Omake: Weiss Schnee's Wizard Duel
"If you just stayed at home, you wouldn't have to do this, Ms. Schnee."
Again I heard those words ringing through my ears. Standing before a group of old men, my back rigid and my arms at my side, I replied to the one who spoke in a curt voice: "I'm seventeen years old, Alfonse. I'm too old to be playing house, in spite of what my father says."
Alfonse, a wiry, wrinkled old man with glasses and neatly combed grey hair, replied "Yes, you are blossoming into a fine young lady, but you needn't prove yourself. Your father accepts you as you are and loves you very much."
I give him a look of defiance, and he shrinks back into his chair. Like all the other old men, he is afraid of me. It is not because he is only a branch family member and I am heiress, but because I have the will to defy my father, something they lack. I don't have this will because I possess a powerful Sacred Gear, but because I use more effectively than any other, surpassing even its original owner. Not because I am a prodigy in my family's magecraft, but because I worked harder than any of them and have the potential to get even stronger still.
One of his fellows looks at me differently. He is Errol, a distant uncle younger than Alfonse; he has more Schnee blood in him, as he has our family's signature white hair and blue eyes. He looks far less impressed with me and meets my confidence with his own. With a smug smile and a grand gesture, he turns to the other family leaders and says "let's see if Ms. Schnee can back her words with confidence then." He turns to me, and his expression grows sinister. "Be careful, young lady. I have been given full permission to test you to the fullest of your abilities by your father, so don't blame me if you get hurt."
"I don't back down from a challenge." I say confidently. I quash the butterflies in my stomach and prepare to meet my foe. Errol smirks and prepares his wand. Apparently, he will be my opponent for this wizard duel. With a wave of his wand, a great magic circles appears before him, and a monster emerges from it. It was a soulless knight easily three times as tall as me, dressed in grey armor and possessing a sword so large that it would probably splatter me like a flyswatter would a fly were it to hit me.
From a young age, I was showered with praise and blessings, from "loved ones" and "friends" alike. I knew I was special and I grew arrogant. How naïve I was, to believe that I had actually earned any of my gifts. I will always remember how my older sister, Winter, opened my eyes with just one question:
"When are you going to stop playing house?"
It was not a sudden change. I did not gain great wisdom overnight, nobody does. But I began to notice things that I did not before. The implications of the question were clear: I needed to stop pretending I was special and realize that people did not actually like me at all.
Whenever someone said I was beautiful, it was only because I was a Schnee, the heiress of a rich family of Germanic magicians whose lineage can be traced back centuries. People were being nice to me only to get on my good side and manipulate me into doing something nice for them.
Whenever my combat teachers said that I was excellent, it was a lie. Not only was I born into the Schnee family, I was also blessed from birth with a "Sacred Gear," something that marked me as being above normal humans. Better yet, this was a "Magnus," a Sacred Gear that once belonged to Conquest, one of the Four Horsemen recorded in the Bible as beings of the Apocalypse. It could transform into any weapon and give the wielder mastery over that weapon. It was natural that I would be good at fighting when the weapon I was fighting with automatically made me better than my mentor.
Whenever someone commented to me on how good I was at magic, could hardly help but chuckle. The Schnee family in general was known for producing fine mages; my older sister Winter, was a prodigy, being able to master our family's craft by the time she was sixteen. The only reason she wasn't chosen to be heiress was because she wished to pursue a career that didn't involve being under my father's thumb. I still have trouble with Summoning even though it is one of our family's specialties. The most impressive thing about me as a mage was my magic reserves and my natural talent for mathematics; in other words, things that I was born with, things that I had no control over.
My world shattered because of that revelation: the idea that people were nice to me only because of what I was, not who I was, and I had never earned anything in my entire life. It did, however, give me a reason to live: I needed to earn my place, my privileges, through my own merit. And then, I needed to make a name for myself, so that people would respect me as Weiss first, and a Schnee second.
The animated suit of armor came rushing at me, and I deftly dodged its first strike, its massive sword crashing into the pavement where I once was, easily shattering the ground. Returning to proper attack stance, I summon my Sacred Gear.
Other magicians called it [Conquest's Sword]. The special ability of Conquest's Sword is that it can transform into a variety of weapons, and then give its wielder the ability to wield that weapon with the skill of a master warrior. Most users of this particular Magnus simply decided to train their bodies while relying on the weapon to do the rest, but I refuse to let my weapon wield me; it is only proper that I wield it, even if it is an artifact older than me. As it were, it can transform into any weapon, including ones of the owner's invention. Thus Myrtenaster was born; a rapier that doubles as a magic wand is still a weapon, even if it was thought impossible to use otherwise. Though it lends its skill to my attacks, it has its limitations; my physical abilities are still those of a human, and my magic ability is still my own. After all, a wand was more than just a weapon.
