Warning: This fic is rated M for a reason. Story contains explicit sexual content. 18+ readers only.

Note: All characters written with explicit material are 18+ for the purposes of this story.

Disclaimer: The story contains explicit sexual content, but there is no explicit sexual content in this specific chapter. (Read A/N at the end for details)

Idea inspired by Shipper of Trashy Ships. Beta read by DumpleTrump.

Weiss walked up a small flight of grey, snow-covered stairs. She stopped in front of two seemingly wooden double doors that towered over her small form. The hood of her cloak flapped slightly in the cold wind.

The ancient door was covered in ice, stretching across the brown with white tendrils like veins all centered around a black mass in the middle of the two doors.

A hand slipped from the warmth of her white cloak. She tentatively splayed her hands across the icy mass. A furrow of her brow and a tensing of her fingers made the mass glow slightly in the bright, but freezing, atmosphere around her.

But the second she touched the mass, a blue color began to cover her fingers, gradually working it's way from the bare tips of her splayed fingers to her clipped nails.

She gritted her teeth in pain and concentration. At the expression change, another white light illuminated her fingers, with an identically colored glow to the one coming from within the mass. The white light desperately pushed at the blue, slowing it's advance across her fingers. The glow in the mass brightened farther, to the level of a bonfire, shining through the ice that covered it.

But the blue was moving over her knuckles, and her palm began to feel shards of pain lancing through it. The light around her hand shone but was just being eaten by the blue.

Finally, the blue had almost covered her entire hand. It was about to reach her wrist, and she was almost on her knees in pain. The light on her hand, and the light in the mass, began to fade.

With a cry of agony, she wrenched her hand away from the mass, ripping it out of the ice that had been forming over it. She clutched her cold, pale, shaking hand in pain. It was blue from the ice it had been encased in, but now that the ice wasn't eating her hand, the white light of her aura covered her throbbing appendage, and was already returning color to it.

Weiss winced, and quickly pulled out a pinch of red Dust from her cloak with her intact hand, sprinkling it over the other. It glowed red with warmth, and Weiss's hand stopped shaking. She tentatively flexed it, and dipped it into her cloak with her other hand.

Clutching both of her hands to her chest, she breathed heavily, and looked to the heavens as she sighed. Her light blue eyes closed silently and quietly as she gathered herself back together.

Her eyes opened again quickly, and the hands clasped against each other for warmth within the safety of her cloak. But it wasn't long before she pulled them out of the shelter of her cloak and to her back, grabbing a sledge hammer that was slung around her shoulders.

She stepped away from the ancient door, and paused to catch her breath, before she hefted the hammer over her head and slammed it into the mass. The ice cracked, and with a grunt Weiss drove the sledgehammer back into the same crack. The crack widened and spiderwebbed across the ice covering the door.

With a last roar of rage Weiss drove the hammer into the ice, and like glass it shattered into thousands of tiny uncountable pieces, revealing a grey metal snowflake emblem etched in the door. She dropped the hammer, letting it fall to the floor, and one hand went back into her cloak to return with a grey metal snowflake that matched the door, with a handle on it.

She pressed the metal implement into the door's emblem where it fit like a glove. With a grunt of exertion she turned the snowflake, to the sound of muffled gears within the door until a final click. She sighed, and pushed the not so solid seeming double doors, her metal key staying in her hands while the doors moved forward on sheer inertia.

They impacted the stone walls behind her with a thud that accompanied Weiss's first step within. She took one additional step forward and stopped. The great doors slowly started to turn back, picking up speed and barely missing Weiss's still form by inches, before slamming shut with another great thud, and letting out a gust of wind that whistled around her cloak.

She sighed, and pulled back her hood. A quick glance back towards the darkened doors showed that the ice was already starting to work its way back across the doors, inching its way back across the wood.

Weiss pulled up the hand that had been frozen, and carefully inspected it for any flaws. While a normal hand would have at the very least frostbite, her aura had kept her relatively safe.

Still, when she opened her cloak and carried it at her side, she stuck her formerly frosted hand under it, away from view.

Weiss left the hammer by the doors and turned to walk away. She stole one last look at the wooden behemoth that loomed over her, and the ice working its way back across it, before shivering and walking farther into the cathedral.

She walked with a brisk pace, ignoring the great stained glass windows that illuminated the otherwise grey cathedral with a blue tint.

She did not need to look up to know what was depicted there. The image of the slave. The peasant. The craftsman. They kneeled parallel to the invisible line that Weiss walked.

The images that were burned into the glass became even more ornate and breathtaking as she walked farther and farther down the hall, but like the others, Weiss passed those too without gazing.

The image of the baron passed her, as did the image of the duke, and soon, even the images of the the Great Men of Atlas were left in her wake with nary a glance thrown their way. All of the heroes of the past were depicted in the blue hue of the glass that she left in her wake. The White Death, the archer who had defended Atlas's sovereignty in the First Great War. The Barbarian, the first of the Valkyries. And many, many more, etched into the glass. All knelt. Same as the others.

Weiss could go on for hours speaking about each of the heroes in those walls, for their symbolism and their stories, and make no mistake, their stories were worth telling. But she wouldn't. Not today. For her attention, from the second she had laid down her hammer, was focused on several dots in the distance. As she had gotten closer, the shapes had turned into a throne with some people milling about it.

She slowed down as she approached, noticing that two of the figures seemed in deep conversation. One of the two turned and saw her, before narrowing his eyes, and saying what looked to be a goodbye to the person he was talking to.

The boy, who was clad in Atlesian dress garb, similar to the clothing Weiss was currently dressed in, with a white jacket and pants, walked towards her and the ever distant doors.

He didn't show any outward signs of recognizing her as he continued on his way.

But eventually, when he was barely close enough for Weiss to see the whites of his eyes, he made the smallest modicum of eye contact with her. "Sister." He muttered as he approached.

"Whitely." She said as she dipped her head towards him in acknowledgement while narrowing her eyes at the boy. She had scarcely broke eye contact before he roughly bumped into her shoulder as he passed her.

Weiss was barely fazed, but took a second to glare at Whitley's receding back.

She sighed in annoyance before continuing on her walk.

Her turn brought her focus back towards the gilded throne and the person in front of it.

The man at the front had white hair and a white moustache, his straight back was covered by a white cloak of fur and felt. The rest of him was covered with grey robes that draped around him. While he was not particularly tall, he stood on a raised dais, gazing over the all but empty cathedral, before looking down on Weiss's approaching form.

As she came forward, his eyes roved over her, as if searching for something. Whatever it was, it seemed as if he didn't find it, because his gaze shifted back to the artwork as if she was nothing but an irritation that happened to have entered his room.

While the gilded throne and artwork around her begged to be admired, she instead focused her whole attention on the man himself. She caught his shifting eyes ignoring her and her fist tightened slightly within her grip on her cloak.

She carefully analyzed the man's behavior. The fact that he seemed like he wouldn't look at her wasn't good, but he was still standing. Furthermore, his head was bare of all but his own hair, and that signified that this would be a somewhat informal meeting.

She sighed slightly in relief and spoke.

"Hello Father."

The man's eyes narrowed to razor's edges, barely exposing his light blue eyes for the black of his pupils and eyelashes. In less than a second, a true sneer appeared his face.

He turned his back on Weiss, walking towards the gilded throne, in the process, barely missing a small raised table with a hemispheric metal case on the top. He sat down in it, slowly, avoiding eye contact with Weiss.

Her father had raised his hand into the air, and now that she was looking at him, snapped once.

The sound echoed through the massive chamber, and there was a moment of silence. Then, two bunny ears popped out from behind the gilded throne. A girl was revealed to be attached to them, looking to be about Weiss's age. She was wearing a cloth bag around herself for the sake of modesty, and was thin, to the point where her bones could be easily picked out with the naked eye.

