Fandom Distorted Mirror [IC]

[Gus Gungus]

“What...What just happened? Weiss, Weiss are you-!?”

She wasn't.

Weiss wasn't anything. Yang's glancing swipe had knocked her clean out of the mounting hysteria she was lapsing back into as she watched and heard the mystic life essence do its work, knitting up the flesh and bones she found herself growing so attached to in recent months where they lay broken and twisted in front of her. She toppled backward, pulling her knees out from underneath her and instinctively drawing them to her chest in an upright fetal position as she buried her face in the folds of her skirt and wept.

It was covered in Yang's blood. Her hands were. Her face and even her hair now, too, flecks of red staining the immaculate white like rose petals on a fresh covering of snow. Her sobs had gone silent as the grave at the moment of impact, as if being struck while crying triggered some deep-buried defense mechanism from her youth to be as quiet and obedient as possible, but there was no disguising the way her shoulders shook without any sort of rhyme or rhythm as whatever prompts or questions came her way fell on what seemed to be entirely deaf ears.

Weiss hated blood. She hated the shedding of it, both in act and necessity, and yet it seemed to be a permanent fixture in her life at this point no matter what she did to try and discourage it. She dealt with obstacles harshly, ruthlessly, but always with the goal in mind of suppressing the need for violence wherever possible. Depriving Yang of her aura. Letting Merlot carry out his trial on Tock. Turning Maria and Ruby to her cause. There were more severe ways she could've dealt with each and every one of those situations, in light of how they had impressed themselves upon her; Yang's strangling, Tock's beating, the Masque and the Reaper being, yes, monsters. Enemies, hostile aggressors one and all. She could've killed three of those names on the spot had she been so inclined, and she wondered how well Tock's immortality would've served her in a block of cement sinking to the bottom of the deepest trench in the Solitas ocean.

She didn't. Because she liked fixing things, not breaking them. Whether it was blind, heedless loyalty to Ozpin or Salem, she saw it as something to be repaired; Just another flaw in need of correction, and herself as the one to carry out the deed. It was duty, not cruelty.

And yet in her frozen heart even she knew there was one flaw she could never truly fix.

The faunus. Her father's greatest sin. No matter what shade of fang it was, her approach had always been to ignore them and defend herself when she deemed it necessary, treating them with the same mocking contempt she spared all her enemies. It wasn't personal to her. Her mind didn't operate on that wavelength. Hostility born from resentment was no different from a temper tantrum in her eyes, leading only to wasted lives and wasted energy. When Myrtenaster's tip pierced her father's throat, when she watched him die and paid an assassin to dispose of the body, that had not been an act motivated by revenge. It was necessity; the first step in a plan that was still ongoing. To use him for what he had. To take away power he didn't deserve. To stop being afraid and weak, helpless underneath his thumb. To become who she needed to be.

That made a group like the Shadow Fang almost alien to her. She didn't understand what they wanted her to do. Drop dead because of her name? Just hang herself? By the time of its liquidation all SDC-owned dust mines were a benchmark for safety measures, well-ventilated and stocked with androids in case of emergency. She couldn't understand their feelings. They were ridiculous to her. These people had already made her life a living hell from a time when she barely even knew what a faunus was.

Now she got it. She finally understood them, and Yang's blood was everywhere, and it was all too much.

So she did the same thing she did the last time the feelings eviscerating her core were too much. The last time she couldn't stem her tears, sitting in the dark with her knees hugged to her chest. The night Weiss Schnee became who she was.



She shoved every single shred of emotion back inside, regardless of where it lay on the spectrum, and slammed the cellar doors shut on her stone heart with enough force to crack it.

It seemed like people were starting to forget who she was.

That was her fault. She'd been too given to distractions lately, at a time where she could afford none.

It was time to correct that.

There were precious few rational explanations for how quickly Weiss's shoulders stopped quaking. How immediately her soft, stifled sobs were cut off, like a music box reaching its end. There was something almost robotic in the abruptness with which she moved to stand, and any who looked at her swore they felt a chill creep into the room.

The face that had been sobbing mere seconds ago was now expressionless. Her cheeks still glistened with tears, and yet there wasn't a sniffle to be heard as she delicately wiped them away with a look that conveyed nothing but pure, incisive thought. It was like Weiss had flipped a switch, and whatever feelings had reduced her to the shaking, panicked wreck of a few moments ago were shut off without resistance. She answered Nora first, addressing her last statement without bothering to dignify her earlier queries with a response.

"Yes. Ruby, take her to the infirmary. Tell them she's not to leave. When you're done, find Carnelian, Ector and Maria. I'll be waiting for them in my office." Having flicked her eyes' direction over to the former Masque, she reverted her attention to Nora with a firmly neutral expression. "Valkyrie, gather up your associates and tell them the same. A situation has arisen that needs addressing—Obviously—and if you're serious about facing Ozpin with me then let's call this a trial run. Yang?"

Those cold, dissecting blue eyes finally dropped down to the huntress who'd saved her for the first time since she awoke. As they did, it struck Yang that one of them was no longer blue. A matching contact lens over Weiss's left pupil burned away as both eyes flared with the power of dual maidens, and it may have occurred to her to wonder why the vortex of Spring energy swirling from the ill-matched eye looked so familiar. As did the eye itself, or at the very least its color.

Spoiler

There was no playful affection in those eyes. No warmth, and none of the sheer, frantic horror that had dominated her shellshocked face from the moment the explosion hit. They carried all the cold, detached brutality of every single time she'd ever seen her Weiss shut Jaune down, multiplied by a high enough figure that the calculator came back with an error. Simply put, they were eyes that felt nothing.

"It's miss Schnee. And we're done. Don't expect you and I to speak again."

Second problem corrected. No more nonsense, no more distractions. No more weakness. It was the best thing for everyone involved. The only thing.

Weiss turned without so much as a nod in farewell and strode purposefully from the room. She wasn't going to ignore this.

It was time to remind these people who Weiss Schnee was.

---

Alyss, who had always spelled her name that way and was ever annoyed at her old colleague for doing so incorrectly, met his confidence in Weiss’ fate with a calm shrug. “Apparently the chances were slim, so not particularly unexpected. That’s fine then. Just so we’re clear how this works though; we stop touching, we die. I die, you’re probably going to follow shortly after. I’d prefer to be alive by the end of this, if its all the same to you.”

Then she gestured with her free hand down the hall for the headmaster’s office, moving in step with Merlot if he obliged.

"Indeed." He hummed before leading the way for the academy's central elevator, no seeming urgency to Merlot's pace as he pottered along. It was a few minutes of awkward silence before they reached it, and he stepped in after her, tapped the control for the top floor, and settled in for the slow ride up, featuring more awkward silence.





"Care to enlighten me how this came to pass? Personnel screenings here are quite diligent. I fear for your position should you have allowed yourself to be compromised on your own time, young Allison."​

 

[MyrtenRose]

The healing light that coursed through Yang’s form was miraculous, but it didn’t make the process any less disturbing to watch from so up close. The sound of bones reconnecting was not a pleasant one, and the wounds oozed and sputtered from the pressure that formed from the act of forcing them closed. But they did close. For a moment, there might have been a question of whether it was enough; all three of the conscious women in the room had seen enough violence and death in their days to know that surface wounds were usually far from the most dangerous one could have.

Then Weiss screamed loud enough to wake Yang even from the depths of a traumatic brain injury still trying to recover, and she screamed right back in a mixture of the fiery pain rocketing back through her senses, genuine fear of death, and a frightening amount of angry resolve to kick the shit out of whatever was trying to kill her. She flailed, clocking at least one, if not all three of them, with a limb as her mind was pulled out of the sweet abyss of quiet rest, and immediately stopped flailing a few seconds after with a pained grunt as every single inch of her body protested the action with even more pain.

She laid there and stared at the ceiling, dimly aware that her arm was gone (again), and far more keenly aware that doing anything other than breathing was going to just going to hurt more than trying to breath already did. Regardless, she spoke, a dry and cracked edge to her quiet words.

“What...What just happened? Weiss, Weiss are you-!?”

Despite the pain, she made herself sit up with a shudder as her eyes wildly started to shift across the room, only to see they thankfully didn’t have to travel far to see the Schnee nearby. She collapsed right back down with a grateful sigh, despite it all a tension uncoiling from her shoulders as she let herself go limp in a defeated relief.

“..........Hey sis. Hey Nora. Hey Snowflake. Guess that explosion wasn’t as bad as I thought it was.”

"Oh thank heavens she's...well she isn't okay but she's alive and breathing and using nicknames so that's a good sign." Nora let out a breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding, her relief so obvious it might as well have been tangible. "What just happened is right, I was going to ask you guys that! I mean, when we're not in the immediate aftermath of it. Yeah." Nora leaned over, eyes narrowing slightly as she scrutinized Yang. "So hey, how many fingers am I holding up?" The ginger questioned as she extended four fingers up, further testing Yang's cognition in the wake of that explosion. Just in case. Though her gaze didn't stay focused on Yang as she awaited an answer, her eyes shifting over to look back at Weiss when she spoke up.

