Chapter Text
She sighed, sitting back in her chair as she rubbed her eyes tiredly. She’d been staring at those papers for hours, now, scribbling down notes and equations. She glanced at the digital clock beside her, the red lines telling her it was well past two A.M., and she grunted. She had only wanted to make a quick check on her papers, but got sucked into it, like every time.
She pushed back her chair, standing, and walked to the window, glancing down at the lights of the city in front of her. It was a nice change from the snowy mountains she was used to, back at home, when she wasn’t in charge of the scientific wing of Schnee Dust Company here in Vale. But she liked it. Liked to see that even at night, the city was busy, always someone walking on the sidewalks, always cars honking somewhere in the distance, always some lights still open in the buildings she could see.
She sighed again, toying with her necklace. It was a silver chain, with the Schnee crest as a small pendant, the chain large enough so she could let it fall under the collar of her shirts. The only reason she still wore it was because it was a gift from her sister, many years ago. And since she took her job as head of the scientific wing, the Research and Development department, sometimes, she could feel the chain heavy on her neck, the silver biting in her skin, the crest burning on her chest.
Her father was known for his high expectation, imposing results in near impossible delays, the consequences for his disappointments sometimes meant entire teams got fired. As such, almost every employee feared the man. So, when she took the bar when her father decided to step down, at least for this part of the company, the employees didn’t know if they had to be relieved because they didn’t answer to that man anymore, or still be afraid all the time because his daughter took the job.
Turns out, Weiss Schnee was a really decent human being, unlike her father. She leaded her crew with an iron fist, but was understanding and far more patient than her father. She also was open-minded, charismatic, and had a really brilliant mind. Most of the scientists loved to work with her, her knowledge of Dust seemed infinite, and all in all, the employees liked their new boss.
She also changed some things, trying to erase her father’s legacy by hiring faunus. Brilliant minds come in all shapes and colors, she’d said at a press conference, following the news. Her father was outraged, but since she legally was the head of R&D, she was her own boss, something she reminded him as she tried to hide her smile when she saw his features change. But he still yelled at her for half an hour in his office, back in Atlas, where he asked, no, ordered her to come as soon as he saw the news.
It had been a year and a half, now, since she had took the job. Her days were busy, always, and she never had time to take a day off, not that she wanted to. She liked her job.
She grunted when she glanced at the clock, telling her it was past three, now. She changed into her sleepwear, pacing around her apartment –well, it was a penthouse, but saying it was an apartment made it sound less… intimidating- as her mind was restless, finally stepping in the kitchen, filling a tall glass of water before she gulped it down in one swing, standing in front of the sink. She knew she would be tired, tomorrow. Having less than three hours of sleep was a double edged sword; she felt like she was full of energy, wanting to do many things at the same time, but she knew she was going to get easily distracted, and that a headache was going to crack her skull by the end of the day.
She slipped under the covers, rolling in her far-too-big bed, resisting the urge to make a mental list of the things she had to do in the morning. But as she rolled and shifted for half an hour, growing more and more annoyed at the fact she couldn’t sleep even if she felt exhausted, she sighed in defeat, letting her mind make those damn lists it liked so much, finally falling asleep in the middle of her supply list.
****
She already felt a headache coming, and it wasn’t even past two in the afternoon. She blinked a few times, trying to adjust her eye in the light of the microscope. They were trying to fuse two different kind of Dust, but so far, every attempt failed, just like she was looking at right now. The red particle sneaked closer to the yellow one, then they bumped, and Weiss held her breath… before the red one seemed to suck the yellow one, making it bigger, but still it stayed red.
She straightened herself, sighing, massaging her lower back. It was her forty-seventh attempt, this week, all failing. No matter how she changed the amount of chemical in both, the red Dust always seemed to be stronger, eating away every other kind of Dust beside it. Maybe that’s why there’s so many red Dust in the world, she thought. It’s like a parasite.
She then told herself that it wasn’t that bad, the raw power of the red Dust giving enough energy to give electricity to entire cities worldwide, she thought as she washed the lamella, pulling off her gloves after she put it to dry. If only they could find a way to fuse different kind of Dust, they could maybe use less to create the same amount of energy, or use it for other purposes. She glanced over her shoulder, looking at the other scientists bending over microscopes, mixing chemicals, exchanging theories.
Shoving her hands in her lab coat’s pocket, she stepped out in the hallways, a thick file under her arm. As she passed in front of the glassed area of the testing ground, she heard something explode, making her jump, one hand covering her chest over her heart as she looked up, her eyes locking with shocked silver ones on the other side of the glass.
“Ruby Rose” she hissed through gritted teeth, as she stomped to the glass door, seeing the other woman shrink as she got close. “What are you doing? Can’t you be a little more careful?”
The woman smiled a tiny smile, her face darkened by the sooth, her dark, red tipped hair standing in icy spikes on her head as her eyes started glinting.
“But it was awesome!”
She sighed deeply. Ruby was her youngest engineer, passing her time on the testing ground to test her ever growing ridiculous theories. The woman was a genius, graduating from Beacon University two years ahead, and Weiss couldn’t pass up this opportunity, so she hand-picked her. But the young woman sometimes seemed to have a hard time defining when she had to work and when she could play around.
“What were you even trying to do?” she let out after a grunt, quickly looking over her to make sure she wasn’t injured.
“I tried to mix powdered red and blue Dust in a lightbulb.”
“… Why?”
Ruby shot her a sidelong glance.
“Because I could?”
She stared at her for a few seconds, before closing her eyes as she muttered why she hired her under her breath. But as she turned on her heels to walk away, the younger woman grabbed her arm.
