Howdy. Finally entering Volume 3, so we can all enjoy that. Also, not dead yet.

Weiss had nearly mastered runes by now. Elements and actions now bent under her control easily and she could combine some of them at will. It made some of our sparring matches interesting as Ruby, Blake, and Yang had to work around the runes as well as her glyphs.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Blake's training was going slow. That's not to say it wasn't working, because it was, but other things were coming up. Necessary preparations for the Vytal tournament and our first round this weekend took time away from us, mostly because each session left Blake physically drained, and infinitely more so mentally.

The first time I had tried pushing her into the Focal Point ended abruptly as she collapsed from mental strain. She seemed fine at first, if tense. She had relaxed and kneeled facing away as I placed my hands over her temples to access memories and emotions. There wasn't much digging to do when it came for hardships. Just beneath the emotions and memories of her time at Beacon, her life seemed a warzone.

My mind caught a few flying images as I pushed deeper. Faunus ridiculing, friends being killed or hurt, abandonment. "Not sharp enough", I thought. I had been able to feel her breath hitch and her muscles tighten in the back of her neck as the mental notions forced their way into her brain, becoming her only thoughts.

The worst pain comes from the things that we hide from ourselves, things we don't want to accept, or things we push back because they are simply too painful. Doubts and the truth. I dug and dug, and my metaphorical fingers traced over something that burned like fire. Two images flashed in my mind. A couple, one large man and a smaller woman, both in black, both faunus. The second was a man with red hair and a mask. He looked angry, betrayed. The couple looked sad. I could only assume a relative of some sort. Parents by the age of them.

As I touched over the images Blake made a broken sound and collapsed, falling away from my hand and severing the mental connection. Now on her hands and knees I I couldn't see her face. On the grave roof her tears fell freely while her hands gripped the rocks hard enough to start bleeding. She heaved sobs for a few moments as her composure slowly returned.

That was the reaction I was looking for. Absolute denial and shutdown. Her mind couldn't cope with facing those realities yet. But I would make it. Right now though, she needed to recover. In my experimentation I had learned that continuously pushing someone too fast only earned a permanent depression or hollow state. So I waited for Blake to stop crying and get up. This was sadness, but the other memory was anger, if a scared kind.

I watched closely when Blake's hands stopped shaking and clutching at the rocks. Then in a flash she reeled on me and I blocked a punch with my forearm. Her eyes were wild and red as she tried again to hit me. I grabbed her arms and pinned them against her sides. "Why?!" She yelled.

She struggled against my grip for only a second or two before yelling at me again. "Why that?! Why did you have to choose that?!" She asked. I kept her arms pinned despite her fading resistance. I stared her down and spoke calmly and firmly.

"You asked for this. You agreed to this. Only your worst memories and experiences can incite the emotions we need." I reasoned. She stared at me back for a few seconds before falling forward, now being supported by me. My shoulder became wet with her tears and I fought the instinct to push her off of me. Rampant emotions. Such fickle things humans are.

Another minute passed before she finally began to gain composure. We climbed slowly back into the dorm and agreed that we would keep pushing every other night. The same results occurred each time we tried, her becoming hysterical again mere moments after I touched upon the two images. This only continued for three more sessions before the tournament became too near to risk her mental state. The last session was tonight, and I only hoped I could push her far enough. I would not have another opportunity to make her a worthy opponent.

The tournament itself was an interesting debate settled by Ozpin. The usual procedure was to split the team in half twice and vote on who moved forwards into the double and single matches. A compromise was made. RWBY would fight as a unit of four versus another team. Then we had two decisions. I could either fight solo in the second round against two opponents, or against one in the final. I ended up choosing the later.

My reasons for facing off against just one opponent was simple. The tournament was coinciding with Cinder's plans and I decided that I would make my move at the culmination of all the kingdom's hopes and festivities. Until then, I just had to wait and keep myself from being found out. Security and Atlas intrusion rose as the tournament neared.

"Hey, Darren?" Ruby asked to get my attention during breakfast. I looked up.

"With everything you've taught all of us I think we're in a good position for the tournament, but do you have anything else you'd want to show us before we go in?" She asked. I shook my head.

"Nothing I can teach in less than a week. Train well and rest. Don't push too hard before the tournament starts. We do want to win, after all." I told her. Yang and her nodded in agreement and finished their food. Weiss read silently from a booklet of runes I had written down to help her memorize them all. Blake did not read, and sulked slightly in silence. The rest of the team said nothing because I had explained the emotional effects of her training.

"How's JNPR doing?" Ruby asked to nobody in particular. Weiss closed the book to answer her.

"Jaune and Nora recovered quite nicely from what I heard. Pyrrha has been requested to stay off training until the day before the tournament, if Ren's condition allows them to participate. He's healed well from his time in the aura chambers, but it's the nurses' call." Weiss answered.