An eyebrow raised as she took in how Weiss's face had changed so completely so quickly. If she hadn't just heard the sorrowful pleading herself, hadn't seen the tears, she wouldn't have thought the expression belonged to someone who had just been bawling and so deeply concerned. It was so swift a change it was almost like a flip of a coin. She didn't actually comment on the mood swing though. She only listened.​

The face that had been sobbing mere seconds ago was now expressionless. Her cheeks still glistened with tears, and yet there wasn't a sniffle to be heard as she delicately wiped them away with a look that conveyed nothing but pure, incisive thought. It was like Weiss had flipped a switch, and whatever feelings had reduced her to the shaking, panicked wreck of a few moments ago were shut off without protest. She answered Nora first, addressing her last statement without bothering to dignify her earlier queries with a response.

"Yes. Ruby, take her to the infirmary. Tell them she's not to leave. When you're done, find Carnelian, Ector and Maria. I'll be waiting for them in my office." Having flicked her eyes' direction over to the former Masque, she reverted her attention to Nora with a firmly neutral expression. "Valkyrie, gather up your associates and tell them the same. A situation has arisen that needs addressing—Obviously—and if you're serious about facing Ozpin with me then let's call this a trial run. Yang?"

"...Right." Like her or not, the seriousness with which Weiss was now taking the situation made a strong impression. Had this been Ozpin's doing? Even if it wasn't, she was not going to waste time arguing or whatever. The only thing that made her hesitate was the very different colored eyes that graced Weiss's face. It explained the two glows from just now but at the same time it opened up a couple other questions...but no. Now was most assuredly not the time to ask. She turned and left to do just what Weiss had advised and went to go find the others allied with her that were in the academy, as well as shooting a message out to the others that weren't. She trusted that Yang and Ruby could handle things here for now.​

 

[MidwayLives]

​

Then Weiss screamed loud enough to wake Yang even from the depths of a traumatic brain injury still trying to recover, and she screamed right back in a mixture of the fiery pain rocketing back through her senses, genuine fear of death, and a frightening amount of angry resolve to kick the shit out of whatever was trying to kill her. She flailed, clocking at least one, if not all three of them, with a limb as her mind was pulled out of the sweet abyss of quiet rest, and immediately stopped flailing a few seconds after with a pained grunt as every single inch of her body protested the action with even more pain.

She laid there and stared at the ceiling, dimly aware that her arm was gone (again), and far more keenly aware that doing anything other than breathing was going to just going to hurt more than trying to breath already did. Regardless, she spoke, a dry and cracked edge to her quiet words.

It was a testament to the relationship between Ruby and her Yang that she smiled.

After getting clocked and sent stumbling back. It was a familiar set of steps with her own Yang.

"Y-Yang!" She exclaimed.

Weiss had fixed her! Or...done as much as she could.
​

Despite the pain, she made herself sit up with a shudder as her eyes wildly started to shift across the room, only to see they thankfully didn’t have to travel far to see the Schnee nearby. She collapsed right back down with a grateful sigh, despite it all a tension uncoiling from her shoulders as she let herself go limp in a defeated relief.

“..........Hey sis. Hey Nora. Hey Snowflake. Guess that explosion wasn’t as bad as I thought it was.”

Ruby quickly closed in again to nod her head.

"Don't worry, Yang. I'm here-we're all here, and we're not gonna let you get hurt anymore!"

She didn't go into detail about what she'd do to those behind this once she caught them.
​

The face that had been sobbing mere seconds ago was now expressionless. Her cheeks still glistened with tears, and yet there wasn't a sniffle to be heard as she delicately wiped them away with a look that conveyed nothing but pure, incisive thought. It was like Weiss had flipped a switch, and whatever feelings had reduced her to the shaking, panicked wreck of a few moments ago were shut off without protest. She answered Nora first, addressing her last statement without bothering to dignify her earlier queries with a response.

"Yes. Ruby, take her to the infirmary. Tell them she's not to leave. When you're done, find Carnelian, Ector and Maria. I'll be waiting for them in my office." Having flicked her eyes' direction over to the former Masque, she reverted her attention to Nora with a firmly neutral expression.

Ruby followed the order without missing a beat. Yang was scooped up in her arms and the two vanished out the door.

On the way to the infirmary, Ruby's gaze hardened and Yang could see the face that had at times looked so kind, so warm, like that of her actual sister. But the look in the eyes was far different than her Ruby's own. They were the eyes of someone who'd seen and inflicted bloodshed and she was going to do so again. Glancing down at Yang as she carried her, Ruby tried her best to smile through the absolutely blinding rage boiling throughout her.

"I heard what Weiss called me...and I bet you stuck up for me. Well, Yang. I've made my choice and I'm not gonna let you down."

Ruby gave the one who'd actually called her sister(rather than abortion/bitch/fucker/etc etc)a kiss on the cheek before they reached the infirmary. Weiss's instruction to not let the brawler bolt-if she even could-were passed on and Ruby was gone once more, a trail of rose petals descending onto the floor being the only remainder of her presence. Not having to smile anymore, Ruby's entire demeanor took on a feeling much more familiar. One she'd surpressed due to wanting to leave that side of her behind. The side that'd made up the 'Red Masque.'

'If I'm really a monster...'



She moved to go find Carneilan first and then the others.

'Then it's time to unleash that side of me again....Against those who'd hurt the ones I care about!'

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

She wasn't.

Weiss wasn't anything. Yang's glancing swipe had knocked her clean out of the mounting hysteria she was lapsing back into as she watched and heard the mystic life essence do its work, knitting up the flesh and bones she found herself growing so attached to in recent months where they lay broken and twisted in front of her. She toppled backward, pulling her knees out from underneath her and instinctively drawing them to her chest in an upright fetal position as she buried her face in the folds of her skirt and wept.

It was covered in Yang's blood. Her hands were. Her face and even her hair now, too, flecks of red staining the immaculate white like rose petals on a fresh covering of snow. Her sobs had gone silent as the grave at the moment of impact, as if being struck while crying triggered some deep-buried defense mechanism from her youth to be as quiet and obedient as possible, but there was no disguising the way her shoulders shook without any sort of rhyme or rhythm as whatever prompts or questions came her way fell on what seemed to be entirely deaf ears.

Weiss hated blood. She hated the shedding of it, both in act and necessity, and yet it seemed to be a permanent fixture in her life at this point no matter what she did to try and discourage it. She dealt with obstacles harshly, ruthlessly, but always with the goal in mind of suppressing the need for violence wherever possible. Depriving Yang of her aura. Letting Merlot carry out his trial on Tock. Turning Maria and Ruby to her cause. There were more severe ways she could've dealt with each and every one of those situations, in light of how they had impressed themselves upon her; Yang's strangling, Tock's beating, the Masque and the Reaper being, yes, monsters. Enemies, hostile aggressors one and all. She could've killed three of those names on the spot had she been so inclined, and she wondered how well Tock's immortality would've served her in a block of cement sinking to the bottom of the deepest trench in the Solitas ocean.

She didn't. Because she liked fixing things, not breaking them. Whether it was blind, heedless loyalty to Ozpin or Salem, she saw it as something to be repaired; Just another flaw in need of correction, and herself as the one to carry out the deed. It was duty, not cruelty.

And yet in her frozen heart even she knew there was one flaw she could never truly fix.

The faunus. Her father's greatest sin. No matter what shade of fang it was, her approach had always been to ignore them and defend herself when she deemed it necessary, treating them with the same mocking contempt she spared all her enemies. It wasn't personal to her. Her mind didn't operate on that wavelength. Hostility born from resentment was no different from a temper tantrum in her eyes, leading only to wasted lives and wasted energy. When Myrtenaster's tip pierced her father's throat, when she watched him die and paid an assassin to dispose of the body, that had not been an act motivated by revenge. It was necessity; the first step in a plan that was still ongoing. To use him for what he had. To take away power he didn't deserve. To stop being afraid and weak, helpless underneath his thumb. To become who she needed to be.

That made a group like the Shadow Fang almost alien to her. She didn't understand what they wanted her to do. Drop dead because of her name? Just hang herself? By the time of its liquidation all SDC-owned dust mines were a benchmark for safety measures, well-ventilated and stocked with androids in case of emergency. She couldn't understand their feelings. They were ridiculous to her. These people had already made her life a living hell from a time when she barely even knew what a faunus was.

Now she got it. She finally understood them, and Yang's blood was everywhere, and it was all too much.

So she did the same thing she did the last time the feelings eviscerating her core were too much. The last time she couldn't stem her tears, sitting in the dark with her knees hugged to her chest. The night Weiss Schnee became who she was.

It was a testament to just how powerful the explosion had been that, even through her full aura, her semblance, and Weiss' healing Yang reacted so sluggishly to the sight of the imperious and steel-hearted Weiss Schnee she'd nonetheless grown fond of being in such a miserable state. She hadn't even seen her own Weiss crack so hard, and they'd been through... a lot. Yet her thoughts were still swimming in messy swirls, her heart was still thumping a thousand miles an hour, and at first all she managed was a shaky and sluggish "I-its fine Weiss, I'm fine. No limbs lost I'm n-not used to losing.". She couldn't even manage to pick her head up again, the fight or flight also fight adrenaline in her system draining away and taking all its blessed extra energy away with it.

"Oh thank heavens she's...well she isn't okay but she's alive and breathing and using nicknames so that's a good sign." Nora let out a breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding, her relief so obvious it might as well have been tangible. "What just happened is right, I was going to ask you guys that! I mean, when we're not in the immediate aftermath of it. Yeah." Nora leaned over, eyes narrowing slightly as she scrutinized Yang. "So hey, how many fingers am I holding up?" The ginger questioned as she extended four fingers up, further testing Yang's cognition in the wake of that explosion. Just in case.