“No, seriously” she started, her smile fading a little, and Weiss returned her attention to her. “I was trying to see if I could mix powdered Dust together in small compartment, and if I could adjust the air inside so it wouldn’t explode until I cracked it open, when the air disturbed the neutral environment I put it in.”
Weiss took a moment, letting the information sink in as Ruby was rubbing her face with her lab coat, trying to clean herself.
“Okay, but why?” she asked again.
Ruby smirked slightly.
“I’m trying to see if we could make some Dust filled bullets that would explode or freeze upon impact, giving it some more kick.”
Weiss widened her eyes, almost dropping her file as she glanced quickly around, grabbing Ruby’s arm firmly, almost painfully.
“We are not making weapons, Ruby. Stop testing that. Don’t tell anyone if it worked. Do you understand?”
The younger woman frowned slightly, taken aback.
“But why? It would give us an edge over the Grim-”
“Ruby” Weiss interrupted her, her fingers digging in her skin through her sleeve. “Don’t weaponized it. I’m serious.” She talked in hushed tone, now, making sure nobody could hear it but us. “If my father knows R&D is turning Dust into weapons, he would take advantage of that. It can only end in a disaster, because he won’t use it on Grim only. Do you understand?”
She didn’t talk about her father often, but Ruby, being around her age and working together many times, had become one of the few good friends she had. She knew Ruby would understand if she gave her the complete reasoning. And as the younger woman nodded slightly, resting a hand over hers, she knew she did.
“Alright, Weiss. I’ll stop. It didn’t work, anyway; it was too unstable and exploded in my face. It was a good hunch to start with only a few grams of each.” She laughed sheepishly.
Weiss smiled gratefully, patting her arm a few times before pulling away.
“I’m glad it didn’t melt your face.”
Ruby snorted, smiling as she turned around, gathering her things. Before Weiss could walk out the door, a tall, blonde woman knocked twice, her eyebrows raised as she pushed the glass door open, looking at the dark faced woman, then glanced at Weiss.
“Is there a situation, here?”
“Your sister’s making a mess, as usual” Weiss sighed, rolling her eyes, but smiled at the offended gasp she heard behind her.
Yang chuckled quietly, but still stepped inside, a worried frown on her face as she grasped her sister’s face between her hands, looking for injuries as the younger woman rolled her eyes, letting her sister look over every inches of her.
“Why didn’t you put your glasses on, Ruby? Those are made to protect you when things explode.” The tall blonde grumbled, gently lecturing her sister.
Weiss let the sisters together, hearing a really irritated Ruby grunt just before she closed the door, a smile pulling the corner of her lips. Yang was very protective of her little sister, if not too much, but she kind of understand her; Ruby could be very careless sometimes.
She had hired Yang at the same time she hired Ruby, the blonde being a brilliant engineer too, but it was the only condition Ruby had upon hiring her. She made Weiss promise to never tell the blonde, for it would boost her ego or something, she told her. But she knew that even if Yang was protective of Ruby, the young woman was protective of her older sister, too. And, well, they made a really competent team, one of the best she had. She was only glad both of them liked their job so much.
She glanced at her wristwatch, pulling her hand from her slightly-too-long sleeve with irritation. She had to adjust them to her size, she thought, adding it mentally in her list of things to do outside the job. She grimaced, holding her file in her hand as she noticed she was, again, making a list. She walked down the hallway, in direction of her office, the stark white walls making the neon lights almost too bright for her eyes, feeling the headache she had felt coming nestling in her temples. She rubbed her index finger between her eyebrows, trying to sooth the pain if even a little, as she passed in front of the door of another lab. She stopped, stepping back and raised on her tip toes to glance in the room.
She was used to work in the first facility because it was bigger, and she could watch over more of the team at once, but the second facility… The team was smaller, of course, but they looked like they worked well together. The six scientists were talking together, one of them pointing at the green board where an equation was written in white chalk. Another stood, talking animatedly, took the chalk and added a string of numbers at the end of it, but another one raised his hand, objecting, and the addition was erased. As she glanced over the team, she noticed one of the scientists standing in the back, looking thoughtfully at the board, arms crossed and finger tapping on the chin. White eyebrows raised in surprise. That’s right, she remembered. There was only one other woman, beside herself, in the two teams of scientists. Another thing of her father’s legacy, she remembered with a grimace. And that woman, she thought, as the woman inside turned her head towards the door, her eyes locking with Weiss’s, was also the only faunus employee of all the R&D department. She must have felt her stare. Her calm golden eyes stared at her for a few seconds, blinking once, before returning her attention to the board, resuming her tapping.
She knew the faunus was another employee she had hand-picked from Beacon, almost at the same time as Ruby and her sister. What was her name again, she tried to remember, leaving her post, walking down the hallway to her office. She closed the door behind her, dropping the file on the corner of her desk as she walked straight to one of the filling cabinet, pulling on the top drawer, a long series of files neatly ordered. She thumbed directly in the scientists section, pulling out the thinner file, and walked back to her desk, leaving the drawer open. She sat heavily with a sigh, opening the file in her lap, turning the pages until she found what she was looking for.
In front of her was the profile sheet of Blake Belladonna, hired eight months ago, golden eyes staring at her calmly on the employee photo added with the dossier. Going through the notes, she remembered why she had hired her: the faunus had a specialty on auras, having made a thesis on the possible relation between Dust and auras that Weiss had read twice before deciding to hire her.
She sat back in her chair, tapping her index finger on the page a few times. She realised now that she never talked to her. As she closed the file, standing again to put it back in its place, pushing the drawer close as she took her forgotten file on her desk, she decided she’d work in the second facility, tomorrow.