The evening was surprisingly warm for Atlas. I kept shivering and huddled against the warm side of my companion in misfortune, but didn't try to climb on her with my whole body in order to keep warm - this was kind of positive, right?
Yes, you need to always keep positive, especially in this stupid world. Could I simply go forth? And how did I end up here at all - is a question to which I have no answer.
My Big Sis scolded me. She got to us when I started to take care of the fox-girl, and I'd already kicked ass of the bighorn-man, so her scolding was more than uneasy. If she could've seen what and how exactly I did here - and I still don't understand what exactly I did - then perhaps all this talk would've been more substantive and less agitated.
"How could you behave so irresponsibly, Weiss?!"
She started up anew, after finally finishing with the commander of the police squad sent to our location.
"I told you to stay put!" she continued.
"I've been thinking..."
My voice seemed sluggish, the depletion of the Aura and its direction to heal the bleeding shoulder affected me - hundred percent it'll scar.
"In such situations, I think for you!"
Winter raised her voice even higher, to which I, completely without restraint, replied with the same irritation.
"Sister, you're overdoing it! Don't you understand that they didn't come to fight you, but to kill me?! Anyway, it's good that Mei helped fight back... Mei, how are you?"
I awkwardly stroked the tail of the girl who was sitting next to me with her head down. Her tail was on her knees, and she was nervously kneading it in her hands, so I definitely drew her attention to myself this way.
She had those eyes... Her pupils narrowed into a vertical stripe - this is clearly abnormal, right?
It will be necessary to get used to these features of faunus, of course, but this body did not communicate with faunus so often that it became a problem. I'm not expecting that we'd be friends with this girl even after such a friendship-provoking incident, because the memories of this body gradually surfaced.
Jacques simply won't let be friends with a faunus, he seemed to be racist.
"Those crazy fucks broke Dad's cafe." the girl sighed.
She shook her head, smiled a sly fox grin and clung to my fingers, while I continued uncertain stroking.
"Is that how the Schnee flirt, hmm?" she purred.
"What... Weiss?"
Winter looked at us in bewilderment, and I answered her with an equally puzzled look.
"Weiss, did you know each other before that?" sister asked.
"No, it's my first time in this cafe by the evening," I shrugged.
Then I decided to take my palm away from the tailed girl. She let go easily, but her smile became even more daring.
"I need to contact Father as soon as possible," I muttered.
A casual glance at the faunus girl next to me showed that the mention of my dickhead poppa affected the quality of her smile - she tried to keep it. But all the faunus twist their faces at the mention of Jaques Gele, even if they do not belong to the White Fang.
Unlike Charlie, I didn't have any fatherly feelings for him.
Who is Charlie?
My head almost split, it seemed.
Something warm touched my lips.
Salty and unpleasant.
I closed my eyes - the adrenaline had finally subsided to nothing.
Warm arms wrapped around my shoulders from behind, and my face ended up in someone's hands as well. I vaguely knew whose, of course, but I still slowly opened my eyes and saw Winter's worried face.
She said something, but I just smiled guiltily, because the noise in my ears intensified - I worsened my initial state of concussion by further wasting Aura. I understood approximately how it would end - the purely theoretical knowledge of this body was impeccable. This girl didn't seem to forget anything important.
I closed my eyes again and fell into the darkness. It saved me from all this stress, which seemed obviously unreasonable for the first conscious day in this world.
***
I found myself in the local version of the car. It was all but whistling and farting with this Dust of theirs. I kept staring out of the window at the futuristic city. Even the air quality seemed strange, especially after living in the woods for the last few years...
I turned away from the Atlas lights - the headache intensified as I tried to remember.
In which forest?! Do you remember that at least?
Don't know... There were redwoods. And the beach?
I shook my head, then leaned the side of my forehead against something cold and squeezed my eyes shut.
It got better. I got to sort out my thoughts somehow, and of course to ponder whatever happened after that fight.