She walked tentatively to the miniature raised table, and gently lifted the silver dome up, revealing a glittering crown of gold and jewels. After putting it back down next to the headpiece, she grabbed two handkerchiefs laying by the crown, and looked as though she was going to grasp the headpiece with them. Then she paused, and looked at the man in the throne in confirmation. He glared at her and she shivered in fear. She quickly grabbed the crown in both hands, and brought it to him. She put it gently on his head before scurrying back to the table, folding the handkerchiefs before returning them to their places.

The girl then walked back towards Weiss, and was almost within arms reach when she was stopped. A clattering of chains accompanied her sudden shift in momentum, and she almost fell. She turned back to the king who's glare had intensified.

Weiss slowly followed her gaze back to the king, and spotted a chain that trailed from his hands, across the floor, all the way to the girl's neck.

The king lowered the chain slightly, letting it go slack slightly.

His glare from the rabbit faunus turned for the first time towards Weiss. She could see the rage boiling below his forced exterior, and she had to hold herself back from gulping audibly.

She felt a tug at her sleeve and she turned to look down. The rabbit faunus flinched at her gaze, but Weiss's features softened slightly to show she wasn't angry at the girl.

The faunus lightly grabbed her cloak that was still in Weiss's hands, but Weiss shook her head slightly to tell her it was unnecessary for her to take it and her sore hand unconsciously gripped the cloth tighter.

A clink of the chain was the only warning as the chain jerked the girl's head back, and drew Weiss's attention back towards her father.

He glared at her once more, and inclined his head towards the faunus, who was doubled over, gently rubbing her sore neck while trying not to cry.

Weiss sighed in annoyance, and walked to the faunus, holding her cloak into the girl's field of vision.

The rabbit faunus looked up at her to find a sorry smile on Weiss's face. The girl nodded and whispered in a soft and quiet voice before turning back towards the throne.

"Thank you, my Lady."

Weiss sighed in exhaustion as the faunus walked back to stand just to the side of the throne with her cloak. She turned towards her father again, who finally spoke.

"You will address me by my title, Lady Schnee."

Weiss averted her eyes, and took a knee in front of the king, mirroring the dozens of people in the stained glass around her.

"Yes, your Majesty."

His expression, for the first time since Weiss had entered the cathedral, lessened from it's scowl. A vicious smile filled his face as his daughter prostrated herself before him.

"Good...Now, brief me on what has transpired during your most recent campaign."

The light in the tent was quiet, but warm. The yellow light of the furnace painted the cloth of the tent with an earthy, welcoming glow. Jaune was in the middle of the tent, his eyes rolling over the scrolls before him.

He and his desk was buried in a mountain of scrolls, and his eyes were baggy and bloodshot. He gently put away the scroll in his hand, and tried to put it on top of the pile. His hand slipped and the pile he bumped tumbled down onto the floor. He swore slightly, and began to pick them up. He finally managed to grab them all in his hands, and he looked over his table for a free space.

His eyes roved over the desk until they finally settled on a spot at the front of his desk, which was conspicuously absent of parchment.

He looked at the spot, staring at a small dark spot on it. A vision of an angel in white hair bent over the spot entered his groggy mind, before his mind returning to the empty spot on his desk.

He bit his lip in indecision until he turned back to the scrolls in his hands. He cursed slightly, and dropped the scrolls in his hands. The blonde grabbed a bucket of water that was already by his chair, and walked around the table with it. He wiped down the spot using a rag from the bucket, a slight blush covering his face the whole time he worked.

Once he had finished, and dried the spot with another rag already in his pocket, he put down the scrolls on the previously darkened spot at the front of the desk. He sat back down, and returned to reading the scroll.

The squiggles were incomprehensible, and were glazing over in his vision, until a hand began to pull it away. He tried to hold on, but the person pulling was more insistent, pulling it away with a forceful hand on the scroll, and a gentler hand on his shoulder.

Finally, his eyes drooped, and the scroll pulled away as he fell out of consciousness.

The last thing he remembered was someone picking him in a bridal carry, and a shock of blonde hair.

Jaune woke up on the cot in his tent. It was later at night, but the fire in the furnace was burning brighter than before.

It outlined a large, blonde, feminine, figure sitting in front of his bed on a chair.

He sat up and the sound of his movement alerted the person sitting next to him. "Ah, you're awake." She said.

"I fell asleep?" The male blonde in the bed said with a hint of curiosity mixed with his teasing.

For his comment he got a flick in his head, and the figure got up to stretch.

"Yeah, stupid. When was the last time you got some good sleep?"

Jaune's eyes narrowed in concentration, his mouth opening for a reply, but another figure, slimmer, nuder, with white hair and a teasing smirk, filled his vision when the question was asked, and he feebly lowered his hand.

The blonde in front of him, now putting on her gauntlets, looked simultaneously smug and disappointed.

"You can't even remember can you?"

Jaune declined to explain that remembering wasn't exactly the issue, and settled for just looking sheepish.

"Idiot…you can't afford you to do this yourself anymore." She said as her glare fixed him into place. "More specifically, we can't afford you doing this to yourself anymore." Yang said to a flinch from him in response.

"Sorry, Yang." he said apologetically, as she towered over his sitting position.

She sighed, and leaned over to place her hand on his shoulder, running her thumb over his shoulder.

"Look, we always cared about your wellbeing. It's just that now, 'we' has gotten a lot bigger, okay?" With that said, she pulled him into a bone-crushing hug, picking him physically off of the cot with as little effort as a normal person would lifting a particularly skinny dog.

Jaune sputtered in her grip, and struggled slightly before settling for awkwardly returning her embrace.

"Thanks, Yang." He said sheepishly from her shoulder.

That was when a shit-eating grin split her face, and she unceremoniously dropped him onto the floor. His curses returned colorfully as he tried to pick himself up.

"And that was for?" he said with a wince of pain at the drop.

"Making Ozpin wait for your little nap. Ruby's gonna be insufferable after he's through with her..."

"What?!" Jaune squeaked out in surprise.

Yang took a special pleasure in her explanation as she continued.

"Oh yeah, that's what I was coming in to talk to you about. Then you were practically keeling over, and I asked Ozzie if he'd hold up for you long enough to make you coherent."

Jaune's face paled, and he almost tripped trying to running to his desk, splashing some water into his face, before drying it with the now dry again rag in his pocket.

He wiped his hands of water, and grabbed the scrolls on his desk in one swoop, and almost threw them, trying to stuff them into the drawer next to him. They wouldn't fit in, and Jaune was about to push them harder, when a familiar hand grabbed his shoulder, stopping him.

Yang pulled him back, and instead of trying to force the scrolls in, she gripped the end of the drawer, shaking it slightly, forcing some of the scrolls to settle down in the wooden box. She slowly closed the drawer with ease, with a look at the male blonde next to her.

"You sure you're okay? Oz would be happy to wait longer you know."

Jaune looked away slightly in mild embarrassment, and a healthy amount of shame, before he breathed his doubts away, and looked her in the eye.

"Yang, I'm fine." He said steadily.

Her face said she wasn't impressed, and Jaune looked a tad sheepish as he rubbed the back of his head.

"Okay, well, I'm fine enough. And while Oz will be okay with waiting, I...can't exactly put this off forever."

Yang kept a steely gaze on him, before sighing, and leaving the tent.

"I'll send him in."

Jaune straightened, and sniffed himself before sitting down to wait.

A man in an olive green cloak walked into the tent.

He pulled back his hood, revealing a man of simple dark green clothing, grey hair, and dark spectacles.

Jaune got out of his chair, greeting him. "Professor! It's good to see you, let me get your-" the man cut him off with a hand.

"It's fine, Jaune, don't get up on my account," he said as he put his cloak on the coat rack by the front of the tent.

Jaune sat back down reluctantly, but he reached under his desk to open another cabinet.

"A drink, sir?"

Ozpin smiled ever so slightly, and Jaune pulled out two glasses with a whiskey bottle.

"I certainly wouldn't mind a drink, at any rate."