"Dude blew up. and more than one. For sure."

She shoved every single shred of emotion back inside, regardless of where it lay on the spectrum, and slammed the cellar doors shut on her stone heart with enough force to crack it.

It seemed like people were starting to forget who she was.

That was her fault. She'd been too given to distractions lately, at a time where she could afford none.

It was time to correct that.

There were precious few rational explanations for how quickly Weiss's shoulders stopped quaking. How immediately her soft, stifled sobs were cut off, like a music box reaching its end. There was something almost robotic in the abruptness with which she moved to stand, and any who looked at her swore they felt a chill creep into the room.

The face that had been sobbing mere seconds ago was now expressionless. Her cheeks still glistened with tears, and yet there wasn't a sniffle to be heard as she delicately wiped them away with a look that conveyed nothing but pure, incisive thought. It was like Weiss had flipped a switch, and whatever feelings had reduced her to the shaking, panicked wreck of a few moments ago were shut off without resistance. She answered Nora first, addressing her last statement without bothering to dignify her earlier queries with a response.

"Yes. Ruby, take her to the infirmary. Tell them she's not to leave. When you're done, find Carnelian, Ector and Maria. I'll be waiting for them in my office." Having flicked her eyes' direction over to the former Masque, she reverted her attention to Nora with a firmly neutral expression. "Valkyrie, gather up your associates and tell them the same. A situation has arisen that needs addressing—Obviously—and if you're serious about facing Ozpin with me then let's call this a trial run. Yang?"

Those cold, dissecting blue eyes finally dropped down to the huntress who'd saved her for the first time since she awoke. As they did, it struck Yang that one of them was no longer blue. A matching contact lens over Weiss's left pupil burned away as both eyes flared with the power of dual maidens, and it may have occurred to her to wonder why the vortex of Spring energy swirling from the ill-matched eye looked so familiar. As did the eye itself, or at the very least its color.

There was no playful affection in those eyes. No warmth, and none of the sheer, frantic horror that had dominated her shellshocked face from the moment the explosion hit. They carried all the cold, detached brutality of every single time she'd ever seen her Weiss shut Jaune down, multiplied by a high enough figure that the calculator came back with an error. Simply put, they were eyes that felt nothing.

"It's miss Schnee. And we're done. Don't expect you and I to speak again."

Second problem corrected. No more nonsense, no more distractions. No more weakness. It was the best thing for everyone involved. The only thing.

Weiss turned without so much as a nod in farewell and strode purposefully from the room. She wasn't going to ignore this.

It was time to remind these people who Weiss Schnee was.

The cold bite and the words themselves was enough to finally coax Yang's eyes back towards the Heiress with a shaky frown, and the look in her eyes was like a stab to the gut far more violent than any explosion.

Of course Yang knew that Weiss was MaNIPulAtING her, especially at her start. Pulling on the right strings, saying the right words, making the right smiles, the whole nine yards to get Yang to like her, and more importantly, be useful to her. And hey, credit to the Schneeball, because it worked. Yang did like her, and she did want to help her. Plenty of people would say that the fact that Yang tackled a suicide bomber without a thought was sign enough that she was just another soul that had gotten tangled up in the Weiss' web, doing her best to curry favor with the spider queen no matter how much her twitching just tangled her up further.

Those people were idiots, because Yang knew for sure that if everything in this room had been reversed, Weiss would've done the same thing, except with much less bodily harm to herself because she was a glyph wielding double maiden but that was besides the point. What Yang didn't know for sure was if Weiss knew she was playing the same game. Pulling on the right strings, saying the right words, and making the right smiles. Doing her best to get Weiss to like her, and more importantly... Care about her. Because she wasn't trying to MaNIPUlaTE Weiss. She was trying to be her friend. Trying to remind this Weiss that that was a thing that existed, that human connection wasn't a weakness. Contrary to popular belief, she wasnt' blind to Weiss' nastier side; She just knew it wasn't her only side, and that going eye for an eye with the former CEO in some blind pursuit of justice was just going to hobble both their efforts against their real enemies. Whatever punishment whatever holier than thou asshats wanted to level at Weiss for doing everything she could to beat the same person they were trying to beat would never be worth letting Ozpin win. So Yang played Weiss' game, whatever preferred metaphor of the various chess or chess equivalents Weiss wanted to settle on, and just didn't play to win. She just played, so that Weiss had someone to get close to. To remember that was a thing people did, and that maybe it wasn't so bad

And somehow, Yang had fucked it up.

She tried to form a question, or a retort, to make sense of the sudden steel in someone who just seconds ago had been practically shattered over her almost-corpse, but her thoughts were too muddled, seeing Weiss look at her with her own god damn mom's eyes were too much of a shock, and Ruby was too fast for her to manage anything out of a quiet, hurt stutter of "B-bullshit-" before she was being sped out of the room in a blur of petals and platitudes from her not-quite-sister.

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"-He's currently doing reconnaissance. As for Ilia, she's almost here as well, in fact she should be-"

"Right behind you"

The mild, amused smile on Blake's face said it clear enough that she already knew where her girlfriend was in the hallway, no matter how easily she blended in with the dark grey walls of the warehouse's metal panel hallways, just as it was clear that Snake had genuinely no idea it was coming as she all but leapt into The Hand's arms with a squeak. Her terror was short lived as she exclaimed "Ilily!" and swept Ilia up in a in as crushing a hug as her arms could manage, the chameleon faunus' cheeky smile going to sheepish as she tried to squirm free

"O-okay, good to see you too, yooou can let go now"

"I can"

...

...

"But you won't."

"I won't >:3"

"how the fuck did you say that with your mouth"

"Indeed." He hummed before leading the way for the academy's central elevator, no seeming urgency to Merlot's pace as he pottered along. It was a few minutes of awkward silence before they reached it, and he stepped in after her, tapped the control for the top floor, and settled in for the slow ride up, featuring more awkward silence.

"Care to enlighten me how this came to pass? Personnel screenings here are quite diligent. I fear for your position should you have allowed yourself to be compromised on your own time, young Allison."

"I can't." Aleece answered as the elevator slid up floor by floor. "I don't think I would if I could, but I do know that I can't. I don't remember how it happened. Just that I agreed to it."

The doors slid open at the top floor, and she moved towards the desk with Merlot in tow. She reached into the pocket of her trousers and placed a scroll on the desk. "And now we wait for the lady of the hour."

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"-And that's where we stand. We're lucky that Tiger managed to escape the raid unscathed, but obviously the leverage of the videos is out our reach now." Snake finished. The Talons in Atlas were all gathered, though the room they were in was a far cry from the somber, nigh mystic aura of the Talon's roundtable in Castle Tengu: It was the warehouse's breakroom. Instead of a roundtable there were a pair of them with a gaggle of chairs around them, one of which had been entirely claimed by Hound sprawled across the table itself with a pillow stolen off of one of the room's couches, with both Argent sisters sitting at the other, Greki slouched over it and Feri with her legs primly crossed over the other. Bear stood impassively near the room's door, and Blake was comfortably resting her head in Ilia's lap, the pair eventually coaxing Snake off her old friend's neck so that they could rest on the couch while Snake stood in the middle, hands clasped behind her back as she gave everyone the debriefing. Tiger and Eve were also invited and made aware, though if Bull was in the room Ilia was affixing her with a withering glare that everyone else was doing their best to ignore for now

"Fah. I don't even know why you even bothered sending anyone in the first place. We're not here to blackmail Schnee. We're here to make a corpse. We don't care about her reputation after the fact." Hound drawled without looking away from the ceiling. "I'm impressed you managed to managed to keep the whole house from burning down here with big bad Carny and Schnee holding the torches, but the real killers are here now honey, don't worry. We can handle it from here" He said as he tilted his head to give her what he definitely thought was a flirtatious wink.

"...Quite." Snake said with as neutral a stare as she could manage, which was very. She cleared her throat and continued. "On that note... I have actually made an attempt in that regard as well. I got one of mine into the academy."

That caught Blake's attention, and she finally opened her eyes and sat up. "...and?"

Snake shook her head with a tacit frown. "No luck, I believe. He went off just a few minutes before you arrived, and no panic or even a peep of her demise over communications. He was the only one I managed to get in, and...."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

When Weiss arrived, be it by herself or with her entourage, Alyss gave her a polite nod, and gently tapped the call button on the scroll, to the only number it had access to.

"...And one moment, I have to take this."

The voice was garbled to a point that it would've been impossible to parse even with the best tech in the business, despite the words being easy enough to understand. The next voice, however, was far more clear.

"...Really?"

"Some of us have to work a little harder to hide in Atlas, Miss Belladonna. I won't be more than a moment."

The Hand sighed on the other end of the line, and a voice that was less recognizable to most except Carnelian scoffed.

"Yea yea, whatever, just hurry back. Wanna hear about your epic fail some more."

"Ok, seriously, no one says 'ePiC FAil'. Barely anyone said it when it was 'cool', and-"

The sound of a door shutting could be heard, and then footsteps, before another door opened and closed.

"...Miss Schnee" began the voice. "I take it my initial efforts did not bear fruit then."