In the end, after my sister excused me from police questions, Mei's father arrived just in time for our exchange of contact information, so he prevented further talks. After his eloquent look, I would be an idiot if I didn't realize that he did it on purpose.
So we safely left for our homes, although the silly feeling of unexpected childish happiness from touching the human-fox tail didn't let me go for quite some time. Neither Weiss nor I ever touched faunus special body parts, and for me it was kind of like fairytale thing.
Well, yeah, I never touched Jake's any body parts either...
You're into girls, why would you touch some guy Jake?
Most importantly, who is Jake?
Someone with a... tail?
Wow, it hurts...
In general, it would be extremely rude to tell that fox girl out of the blue that we will not be able to meet in the near future, because my father is a racist. That's to say, everyone knew about it, but even in Atlas it would not be safe to directly call racists racists when there are cameras nearby. I wanted very much, of course, but despite everything I remembered that I was the Schnee, not just some random girl, and those cameras were almost always directed at me. How did it fit with the fact that I couldn't remember Jake's face, while he was my best friend...
Best friend?
It doesn't matter, it's more important what I'm going to tell my father and, well, the police, if they even get to me. And what my new friend would tell them.
Of course, everyone still thinks that the girl with active combat experience kicked that imbecile ass, and not me. If the security cameras were near the back door, then my secrecy will undoubtedly be dissolved, but I hope they won't work much...
Who am I kidding?!
This is the attack by the White Fang faunus. So, the police will dig all they like. And my Big Sis would totally add some turps under their tails. Not real tails, I doubt very much that there are many faunus in the police force. Though it's stupid, they could be very useful - increased sense of smell, reaction and hearing, even without the Aura, are extremely useful in such line of work. So where exactly is your practicality, Atlas?
Although Weiss wasn't too interested in this issue, maybe they do employ them, but they just don't advertise much? But this is also bad, if there is no idea for young faunus that certain roads are open for them, then they will keep thinking that Atlas has stuck it's head in it's ass until they find themselves under the wing of the White Fang. And it's well known that from ignorance and misunderstanding comes the main increase in popularity among those radicals, and it's not just about anti-faunus. Both sides of the conflict are ignorant here. However, it is weird that it's the Schnee name that's being dragged through sewers - a bunch of other industries treat the Faunus workforce despicably, and I wouldn't say that humans and faunus in the Schnee mines on Atlas will be treated differently in the same position.
Yes, there were no good natured labor unions here, but the Grimm are attracted by negative emotions, and that's why there was little place for active discrimination at the official mines. No one beat anyone with whips, another thing is that the faunus here simply weren't liked much by the humans around them.
Any discrimination initially carries someone's political interests - I remembered this from my preparatory classes for the Uni, I think. And any thinking person in any of my past lives could tell me the same. This was true and even factual here as well, though many refused to admit it and preferred not to clarify this point. Starting with a fight between two tribes on different sides of the river, ending with genocide on the national basis, discrimination pursues the political interests of individual group leaders who were able to convince these groups that it is necessary to kill and maim other people for some sweet cause. Here, this idea wasn't something that was wide spread, and any political thought on Atlas was constrained by local peculiarities and, uh... The peculiarities of national hunt, if I'm trying to make a pun.
Where is the pun here?
Well, at least I remembered something! I'd be like that Finnish guy...
Who are Finnish?
The Northern people who love the sauna, and their language sounds quite peculiar.
So, they're like Atlesians?
Finland never had as many ambitions as Atlas has in it's pinkie... If Atlas was a man, it would be the pinkie, I think. Or maybe a very, very small...
Enough! I got what you wanted to say! It would've been better not to...
But it was actually better there than here. And how my inner voice can be female, I still don't get.
I'm not an inner voice! I am Weiss Schnee!
What!?
The voice shut up, my head abruptly stopped hurting, and I finally opened my eyes as I realized that I'm currently clinging to my sister. Her clothes were stitched with ice dust. That's why it seemed that I leaned against something that's chilled and cooling.
"Sister, are you feeling better?" Winter asked calmly.