Jaune smirked as he poured a liberal helping out of the half full bottle for both.

"If I had known that you were coming, I would've gotten some coffee to cut the whiskey. After all," Jaune continued, "Beacon rarely sends their war professors to a real war…"

Ozpin smiled slightly more, but the tips of his lips dropped again just as quickly to a neutral expression.

"Haste was necessary, I'm afraid. Nobody knows that I'm here." he said cryptically.

Jaune frowned at that, and took a long draught of the whiskey, wincing slightly at the burn.

"Nobody?"

"Nobody."

Jaune's face contorted in concentration, and he set the glass back down.

"...why are you here, Professor?"

The man sighed, and his tightened, but that was the only indication of what he was thinking.

"That...is for later, Jaune. For now, I need your report of what happened in the last few weeks."

It was Jaune's turn to sigh this time.

"Oh boy...this is going to be a long story…"

Weiss's head was facing the floor as she spoke.

"I had travelled via horse to Vallis Sanguinem. Our guide was exemplary, and due to the storm postponing itself slightly, we arrived several hours ahead of schedule. The scene we happened upon was…" She paused.

Her Atlesian upbringing, and the king's wrath hanging over her head like a sword, forced her to...moderate...her response to something less crude than she'd been originally planning.

"...unexpected."

A figure in full armor stopped her horse, and the retinue behind her stopped as well. The armor bore the snowflake insignia of the Schnees, however the figure inside bore the body-language of confusion. The armored head swung back and forth, as if it couldn't believe what it was looking at.

Before them lay a camp. Completely stocked, with enough tents, fire pits, and supplies to support a legion. The only thing missing was the legion itself. The entire camp was empty, devoid of any and all people.

"My Lady?" A man in ratty clothing below her said uncertainly. "I don't know what's going on, I would swear on my life that the 5th legion camped here naught two days ago. I don't-"

The armored woman hopped off of the horse quickly to stand next to him, and patted her horse to calm her. The light layer of snow on the ground squished and melted beneath her. "At ease, guide." She said calmly. "They were here."

She looked around, and her eyes roved over the intact camp. They lingered on empty armories, with the stores of armor, swords, arrows, and shields missing. But they only truly stopped on a nearby fireplace. It was smoking lightly, with the embers glowing, and the fire was just beginning to burn out. The fire even had a local fowl skewered above it. Her eyes narrowed.

"My Lady?" The guide said uncertainly.

"Would you like additional payment?" She said quickly.

"I'm sorry?"

"You have done exemplary work." Weiss said as she looked at the rapidly darkening clouds above them. "We are hours ahead of schedule."

The guide preened slightly but she interrupted his thoughts.

"But it appears I would have need of your skills for a little longer, if you would be willing."

The guide shrugged, though he looked mildly uncomfortable. "Money is money my Lady."

Her helmet bobbed slowly as she nodded, and gestured for him to lead the way.

"Good." She said as they began to walk. "After all, if my legion is not willing to wait for me, then I will have to come to them."

"We found them." Weiss said in a monotone.

"Obviously" The king growled from above her.

She was tempted to roll her eyes from her position below him, but refrained, and she continued.

"My Lady?" The guide shouted from atop a horse at the summit of the hill.

"Yes?" Weiss responded as her horse continued to walk upwards.

She crested the hill as her guide spoke again in a slightly sarcastic tone.

"I believe we have found them."

She looked down the hill and saw them, thousands of men trudging through the snow in heavy armor. They flooded most of the valley, and extended so far they became dots on the horizon. But even at this distance she could see the light from flashing auras in the front line, and the smoke rising from various points in the valley.

Her face contorted into a sneer under her helmet.

"Guide." She said curtly.

"Yes, my Lady?" He said uncertainly.

"Would you like to stay? After this point, I head to war." She said to him, her helmet giving her voice a slight echo.

"..." His hesitation spoke volumes.

She tilted her head slightly at the small train of servants behind her. "My retinue could always use someone who knows where we need to be going."

From far ahead of them, the faintest whispers of the battle wafted back to them, carrying the screams steel and people dying.

The man beside her shrunk slightly at the offer, and said nothing, his head hanging low. The rest of Weiss's retinue waited behind them, observing with curiosity.

He remained silent. "I am sorry, my Lady."

She sighed in resignation.

"Leave me. Keep the horse. Consider it your payment for your assistance"

He looked at her in surprise before turning the horse around and galloping away as fast as possible.

The storm clouds above them grumbled as they grew darker. The first droplet of water fell and landed on her armor, working its way to her skin, giving her a cold and clammy feeling.

She gestured for her retinue to stay on the hill. It was a poor idea to bring servants to a potential battlefield without proper information.

Weiss set her expression into one of distaste under her helmet, and with a small movement of her legs, had her own horse galloping towards the battle below.

Weiss had stopped in her recounting.

"Well?" The king rumbled in annoyance above her. "What did you find, Lady Schnee?"

She sighed.

"Madness."

Her lone horse stopped at the hordes of men, and the ones closest to her stared at her, bewildered at her appearance. She stopped at the first man with a banner bearing her snowflake, clad head to toe in armor, who was speaking to another soldier.

She hopped off of her horse. Her armor made an undignified squelch as it sank slightly into the muddy ground. The man in the banner didn't even register the noise and kept talking, but the man he was ostensibly was supposed to be talking to did. The man that noticed her was not wearing an additional banner, but instead clad merely in light armor like her own, and sporting a shock of dark hair, and looked at her with an enigmatic expression that resembled curiosity.

Weiss had finally had it with the man with the banner's insolence, and grabbed his shoulder, pulling him to face her.

"Are you the commander here?" She leveled authoritatively to him.

"Excuse me? Who are you?" He sneered at her.

Her fingers clenched into fists.

"I am your general. Now, are. you. the. commander?" She said with a dangerous tone.

The man next to the man with the banner turned to look at her even more closely, revealing a pink strip in his hair.

"Really, you're the general? Then I'm the Queen." the man with the banner on his back said with a laugh. "Baron Watts is our commander, now go join the rank and file, knight. Or I'll have you detained."

Weiss's stance could have informed the most casual of observers of the lack of patience she had with her situation, but before her anger erupted, she noticed others around them were starting to stare and were subtly clearing a circle around her. Her hand unclenched from a fist to grasp the handle of her rapier instead.

But before she could do anything, the man with the black hair with the pink strip stepped up and stopped the knight with the banner from walking away. He whispered in a way that carried his words to Weiss despite the distant din of battle. "Sky, the Baron was recalled, remember?"

The man with the banner, Sky, scoffed. "Yeah, and this is going to be his replacement? Some girl with a fancy sword? Yeah, right."

Weiss was glad that her helmet was covering her face, as otherwise her murderous expression would've been evident and might have triggered the armed knights that were growing uneasier by the minute.

"My Lady," The voice from the knight with black hair and light armor broke through her raging thoughts. "Perhaps a proof of your nobility would help?"

A scowl deepened her impression. "Very well."

Weiss reached for a sealed scroll attached to her back, but hesitated. With a subtle movement of her eyes, she could see that most of the knights around her all were looking at the drama with genuine curiosity. Slowly, her hand moved from the parchment, and instead draped over her rapier.

She waved everyone away from her, and unsheathed her rapier, making everyone nearby unconsciously reach for their own weapons, and Weiss made a show of revolving the chamber loaded with dust. It ticked slowly across until it stopped on the glowing red slit in the chamber.

With a roar she plunged it into the snow covered ground. Nothing occured for a second, until a glowing glyph appeared from underneath her, and the ground around her erupted into flames, almost scorching the armor of the knights around her before they pulled back in fear.

The steam from the rapid melting and evaporation of the snow obscured her from the knights. Only the barest outlines of her body could be made out in the fog. Then a great wind roared around them and the steam flew away while the knights tried not to get blown away by the gust.

The receding steam revealed Weiss, standing there, unharmed, and her aura shining brightly.