 

[Gus Gungus]

"-And that's where we stand. We're lucky that Tiger managed to escape the raid unscathed, but obviously the leverage of the videos is out our reach now." Snake finished. The Talons in Atlas were all gathered, though the room they were in was a far cry from the somber, nigh mystic aura of the Talon's roundtable in Castle Tengu: It was the warehouse's breakroom. Instead of a roundtable there were a pair of them with a gaggle of chairs around them, one of which had been entirely claimed by Hound sprawled across the table itself with a pillow stolen off of one of the room's couches, with both Argent sisters sitting at the other, Greki slouched over it and Feri with her legs primly crossed over the other. Bear stood impassively near the room's door, and Blake was comfortably resting her head in Ilia's lap, the pair eventually coaxing Snake off her old friend's neck so that they could rest on the couch while Snake stood in the middle, hands clasped behind her back as she gave everyone the debriefing. Tiger and Eve were also invited and made aware, though if Bull was in the room Ilia was affixing her with a withering glare that everyone else was doing their best to ignore for now

"Fah. I don't even know why you even bothered sending anyone in the first place. We're not here to blackmail Schnee. We're here to make a corpse. We don't care about her reputation after the fact." Hound drawled without looking away from the ceiling. "I'm impressed you managed to managed to keep the whole house from burning down here with big bad Carny and Schnee holding the torches, but the real killers are here now honey, don't worry. We can handle it from here" He said as he tilted his head to give her what he definitely thought was a flirtatious wink.

"...Quite." Snake said with as neutral a stare as she could manage, which was very. She cleared her throat and continued. "On that note... I have actually made an attempt in that regard as well. I got one of mine into the academy."

That caught Blake's attention, and she finally opened her eyes and sat up. "...and?"

Snake shook her head with a tacit frown. "No luck, I believe. He went off just a few minutes before you arrived, and no panic or even a peep of her demise over communications. He was the only one I managed to get in, and...."

Eve was there.

And however little it mattered, however little she mattered, however much she was the weird, confrontational distant cousin who everyone sort of just scoffed at or ignored in these meetings on the rare occasion she did elect to make her thoughts known, the spiteful snarl Ilia's glare met with from the darkest and most concealed corner of the breakroom was downright malevolent in its intent in light of whose head was in her lap right now. The two were used to it by this point, the sense that only the thinnest membrane of common sense was what kept the bull from drawing Wilt and charging whenever they demonstrated even the vaguest semblance of affection or intimacy in her presence.

When Weiss arrived, be it by herself or with her entourage, Alyss gave her a polite nod, and gently tapped the call button on the scroll, to the only number it had access to.

"...And one moment, I have to take this."

The voice was garbled to a point that it would've been impossible to parse even with the best tech in the business, despite the words being easy enough to understand. The next voice, however, was far more clear.

"...Really?"

"Some of us have to work a little harder to hide in Atlas, Miss Belladonna. I won't be more than a moment."

The Hand sighed on the other end of the line, and a voice that was less recognizable scoffed.

"Yea yea, whatever, just hurry back. Wanna hear about your epic fail some more."

"Ok, seriously, no one says. Barely anyone said it when it was 'cool', and-"

The sound of a door shutting could be heard, and then footsteps, before another door opened and closed.

"...Miss Schnee" began the voice. "I take it my initial efforts did not bear fruit then."

Weiss was alone when she arrived, the fact that she disembarked from the elevator only a scant few minutes after the academy duo settled in themselves a testament to the walking speed of a motivated Schnee as the stench of tobacco smoke wafted out from the elevator the moment its doors slid open. Her immediate reaction to the pair waiting for her was more the opposite of one as she ignored them completely in favor of stepping past them, ignoring the seat on the other side of the desk and making for the window overlooking Atlas's majestic technological skyline, fingers already intertwined around a new cigarette she lit with the barest flare of clashing energies from her eyes as she kept her back to them and waited for them to proceed.

Neither Alyss nor Merlot had ever seen someone stand so still.

Neither the call or the heavily modulated voice spurred much of a reaction from the councilwoman as she kept her back to the two and took a deep, indulgent drag on her preferred brand of toxin, the ensuing smoke vapors ejected from the corner of her lips with prodigious force. Only when the voice she did recognize made its brief utterance did her head twitch slightly to the side, and at the ensuing exchange and eventual question posed her initial response was little more than a flat, unfeeling scoff mingled with a chuckle as she delivered her mirthless reply.

"No. What happens next is because of you. I want you to remember that."

It appeared she was in no mood to mince words, none of the flowery affectations or eloquent formality customary of the politician evident over the line. On the contrary, her voice was downright disdainful in its neutrality, as if this call were a mere formality she wanted over with as quickly as possible.​

 

[MidwayLives]

This was supposed to be it.

The chance she'd been waiting a lifetime for.

To find someone to finally take her on at fullpower.

Instead, the only one she'd found was a lone masked man. Weak in consitution-never should have been there-but powerful in his willingness to fight on.

If things had turned out differently, Tiger would have been honored to kill him. But it wasn't meant to be from the looks of it.

Him and his partner escaped and everything fell apart around the woman known as Tiger.

Soldiers rushed in, it almost felt like a torrent. She killed those who got in her way and left. No dramatic exits, no spectacle, just doing what she needed to do to escape. If she'd stuck around it's likely she'd have been found by another one of Atlesian's more skilled protectors. It'd have been made up for the loss of the tournament. As the wind blew through her hair while she sprinted down the halls, she acknowledged the reality. The group's needs came before her own. Even when it came down to potentially dying in battle.

On the outside, she'd encountered a burned man and someone else he'd been fighting with. A reptilian faunus with the seeming ability to harden his skin.

The three of them fought and she emerged victorious.

Word was out on whether or not she managed to kill them.
​

iger and Eve were also invited and made aware, though if Bull was in the room Ilia was affixing her with a withering glare that everyone else was doing their best to ignore for now

Tiger quietly stepped into the room, the left side of her torso covered in burns which she seemed to barely notice. Plus a bloody swipe of clawmarks on her face.

She leaned against the wall and said nothing.

Just like she usually did.
​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Weiss was alone when she arrived, the fact that she disembarked from the elevator only a scant few minutes after the academy duo settled in themselves a testament to the walking speed of a motivated Schnee as the stench of cigarette smoke wafted out from the elevator the moment its doors slid open. Her immediate reaction to the pair waiting for her was more the opposite of one as she ignored them completely in favor of stepping past them, ignoring the seat on the other side of the desk and making for the window overlooking Atlas's majestic technological skyline, fingers already intertwined around a new cigarette she lit with the barest flare of clashing energies from her eyes as she kept her back to them and waited for them to proceed.

Neither Alyss nor Merlot had ever seen someone stand so still.

Neither the call or the heavily modulated voice spurred much of a reaction from the councilwoman as she kept her back to the two and took a deep, indulgent drag on her preferred brand of toxin, the ensuing smoke vapors ejected from the corner of her lips with prodigious force. Only when the voice she did recognize made its brief utterance did her head twitch slightly to the side, and at the ensuing exchange and eventual question posed her initial response was little more than a flat, unfeeling scoff mingled with a chuckle as she delivered her toneless reply.

"No. What happens next is because of you. I want you to remember that."

Whatever Merlot's response was, Aleicy's reserved calm finally broke, at least slightly, as she cleared her throat and shuffled her feet, the good doctor relatively sure her hand tensed in his grip. The other end of the line showed no such hesitation however, their response somber and heavy.

"I understand that more than you likely realize, miss Schnee."

Whether that was true remained to be seen.

"I won't waste your time more than I have to, though is is a fair bit to discuss. This conversation is not another threat on your life; now that its happening, Professor Carrol and the good doctor are free to leave, if they so wish."

There was a quiet snap in the air, and the professor Formerly Known as Alice jolted where she stood, her eyes flickering across the room as she instinctively tried to jerk her hand away from Merlot's. The doctor indeed felt the energy coiling through her hand dissipate, and the sudden confusion in her eyes was heavy, but whether that was a theory he had any interest in testing at this moment was to his discretion.

"What this conversation is is two things; a warning, and a offer. It is hardly a warning that needs to be made; The Hand is in Atlas to make an attempt on your life, along with a full claw's worth of Talons. Lord Ozpin has decreed that this attempt be made, and thus it must happen. If the Shadowfang does not, the shadowfang falls out of his grace. Given your current situation, I'm sure you can sympathize."

The slight smirk at the edge of the speaker's lips could almost be heard, though nothing in their tone carried mockery.

"Yet the death of one person does nothing to further the goals of the faunus, or even the Shadowfang itself. While the Hand may forget this at times, Ozpin is an ally, not our ruler. World destruction or the demise of Salem's intrepid heroes are only one path to what we desire. The only thing we need out of this ensuing war on your soil, is Atlas gone, or Atlas stable. Neither I, nor the High Leader, despite her words, see any benefit in your death, outside of keeping our word to Lord Ozpin. So instead, I come to you with an offer."

That it came so violently was only supposed to be a reminder; that for all Weiss' power, both personal, political, and military, no one was untouchable. Not her, not the people near her. No one.

"The attempt against you must happen. It is a given. There is no world where it does not. But I can guarantee that it fails. That you come out the other side of it unscathed and ready to deal with Lord Ozpin's might, however you see fit, and the other Talons leave to lick their wounds. I would only ask one favor in return."