But it was clear in her eyes eyes, and I immediately stared into them after she spoke, that her tone did not match the level of her real concern.
"It's good that the girl... that Mei was able to knock out that freak," she muttered.
"It wasn't quite like that, Sister."
I decided not to act like a moron trying to hide this information from my sister. It will be too suspicious, and too many lies never lead to anything good.
"What do you mean?"
Winter put her arm around my shoulders and looked into my eyes. Now her concern seeped into her voice.
"It was me."
"What do you mea..."
"I almost killed him, Winter. I didn't want..."
I really wished to cry because of all this stress, so I gave free reign to this body - especially since such a thing eases the weight on anyone's shoulders, really. I realized it only in my previous life, I think, it occured to me that girls are much less often told not to cry than boys.
Weiss memories flashed by.
I squeezed my eyes shut again from the pain in my head and realized that, after all, no, sometimes even such cute girls as Weiss can be told not to cry at all, even when there is something to cry about. It's real easy to get the neurosis of some sort that way, honestly.
Oh, well, Winter, right?
What's with me, she's a great example of such nurture in all its glory. She was being groomed as the heiress, whatever that meant. What kind of heiress, if it's a corporation, and there is a board of directors, as well as the CEO, our father Jacques. All the shit is flying at the Schnee name, although in fact, since the death of grandpa Nicolas, all this bullshit has an extremely indirect relation to the actual Schnee.
Especially what kind of heirs could we talk about, considering that the Schnee are actually nouveau riche, even if they are nominally quite an old family, judging by grandfather's stories that glyphs are passed from Schnee to Schnee from the first Schnee who opened their Aura. There was a feeling that both Willow, the mother, and Winter, who were most influenced by the still alive grandfather, both of them understood that they had to be able to defend themselves from the Grimm.
And with how Jacques managed to cripple the actual training of Weiss, and especially Whitley, with his huntsmen related psychosis, I was surprised that I had the stamina to fight back a huge dude with the opened Aura and a dust sword... Whatever was that force that suddenly picked up my decadent state at that time, and made RAGE-ANGER-DEATH out of it, I was immensely grateful for it. Snowflake - the glyph - that appeared behind me, was kind of a hint that I'd summoned something, but no summons seemed to appear.
In fact, Jacques Gele did whatever he wished in his own brand of nurturing. There was no aristocracy in it, not the one I read about in my previous short - short? - lives. To be and not to seem, was something beyond his comprehension. He was the new bourgeois, and it was obvious. Only the new bourgeois can show the level of their wealth so explicitly. Too neat and too prim, clearly trying to prove something to someone - well, at the same time creates problems in the family with his inability to separate home from work. I knew about the real rules of honor, and benevolence, along with modesty, was something that was especially appreciated by aristocrats, although yes, Jacques Gele picked up snobbery perfectly. But pride is one thing, and malice is very much different.
And the lack of high self-esteem of both Winter to a lesser extent, and Weiss to a much greater extent is a reason to think about how non-aristocratic Jacques Gele is. Dignity, responsibility and honor are not about him. Yes, he married the daughter of an impoverished Atlesian aristocrat, who was, in fact, already being robbed by Atlas itself because of the war cause.
And within the framework of Jaques' stupid ideas, more like civilian rather than huntsman, he constantly interfered with the development of his own children as separate independent units of the family, to whom this company could be entrusted in the future. But at the same time, Jacques Gele, it seemed to me, kissed Ironwood's ass so hard, and most likely some other bigwigs of a more shadowy segment of this city, because he had to somehow remain at the head of the largest licensor of unprossessed Dust that enters Atlas.
I had no other options for why the state allowed such a monopoly yet - I will have to think about and identify the situation in the local economy in general. Logistics, the scale of grimm-problems within this industry, the ability to at least somehow plan anything... And what's with the fact that it seemed that Concern has been formed in the Atlesian Dust industry, but if you look at the whole world, it's more like some sort of Cartel situation?
