Chapter Eighty-Five
Winter was primly sitting on a stool while I carefully balanced a couple of folders and checked their alphabetic order. As I went through them, a stray thought crossed my mind. "Big sister," I said, "Are you on vacation or something?"
Winter blinked at that, a cup of something in her hands as she kept looking in my direction every now and then. It was starting to get slightly creepy for my tastes and also utterly bizarre. Winter might have liked spending time with me, but this was to a level that went beyond the sisterly concern. Thus, it reeked of something else.
"I have been assigned the task of overseeing your team's work," Winter said. "And write an appropriate report. I am merely starting with you, Wren. Already tired of having your older sister around? I have been told you had to be bodily split from Weiss-are you making favorites already?"
I blinked at that peculiar wording. I should have also been worried about how she had found out, but I reckoned Weiss had told her without wasting any time.
"Are you currently under a mission from General Ironwood to keep an eye out on our team?" I asked instead, and silence settled in the archive rooms. I turned my attention from the stack of papers I had just finished prepping to where my older sister was quietly taking a sip from her cup. She didn't answer, and that was telling enough. "Is there really a shortage of huntsmen to take us on missions? Do we actually need experienced huntsmen to guide us as a second-to-third year team?"
Winter wasn't answering. She wasn't doing the eyes-wide thing like a deer caught in the headlights, but she wasn't answering either.
She just sipped her mug until it was over, stood up, and said with a small smile, "I have to go oversee your teammates now, Wren. I will meet you later once your clearly paranoid thoughts have left you, and we may pleasantly discuss how to order the archive by alphabet and date of arrival."
And then she left without saying another word.
Who knew that silence could be an effectively annoying weapon into avoiding stating the truth of matters? Truly, Winter was perhaps the greatest liar the history of Remnant had ever seen. It still did prove a point.
I wasn't that stupid. They were literally shielding us from something, and perhaps it was retribution. We had ruined Salem's plan, and maybe the White Fang attempting to get us in Menagerie had simply been the first step. Perhaps we were being watched because there was a chance for Cinder's return, or maybe they'd send someone else to do the job. Someone who had a history of killing trained and experienced huntsmen like Hazel or Tyrian.
They were coddling us. I didn't like that. I was the one who did the coddling, the coddling-master, the head-patting, hug-maniac defender of the world. I didn't need someone to do it for me. And anyway, Salem was patient. She'd let the heat die down, and then send them once we'd be allowed to go on missions ourselves. It was probably safer in retrospect to send us to get our mission-experience now, rather than later.
Yet as the archiving proceeded slowly, I realized that my teammates had instead been hooked, line and sinker. It was over dinner, away from Winter's prying gaze as we settled in the comfort of Atlas Academy's cafeteria, that everything came to a head.
"I got to check on an Atlas military ship's engine," Zhelty gushed, "There were-there were so many things in it-" she gasped for air, trying to find the words that her overexcited body seemed to fail to parse. It was clear that she had enjoyed herself, if the smell of motor oil coming from her frame wasn't enough of an indication.
Chez was happily purring away too. "They needed someone to help test their weapons and explosive," she said with a delighted grin. "There was so much fire...and I was allowed to make even more!"
Gorm, out of everyone, looked the most normal. "They gave me a cushy job typing down stuff into a monitor," he said. "It was easy, the heating was top-notch, and I got a mid-morning break that lasted two hours."
Gods. They had taken him with Government-Type jobs where the maximum allowed hours of actually working were in the single digits! Gorm, you have to return! You cannot let yourself become part of a government! Their laziness is not yours! Be stronger than them!
"Was I the only one who's job consisted of ordering alphabetically and chronologically pieces of paper that nobody's ever going to read ever again?" I muttered. "Did I get the worst job of the lot? Is that so?"
Chez gently placed a hand on the back of mine, and patted it. "I have liberated some explosives," she muttered, winking a second later. "We can use them to release some stress later on, and then once we're both sweaty and tired from the fires, we can take a shower together."
I raised an eyebrow, waiting for a fist that never came. "What?" Zhelty grumbled from her side. "I'm not going to hit her for saying stuff like that. I only hit her when she plays into her stereotype."