The offer was left open ended, the favor unmentioned until Weiss dismissed it out of hand or showed any interest.

Eve was there.

And however little it mattered, however much she was the weird, confrontational distant cousin who everyone sort of just scoffed at or ignored in these meetings on the rare occasion she did elect to make her thoughts known, the spiteful snarl Ilia's glare met with from the darkest and most concealed corner of the breakroom was downright malevolent in its intent in light of whose head was in her lap right now. The two were used to it by this point, the sense that only the thinnest membrane of common sense was what kept the bull from drawing Wilt and charging whenever they demonstrated even the vaguest semblance of affection or intimacy in her presence.

Tiger quietly stepped into the room, the left side of her torso covered in burns which she seemed to barely notice. Plus a bloody swipe of clawmarks on her face.

She leaned against the wall and said nothing.

Just like she usually did.

Back in the break room, without Snake's affable nature suffocating the tension the air, the silence was heavy. Hound, at least, was indifferent to it, having waved Ilia's sass off with a snort before closing his eyes in an endeavor to nap. Without his clownery to distract her, Ilia's glare had resettled onto Eve's meeting her scowl with equal spite.

Needless to say, Blake was not enjoying this. While she'd been aware enough when Eve had slipped into the room, she'd already been where she was, and breaking off contact with Ilia the moment Eve stepped into sight felt like betraying every insecurity Blake knew well enough was in the chameleon's own heart. But this wasn't any better. If anything, it was worse, and she slipped out of her grip to stand up and move to lean against the side of the couch instead with an uncomfortable frown. Ilia barely seemed to notice.

The Argent sisters shared a glanced before before Feri cleared her throat and likewise stood, planting both hands against the table as she leaned on it. "So. These are the mighty Talons then? Hmph. You do not look so mighty. To think, an Argent would make herself subserviant to this group, instead of a staunch and powerful ally, like I am doing." She declared with a hand against her chest. That was enough to finally pry Ilia's eyes off of Eve, if only to shoot Ferry a disdainful glare of her own.

"Ok, seriously, who are you?"

The wolf faunus made an affronted noise "Uh, excuse me? You are the people who accosted our pack for help with your little war, not the other way around."

"The Argent pack is an independent faunus tribe from Vacuo" Blake cut in as she saw Ilia's proverbial scales beginning to sharpen at the girl's tone. "They refused annexation into Menagerie, and have evaded kingdom forces there since. Feri here is the pack leaders' daughter, and one of their finest warriors"

The words edged dangerous close to sarcastic.

"She's with us because the Argent have had beef with the Schnee family for years, and they agreed to work more with the Fang if one of theirs got a chance to take a bite out of the big boss bitch herself." Hound drawled, the disappointment that they'd gone from awkward silence to awkward talking heavy in his voice.

"okay, but... isn't... Greki an Argent? her last name is-"

"An exile. A failure." Feri said with a sniff and a glare towards her older sister, who merely beamed and stuck her tongue out at her.

"Wasn't interested in muckin about in the desert me whole life is'all, ditched em young. Best choice a' me life!"

"Tch. We do not muck about. Where did you even get that horrible accent, anyways? We finally meet again, and you sound like some... some southern anima hick!"

"I resent that that tone sis. Summa me best friends are southern anima hicks"

 

[MidwayLives]

"She's with us because the Argent have had beef with the Schnee family for years, and they agreed to work more with the Fang if one of theirs got a chance to take a bite out of the big boss bitch herself." Hound drawled, the disappointment that they'd gone from awkward silence to awkward talking heavy in his voice.

Tiger raised a hand up to her face and ran her index finger across the clawmarks. They were deep and red.

She didn't think of herself as beautiful or anything like that. It didn't suit the 'cause' for her to spend time thinking on things like that.

But if anyone were to note anything, it was that her face had definitely been marred by her fight with Satin.

"We'll see if they're worth what they say when it comes down to it..." Tiger spoke.

She hadn't seen Schnee in action but cockiness, boldness, they only went so far.

Tiger knew from the moment she accepted this mission, a nagging feeling in the back of her head.

She could die here...and she'd be fine with it.​

 

[Gus Gungus]

Whatever Merlot's response was, Aleicy's reserved calm finally broke, at least slightly, as she cleared her throat and shuffled her feet, the good doctor relatively sure her hand tensed in his grip. The other end of the line showed no such hesitation however, their response somber and heavy.

"I understand that more than you likely realize, miss Schnee."

Whether that was true remained to be seen.

"I won't waste your time more than I have to, though is is a fair bit to discuss. This conversation is not another threat on your life; now that its happening, Professor Carrol and the good doctor are free to leave, if they so wish."

There was a quiet snap in the air, and the professor Formerly Known as Alice jolted where she stood, her eyes flickering across the room as she instinctively tried to jerk her hand away from Merlot's. The doctor indeed felt the energy coiling through her hand dissipate, and the sudden confusion in her eyes was heavy, but whether that was a theory he had any interest in testing at this moment was to his discretion.

"What this conversation is is two things; a warning, and a offer. It is hardly a warning that needs to be made; The Hand is in Atlas to make an attempt on your life, along with a full claw's worth of Talons. Lord Ozpin has decreed that this attempt be made, and thus it must happen. If the Shadowfang does not, the shadowfang falls out of his grace. Given your current situation, I'm sure you can sympathize."

The slight smirk at the edge of the speaker's lips could almost be heard, though nothing in their tone carried mockery.

"Yet the death of one person does nothing to further the goals of the faunus, or even the Shadowfang itself. While the Hand may forget this at times, Ozpin is an ally, not our ruler. World destruction or the demise of Salem's intrepid heroes are only one path to what we desire. The only thing we need out of this ensuing war on your soil, is Atlas gone, or Atlas stable. Neither I, nor the High Leader, despite her words, see any benefit in your death, outside of keeping our word to Lord Ozpin. So instead, I come to you with an offer."

That it came so violently was only supposed to be a reminder; that for all Weiss' power, both personal, political, and military, no one was untouchable. Not her, not the people near her. No one.

"The attempt against you must happen. It is a given. There is no world where it does not. But I can guarantee that it fails. That you come out the other side of it unscathed and ready to deal with Lord Ozpin's might, however you see fit, and the other Talons leave to lick their wounds. I would only ask one favor in return."

The offer was left open ended, the favor unmentioned until Weiss dismissed it out of hand or showed any interest.

The spell of silence from Merlot was not a spell of inactivity, one of Remnant's most brilliant—If unhinged—minds having obtained all the information he deemed of consequence from Alissa and taken to inputting a series of rapidly executed thumbstrokes on the homebrew scroll he now clasped in his prosthetic hand. A microspike on his index finger interfaced with the device through one of its many side ports, a practice he had already carried out on the tabled scroll to ensure there were no suspicious devices and the line wasn't being recorded from the other end. With a final series of deft scroll commands, there was a faint crackle in the air as preinstalled generators built throughout the office hummed to life and he and Alice both felt their auras immediately dulled, the unpleasant, heavy sensation enough to make even Merlot's features contort in discomfort. A simple dampening field, Atlas's aura suppressive technology bolstered by some innovations of his own design, one of the first precautionary measures the councilwoman had had installed throughout the technological monolith she now spent most of her time in meant to discourage known semblances with a potential grudge to bear against her. Were any aura detonations to occur now, in this space, their potency would be hindered by magnitudes if not outright suppressed.

Only then did Merlot oblige his former peer's attempt to separate, and provided she wasn't subject to any sort of confined detonation within her vital organs he simpered and gestured once more towards the elevator.

"Shall we? The administration level, I think. You have a resignation to tender."

It was telling of either the councilwoman's mood, resolve, or simply her level of unfeeling coldness at present time that the aura suppression effect that had Remnant's most deranged biologist's face twist with malaise didn't even move her to flinch. She just stood there and smoked, blank features holding fast as she stood on the highest point of the greatest kingdom in the world, and Snake's reply was heard through in its entirety with the patience and attentiveness it was due before her answer came. Like many of the words she spoke, it was cold, firm, and emphatic. It was, however, far more an exercise in brevity, at least to start.

"No."





There was no malice in the repeated negative. No hostility, venom or acrimony, and it wasn't even dismissive in the sense of total disregard for the proposal of a non-violent resolution on principle.

Rather, it was the frank, scathing rejection of someone who had listened to each and every word, thought them through carefully, and simply wasn't interested. Lucie more than likely hadn't had a direct superior in her day trade for quite some time, and when she had such flat declinations had surely been few and far between for one gifted with her verbal eloquence. Even the most aggressive and belligerent of potential business associates could be leveraged, placated and swayed.

Somehow, with but a single word the incumbent Schnee matriarch had managed to convey an entire bad lunch meeting's worth of inflexibility. A sheer, iron-clad force of will that couldn't be bent, won over or persuaded, and that feeling only mounted as she launched into one of her more traditional spiels.

"Fancy yourself a diplomat, do you? Delightful. I could go on at length about how playing the voice of reason while your conspirators attack schools and bring entire kingdoms to their knees is about the most mediocre and hypocritical notion I've ever been subjected to, but something tells me we'd just have to agree to disagree."

Said the Schnee to the faunus. She might have added as much verbally were she in any mind to lighten the mood or warm up the opposition, but she wasn't. She was going to say what she needed to say and then what had to happen was going to happen.