She stood in the middle of a snowflake scorched into the grass by her glyph. Around the burning snowflake was a large circle bereft of the layer of snow that was scattered around the battlefield. She stormed out of her charred crater and walked up to the man with banner. She took off her helmet, revealing a shock of Schnee-white hair, and an expression that was murderous.

She shoved her helmet into the man with the banner's hands, and spoke slowly.

"You will go to every cohort in this legion, and impress upon them that Weiss Schnee, Second in line to the Throne of Nidavellir is the new Commander of the 5th Legion."

He nodded as she continued.

"If I find anyone who is not up to date with the new arrangement, I will hold you personally responsible."

"Understood." He said quickly.

"Good." she said as her expression returned to a neutral tone. "Go."

He was about to leave, already turned away to his duties with Weiss's helmet, when she called out again.

"Oh, and Mr...Sky? Was it?"

He looked reluctant to speak, and didn't even turn around, but he responded anyway. "Sky Lark, my Lady."

"Mr Sky Lark. Keep that for now, as a...reminder, but if that helmet is not on my head by the end of the day, I will have yours."

Sky scurried off to relay his orders, while she turned back towards the man with the black hair.

"I presume you're the second in command?"

"No, Lady Schnee, I am one of the subcommanders. My name is Lie Ren."

Weiss frowned. "Then who is the second in command, Sir Ren?"

Ren shrugged. "There is no second in command. The Lord was rather insistent that he was the only one with the complete idea of what was going on. For security's sake, supposedly."

Weiss caught the disdain in his words that was not expressed in his emotionless face and smirked slightly to herself.

"Well it's a good thing Lord Watts is no longer the commander. As of now, Sir Ren, you're my second in command. Security is secondary to survivability, and I need someone to help me manage this mess."

Ren's expression was shifted slightly, not betraying any true emotions, but at the very least seemed like her actions were...unexpected, which Weiss was prepared to take as a positive.

"As you wish, my Lady."

"Good. Now..."

Her expression had hardened to that of one in the midst of combat before she continued.

"Brief me."

"With the help of the nearest subcommander, I tried to reestablish a command structure. The information...dispersion...made getting an idea of the tactical situation difficult, but not impossible. In total I had to personally contact at least a dozen other subcommand-"

"I am not here for minutiae." The king bellowed. "That is for generals."

"I was merely-" She started deferentially, looking up at the king before she was cut off by a harsh glare. "-Understood."

She sighed and returned her eyes towards the floor before continuing.

"The tactical situation was...unusual."

Her rapier was no longer on her hip, and was resting against the edge of a table. The table had a map of the valley on it, and Weiss was hastily scribbling on it with a piece of charcoal.

Black lines and arrows dotted the entire valley, and Weiss's bare fingers were smudged black from the carbon.

"My Lady?"

Weiss turned to see Ren walking up to her.

"Report?"

"Prior to his departure, the far west flank was ordered to advance, at all costs, regardless of the terrain."

The young general scowled slightly and drew a straight line across the map.

"Troop strength?" She said without looking back up.

"10% casualties."

"Damn…" she said quietly at the losses. "At least it's simple."

"My Lady?" Her subordinate said in concern.

She gestured him towards her, and he took his place by her side. The map was crossed with dozens of lines, but all the lines pointing towards the enemy were parallel and straight across the map.

"Look at this. What do you think I see?"

"It...appears like we were all given identical orders." He said uncertainly.

"Wrong." The general said ominously. "That is not what I see."

The knight looked closer at the map, but couldn't discern its purpose.

"I'm afraid I do not follow my Lady."

Weiss sighed. "I see a meatgrinder."

Sir Ren now looked at her in confusion, and she began to explain.

"This is not tactics and strategy. This is a human wave, if this was a flat plain, I would say that this formation was designed to clear wheat, with row upon row of men moving symmetrically across a field. But this is not a flat plain, and the only thing being cut down is men."

She pointed to hills.

"Those should've slowed men down, causing massive gaps in our lines that would've been taken advantage of, and this-" she said as she shifted her finger to point at the river "should have slogged at our men, particularly our most heavily armored knights, and the opposite bank of the river should have been a bloodbath."

She sighed to herself, and pinched her nose, before speaking again.

"And it wasn't."

"So what happened?"

The young general returned to her map.

"That is what I have spent the last several minutes trying to decipher." She paused. "Has there been any major enemy assaults on the far west flank?"

"Apart from an intense early skirmish, not that we know of."

She pored over the map, as if it would reveal its secrets.

"So there is an entire legion without any specific orders, any high ranking officers, any terrain advantage, and this entire situation has somehow not been capitalized on by the enemy in any significant way."

"Perhaps the enemy is merely inept?"

Weiss's eyes narrowed.

Her second in command shrugged in confusion. before a distant popping sound made him and his general look up. Flashes went off in the sky in the distance. Barely visible against the oncoming storm clouds were trails of grey smoke streaming through the air above her troops, flanked on the edges by black smoke.

His general turned to him in confusion and he obliged her.

"Daytime signal flares of dust and wool. Grey means they're advancing, black means they're stopped, red means they're falling back. Only the subcommanders can signal them, and generally only when all other forms of communication are compromised. It appears that the main force is advancing and the flanks are stalled."

"Compromised?"

"A physical barrier is blocking runners from getting back to the commander. Likely the river."

She was silent as she tried to imagine what that actually meant on the battlefield, but her knight took that as confirmation to continue. Then a cold breeze wafted through the tent causing her to shiver slightly as Ren spoke again.

"Well, whatever the enemy will do, short of retreating, they are going to want to do it now." He said enigmatically. "Nearly half of our entire force is across the river."

Weiss froze at his words as her eyes widened in horror.

Jaune sighed as he poured more alcohol into his glass, and his guest's, though instead of drinking it, he just stared at his drink in tired contemplation.

"I was working as a logistical supply manager." He started. "I was taking care of the supply chain to the troops and the front."

"A step up from I last saw you." Ozpin said enigmatically.

Jaune smiled. "Lord Aran was a good general. He said I was good at getting things where they needed to go. Something about making friends with everyone I met."

Ozpin smiled to himself as the blonde man continued.

"Technically, as someone of noble blood who could read and write, I was in the chain of command. Technically."

"But?"

Jaune's smile turned slightly more hollow. "It was the last day of fall. There was a storm coming. A big one. We all assumed that nobody would be stupid enough to try to attack with the chance of a storm looming over their heads…"

A blonde-haired man slept on the bottom bunk in a quiet tent lined with other bunks. Only a sliver of light came from the open flap of the tent's door.

It was peaceful, before a cold breeze fluttered through the flap, with a short figure with a dark red cape following behind, spilling light throughout the tent. Her head whipped back and forth, until she spotted the blonde man.

"Jaune!" She cried out in relief as she dashed over to him. His body was jolted as she slammed into him, and squeezed tightly, knocking the wind out of him.

The groggy man tried to collect himself and stared at the figure that had hit him.

"Ruby? What're you doing here? Do you know what time it is?"

"OhmygodI'msogladyou'renotdead!"

Jaune shook his head to clear out the cobwebs clouding his thoughts, and tried to distengle himself from his friend, while deciphering her words.

"Wait, what? Ruby, what's going on?"

Ruby pushed herself off of him and stared at him in confusion. "Didn't you hear?"

"Hear what? I've been asleep all day."

"People have been going nuts, they're saying the General...he's dead."

Jaune froze in shock, before shaking it off and getting up to walk out of the tent, with Ruby right behind him.

"What happened?" He said as he grabbed a shirt off of a rack while moving.

"We don't know, something happened, he was out on a mission? And this massive attack just wiped him and his retinue out."

Jaune had cleared the barracks and was on his way to the command tent, where a tall blonde woman was waiting.

"Yang, thank the gods. What the hell is going on? Ruby said the general's dead?"

Yang took a second to just stare at him in shock, before grabbing him in a backbreaking hug and bodily lifting him off of the ground.