At the same time, the Dust is a socially significant resource, so it cannot but be controlled by the state, as well as its prossessing.
What does this whole tangle mean in general, how did it develop and who should I fuck up to get an adequate answer, and not the answer in "the doctor of economics on barbiturates" style, which is apparently offered by the local Internet?!
And no, the Schnee monopoly was not that the Schnee Company had many mines of their own and exploited poor faunus.
Of those on the Atlas, there are only five left.
Here, after the Revolution, labor was protected by law, and everyone suffered from the quarterly inspections by state bodies - fines were specified and very unpleasant for local management.
My father didn't care about such things in general, because the main profit still came from processed Dust and technologies.
There were also the Dust processing plants, some on Atlas, most of them directly connected with local research centers, also some ordinary ones, also engaged in the production of cheaper Dust, or in melting materials, for specialized workbenches and machine tools. Those were on Atlas as well as on the other continents, except for the quite obvious Grimmland and the slightly less obvious Vacuo. Vale and Mistral were sufficiently crushed by the almost hegemony of Schnee quality products.
But it was not the official mines or processing plants that made the Schnee Company improve its affairs as much, since the company passed into the hands of Mr. Jacques.
No, the Schnee monopoly lies in the fact that in order to sell in Atlas, it's necessary to defeat the bureaucracy.
And Mr. Jacques gave this opportunity by extending his license to not quite ethically extracted Dust from other countries.
For example, long-time rivals on the world stage, the Mistral's own Pastel Dust Mining Company, simply couldn't deal wholesale on Atlas, because the profit could not be entirely satisfactory, even rather not at all satisfactory. And all thanks to the Schnee partnership with, probably, Ironwood and, totally, the rest of the superb Atlas Council. All that, actually, made it possible to push the sale of the Schnee Dust anywhere - there was just enough of this Dust in order to meet the needs of this post-apocalyptic, but already hugely rebuilt, somewhat Sci-Fi world. And after all, they were building towards Sci-fi mainly due to Atlas research and such a huge amount of Dust, that allowed a giant research department to experiment in all the directions.
"What do you mean, Weiss?" Winter said, almost one syllable at a time. "How was it possible for you to almost kill him?"
"Mei passed out, but the last thing she did was protect me with her Semblance," I started to explain just as slowly. "And it's like I've been replaced, like I..."
I couldn't continue - I remembered that strange anger again, and started rubbing the bridge of my nose.
"But... This Fang member is one of the captains, Weiss. That's why he was the one guarding the back of the building, he could quite handle it alone. We've been trying to get him for quite a while..."
"Heh heh... Well, he acted like some sort of bighorn!" I tried to joke awkwardly, but Winter facepalmed and sighed.
"Unbelievable..."
Well, yes, this is indeed the unbeliveable outcome of events.
My real life combat experience included mostly acrobatics against those cuties that my big sis summons. It would've been better, even necessary to fly down the Mantle border to get some good practice in the field, and not all the shit I did before. At the same time, it would've been clear for a while, whether we are even made for battle as a whole.
I couldn't but doubt that I'd like to continue this grimm hunting thing.
I liked the idea of making a normal state of affairs out of whatever bullshit this SDC is, or at least a normal workplace out of this company, since at least this time I have a chance to influence something. Last time I died before I even finished my studies, I think. And the time before last, it's better not to remember at all, even if I already hardly remember it.
Weiss really wanted to leave her father's house, but for that she needed to persuade her sister first of all. Though Winter rarely appeared in the Schnee mansion, she still followed the progress of her sister. And it was plan B in case the plan to persuade my father to let me study at Beacon failed. And if the previously slightly naive Weiss thought that studying at Atlas would simply prevent her from getting a full, so to speak, palette of sensations from studying, because her father would be able to influence everything, I was worried - after some thought, of course - rather not for her father, but for General Ironwood. The worst thing father can do is to stop sponsoring me. But the General gave me some disturbing vibes, albeit he seemed charismatic.