"I will offer you three pieces of advice though, for the sake of your own edification. The first is to drop whatever pretense of a moral high ground you still cling to if you ever plan on actually achieving anything. It's cute that you still think you're the good guys, dear, but in the long run you'll only end up as confused and conflicted as your group's goals; Though I'm positive you have some wonderful rhetoric for why the faunus population of Mistral has actually benefited from what you've done there."

She rolled her eyes, and it was about as audible through the scroll line as Snake's smirk had been. In this case the mockery was all there, though.

"The second is just a warning: the Shadow Fang will fall out of 'lord Ozpin's grace' the second one of you forgets to call him your lord. Or when you look at him a certain way, or if he thinks you're taking a particular tone of voice with him. I'm sure you think it's all well in hand, nothing could be worse than human tyranny, the usual drivel. But with all due respect—Which is precious little—You people have not spent enough time around him to be as confident in your footing as you are. Blake's just the right amount of docile, compliant and completely mesmerized by his power to do a spectacular job of failing to see it. I'll put it this way: I'm the Winter Maiden. I gave him Atlas. I was one of the most valuable resources he ever had, and when it came down to it? I didn't even get a chance to defend myself. For dust's sake, does this really need spelling out? He's temperamental, he's unstable, he's heavily prone to mood swings, and he adores inflicting harm. It may surprise you to know I'm not about to extol the virtues of my own kind, but substitute humanity's rule for his and you won't be creating a world kinder to the faunus; you'll be creating one where they can die on a whim, along with everything else he decides slights him on any given morning. Decide for yourself if that's really what you want. I'm past caring."

Her eyes wavered from the city view to instead appraise her nails with a dissatisfied sternness, suddenly wishing she had a file as she spotted an uneven edge that was probably going to bug her for the next however long this took. She contented herself to pulling deeply on smoke instead.

"Which brings me to my final point. It's really not so much advice as it is pointing out the flaw in your negotiation technique, which is why it's a hard no and why this conversation wasn't more pleasant. It's a microcosm of the problem with your entire organization, really, and it's this: you did NOT come here to negotiate. You had no intention of it."

Her voice was hard, her brow creased, and she flicked the remainder of the cigarette away unfinished as twin jets of it came out her nostrils, finally electing to return to her desk. A few taps of the control panel affixed to the desk had a shutter descend over the windows, plunging the room into a darkness tempered only by the glow of Atlas's technological blue even as its configuration started to shift. A sealed containment pod rose up from a newly-opened alcove of the floor, the office tiles shifting aside to expose it.

"Negotiations start with a dialogue. You opened with a bomb, which makes your 'offer' nothing more than a delicately phrased ultimatum. Don't get me wrong, I'm hardly about to start casting judgment on anyone willing to play hardball. In a way I even admire it; I'll admit, I was more frightened than I've been in a long time. I even know enough about the disposition of the man you chose to die to understand why you chose him. That's not the issue."

The pod opened with a click and a hiss of pressurized air, Weiss staring with arms crossed as the blue glow from within settled across her face more harshly than the soft sheen of hardlight.

"The issue is this. One other person was hurt in that explosion. Badly. Someone who shouldn't have been. And the only injustice that idiot ever dealt anyone was herself, for having a big enough heart to believe people like you or I deserve the bare minimum of kindness, understanding or decency."

Reaching into the stasis field, she removed the suspended artifact and bore it aloft with a deep breath, preparing for whatever awaited on the other side of this.

"I'm not going to make the same mistake she did. Let me make myself perfectly clear: You came to me as an enemy. I don't negotiate with enemies. I'm Weiss Schnee; I crush my enemies. So you don't get a favor—you get an ultimatum in return. Leave Atlas or die. The Hand leaves Atlas or she dies. Your parade of idiots in animal masks? They leave Atlas or they die. And if ANY of you are moronic enough to come back here whenever Ozpin chooses to launch his offensive? Every single one of you is going to die."

There was something objectively frightening about a voice that could build to such a loud volume without imparting so much as a hint of anger. That, if anything, was the most impressive part of the speech; there was no frustration. No rage.

Only conviction.

"And remember, it will all be because of you. Give it some serious thought. I look forward to meeting you in person."

With that final, ominous assurance, the call was swiftly terminated by way of the scroll itself being magically frozen over at the sort of temperature scrolls just didn't function at, Weiss returning her focus to the matter at hand. There were some who would've called this a waste. That the knowledge finally granted to her by Tock's revamped allegiances after veritable weeks of Yang being annoying about it could've been put to better use.

Weiss currently saw only two things. An obstacle that needed demolishing and an ace she had yet to play. Things were too close to the endgame for the Shadow Fang to start rearing their heads in her city now. They had to go, and when faced by an opponent with a tactical advantage she had an excellent strategy she liked to revisit every now and again.

Cheat.

The elevator dinged after a return trip from Merlot and Alice's departure, and the doors slid open just in time for those gathered by Ruby and Nora to step out and witness what would've been a terrifying sight under any circumstance.

Weiss Schnee holding the Relic of Knowledge, and with the activation phrase relayed to her by a certain conspicuously absent faunus hers was a look of unwavering resolve as she held it at chest level and spoke the word.

"Jinn."

Time slowed around them, and even Carnelian gave a low whistle at the ensuing spectacle, electing to simply turn off his cybernetic eye rather than let its sensors try to process it.

Weiss, while a perennial master of appearing unfazed, definitely looked a bit whiter as she gazed up and up at... Wow. Yang hadn't been lying, that certainly was a naked blue woman. She narrowed her eyes from where they'd instinctively widened a millimeter or two, cleared her throat, and asked her question with a specificity calculated from what she knew.

"Where is Blake Belladonna right now?"
​

"The Argent pack is an independent faunus tribe from Vacuo" Blake cut in as she saw Ilia's proverbial scales beginning to sharpen at the girl's tone. "They refused annexation into Menagerie, and have evaded kingdom forces there since. Feri here is the pack leaders' daughter, and one of their finest warriors"

The words edged dangerous close to sarcastic.

"She's with us because the Argent have had beef with the Schnee family for years, and they agreed to work more with the Fang if one of theirs got a chance to take a bite out of the big boss bitch herself." Hound drawled, the disappointment that they'd gone from awkward silence to awkward talking heavy in his voice.

"okay, but... isn't... Greki an Argent? her last name is-"

"An exile. A failure." Feri said with a sniff and a glare towards her older sister, who merely beamed and stuck her tongue out at her.

"Wasn't interested in muckin about in the desert me whole life is'all, ditched em young. Best choice a' me life!"

"Tch. We do not muck about. Where did you even get that horrible accent, anyways? We finally meet again, and you sound like some... some southern anima hick!"

"I resent that that tone sis. Summa me best friends are southern anima hicks"

"How special."

Eve's sneer was curt, bitter, and delivered without once breaking her territorial stare from Ilia regardless of where her gaze went, the scowl on her face apparently etched in stone judging from how long it had been there.

In fairness to the people who ignored her, she never really brought anything to these meetings except hostility and vitrol. Because she hated them.​

 

[MyrtenRose]

The elevator dinged after a return trip from Merlot and Alice's departure, and the doors slid open just in time for those gathered by Ruby and Nora to step out and witness what would've been a terrifying sight under any circumstance.

Weiss Schnee holding the Relic of Knowledge, and with the activation phrase relayed to her by a certain conspicuously absent faunus hers was a look of unwavering resolve as she held it at chest level and spoke the word.

"Jinn."

Time slowed around them, and even Carnelian gave a low whistle at the ensuing spectacle, electing to simply turn off his cybernetic eye rather than let its sensors try to process it.

Weiss, while a perennial master of appearing unfazed, definitely looked a bit whiter as she gazed up and up at... Wow. Yang hadn't been lying, that certainly was a naked blue woman. She narrowed her eyes from where they'd instinctively widened a millimeter or two, cleared her throat, and asked her question with a specificity calculated from what she knew.

"Where is Blake Belladonna right now?"

"...Well I'll be a nevermore's uncle. A giant blue nude lady really does slide out of there." Whatever she had expected to see on the other side of those elevator doors when they opened up, that sure hadn't been it. She'd heard the story of what team RWBY and Qrow had seen back after they got separated, and she trusted them wholeheartedly...but honestly, even with all the strange things she'd come to learn about since those final days at Beacon? That ranked really high on the crazy weird thing list. So much so that her initial thought after being told about Jinn by RWBY was that they were just messing with her and Jaune and Ren. It wasn't the case, obviously, and even after putting aside the frustration and the anger that came with the whole story shared...it was still weird to picture some Glynda-mixed-with-Oobleck style exposition coming out of a big naked lady's mouth. But now she didn't have to picture it. Jinn was right there before her. She stared, wide-eyed and curious, and though she didn't avert her eyes, her blush grew even more noticeable as she looked at Jinn.

And as Weiss asked her question, a few thoughts ran through Nora's head. Is that the last question? Why does time do that? A few other scattered thoughts followed, but Weiss's question itself got the most focus. If she used the all-knowing relic to ask that, then...yeah. Has to be. Blake...the dorms that had been blown away...Blake did that? Or the Shadow Fang in general, I guess? Nora frowned. Predictably so, that idea didn't thrill her in the slightest. It was hard enough yelling at this Weiss. Yeah, she wasn't exactly the same person but she still looked exactly(minus the red eye now) like the Weiss she counted as a good friend. Even knowing about the crimes and all that stuff, it wasn't easy to treat that face different, but she forced herself to do the best she could. And now Blake...