"It's got nothing to do with the fact that Wren's sister might have mentioned how people prone to violence seldom make for good partners in life, nyah?" Chez teasingly asked, a bright grin settling on her face as Zhelty coughed, and turned her face away from our faunus teammate who looked as if she had eaten the canary and gotten away with the fish from the pantry.
"That's not what it is about, and you know it," Zhelty muttered. She still fiddled with her food awkwardly. Around us, fellow Atlas students were busy peering over notes and homework, readying themselves for exams that would make or break them.
I was missing the heat of the desert. I had been missing it since the first days, and yet the more I thought about it, the more I wished to return to simpler times. Yet, my teammates were carving their own lives already, and it would be the epitome of unfairness and selfishness to say anything about it.
Perhaps the truth was that I was missing fighting the Grimm, and there was only so far fighting other huntsmen would get me. I wanted to go on a mission. I wanted to feel the adrenaline course through my body. I wanted to watch my teammates fight by my side against the hordes. I-Not yet. I'd need to practice my Semblance more, and once I had successfully mastered the Portal aspect, then I might actually push through the bullheaded protective nature of my older sister and get us assigned a proper mission.
I sighed as I took a bite out of Menu S, which apparently was 'Mystery Meat'. It tasted fine, though I had the feeling that knowing what kind of meat it was would ruin my appetite forever. It was as I was mulling those thoughts over that I realized a shadow had been cast over my food.
I glanced to the side, finding the source of said shadow in the smiling figure of Penny. "Hello," she said with a bright smile. "I have come bearing good news for the likes of you, Wren Schnee!"
Chez let out a slow hiss.
Her ears perked up.
Zhelty too appeared suddenly interested.
"Yes?" I asked.
"I have been informed by a reliable source of information which is in no way your older sister," here Penny hiccuped, much to my amusement, "that you feel the need to explore Atlas further! Thus, since I have to execute test runs and practice fights against live Grimm, I hereby cordially invite you to what is considered a Date! We will meet tomorrow morning at six by the Atlas Academy gate, where my father will chaperone us to the outskirts of Atlas. There, we will be tasked with fighting close-by Grimm and attempt to evaluate changes to my combat protocols when partnered with someone else!"
She fidgeted with her fingers shyly the next second, "I-If you want to, of course."
My hands grabbed hold of hers. I stared deep into her eyes. "Penny, you're the best. I'd kiss you, but-"
"There are no immediate obstacles to the act of kissing me," Penny said abruptly, interrupting my words. "Please proceed," Penny answered immediately.
I blinked, letting go of her hands, "No, that's an expression-"
Her lips crashed against mine, my eyes wide.
Chez' hissing was soon replaced by her scraping for her Alice, Zhelty pretty much extending a hand to get Alphonse at the ready from behind her.
Gorm knew what to do.
"For those we cherish, we hoot in glory!" and then he grabbed hold of the scruff of my neck before launching me with all the strength, and semblance, he could muster.
I reached the edges of the dining room from the single throw alone, Gorm's body in front of me a second later, his hands planted on the door's sides keeping me from seeing what was inside as he gave his back to me, holding the tide against a seemingly frenzied horde of scared students. "Go, my brother," Gorm said resolutely. "I will hold the line here."
"B-But Gorm!" I snapped back, trying to make sense of the madness that was meanwhile brewing around us. I could hear the sound of fighting ensuing within the mess hall. "This-I have to put a stop to it-"
"No, brother! Run!" Gorm hooted, "I have put bets in place for this! And I must witness the fight to the end!"
"Gorm, you're kind of an asshole when you say it like that," I pointed out, all traces of valiant heroism leaving my teammate's frame.
"Yes, but I always split the earnings four ways," Gorm retorted.
Honor and bravery returned to Gorm's frame.
I thumped my chest. "Your sacrifice will never be forgotten...or forgiven, really."
Then I rushed away.
I could sleep in the infirmary.
Professor Daisy wouldn't mind.
She even made better cakes than Professor Peach did in Beacon...
...and suddenly, I hoped Atlas' Plumbers weren't secret heroes fighting mutant flame-spitting spiky-shelled turtles.