"Thank the gods you're okay." She said in a whisper before she dropped him back down.

Jaune could barely breath when he was in her deathgrip, and once she dropped him again he almost collapsed to the ground, greedily gulping in air.

"Yang…" he said between breaths. "I love you...but...what...the hell?"

"Yeah sis!" Ruby said helpfully from his side. "What gives?"

"Ruby, get your scythe." Yang said quickly before she could get a word in edgewise.

"But-"

"Now." She said before adopting a calmer tone. "Look, Rubes, Remember how you wanted to fight?"

"Yeah-" She stopped as a look of realization lit up her face, and she nodded with excitement. "Oh! You got it sis!" She shouted as she dashed off to the armory with a trail of rose petals in her wake.

Jaune had recovered from his coughing fit, and he'd begun looking at Yang in concern.

"Well?"

"Come on…" Yang said as she pulled him into the command tent.

Normally, the tent would've held the general and any relevant knights to attend him, but it was conspicuously barren, had Jaune not been intimately familiar with the tent from working there, he would have thought it was just another person's regular accommodations.

"Yang, what's going on, what happened to Lord Aran?"

"I don't know."

Jaune blinked in surprise before trying a different tactic.

"Sir Unjax?"

"I don't know."

"Anyone else-"

"I DON'T KNOW!" She bellowed in rage, her eyes crimson.

Jaune flinched from her voice, and she visibly pulled herself back, breathing deeply and closing her eyes before speaking again.

"Sorry. But...Jaune, where, exactly were the senior officers supposed to be this morning?"

The blonde man racked his brain to think of what was going on. "There was…" his tired mind finally caught up with his mouth with an accompanying face of realization. "A diplomatic visit! Some lower ranked lord was coming and wanted to see the other side of the river." His hand sheepishly ran through his hair as he finished his story, "I'd accidentally stayed up all night documenting our supply scrolls, and the General excused me from going."

"Shit…Jaune, how many people was the General planning on taking?"

"Pretty much the general and all of his staff. They didn't want to arouse alarm by bringing the whole army. Yang, what's going on?"

She ran a hand through her hair hurriedly as she explained. "Listen Jaune, listen very closely. Are you absolutely sure that they were going across the river?"

"Yeah."

Yang sighed. She clenched her fist and slammed it on a nearby cabinet, creating a spiderweb of cracks in it.

"Well then…" she said with a forced calm that belied her crimson eyes. "We've work to do. General Arc."

"I take it the diplomatic mission didn't go well?" Ozpin said tiredly.

"You think?" Jaune said irritably. "Yang said when she was doing patrol, she found people coming back bloody from the other side of the river. Nobody had any idea what was going on, and the entire command staff was missing."

Jaune took another sip of the amber liquid.

"So what did you do?" Ozpin asked.

"Oz, you've known me for years, what the hell did you think I did?" Jaune said as he downed the rest of his glass.

"NO!"

"You can't say no!"

"Watch me! No! I'm not a general, I'm a supply clerk, and I'm not leading those people to their deaths!"

Yang pinched the bridge of her nose in exhaustion. Anger and heat were radiating from her body equally, making the man in front of her cringe.

"Jaune, there isn't anyone else. Nobody else can lead like you can."

"Well maybe we're better off with nobody leading us!"

"Well, I take it you came around on the issue." Ozpin said helpfully.

"Oz, the phrase you're looking for is 'no shit'."

"So Miss Xiao Long convinced you?"

"...let's just say that she beat some sense into me."

The hand came up quickly and harshly across his face, leaving a red imprint in its wake.

Jaune staggered and would have fallen to the ground had he not grabbed a desk for support.

He rubbed his jaw in pain, and his following words were spoken quietly.

"All that talk about being more than our parents, and you still resort to violence to prove your point."

The now incensed woman grabbed him by his collar and lifted him bodily into the air, cocking a hand back to punch him into the next tent when she stopped. Her eyes, red, closed, and after breathing out, they opened with lilac orbs.

She unceremoniously dropped him, and the blonde man barely kept from falling to the ground a second time.

Yang was quiet, and her face was screwed up in concentration, before she spoke again.

"Fuck. You."

Jaune, with a slightly apologetic expression, rubbed the back of his neck.

"Sorry. Too far."

"No shit."

"Sorry?"

Yang rolled her violet eyes, and sighed, before giving him a light punch in the shoulder.

Jaune sighed, and rubbed the bridge of her nose.

"Why me?" He said quietly. "Why me of all people? Why not you, you're just as smart as I am."

Yang shrugged. "You can read."

Jaune rolled his eyes and stayed quiet.

Silence reigned between them for uninterrupted seconds.

Then Yang sighed. "And everyone trusts you."

The blonde male's shoulders slumped slightly, and he let out a breath. He looked at her.

"Everyone?"

Yangs smile was tiny, but present.

"Well, some of us."

A gust of freezing wind blew through the room, and the distant sound of thunder sounded in the distance.

Both of their faces fell simultaneously.

"I might fuck up." he said seriously.

"That was a given."

His face was slightly more somber than before as he looked at her.

"I'm going to need your help."

She smiled.

"That was a given too, Vomit Boy."

That got a smile out of him too. It lasted just until her face became more serious.

"So where do we start?" She said quickly.

"Well…" he said uncertainly. "We need battle plans. So I'm going to need you to break the locks on these cabinets..."

"So what happened next?"

"We sent Ruby to scout and grab other knights. Anyone and everyone who knew how to get people where they needed to go. Then we sent out reconnaissance parties."

"I hesitate to sound like I'm repeating myself, but what did you find?"

Jaune sighed. "Madness."

"We always knew we were outnumbered."

"Well, yes," Jaune said with annoyance. "But generally we've never had to face 2 to 1 odds before. Where did these new troops even come from?"

"Well…" Yang said uncertainly. "Whatever we come up with, we need to do it now. The other knights will be arriving any minute, and we need a plan. Atlas's first troops are already beginning to cross the river."

Jaune closed his eyes in contemplation, before a small, vicious, smile opened on his face.

A quick few strokes of his charcoal had the paper covered in arrows. After he finished, he held it up to Yang, who narrowed her eyes at it, before slowly nodding.

"The hardest part will be breaking their lines." He started. "We'll need someone crazy, and powerful on the front line to pull this off." Jaune said in a faux offhand tone.

Yang punched him lightly. "Don't worry about me. I already said yes. We just need to get everyone else on board."

Jaune sighed. "Well the good news is that if we pull this off, Great-Grandma Hanniba is going to be so proud of me..."

"We can't retreat." Jaune said to the angry noises of the other knights in the room.

"Why not!" came a voice in the back.

"Because we'd get cut down!" Jaune said angrily. "The valley only gets smaller from here, and we all know that the only reason we can fight Atlas at all right now is because we have the mobility advantage. But that doesn't mean anything if we have to fight a solid wave of troops twice our size!"

The room was quiet. From the way all of the assembled men and women stood in a shocked silence, and from the atrocious state of their intelligence, Jaune suspected that they hadn't known how large the forces they were facing were.

He sighed. "But I have a plan."

Jaune stood at the back of a regiment of knights. They saw the shine of the incoming Atlesians as they rushed towards them.

The impromptu general spotted Yang's blonde tresses in the huddled masses, and he walked through the throngs up to her.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"...You ready?"

The woman nodded, though her fidgeting shoulders betrayed his unease.

Jaune shifted nervously. "Don't worry, I'll be right behind you, in the thick of it with everyone else."

The blonde woman rolled her eyes before sneaking a look at him armed with an ancestral sword, shield, and nothing else. "Respectfully, I really don't think your particular presence will affect the battle too much."

"Hey, I wasn't talking to you, I was talking to me."

Yang tilted his head in confusion at him.

Jaune laughed her befuddled expression on her face. "I was reminding myself that if this fails, odds are I won't survive this mess long enough to hear you say 'I told you so'"

The woman was silent before barking out a laugh, drawing stares from the assembled warriors around them. "HA! Well shit, Jaune, I guess that means I'm going to have to win then then."