It was even less easy imagining someone who looked just like the reserved and generally serious book enthusiast that she personally knew...being responsible for bombing a school. Even though bombings had been done twice now, at Haven and now here. And getting Yang caught in the blast...any Blake being part of something that hurt a Yang seemed extremely unlikely at best but yet...man, I'd really like to be off this crazy world soon. Even with all the cool people she'd met, like Gretchen, there was just too much that was so wrong. Nora sighed and shook her head, clearing her mind and looking up to await Jinn's answer.

Robyn was just entirely speechless, eyes having flickered from Weiss's newfound heterochromia(????), to the lamp in her hand that glowed brightly, to the floating huge naked woman. Her body was otherwise entirely still, so unmoving that she could have posed as a wax figurine and fooled a fair amount of people. There was just, so much to process. About how that lamp was the relic, about those eyes, about what the relic did, about the lady...ABOUT SO MUCH.​

 

[MidwayLives]

Though it obviously took some time and effort...

The team that'd assembled in order to track down the 'Mistral Murderer' had ended up tracking him down.

The fight was intense and by the end, Trifa was rescued and the Boss's true identity was revealed....

All in all, not a bad job by Team MTEN​

 

[MyrtenRose]

"It's beautiful, isn't it?"

Narrowed red eyes shifted over to the wide forest below the cliff they stood on, trees and foliage a vibrant green under the soft golden yellow light of the sun rising in the horizon. Yeah, he had to admit that the view was definitely a hell of a one to witness. Like a landscape painting had escaped its frame and was before them now. Very picturesque. But even so, he kept that to himself. Outwardly he only scoffed. "Never took you for someone who cared all that much about things like that, Ray." Qrow commented, just as growly and derisive as she'd come to expect from a Qrow that had followed more in her own footsteps in life.

"That's because you don't know me. Technically." She countered, her voice light and sarcastic. "Besides, you live in the wilderness for long enough, you come to appreciate nature on a level most never get the chance to."

"If you say so." He shook his head. They may have had a return to the tribe in common but his had been spent far more with appreciation of a different sort. The bottom of bottles. "But you didn't bust me out of prison and drag me here to talk about the view."

"No. I didn't." She conceded, tearing her gaze away from the horizon. Her focus locked on one spot along the cliff and she took a few steps forward closer to it before she kneeled down on the grass. "This spot, right here...back home, it's where..." She sounded uncharacteristically choked up for a moment...but cleared her throat and continued in a more collected voice. "There's a memorial for her right here." She ran a hand across the grass that covered the empty spot on this Remnant. "Summer Rose. Thus kindly I scatter." Raven quoted from memory. "It's not the case here, obviously. A lot of things I know are different here. I want you to tell me about them. The differences. Tell me everything."

"What, not even a pleas--"

"No." She shut that down without even blinking.

He glared at the back of her head, and though she didn't turn or even attempt to look at him peripherally, she could still feel the glare on her. She just didn't care, and after a second or two he just let out an amused laugh. "Alright Ray. Not like I got anything better to do, but I ain't gonna waste time goin' on about the early life or Beacon. Only the major, real important stuff. Reckon we'll start with Tai."

Memory of the abandoned ruin that had once been a house flashed through her mind and she nodded slightly to get him to continue.

"After he was gone, I decided I'd had enough. Left this, left all of it and went back home, if you want to call it that. There was bitterness and loneliness and a lot of time to try and--"

"Drown it with drink?" She finished for him.

"Not the way I'd put it but--"

"Whatever."

"Right." He smirked briefly as he continued. "Dunno if it was compassion or guilt or otherwise, but whatever she felt, it compelled our leader to follow me. She reached out, did her best to counter the bitterness and make me feel less alone. The nights got wild on occasion. One thing lead to another, I guess you could say. And you, or the other you, she turned up with the kid one day. She didn't believe she was in any way fit to be a single parent. Maybe it was a combination of that fear and lack of belief, as well as perhaps some lingering faith in me. Never asked and she never said. Yeah, the tribe were killers and thieves but maybe she figured since she herself had turned out decent in the end, maybe her kid could manage it too." The former bandit leader shook his head. "She didn't. Not in the way that Ray expected."

There was no spoken response to that but it was obvious in the tensing of her shoulders that the once maiden Raven was listening.

"And when Ruby inevitably came around, and they grew up here...they were a handful, lemme tell ya. Anyways...even our former team leader's tolerance had its limit. What she felt for me, for us, it wasn't enough for her to put up with a lot of what happened then. One day she just...left. Never came back. And soon after that, Summer...she was gone gone. So my sis told me, at least. And not like with Tai. With him, she could feel it. His passing. Weakening. Gradually, over time. With Summer...it was just like she was there one moment, the link between them as strong as ever...and the next it was just gone. Ray couldn't feel anything. She sensed nothing. Nada. Zilch."

"..."

"...Yeah. Still no idea what that could mean. Not sure I want to know. And after that, figure you know a lot. Little red and firecracker grew up as they did and eventually they left too. Found their way to Oz, and well..." He trailed off, figured that hardly needed to be elaborated on. "Oh, and for the record, yeah, we did put up a memorial for Sum, too."

"...Understood. And the actual spring maiden here, she grew up with them two as well, yeah?"

"Yup. Wasn't the maiden then, though. So. Anythin' else ya need? Really. This humble prisoner, at your service." He said that but it was clear from the way he said it that he wanted this to be over with already.

Raven ran a hand through her now much shorter hair(still getting used to it again but it was growing on her), and she finally turned to face him with a nod and both her icy blue and burning red eyes met his gaze. That wasn't everything she wanted to hear but for now it would do. Things needed to be done as well, not just spoken and discussed. "There is one thing I need, yeah, but you can't give it to me. Not right here and now, anyway. I...no, we need Vernal."

"...Oh suh-suh-suh-sorry, I skipped out on putting a tracker or anything like that in her so I'm afraid wherever she's gone, I can't help you with--"

"Shut up." She snarled, prematurely ending his mockery. "So she wasn't at your former camp when we checked, but my Vernal? She looked up to me, they all did. The leader of the tribe."

"That's good for you." He deadpanned.

Raven scowled. "Point is, if this one took after you...I think it is a pretty safe bet on where we'll find her. Buried somewhere under a mountain of bottles, right?"

"You're a riot, sis." He shot back, not at all amused by that. He rolled his eyes afterwards but Ray either missed it or ignored it as a bird suddenly took the skies, followed shortly after by another. There was work to be done.​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"No."

There was no malice in the repeated negative. No hostility, venom or acrimony, and it wasn't even dismissive in the sense of total disregard for the proposal of a non-violent resolution on principle.

Rather, it was the frank, scathing rejection of someone who had listened to each and every word, thought them through carefully, and simply wasn't interested. Lucie more than likely hadn't had a direct superior in her day trade for quite some time, and when she had such flat declinations had surely been few and far between for one gifted with her verbal eloquence. Even the most aggressive and belligerent of potential business associates could be leveraged, placated and swayed.

Somehow, with but a single word the incumbent Schnee matriarch had managed to convey an entire bad lunch meeting's worth of inflexibility. A sheer, iron-clad force of will that couldn't be bent, won over or persuaded, and that feeling only mounted as she launched into one of her more traditional spiels.

"Fancy yourself a diplomat, do you? Delightful. I could go on at length about how playing the voice of reason while your conspirators attack schools and bring entire kingdoms to their knees is about the most mediocre and hypocritical notion I've ever been subjected to, but something tells me we'd just have to agree to disagree."

Said the Schnee to the faunus. She might have added as much verbally were she in any mind to lighten the mood or warm up the opposition, but she wasn't. She was going to say what she needed to say and then what had to happen was going to happen.

"I will offer you three pieces of advice though, for the sake of your own edification. The first is to drop whatever pretense of a moral high ground you still cling to if you ever plan on actually achieving anything. It's cute that you still think you're the good guys, dear, but in the long run you'll only end up as confused and conflicted as your group's goals; Though I'm positive you have some wonderful rhetoric for why the faunus population of Mistral has actually benefited from what you've done there."

She rolled her eyes, and it was about as audible through the scroll line as Snake's smirk had been. In this case the mockery was all there, though.

"The second is just a warning: the Shadow Fang will fall out of 'lord Ozpin's grace' the second one of you forgets to call him your lord. Or when you look at him a certain way, or if he thinks you're taking a particular tone of voice with him. I'm sure you think it's all well in hand, nothing could be worse than human tyranny, the usual drivel. But with all due respect—Which is precious little—You people have not spent enough time around him to be as confident in your footing as you are. Blake's just the right amount of docile, compliant and completely mesmerized by his power to do a spectacular job of failing to see it. I'll put it this way: I'm the Winter Maiden. I gave him Atlas. I was one of the most valuable resources he ever had, and when it came down to it? I didn't even get a chance to defend myself. For dust's sake, does this really need spelling out? He's temperamental, he's unstable, he's heavily prone to mood swings, and he adores inflicting harm. It may surprise you to know I'm not about to extol the virtues of my own kind, but substitute humanity's rule for his and you won't be creating a world kinder to the faunus; you'll be creating one where they can die on a whim, along with everything else he decides slights him on any given morning. Decide for yourself if that's really what you want. I'm past caring."