"Oh, I hope they can fight." Ruby said with a pouting face and took her tray up. Yang and Weiss followed her and left me with Blake again. I had nothing to say right now and let her mentally prepare for the rest of the day. Classes were cancelled on account of a signal issue after an Atlas ship flew over and broke one of the satellite dishes on the roof.

My location was the emerald forest, then the Lock Box. I had yet report on the Lock-Box for quite some time, mostly because figuring out how to open the glass boxes without tripping an alarm of some kind. Eventually I had no other options but to hope my voice authentication from mimicking Ozpin had disabled the alarm, and broke one of the boxes. The box itself was very sturdy and shattered loudly, but nothing happened. Fearing a silent alarm, I had waited for a few hours before deciding there was no danger.

The rest of my time had been spread out by relocating various items and inspecting them for trackers. In my locker I currently held the three belts of fire, earth, and gravity dust grenades. Crocea Armis was hidden underground in another locker that was surprisingly stolen from the school, ripped from the very foundation. I still debated on giving that to Jaune, but I wanted my options close.

The two large devices, being the Reactionary Bomb and Railgun were painstakingly moved out of the Lock Box. When I say painstakingly, I mostly meant the railgun. You see, the railgun itself was much larger than the one-person door I had entered from. The warhead for the bomb was also slightly large than myself, but I managed to squeeze that down the corridor until I felt it safe enough to work my way to the surface.

Being unable to bring the warhead with me in astral form, I was forced to slowly tunnel through the foot thick steel and half mile of rock and dirt. This took the larger part of two weeks so I didn't cause any cave-ins. Currently the warhead was positioned at the base of Beacon Cliffs with another chute tunneled near the center of vale. That all brought me to the end of the semester and the beginning of this one.

The next month I spent carefully learning all that I could about the Railgun, knowing very well that I'd have to dismantle it. After a week combing Beacon's library and the local Archives, I found nothing aside from a brief mention in a book of possible weaponry, and it was written by a conspiracy theorist. I was forced to take a short trip to Atlas in order to procure some information from some people that technically didn't exist. I'll detail that expedition soon, as it was quite fun.

The trip was excused by a letter sent by myself detailing a family emergency, granting a week out because of the distance to my 'home' in the Ice Fangs. Once I returned with detailed blueprints and other manifests of the Railgun, I spent all the time until now dismantling the railgun and bringing pieces through the tunnel into a large, ancient clock tower in Vale. Coincidentally, it was quite close to where I had left the Reactionary Bomb underground.

My job still wasn't over yet, and I was running out of time. Cinder was the brain on her side of the operation, but the ice cream colored girl who stabbed Yang was also quite clever. Cinder made her start helping me dismantle the gun recently. There was a small freak-out on her part as she had recognized me, but we came into agreement when she realized we had similar intentions. And I offered her the Topaz Dagger as payment, but she also took all the books within the Dark Archives. She explained with many hand motions and sticky notes that she had a thing for hidden history and knowledge.

Together we had removed a large portion of the barrel, all of the dust cores, and the frontal support and aiming mechanism. The large wheeled base and firing mechanism remained. It was quite an intricate piece of machinery, and the computers is what gave us trouble.

I sent a message for her to meet me once again at the Lock-Box and jumped off the cliff after informing Cinder of our progress. It kept her from nagging at me. This was becoming a chore and I found little enjoyment in the wind rushing past me. While gliding I saw Neo's small White Fang rover driving through the forest. It was brought for transporting parts in the trailer attached. We met silently at the entrance I had tunneled out and slid down.

Another hard few hours of complicated work ensued. Neo pickpocketed some of my vodka that I carried while we worked, and I let her. She had quite the tolerance for someone so small. It was nice being around someone who didn't talk. Mostly we communicated through grunts on my part and slams on hers, with lots of finger pointing. She was by far the least complicated and fickle human I had met so far.

After filling the trailer with a load that contained almost all of the remaining computers and electronics, we drove to the base of Beacon Cliffs and I spent time until sunset hauling parts up into the sewers and into the clock tower. There I had left two of the smartest White Fang members to reassemble the weapon with copies of the blueprints. Neo left to head back to base and I stopped for a new bottle of drink before making my way to the school.

The detective Atlas POI robots still buzzed around, but considerably less. They ignored me completely as my human face was completely scrubbed from their system. I would not register if they scanned me, so they did nothing. I made my way to the school and then the rooftops at sundown. Blake was waiting for me.

"How long you been there?" I asked her as she stared off into the horizon.

"Long enough to have gotten some thinking done." Blake said, then took a deep breath. "We're out of time, so I need you to do something for me."