I launch myself towards the suit of armor with breakneck speed, but it blocks the attack with its offhand, and I land behind it. It turns around for another one handed sword strike, but I dodge that attack easily as well. I score four strikes on its back before it launches another swing at me. This one, I cannot dodge, and so I block it the best I could. My arms nearly breaking from the strain of blocking its swing, while my entire body is sent flying. I land, only to barely dodge a flying attack from the armor; with surprising dexterity, it had jumped high into the air and came down with a swing that would sooner crush me than split me in half. Its sword then sweeps across the floor, forcing me further away.
"Aha!" Laughs Errol cruelly. "There is no way that you can defeat my Summon by yourself, Ms. Schnee. Why don't you use your own Summoning spell?"
That dastard. He knew that Summoning was one of the spells I had a hard time on, and even if I could use it, I doubt he would hold off his monster until I summoned my own creature. I activated a spell with a quiet, prayer-like word and sped towards the creature. I jumped and stabbed, landing a multitude of quick offensive strikes. The creature is unable to keep up with my speed, until it landed a lucky blow. I cry out in pain and sprawled out across the floor. I feel blood running down the side of my face, and the scar around my eye began to ache again.
"Stop!" Cries Errol. The armored creature freezes. He steps in forth between me and his monstrous servant, a look of mock disappointment on his face. "Ms. Schnee, there is no need to hide the fact you are not ready to receive the rites of our clan. We all recognize you as the wielder of Conquest's Sword. Regardless, the power it gives you does not make up for your lack of talent in magic. Cease this foolishness…"
"Are you going to surrender? Because unless you are surrendering, I don't want to hear it. This is a duel between magicians, so don't think you can by with a little intimidation." It is getting harder to think now, the head injury is definitely affecting my vision. In spite of this, I feel as determined as ever, especially after hearing my opponent's opinion of my skill. I had to prove him wrong.
Errol growls and conjures a half dozen fireballs with his wand and shoots them towards me. Myrtenaster's revolving chamber turns at my command, causing the blade to turn green. A gust of wind shoots out, deflecting the fireballs and turning the hastily cast spell towards the user. Errol moves to stop the energy, but I have already activated a time dilation spell to increase my speed, rushing past him and towards the suit of armor he summoned.
The armor acknowledges me and comes at me with its sword, but it is too slow this time. I leap onto the blade and quickly disarm the brute. It rushes towards me to pummel me into the ground with its fists, but the blue setting of my sword activates. It is then immobilized with an ice spell.
Errol growls and activates another spell; lightning shoots from his hands and is deflected by my sword, whose yellow setting parries the bolt. It strikes him in the chest, which angers him even further. "Damn you, you upstart brat!" He roars in pain. I pay his comment no heed as I prepare my next spell with Myrtenaster.
Behind me, the giant has broken free from the ice, but I am prepared for it. A giant magic circle, my gravity spell, activates at its feet, launching it upwards, and I follow up with the previous spell with a spell of binding. Its arms and legs pinned, the giant is helplessly suspended in midair. I leap into the air and activate the runes engraved on my sword. A second gravity spell sends me forward and, with the help of my runes, my sword pierces the creature's armor. Errol looks at the scene, nervousness creeping onto his face as he watches his Summon dissolve into nothingness. All of this occurs in the span of seven seconds.
"Well, Errol, what will it be?" I say, activating a healing spell that begins to stop my bleeding. "Are you going to surrender now?" I smile in spite of my throbbing headache, because I know I have already won. Errol may have been an experienced wizard, but in the realm of combat spells, that Summon was his ace in the hole. Now that I have defeated it, he wouldn't be able to call upon it for a while, and nothing else in his repertoire would compare to it in terms of offense or defense.
He bows his head in defeat, probably to hide his shame. "I… surrender."
The rest of his peers in the peanut gallery begin to clap softly. Alfonse and a few maids with medical supplies and a chair rush to me. I am seated in a chair while they tend to my head wound with healing magic and modern medicine. "Bravo, young lady." Alfonse congratulated me, actually showing a bit of emotion in his voice. It seems he was genuinely impressed with my performance. "Without a doubt, you are definitely ready of the Magician's Rites."
The Magician's Rites was a sort of tradition in found in some old magic families that determined whether one would be recognized as an adult magician, someone worthy of learning the family's secrets. It was about time. It did not matter if father did not bother to come and see this in person, or if my sister was away and couldn't make it in time, today was perhaps one of the best days of my life.
Just so you know, this is just my interpretation of what Weiss Schnee would be like in the world of Highschool DXD. She is my favorite character out of the entire cast of RWBY, and I hope I get to see her in the quest someday. While Alexander has told me that my interpretation is "close" to his, I do not expect it to be exact. Until then, this is just an Omake I have written. Any questions or comments?
