but caught the way Weiss suddenly stiffened and looked to her father. He was talking with another guest, some CEO of a sort, and though his focus remained ostensibly on the conversation his eyes seemed to watch the entire room, his daughter included.

Of course, Pyrrha realised, this would be an embarrassment to her father if it seemed like Weiss had angered one of their guests to the point of leaving the table. It would be just as bad or worse if Weiss left too. Pyrrha cursed herself. She'd been getting defensive over Jaune, a man nobody hear even knew yet, to the point that she'd forgotten about anything beyond it. She didn't want to cause Weiss problems, that wasn't why she was here. She wanted to teach her some valuable lessons, to prepare her for the real war that would be coming.

"Or perhaps," Pyrrha continued, "sometime after dinner, tonight."

"Yes, that would be for the best." Weiss calmed somewhat, and a little eagerness swelled inside her. "It will be a very valuable experience to spar with you Pyrrha."

"Indeed, let's see how much you can learn."

_/\_TIG_/\_

"One dinner Pyrrha, I leave you alone for one dinner." Azuli moaned as Pyrrha stripped off the dress. "Why did you have to challenge one of the Schnee's to a fight?"

"It's not a fight, it's a spar." Pyrrha insisted on the point as she stepped out of view and into the bathroom, quickly wiping off the worst of her makeup and using her semblance to pull out all the pins from her hair. "She's training to be a Huntress, I'm offering to help. This is good, it's networking."

"I really doubt Jacques Schnee is going to see it that way." Pyrrha ignored the long sigh she let out, and the sound of her agent flopping onto the bed. "We're not even at the gala yet, tomorrow is going to be miserable…"

"It'll be fine." Pyrrha strolled from the bathroom seeing Azuli looking just as miserly as she had expected. "And I hardly care about what Jacque Schnee seems to think of me."

"Maybe you don't, but I still need my career after you go off to Beacon."

Pyrrha paused in the middle of pulling out her equipment, biting her lip before speaking. "Sorry Azuli, I didn't want to hurt you."

Azuli sighed once more before she sat herself up. "It'll be fine. On my end I made some good contacts. Maybe not a new contract after you're gone but I can make something work. Come on, let me help you with your armour."

Getting dressed wasn't that difficult, but it was time consuming thanks to all the new extra layers Pyrrha had added to her armour. The chest piece had remained mostly the same, though now she had a makeshift extension covering down over her hips, and extra plates over her legs. Pauldrons covered her shoulders and connected down to light gauntlets over her hands, which she gave a quick testing flex of.

"It's a good thing you're done with modelling because no company on Remnant is going to market that ugly thing."

Pyrrha laughed. Azuli was right, it was a hideous mish-mash of old designs and substandard metals that she had been adding and building on to expand her coverage. "I'm not finished yet, when I'm done it'll be a lot better."

"I hope so. Maybe aesthetics don't matter against the Grimm but I don't think that'll hold up in a fight very well. You going to be ok?"

"One spar will be fine." She would need to replace some pieces afterwards no doubt, but she'd been intending to anyway. Her upgrades were far from complete. "You sound more concerned than normal, what's wrong?"

Azuli looked away from her, checking that the door was still firmly shut. "This… isn't like you Pyrrha. I know you like a good spar but challenging the daughter of your host like that? Don't look at me like that, we both know full well you were the one who suggested it. I just want to know, are you ok?"

Pyrrha hid her flinch. She knew the answer, that no, she was not okay. But what could she say? She wouldn't be okay until Cinder was dead, and the mistakes of her past were fixed.

"I'm fine."

So instead, she lied, as she always did. Azuli drew her mouth into a line, clearly not believing her but choosing to relent and let it pass, grabbing Milo and Akouo from their storage and giving them to her. Weapons in hand, armour at the ready, Pyrrha gave Azuli a reassuring smile that the woman did not return and headed down the hall to the training room.

She was thankful that she had chosen not to overindulge at dinner, as she found her stomach unusually in knots as she moved for her fight. She wasn't sure why she was nervous, she had fought Weiss many times before and beaten her every time. Perhaps there was a small part of her that doubted, that after being defeated and murdered she had lost her touch, but it was small, diminished by her excessive training since awakening.

No, she was nervous as this would be her chance to teach Weiss how to fight, how to really fight.

Though she passed by a few surprised onlookers and some staff members, when she arrived at the training hall it was near empty. Weiss stood in the centre of the room, clad in the same combat attire she had worn to Beacon, and with Myrtenaster in hand. She looked so tiny in the massive and barren room, though signs of equipment stored to one side suggested it would hold a different purpose the next day during the gala. By her side stood Winter, and Pyrrha could see the youngest brother Whitley stood curiously off to one side.