It was for these reasons that I definitely did not want to become one of Ironwood's subordinates, even within the framework of plan B, that's why...
Perhaps this contact with the faunus girl could be able to help in the future, who knows? After all, she'd already invited me, as I managed to look through the scroll on the way back, to some underground club on the lower levels.
She said that it was some sort of music club, of course, but I'm not a fool either - it's certainly not the den bottom, but I know from my experience that such places are good to find some drugs for recreational use, and sometimes they get to be the place for gangs to meet.
If at least part of what I think is true, then through my new acquaintance, it may be possible to find a way to somehow get off the Atlas.
Of course, I wouldn't really like to break the law, but if my father would be unable to accept my arguments when I want to get to Beacon, it may help me.
The remaining thing would be to actually meet the real Grimm at least once and figure out if I'm going to get my panties dirty.
After all, I definitely did not have the memories of some superman or at least some person with actual military training. Weiss was the more physically prepared of the two of us for such escapades. Of course I broke people's legs - broke legs?! - but it was different. Ordinary people, and I was more prepared to use harsh violence than they were, so...
When I remembered about this world's battles with Aura, these not-quite-my memories of last year's Vytal Festival - it was taking place on Atlas - immediately came to mind. Even my sister couldn't get away from family time those days. Everything was fun, yes, but I had little idea yet how exactly I could remember... Well, everything related to actual fighting!
Therefore, it is necessary to check the physical knowledge without any witnesses.
And going to that club can be a good excuse for some... Well, basically, for anything.
What do we do for pleasure besides singing? And he's not going to try to stop me... Forcibly?
You don't know Father well...
I don't know this shithole world, rather.
I covered my face with hands and almost screamed out loud - it was clear how out of place I felt even during the attack, but now the feeling has intensified.
The mansion in front of me seemed crushing - both with the memories that flashed before my eyes, and the fact that I would have to deceive myself and pretend to be someone else. I've been physically a woman before, but I've never had to pretend to be someone else before. Unless you count pretending to be "the good kid" in childhood, so that my mother would stop cussing at my quirks. But that was a temporary thing, really...
Yes, that's right, a good idea. I'll just pretend to be the good kid, maybe it'll work.
But... This fucking bolero, this fucking skirt, this fucking mansion that I saw through the window of the car as soon as I raised my head from my silent scream.
Also, the sister hugs stopped as she slipped out.
My resolve was, certainly, indescribable. Obviously, because it wasn't there as such, yes.
Well, this evening is going to continue until Mr. Jacques lets me go. And in order for him to let me go as soon as possible, Mr. Jacques needs his report.
The course of action found.
"Weiss!" my sister stuck her head in the car and pulled me out by the hand. "Why'd you freeze? Let's go!"
"By the way, I have a record of what happened," I remembered. "It seems to me that the PR department guys are gonna wet themselves."
"Watch your language!" she scolded me. "What's wrong with you, Weiss?"
"Oh, I don't know!" I snapped and squinted at my sister. "Maybe the thing is that I got almost killed, and this imaginary etiquette of his, fuck him, does not allow me to wear normal comfortable clothes?! I'm a future monster huntress, not a huntress for someone else's dowry, there's no point in me wearing this!"
I was freaking out again - the sensations were similar, and the light from the glyph appeared behind my back again, but Winter showed equal irritation and worry instead of fear.
Sister came closer and hugged me again.
"Wear whatever you want, Weiss. The main thing right now is to calm down..."
"Don't tell me to calm down! Promise me you'll talk to our father!"
"Are you trying to threaten me?" she let out a featherlight chuckle somewhere near my ear and pulled away.
"No, I don't really control this thing, it's on its own..."
"What do you mean, it's on its own?!" Winter exclaimed.
We were interrupted before we finished this exchange.
A stocky, strong man in a three-piece suit came down the porch, and we greeted him in chorus, which made it all kinds of funny.
"Evening, Klein!"
Really, what kind of cartoon did I get into?
At such moments it seems like it.