"What's that?" I questioned, not really expecting a request to come from her.

"Don't stop. I don't care if I collapse of scream or claw at your arms until my fingers a bloody, I need you to push me over the edge." She said. I could see that while she did mean it, she was scared at what might happen. I didn't particularly care about her fear or pain, I just needed confirmation to do so.

"Alright. Kneel down." I told her, just as I had her do every other time. I stood behind her and entered her mind. She was tense and I could feel the fear like a stagnant liquid in her mind. I didn't bother combing around this time and went immediately for her most painful realizations and memories.

Immediately I felt her weight shift forward, but this time I held her still. I shoved the memories to the surface roughly, and gained the full story. The man with red hair, a former love turned betrayer. A man she had once looked up to becoming the main reason humanity hated faunus. Her anger and betrayal pushed against her mind. She screamed and grabbed me. True to her predictions, I felt her nails bite into my skin.

The man and woman. Her parents. Her biggest regret was leaving them, leaving the White Fang, even to an extent, leaving Adam. That was his name. She felt she betrayed them all. Part of her thought of going back, another part of her worried that they wouldn't accept her. A voice in the back of her head feared what Adam would do.

I knew her tears were flowing freely as her grip tightened and she scratched against my arms and struggled. I pushed harder against her mind, and felt a sensation like glass breaking. Exactly what I was looking for. Suddenly I found two painfully strong grips on my arms and wrenched them backwards. My power wasn't readied in any kind of defense and my skin pierced as two katanas were stabbed through my feet, rooting me to the rooftop. I yelled in pain, but it was overshadowed by Blake falling to her hands and knees and wailing in agony.

More clones appeared around me. Two swords stabbed through my chest and I felt a heeled boot in my back. Before I lost my chance I wrenched one arm free and pushed the blades deeper into my chest as I strained towards Blake. This was a deep pain, but still better than having the muscles torn from the bone.

I grasped the back of Blake's head in my hand and forced a clarity into her mind enough to understand me. "Focus! Don't lose this feeling. This is your focal point. You must remember it." I told her. Two more swords stabbed through the back of my legs and I finally thought to ready a defense before they hit something vital.

"Blake, stop." I said, before being cut off by the pressure of a sword at my throat, my power just barely keeping the blade from breaking the skin. That made ten clones that were all being summoned and controlled simultaneously. She had never managed to keep two or three going for even half as long.

With my still free hand I clenched the sword and broke the blade. The sharp sound seemed to bring Blake partially out of her stupor as the clones stopped tugging me backwards and digging the swords deeper. I was bleeding profusely, and my human body was starting to feel lightheaded. I focused power into blood regeneration. Breathing was also getting difficult. I think one of the clones scraped their sword against one of my lungs. I know I could feel the left one tugging at my ribcage.

"Blake." I wheezed, coughing up a bit of blood. Damned human capillaries. "Control yourself." The clone's movement stayed halted for a few seconds.

"I'm sorry." Blake whispered, but I knew it wasn't entirely directed at me. Suddenly the four intruding swords retracted painfully from my flesh and all the clones slowly converged within Blake as she stood up and faced me. Her yellow eyes were blazing like small suns with her pupils partially dilated. My legs buckled, a large portion of controlling muscle having been severed.

Almost before I had time to fall I felt two pairs of arms hoist me up from either side. A Blake on either side of me held my weight while I closed my wounds and focused on hacking until my half-filled was empty. Once I finished I looked up and stood on my own feet. The clones disappeared, absorbing back into her body before four more appeared alongside her. They stood shoulder to shoulder.

"Blake?" I asked. She slowly drew her sword and held it point out at me. I readied myself as she swung, and all her clones mirrored the movement. But the blade stopped just short of me. She shook her head and readied for another. This time all of her clones swung at random directions, each acting on their own. I watched her eyes brighten slightly as each clone turned and sparred against its counterpart, each pair using different moves.

She blinked and each clone delivered a killing blow to the other, and they dissipated. I watched her pupils shrink to normal size and her eyes lose their luster. The discipline she already had over her focal point amazed me, but I suppose she was the most mentally disciplined of the four. "Thank you." She said, before stumbling slightly.

I caught her shoulder, prepared for her to have passed out, but she righted herself slowly and moved to sit by the edge. She faced off into the skyline again, and I heard a small sniffle. "Go inside Darren. I need some time to think."

I silently rappelled down the windows and swooped inside. Everyone in the room was awake, obviously having heard Blake screaming. I held up my hands and explained to them all that she was fine. The training was a success, and that nobody would be able to beat us in the tournament.

Quick message. I WILL be finishing this story, but then I will have a hiatus that will probably last until September. Next chapter will be shorter, but will detail Darren's trip to Atlas.