He was smirking, eagerly looking forward to his sisters' fight, and Pyrrha sincerely doubted it was with the expectation that Weiss would win. She narrowed her eyes at him as she made her way towards her opponent, but only briefly before pulling her focus back to Weiss.

"Pyrrha! You're looking… different. You changed your armour?" Whatever nervousness Weiss may have had seemed to have been replaced by excitement at the prospect of Pyrrha's lesson. "I'm surprised that someone like you would make such a drastic change."

"Yes, I've been trying to enhance my fighting style in a way that has required a drastic change." Pyrrha couldn't help but adjust her shoulders, one of her pauldrons not fitting quite as correctly as she would have liked. "I've not actually had chance to test it out in a spar, so this will be a learning experience for us both."

Weiss nodded with a smile and turned to Winter, who looked just as stern as ever, flitting an unimpressed eye to her sister who dimmed under the gaze. "The fight will be standard tournament rules, ending when your aura is low enough for disqualification and will be marked by a buzzer. No ring outs are allowed, but please try to keep yourself off the walls, and keep all damage to a minimum."

Pyrrha made a mental note to take things a little easier than she otherwise would, not wanting to cause a big issue for Weiss with her family by disrupting the gala plans.

Massive screens hung along the walls of the training hall, quickly switching on and displaying the aura levels of her and Weiss. She savoured the nostalgia as she remembered Beacon, those same sparring classes with their familiar set-ups. Only a short while it had been ago, yet it felt like another world to her.

"Best of luck Pyrrha." Weiss offered the words even if she didn't think Pyrrha would need them, and Pyrrha smiled back.

"And to you. Show me what you can do."

The two walked backwards away from each other, until they were nearly 10 metres away. Quite a distance for two melee fighters and yet seeming so little a hall so big. Pyrrha took a deep breath, waiting for the buzzer to announce their start.

BZZZT

The alarm was met by instant action from Weiss, dropping to one knee and activating several glyphs. One for speed beneath her feet had her zipping away, dodging the attack that Pyrrha simply never unleashed. She'd planned to let Weiss have the first move, yet found herself moving strangely reluctantly as she watched the heiress bounce from glyph to glyph.

Her heart was beating faster, not the feeling of adrenaline or excitement, but panic. The beating of her heart ached, already pounding away at her chest. She pushed it down. Ignored it. Switching to her rifle form, Pyrrha finally started to act in the fight, opening up with several shots that chased Weiss around.

It was merely a probing attack, almost a formality as Weiss took a zig zagged race towards Pyrrha, before lunging in with a classic fencing stab. It was perfectly poised to not overbalance, perfectly aimed to not overextend herself, and perfectly predictable. The point crashed into Pyrrha's shield, sliding away only for a moment before Weiss drew it back to block against the sword that struck towards her.

Weiss parried well against the combo of attacks and blocks, Pyrrha switching from offence to defence without a single stumble in motion. Yet as Pyrrha moved, it felt like a nightmare. She felt slow, far too slow, like she was wading through water with every strike, and her heart was pounding harder and harder each time she moved. And through it all, flashes.

Flashes of that night, of Cinder. The final fight for her life. A fight she'd lost, that she wasn't good enough for.

Myrtenaster slipped underneath her shield and began to lift it, exposing her, and a sudden fearful panic raced through her body. The kick that landed into Weiss' chest could have been seen as her usual skill, only it lacked all grace and was raw power. With her new training regime, the push kick came harder than expected and sent Weiss sliding clear back. Pyrrha's semblance activated a moment later, after the kick had already ended, and locked her leg outstretched before she forced herself to relax.

Her instincts were all wrong, mind too messy to focus and combine her semblance with her movements. Had Weiss pressed back on the attack, she could probably have hit Pyrrha, so lost in her mind as she was, but instead she decided to talk.

"That was a good hit." Weiss let out a small, embarrassed cough, the wind having been driven out of her lungs. "I didn't expect you to hit that hard."

"Reflex." Pyrrha only partially lied. "You've definitely trained well, your fencing form is very good."

"Thank you." The beaming smile returned once more. "As I said, I've been trained by the best."

Pyrrha nodded in agreement, giving herself time to focus her mind. This is what she needed to work on, she couldn't be losing focus and lashing out, she needed to teach.

"But have you been trained to think like the best?"