At that, Jaune just smiled, before both turned at the oncoming sound of clashing metal. They looked at each other with grim faces, and Yang spoke softly.

"Go."

Jaune nodded and began to move his way back through the throngs of people, away from the front. But as he left, Yang heard his voice one last time.

"Hey Yang! We survive this, I'll let you say 'I told you so' all you want…"

Yang smiled.

"I'll hold you to that vomit boy…"

"Well?" The king growled. "What happened?"

Weiss sighed under her breath and continued from her prostrate form in front of her regent.

"To get into the minutiae of the battle," she started with a monotone voice that belayed her annoyance, "We were facing an inverted crescent."

"My legion outnumbered the Valeans by two to one," she continued, "But by the time I arrived there, the legion was separated by a river, which prevented my legion from pressing their advantage in numbers."

"Lady Schnee…" he muttered dangerously. "That is how the battle transpired. What happened?"

Weiss's shoulders slumped slightly at this and her own words were curt and quick.

"Half of my forces were encircled and were going to be slaughtered."

"We need to reinforce the men across the river."

Ren, to his credit, didn't even flinch at his leige's sudden pivot when it came to his mission objectives, but even he struggled to come up with a response to her words.

"Uh, my Lady, we...can't. Not immediately. "

Weiss was scanning over the map before her, particularly the river that happened to split the valley in two. "There are no bridges?"

"They were destroyed in the first forays across the river. Our men have been just rushing headlong into the water to wade across. Fine for crossing slowly, not very easy to evacuate."

Weiss scowled. "What if we could make a bridge?"

"That might work, but I don't-" The knight couldn't even finish his words before his general was rushing out of the war tent, stopping only to grab her rapier, before dashing to her retinue that had finally reached them, and was just beginning to unpack.

"My Lady, what are you-" he started before Weiss cut him off with a quick movement of her arm before pushing her rapier into an attendant's arms before addressing her servants.

"Ice dust, now."

"How much-" her servants got out before her eyes narrowed.

"All of it."

Within seconds, one of her attendants had dismantled her sword into pieces. Another opened an enormous metal chest, which contained dozens of metal canisters. They moved several of them out of the chest, and opened them, revealing the faint blue glow of dust within them.

They began to carefully drop blue dust into her cylinder. Frost began to form around them, and the cold began to creep into the armor of the knights around them.

With shivers and curses, every assembled warrior began to notice something was wrong, and turned to watch the display. They stood, transfixed, watching as the attendants carefully poured in the glowing dust.

Finally, after inestimable minutes, the cylinders were filled, and the rapier was slotted back into place. The attendants prostrated themselves in front of Weiss, holding her blade out for her.

Weiss cautiously reached forward and gently picked up the weapon. An almost imperceptible pulse of aura spun the now completely blue cylinder, and her armored finger dragged itself up the blade, letting out gentle wisps of condensation.

Then, as though a spell had been broken, her eyes refocused on the people around her, who were all watching the spectacle with rapt attention. The narrowing of her eyes, and the click that came from the sheathing of her rapier had everyone rapidly moving back to whatever they had been doing before.

She turned to her new second in command and spoke cautiously.

"Sir Ren, is there something you would wish to say?"

The quiet knight jolted out of his reverie and tried to articulate his thoughts.

"It's nothing my Lady…" he started quickly. "It's just that...most of use have never seen that much dust before, let alone...that."

Weiss looked at him curiously before shrugging the statement off and began to walk towards the sound of battle.

"If you believe this is impressive, wait until I use this…" she said ominously. As if responding to her words, the wind around them began to pick up .

"I hope you do not expect to be compensated for that dust Lady Schnee."

Weiss scowled at the floor, but her annoyance didn't seep into her tone.

"Understood, your majesty."

She stood at the bank of the river, the waters roaring across it as the pitched shadows from a battle took place on the opposite bank. The wind had picked up, and the river was frothing at its outer edges. The chill of the coming snow penetrated Weiss's armor and worked its way to her core, though which portion of the cold was from the storm, and which was from her rapier, she wasn't able to tell.

"My Lady…" her second in command said from her side. "Are you sure about this?"

The young general sighed, and pointed to the fog covering the river, obscuring their view of the other side despite the wind whistling around them.

"Look beyond the fog Ren. They're fighting at the banks of the river. The trap is closing…"

The knight took time to squint at the foggy bank before nodding and standing aside.

She took the time to look at the assembled men behind her, who were looking at her curiously. The whispers of their discontent filtered back to her, wondering why they were not jumping into the river to help their allies.

Lady Schnee squared her shoulders and set her feet. Wide enough for stability, but not too wide of a stance. She took a breath, and drew her rapier.

Like a bolt out of a crossbow she dashed forward, with glyphs barely having enough time to form underneath on the damp ground before her feet slammed into them, and she reached the river's waters in less than a second.

A larger glyph than the ones before formed under her feet, and she slammed both of her feet into them, and sprung into the air, taking her a quarter of the way across the length of the river before she began to descend.

The black churning waters threatened to swallow her whole before a quick twitch of her rapier sent a line of blue dust ahead of her, driving a stake of ice into the river so deep that it buried itself in the sandy bottom.

That was where she landed, on a precarious patch of ice in the middle of swirling waters. Not even taking enough time to relieve herself of her momentum, the woman slammed her rapier into the waters.

Her aura was as bright as the sun as it spun her rapier's dust cylinders at a furious pace.

Without even a second of hesitation, an eruption of ice exploded across the surface of the roiling waters, freezing waves and crests in midair, and causing the fog across the river to fly away, revealing both banks.

On one, half of her legion was fighting for their lives, and on the other, the rest of her legion waited with bated breath for her command.

The expulsion of aura and dust had drained her of any words, so she merely dragged her sword out of the frozen river and held it aloft above her head.

She let it stay there for a second, taking a moment to admire the image she was no doubt making, before she lowered it toward the side of the river with their Valean enemies.

A great roar came from her men and they began to charge across the river.

Weiss was exhausted from what she had done. Her supposedly 'light' armor chafed her, her arms were numb with the cold that came from summoning so much ice dust, and she could feel the aches that came from the depletion of her aura.

The wind of the storm whistled around her in a gale as she stood up, and started to dash towards her battered and bruised legion.

"Your legion survived."

It was not a question. But Weiss hesitated in her response before answering with the only thing she could respond with

"Yes."

The opposite side of the river was a roiling mess of people and weapons. Had it been an average day she would have been able to see the gleam of her soldier's weapons and armor from the banks. But it was no average day, and every weapon and piece of armor was caked in mud and gore.

She arrived and broke into a relatively quiet patch of land with who she assumed was the commander.

"Subcommander!" She shouted over the din of dying men. "We come bearing reinforcements!"

The man turned to her gratefully. "Thank the gods!" he said in excitement. "We're getting pressed from the flanks, and-"

He was cut off by a bugle, and his eyes widened to the size of saucers. "ARROW UP!" he screamed to everyone nearby, and he quickly tackled Weiss to the ground to the whizzing of projectiles.

Now stained with the mud of the battlefield, Weiss hurriedly tried to push herself up, despite the man still leaning his full weight to keep her down. She looked around, finding arrows scattered on the ground around them, before realizing that the man pressed against her wasn't moving.

She pulled back to look into his face, only to find his eyes now listless and unfocused. Weiss moved him slightly to look at his back and found it pockmarked with arrows sticking out of him.

The cold of the storm didn't seem so frigid anymore as she froze in place.

A great shout came up from the side, grabbing her attention in time to keep her from vomiting over the corpse.

Weiss flipped him onto his back gently and pulled his eyelids down,

"For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. And it is in life that we truly live. Rest, knight, you have earned it."

Once the last word had passed her lips, she got up and began to run towards the nearest shouts.

