Autumn Winds

“It’s good to see you,” surprisingly, Weiss greeted the two with a small smile, and then beckoned for them to follow.  “Come with me.” 

The white-haired girl led John and Autumn into a private conference room down the hall from Weiss’ office on the top floor of the Schnee building.  She stood in front of the lone table in the room and motioned for her guests to take a seat.  Once John and Autumn were seated Weiss cut off the lights and a holographic image of Emerald and a map of Atlas appeared from the table.

“I’ll just get straight to the point here.  Emerald has been… evasive.  She’s been seen in various places around Atlas, but recently, from what we can tell, she’s kept to the forest to the west.” Weiss flipped through slides with images of Emerald taken from security cam footage.  “We theorize that she likely has a base of operations somewhere in the forest.”

“Why is she snooping around Atlas so much?” John asked.

“The Schnee Dust Company is working on a new device.”  The lights came back up and Weiss folded her hands in front of her, “It takes the user’s semblance and amplifies it far beyond what the user is normally capable of.  It’s only in the prototypical stage, but results have been promising so far.  It most likely has something to do with that.”

 “So we go out there, find her and take her back to The Agency.”  Autumn shrugged, “Sounds easy enough.”

“It’s never that easy Autumn,” John said with a shake of his head, “Emerald won’t be easy to just ‘take back to the Agency.’  She’s in Cinder’s inner circle and a very strong fighter.  Underestimating her is an easy way to get hurt.”  John paused for a moment, then continued. “We’ll figure out a plan and head out in a few days.  Thank you Weiss.  I don’t know what we would have done without this information.”

Before Weiss could reply a red blur burst through the door, flattening her. “WEISS!!!” a familiar high-pitched voice shriek, “I MISSED YOU!”

“Gah, Ruby stop,” Weiss was trying to free herself to no avail, “I just talked to you on your scroll!”  She managed to shove the younger girl off of her and stood up, brushing herself off, “Take Autumn and show her around Atlas for a bit, there is something I need to ask John.”

Ruby looked confused for a moment, but then she looked between the two and comprehension dawned on her face.  “Come on Autumn,” she said, holding out a hand, “I wanna introduce you to my friend’s dad.”

Ruby dragged Autumn out of the room almost as fast as she got there.  Awkward silence reigned for a moment until John finally spoke.

“Weiss, what is this…?”

“Jaune.” Weiss interrupted “Jaune I just want to tell you that I’m sorry.”

“What?”  Jaune didn’t know what he had been expecting, but it wasn’t this.  “What’re you talking about Weiss?  Sorry about what?”

“About how I acted while we were at Beacon, before this whole thing happened.”  The almost clinical tone of the briefing was gone; this might’ve been the most earnest Jaune had ever heard Weiss sound.  “When you approached me, I thought that you were like every other guy who showed any interest in me.  You know, only interested because of my name and my family’s money.  I was a jerk to you for no reason, but at the dance, you still got Neptune to talk to me.”  She took a couple of steps closer to him.

“Weiss, stop.”  Jaune put a hand on her shoulder, “You don’t need to apologize for anything.  If anything, I should be apologizing to you.  I was an idiot.  You weren’t interested in me and I ignored that.  I should have noticed just how many people I was hurting while chasing after you.  You deserve someone better that I was, you deserve Neptune.”

“That’s just it Jaune,” Weiss replied with a shake of her head and a step back, “I’m not sure if Neptune even cares about me.  You saw him during the tournament, you know, when he was flirting with those NDGO girls.”

“So is this what this is all about?  You’re really asking me for relationship advice?”  Jaune couldn’t help it.  He burst out laughing.

“Hey!” Weiss looked almost offended, “Jaune, this isn’t funny!  I don’t want to lose him, but I’m not sure if he even still wants to be with me.”

“Weiss look,” Jaune gestured in front of him, “As far as I know, Neptune hasn’t had a serious relationship before.  He tries really hard to be cool, but I don’t think he knows how to be in a serious relationship.  Just be patient with him, or tell him your concerns.  Nothing good comes from holding back what you want to say.  Believe me,” he added bitterly, “I would know.”

Jaune made his way to the door, but before he could get there Weiss grabbed his arm.

“Wait, Jaune, I want to ask you one last thing.  Back when we were at Beacon, if things had gone…” Weiss pauses for a moment before continuing “differently, would we be in this situation right now?”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“I mean, if I’d given you a chance.  Do you think you would have still chosen to be a Shadow?”

After a brief pause John shook his head, eyes closed and a small smirk forming.  “I doubt any of this would have been different.  Even if we had started dating at Beacon I still would’ve been there for my partner.  Now, if you don’t have anything else to ask, we might need to make sure that Ruby didn’t blow anything up.”

“Again, you mean?”

“Yeah, again.  Although wasn’t that technically your fault?”

“Ruby, would you care to explain how my room got destroyed?”  ‘Destroyed’ was a bit of an exaggeration, but the room did look pretty trashed.  Books, clothes, and Dust vials were lying in various places around the room and one or two pieces of furniture looked freshly broken.

“Well you see Weiss,” Ruby grinned sheepishly, “the funniest thing happened.  Autumn claimed that she could mess with Yang’s hair without her noticing.”  She looked over the damage, “She kinda couldn’t.”

“Ruby!” Autumn protested, “You’re the one who told me that you could pluck one of your sister’s hairs and get away before she noticed.”  Autumn pointed at the younger girl, trying desperately to clear her name.  Yang, meanwhile, was calming down just enough to notice that Weiss and John walked in together.

“Hey Weiss-cream,” she said with a wave, “does this mean that Neptune has something to worry about?”

 “Yang… no.” John placed his fingers on the bridge of his nose.

“What’s this about something to worry about?”  Autumn perked up at the possibility of finding out more about her Shadow.

“It’s not that big a deal.”  Now it was John’s turn to protest, “Weiss and I had a bit of a history, but that’s over and now we’re friends.”

“Oh really?” Yang snickered, “That’s not how I remember it.”

“But that is how it is.  If you girls need me, I’ll be in my room figuring out how to trap Emerald.”

With that John exited Weiss’ room, but not without hearing a little more of what the girls had to say.

“Come on Weiss, it will be just like a big sleepover.  Pleeease?” He could practically hear the puppy dog eyes in Ruby and Autumn’s voices.  He smiled.  For a moment, anyway, it felt like the battle had never happened and they were just students again.  If only it could’ve stayed that way.