Pyrrha pushed forwards, closing the distance to Weiss quickly as the woman chose to stand her ground. Sword met sword, then shield met face. Pyrrha used the polarity to quickly thrust out her shield and crash it into Weiss' nose, catching the woman off guard as she stumbled back. Pyrrha continued her attack, and to her credit Weiss recovered quite well, deflecting stabs with her blade, and dodging any of the bigger attacks that Pyrrha let out. Pyrrha was unrelenting, switching to her rifle as soon as there was any distance between them and peppering Weiss constantly with gunfire.

A wall of ice burst up from the ground before her, Weiss using her dust to block Pyrrha's attack. The girl likely took a breath, having finally gotten some room from the unrelenting assault, only for Pyrrha's fist to break through the ice. The gauntlet over her fist was in tatters, her polarity enhanced punch too much for the sub-standard metal to withstand, but it did the job well enough. Pyrrha grabbed Weiss' head and pulled her through the ice wall, shattering it apart as she landed along the floor.

Pyrrha paused to take off the gauntlet, tossing it aside as trash. "You need to be unrelenting when you fight. You have to fight like your life depends on it, whether it's against Grimm or a person, you fight for your life." Weiss staggered to her feet, dazed yet listening. "You can't afford to hold back. You can't doubt, or underestimate, or you will die. Do you understand?" Weiss seemed to hesitate, considering her words before she finally nodded. "You have skill, but you fight like it's a performance, like there are steps for you to follow. In a real fight, there is no second chance if you fail, whoever you are fighting will not hesitate to kill you, so you can't hesitate either." Pyrrha raised her weapons, returning to her usual fighting stance. "Now, shall we continue?"

Weiss took a moment to collect herself before returning to her stance as well. Pyrrha waited, allowing Weiss to make the first move and see what she'd learned. The heiress didn't disappoint.

A long streak of ice shards raced towards Pyrrha, who leapt out of the way only to be met by a blur as Weiss slammed into her. Her shield and armour protected her, but Weiss attacked constantly and from all angles. She mixed in her dust as well, multiple elemental attacks striking that Pyrrha could handle confidently. She felt… good. This fight was nothing new for her, and Pyrrha felt the familiarity of their back and forth. Her heart began to rest, to beat less painfully, until…

Fire.

Weiss unleashed a stream of flames towards Pyrrha, the survivor hurling herself out of the way not in any kind of form, but of panic. Her breathing became shallow and fast, her heart racing as the fire surrounded her. She was back, back in the tower as it burned around her, and there… there was Cinder.

Pyrrha hurled herself forwards with a desperate cry, hurling her shield with as much force as her muscles and polarity could manage. It hit Cinder square in the chest, bouncing off and back towards Pyrrha who kicked it once more, slamming Cinder in the chest a second time. It took her off guard enough for Pyrrha's body to crash into her, both losing their swords as it became a grapple.

Cinder tried to escape, pushing away at Pyrrha who held on tight as she raised her fists. She amplified whatever metal remained on her arms and brought them down hard, slamming Cinder again and again. Pyrrha was panicking, afraid that at any moment she was going to die again, so she beat down on Cinder with everything she had. Knuckles met her face, elbows met her neck, Pyrrha was fighting more like a wild animal than a Huntress as she hit her again and again and-

BZZZT

Pyrrha froze, Weiss' groaning body beneath her. Her fist was still held high and ready, shaking with the adrenaline, the rage, the fear. She forced it back down by her side. Her eyes flicked up to the screens, seeing how Weiss' aura had dipped far enough into the red for the alarm to sound and end the match.

But she very nearly hadn't. She'd fought Weiss thinking she was Cinder, she'd fought her with the intent to kill. She'd been so scared, she hadn't known what else to do, instincts taking over. Pyrrha pulled back, allowing Weiss to rise from the floor as she shook off the dizziness she felt from the onslaught.

"I-… I'm sorry, I lost control there." It was all she could say. Pyrrha was buzzing inside, anxiety and shame eating away at her. She'd nearly fought to kill her friend, all because of her own messed up mind.

"No, no it's okay. I'm alright." Weiss dusted herself off, and looked almost to be a little proud, if somewhat sheepish. "Thank you for the lesson Pyrrha, I'll be sure to keep what you've taught me in mind."

Winter and Whitley came over to speak, but Pyrrha excused herself quickly, fast walking back to her room as the nerves ate at her. When she reached the room, she tore off her armour as fast as she could and collapsed in the corner, sobbing into her hands as she let her emotions run free.