The masses of Atlesian knights were being pushed back by the Valeans and were so close to breaking that Weiss could see the eyes of Vale's knights between the whistling weapons.

She quickly flipped her head to her reinforcements crossing the river, gauging their distance, and turned back to the flanks bursting with Valeans.

As she turned back, an explosion blew back Atlesians and Valeans alike. As she focused on the spectacle, she realized that a blonde haired woman was standing at the epicenter of the explosion. Her hair was blazing with fire and her aura was shining like a star in the middle of the battlefield.

Distantly, the storm roared above them, and the the rain began to come down, but even the darkest clouds couldn't put the flames engulfing the woman out.

The Vale and Atlesian armies had been shocked to inaction by the expulsion of power in their midst, but the figure in the middle had recovered, and Weiss could tell that she was ready to bolt forward and decimate their now exposed flanks.

On pure muscle memory, Weiss flew forward, and unsheathed her rapier.

With the another pulse of her ice dust she summoned a wall of ice between their two forces, blanketing the battlefield with an icy chill, and earning her forces a reprieve.

She sighed in relief before she heard another explosion that rocked her makeshift barricade.

The young general hurriedly looked back to her forces crossing the river still so far away, and she turned to the tide of the battle on the bank. Her mind mentally noted how both her barricade and makeshift bridge were already crumbling to the inexorable forces of the river and the Valeans.

A distant crack of thunder passed through her ears, and the wind picked up.

Another explosion rocked the ice wall, and Weiss hung her head in shame, before she steeled her posture and grabbed the nearest knight that was just getting up from the explosion.

"Knight!" She barked at him.

"Yes!" He said quickly from her vice grip.

"We are evacuating." He looked like he was about to question when she fixed him with a hard glare.

His eyes quickly flickered to the ice keeping the Valeans at bay before they swung back to her with a look of deference.

"Yes my Lady!"

She let him go and he scampered off, carrying the news. The other knights were finally getting up from the explosion and she raised her voice to a shout.

"WE ARE LEAVING!"

The knights looked confused for a second, but a gesture towards the river with her rapier, with a bit of glowing aura to reinforce her point, had them all nodding hurriedly and running off.

She sighed, and then started running towards the frozen portion of the river. Using glyphs for traction she got to her reinforcements in seconds, quickly reaching her second in command.

"My Lady." Ren said as she skidded to a stop in front of him.

"Change of plans, we're evacuating."

He nodded quickly at the words, and she continued.

"Get everyone out of here. Leave the minimum men to slow down the Valeans on the bridge. Everyone else has to run, we have lost the initiative, and we are unlikely to regain it today. Don't worry about the rear guard, we'll catch up."

"...'We', my Lady?"

Distant explosions at the bank of the river had her scowling.

"Ice dust may be the only thing that will slow them down now." She said grimly.

He nodded, and she turned to walk back into the fog...

She stood on the icy bridge. Already water was washing over it, and she could see parts of the ice breaking away and flowing downstream.

Weiss sighed, and looked across to the fog that had once again overtaken the bank.

Dark shapes formed, and she tensed at the armored figures.

Then they turned into people, more specifically, fleeing knights of the Atlesian empire, and with the smallest fraction of her shoulders sagging, she relaxed, before taking a deep breath and began to yell instructions.

"This way! Keep running!"

Throngs of knights followed her orders, if only out of sheer fear of the coming army than anything else, and ran past her, while she kept her eyes on the fogbank, waiting for a different wave of troops.

Soon, Ren's rear guard came from the more secure side of the river, and took positions next to her.

After the flood of Atlesians had whittled down to a trickle, Weiss continued to wait on the frozen river. With every evacuee that passed, her hand gripped her rapier tightly, as her troops tensed ever more and more for the adversaries that were sure to come.

Finally, one man in tatters ran forward with neither a helmet nor weapons. He stopped at their line and they let him through.

Weiss talked to him softly.

"How many are yet to come?"

He was wheezing from the exertion, but he got out some quick words.

"Any Atlesian on that side of the river is there because they asked to be."

Weiss scowled. She had counted maybe a half of her forces that had been across the river had evacuated so far.

"We need to go." She said quickly, gesturing for men to take the evacuee. More orders had the rear-guard retreating when she heard a distant explosion.

Her heart filled with dread, she looked to the fog to see a glowing figure rapidly approaching.

One of the knights, with heavy armor and a warhammer called out.

"GO! I have this!" She shouted before rushing into battle.

"Wait!" Weiss called before the knight had already dashed off.

She quickly followed, glyphs accelerating her to the battle, only to find the knight about to hammer the female figure into the ice.

With a mighty overhead swing, the weapon flew towards the figure's head. However, instead of caving in the figure's skull, the figure met the blow with raised armored gauntlets. The hammer slammed into the figure's arms with the force of a falling boulder, cracking the ice beneath them. The figure's aura seemed to pulse at the blow, before she exploded with power, sending the knight back and almost knocking Weiss over.

The blonde figure began to menacingly walk towards the knight, her every footstep burning into the ice.

The knight quickly grabbed her hammer before the figure dashed towards her for a haymaker.

Weiss had already cycled her cylinders to muster the last of her Ice dust, and threw up a quick icewall, freezing the figure's hand in mid-flight.

It may have been a hasty ice wall, with cracks and fissures, but was still sizeable, and it was functional, separating the golden figure from the two Atlesians.

As they stared at the ice wall, the only sound between them was the wind, which had died down, and despite the dark clouds, the rain and thunder had subsided for precious seconds, instead giving way to light snowfall.

Simoultaneously, the two Atlesians let out a breath both didn't realize they were holding, and looked at each other.

The knight was about to speak her mind when Weiss interrupted her.

"We have to go."

There was an explosion on the other side of the wall, causing more cracks in both the wall of ice protecting them, and the ice beneath their feet.

Weiss helped the knight to her feet and they began to run from the continuing explosions and the army behind her.

"We kept running. The Valeans overran our positions and we had to flee beyond our own camp to the edge of the valley."

Once her report had finished, she closed her eyes from their listless observation of the floor, and listened to the king's breathing.

He spoke, saying "Lady Schnee, your conduct on the field of battle was…" before pausing to take in air.

"...dissatisfactory."

Weiss sucked in air to intervene.

"My legion is alive, and that is what counts, we may have lost the valley now, but I can reclaim in the summer, Father, I-"

"ENOUGH!" He bellowed, his voice echoing through the room. "You have not only cost the empire land, and dust, but you have squandered the most precious resource of all. Time."

He grumbled. "Every second we waste is another second that those Valean rabble have to fortify, and to gain hope that they can win, every second they will fight harder, and YOU," he said imperiously, "You have given them months."

Weiss's shoulders slumped slightly. Her voice was nearly silent in the massive cathedral as she spoke.

"Am I to be relieved of my legion?"

The king was silent.

"No." Came the word dragged out of his mouth.

She forced her breathing to remain steady at the response.

"You have failed, and you will be punished. Your legion will stay where it is now, leave it with a trusted lieutenant. But for the winter, you will be staying in the capitol, as an envoy. If you behave, the legion may be yours when summer is upon us again. Now rise."

Weiss's face was neutral as she stood up again to look her king in the eye and nodded.

"Now." He said more neutrally. "Was there anything else you would care to mention?"

He was blonde, and handsome, even if his features were a bit boyish, and his face was in ecstasy as he drove into her. Her moans echoed across the tent as she dipped her head back in pleasure-

"No."

Her face could have been carved from the walls of the cathedral it was so stony. The king nodded in dismissal and she stood, ignoring the pain in her knees from kneeling for so long.

The faunus chained to the throne meekly walked over to her and handed Weiss her cloak. She smiled at the girl, and got a quiet nod in response.

She spun on her heel and began to walk away.

The echoing of her boots echoed through the cathedral as her measured gait took her further and further away from the king.

Ozpin sipped his whiskey, before placing it down.

"So Jaune, after their lines broke, you and your forces chased them across the valley?"

Jaune shrugged. "Pretty much. We could have chased them farther but their camp was in a defensible area so we just took it and hunkered down. There was a small counterattack but that was...dealt with."

Jaune shivered. Images of the battlefield just a short walk away, with the bodies buried in the snow, came to the forefront of his mind.

He shook the thoughts out of his head and poured himself another glass of the amber fluid that he chugged.

"Alright, that's my story Oz" he said conversationally. "Now yours, what exactly are you doing here? It's dangerous to be this close to the front."

Ozpin smiled mysteriously and reached into his coat. "Ah, well that's a story. See, I recently received a promotion."

Jaune looked perplexed. "Promotion? I thought you haven't been in the military in years?"

"Well, I'm not really in the military so much anymore…" Ozpin said as he smirked, before drawing out a worn and weathered cylinder with a bulb at the top. "...So much as I'm in charge of the military now." With a squeeze of a handle on the cylinder, the clockwork gears on the top whirred, and a black stick popped out of the cylinder, turning the small cylinder into a cane.

Jaune, in his inebriated state took a second to recognize the instrument, but as soon as his neurons connected, his eyes widened in disbelief.

He almost dropped his cup on the table in his haste to get out of his chair and kneel before the man opposite him.

Ozpin laughed slightly at the sight of the poor man trying to stay on his feet, before his face went to a slightly exasperated look.

"At ease, Jaune."

"I'm sorry sir-I mean your Majesty" Jaune said quickly before sitting down. "I just...wow...you were elected king?"

Ozpin smiled as he spoke. "Yes, I've done quite a few favors for some high ranking people over the years, and it was long past time to call them in. Your family was particularly helpful in getting my current position, so you have my thanks."

Jaune's face was gobsmacked as he tried to comprehend what was going on. Ozpin decided to use the silence to fill in the details.

"The council elected me only less than a week ago, and the coronation will be within the month."

Jaune had finally managed to get his thoughts together before speaking, and his eyes were sharp once more with realization at something that troubled him. Not at what had been said, but hadn't.

"Oz, you never answered my question. Why are you here? A king has people for this"

"A king can visit his troops can't he?"

"Well yeah…" Jaune started. "But...nevermind, I'm sure you have your reasons, your Majesty."

At those words, Ozpin sighed before his face seemed to age.

"A king can visit his troops. That is true." He started slowly. "What a king cannot do is take the liberty to catch up old students. Or old friends."

He stopped for a second before whispering under his breath. "And I am not the king yet."

Jaune fell quiet and his face was conflicted.

Eventually, he ended up just pouring out more whiskey for both of them. They silently toasted each other and drained the glasses.

They stayed in a companionable silence, before Ozpin got up.

"I must leave." he said as he collapse the cane. "I have many people I need to meet, and should the council find out that I was out here, they'd have a fit."

Jaune got up and shook hands with him. A quick nod of understanding was exchanged before Ozpin grunted and sat up.

"Well, if that is all you have to report, I would best be going." The king turned to go to his horse.

Jaune thought to himself as he mulled over the words.

She was white haired, and beautiful, and though her face was often marred by a scowl, now it was screwed up in a fit of pleasure as she rode him. His grunting echoed in the small tent as pleasure lanced through his body-

He shook his head free of the memories, and spoke.

"Actually, there was one other thing, Professor."

The king stopped with the flap of the tent open, his head poking through.

"I have some information, but you must swear to me that you won't abuse it. Someone trusted me with this."

Ozpin pulled back from the edge of the tent to look at the blonde man, and nodded in acknowledgement

Jaune took in a breath to steady himself.

"The legion, it was led by a woman. One Lady Weiss Schnee. Second in line the Throne of Nidavellir."

Ozpin tilted his head at that. "We were aware of her, though words of her commanding a legion are new."

Jaune's face was conflicted, but he pressed on.

"We had a shortage of food and supplies. She came to negotiate the rationing of food between our two camps so we both would survive the winter."

"That's news for sure, but not exactly-"

"She came personally to negotiate."

That got the soon-to-be king's attention, and his eyes narrowed in thought.

"You came to an agreement?" He finally said.

"50% split. Completely equitable."

"And she honored your deal?"

"When you were talking with her earlier, Ruby was probably snacking on some of that food in your very presence."

Ozpin was silent, before slow, careful words began to come out.

"I'll bring word to the council and update our files on her-"

Jaune's face shifted to one of pleading as he cut him off.

"Sir, she came to me in confidence and honored our deal. As a friend I would ask that you leave her honor in her own court intact."

Oz smiled at his friend and put up a hand to placate.

"Don't worry Jaune, I won't tell them the details of what transpired, just the basics for our profiles."

But at those words, his smile turned into a slight smirk.

"However, regardless of the circumstances, a Schnee who honors her deals and cares for her people, that is interesting."

Jaune nodded to him, and the concern eventually left his face.

"Is there anything else you can tell me about Lady Schnee?"

She rested on his cot, with her arm draped around him, her body, so small compared to his, burned with warmth as her steady breaths pressed against his neck…

"That is between me and her, your Majesty."

Ozpin nodded, and left the tent, walking towards his horse

Jaune was about to turn back to his work when a look of realization and then concern swept over Jaune's face before he broke out into a run to follow the man in green. He arrived just as Ozpin was about to start off.

"Hey Oz!" he said to the new king with the uneasy breaths that came from running to catch up. "I forgot to ask, but would, uh...would you happen to know when the replacement general is arriving?"

"Sorry?" The man on the horse said before a look of realization came over him. "Oh right! I can't believe I almost forgot, I really must get an assistant for these kinds of things."

He reached into a satchel to remove a scroll before handing the new parchment to the blonde man, saying "This should explain everything." As Jaune quickly unrolled it and began to read it out loud.

"This decree establishes that current command of the Tenth Brigade of Vale falls to one...Jaune...Arc…"

Ozpin smiled and began to gallop off.

"Oz-I mean your Majesty! Wait! What's-" He trailed off as he read down the rest of the scroll, muttering the rest of the words.

"Wait...falls to one Jaune Arc, as decreed by one...Ozpin Pine, 10th King of Vale."

He could no longer see the man in olive green in the dark of the night, but his perplexed eyes still tried to spot the new king as he left. He sighed, and muttered one comment into the dead of night.

"Goddammit Oz…"

A/N: This Author's Note is meant to address the elephant in the room. As you read, there was no smut in this chapter.

The reason requires a bit of backstory. To explain, the first chapter of this story was meant to be a smutty one-shot. But a throwaway line at the end had people asking for a continuation to this, so I began to worldbuild for the story.

However, it seemed from the feedback that I received that people are more invested in the story than the smut, which I could agree with. I'm having a lot of fun worldbuilding for this AU, and there's a lot of things in the pipeline I'm excited to write. But as I wrote more, frankly, I began to feel that shoe-horning in smut into every chapter would detract from the overall story.

Some stories function well with a lot of smut due to having complex interpersonal relationships that are exacerbated by sex (especially stories like Tight Corners, and to a lesser extent the rest of my stories on my account, as examples).

Some don't.

This story is somewhere in between.

So, I'm going for what I'm going to call the Game of Thrones approach. There will be explicit smut, (and I will make it as steamy as possible for the sake of professionalism) but only when I feel it makes a modicum of sense in the story, and otherwise, the plot is going to drive the story.

That being said, these are set in medieval times before the internet, and there's very little else for them all to do besides each other, so it'll probably show up regularly.

If you just like the story and don't care about the smut, chapters without are going to be labeled "Story contains explicit sexual content." when they don't have it, and "Chapter contains explicit sexual content" when they do, just so I don't have to add a disclaimer all the time.

And in case it wasn't abundantly clear from this egregiously long Author's Note, yes, I will be continuing this fic for the foreseeable future.

Please feel free to share your thoughts about this chapter, the fic, and this new direction I'm taking it via PM's and reviews, and I hope you all enjoy the story.