Her eyes wavered from the city view to instead appraise her nails with a dissatisfied sternness, suddenly wishing she had a file as she spotted an uneven edge that was probably going to bug her for the next however long this took. She contented herself to pulling deeply on smoke instead.

"Which brings me to my final point. It's really not so much advice as it is pointing out the flaw in your negotiation technique, which is why it's a hard no and why this conversation wasn't more pleasant. It's a microcosm of the problem with your entire organization, really, and it's this: you did NOT come here to negotiate. You had no intention of it."

Her voice was hard, her brow creased, and she flicked the remainder of the cigarette away unfinished as twin jets of it came out her nostrils, finally electing to return to her desk. A few taps of the control panel affixed to the desk had a shutter descend over the windows, plunging the room into a darkness tempered only by the glow of Atlas's technological blue even as its configuration started to shift. A sealed containment pod rose up from a newly-opened alcove of the floor, the office tiles shifting aside to expose it.

"Negotiations start with a dialogue. You opened with a bomb, which makes your 'offer' nothing more than a delicately phrased ultimatum. Don't get me wrong, I'm hardly about to start casting judgment on anyone willing to play hardball. In a way I even admire it; I'll admit, I was more frightened than I've been in a long time. I even know enough about the disposition of the man you chose to die to understand why you chose him. That's not the issue."

The pod opened with a click and a hiss of pressurized air, Weiss staring with arms crossed as the blue glow from within settled across her face more harshly than the soft sheen of hardlight.

"The issue is this. One other person was hurt in that explosion. Badly. Someone who shouldn't have been. And the only injustice that idiot ever dealt anyone was herself, for having a big enough heart to believe people like you or I deserve the bare minimum of kindness, understanding or decency."

Reaching into the stasis field, she removed the suspended artifact and bore it aloft with a deep breath, preparing for whatever awaited on the other side of this.

"I'm not going to make the same mistake she did. Let me make myself perfectly clear: You came to me as an enemy. I don't negotiate with enemies. I'm Weiss Schnee; I crush my enemies. So you don't get a favor—you get an ultimatum in return. Leave Atlas or die. The Hand leaves Atlas or she dies. Your parade of idiots in animal masks? They leave Atlas or they die. And if ANY of you are moronic enough to come back here whenever Ozpin chooses to launch his offensive? Every single one of you is going to die."

There was something objectively frightening about a voice that could build to such a loud volume without imparting so much as a hint of anger. That, if anything, was the most impressive part of the speech; there was no frustration. No rage.

Only conviction.

"And remember, it will all be because of you. Give it some serious thought. I look forward to meeting you in person."

With that final, ominous assurance, the call was swiftly terminated by way of the scroll itself being magically frozen over at the sort of temperature scrolls just didn't function at, Weiss returning her focus to the matter at hand. There were some who would've called this a waste. That the knowledge finally granted to her by Tock's revamped allegiances after veritable weeks of Yang being annoying about it could've been put to better use.

Any response Snake might've had was cut off, her mouth halfway open before she realized what the sound on the end of the line was just before it cut to static.

"...Shit."

The offer had been a genuine one; Snake rarely, if ever lied, and there was one point that Schnee and herself were far more aligned on than the heiress probably expected; Ozpin's worth as an ally. There was no way to simply cut him off from the Fang without drawing the full weight of his ire on an organization that unlike Atlas didn't yet have power of a whole kingdom behind them. Almost every other member of the Fang had seen Weiss' cord suddenly being cut as a great moment, a karmic comeuppance her family had deserved for a long, long time, but Snake only saw a useful asset being tossed aside far too early, with too little proof or need for the action.

Needless to say, she was not pleased with how the Hand had handled the whole situation in Argus, her ex being smacked around be damned.

But there was nothing to be done. She bit her lip with a worried frown as she got out of her seat in the foreman's office and smoothed down her dress. They'd need to reassess, and go ahead with the strike; Ozpin wouldn't accept less, and for all the reasons above making a show of will now seemed ill advised. At least the call wasn't entirely fruitless. She'd have to get in touch with her last remaining piece on that side of the board, and deduce who, exactly, she'd accidentally hurt that had sent Weiss on the warpath.

That's how Snake had kept the Fang in Atlas alive so long. Every victory smooth, every loss minimized, every action, successful or otherwise, expanding her web. She could play this game. She'd been playing her whole life, no different than Schnee herself. Barring some magical miracle, she had full faith she could guide her allies through this.

---------------------------------------

The elevator dinged after a return trip from Merlot and Alice's departure, and the doors slid open just in time for those gathered by Ruby and Nora to step out and witness what would've been a terrifying sight under any circumstance.

Weiss Schnee holding the Relic of Knowledge, and with the activation phrase relayed to her by a certain conspicuously absent faunus hers was a look of unwavering resolve as she held it at chest level and spoke the word.

"Jinn."

Time slowed around them, and even Carnelian gave a low whistle at the ensuing spectacle, electing to simply turn off his cybernetic eye rather than let its sensors try to process it.

Weiss, while a perennial master of appearing unfazed, definitely looked a bit whiter as she gazed up and up at... Wow. Yang hadn't been lying, that certainly was a naked blue woman. She narrowed her eyes from where they'd instinctively widened a millimeter or two, cleared her throat, and asked her question with a specificity calculated from what she knew.

"Where is Blake Belladonna right now?"

"Mrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh, I'd just gotten back to sleep, too."

Jinn stretched in all her 4kids censorship glory, back arched as she rolled her neck, quite the show for anyone outside Atlas Academy's top floor window if the entire world outside hadn't ground to a halt. She seemed to flop onto her side despite maintaining the same altitude, and rested her cheek in her palm as she regarded Weiss with an amused smile.

"Well, that's a tricky one. She's in an entirely different world you see. I'd have to ask the other Jinn."

...

She burst into giggles and waved her other hand. "Kidding, kidding. Blake Belladonna is currently on Solitas, in Atlas, latitude 44.47 degrees longitude 183.22 degrees, in a warehouse owned by Morsten Communications, on Lafayette Street in the business district, Buidling 7, in a break room, leaning on a couch, staring at her ex. Here, just to make sure we're all on the same page."

She snapped her fingers, and Weiss, Nora, Grey, and everyone else in the room suddenly saw the world around them start to move, as if the entire building had decided to drift off without taking them with it. They passed through the doors, and it was clear that it was them on the move rather than the other way around as they shifted into the elevator shaft, briefly standing in midair before they went rushing down, through the doors at the ground floor and rushed through the halls at airship speeds. Out the academy, off the side, and down to the rest of atlas below, and so on until they moved through a Warehouse door, through the entire complex, passed a secret door, and finally to the erstwhile breakroom, where Blake Belladonna stood frozen making an uncomfortable, mournful frown at one Eve Taurus.

Then they snapped back to the office they'd started in, travelling the whole route in reverse in an instant. Disorientating, but despite the speed of the trip, they could picture the route ever so clearly in their minds.

"Well... I do believe that was my last question this century, wasn't it? Bit of a boring one, honestly."

 

[Gus Gungus]

"Well... I do believe that was my last question this century, wasn't it? Bit of a boring one, honestly."

Precious few existences walking, prowling or otherwise inhabiting the face of Remnant could faze Weiss. Any sense of majesty or wonder that may have once inspired a privileged youth to pine for the freedom and heroism offered by the life of a huntress had long since crawled under the floorboards and died, sanded down into nothingness by the harsh edge of cynicism and misanthropy. Once you saw the unsympathetic depths humanity's so-called upper caste willingly submerged themselves in to hold onto their power, things like Grimm, while more viscerally haunting, offered few surprises. The same even applied to magic. It was simply another advantage, a tool most were deprived of that some weren't.

Under ordinary circumstances, Jinn might have proven the exception. The Schnee inheritrix had always thought herself something of an intellectual in comparison to most, even the most respected among her peers internally judged to be lacking in some way or another from her perspective. Yet for someone with such a studious, learning-hungry disposition, the opportunity for erudite discussion with literally the entirety of human knowledge incarnated into a large, blue, oddly gorgeous woman with a proclivity for cheek might have proven daunting enough for even her to stammer over her words once or twice at the resplendence of it all. She functioned under pressure about as well as any creature alive, but her habit of overthinking things in her mind until everything and everyone was a critic who wanted to see her fail in some way, coupled with the fact that if there were ever an entity Weiss wanted to make a good impression on it was definitely the genie who knew everything, might well have seen her slip back into some of her older, people-pleasing ways from when she was first trying to establish herself in Atlas. The jokes may have prompted nervous laughter; the critique a floundering apology.

Under ordinary circumstances. Today, there were accounts to be settled. Urgency had a way of sharpening her focus.

And frankly, she was in no mood.



"What is THAT supposed to mean??? YOU'RE boring. Pardon me, I thought this was the Relic of Knowledge, not boorish facetiousness. If the experience was lacking in some way then you'll just have to get back inside your desk ornament and hope I have more to discuss with you at the turn of the next century, won't you? And by the way, blue and gold have never paired well. Add that to your information database."

And with that, she turned her back on the shepherd of all learning with an impudent 'hmph' and damning swish of her ponytail, like a knife cutting through the air with all the implicit impact of Weiss terminating a zoom call with a business associate who slighted her. Along with their contract, probably.

If copping an attitude with an ancient and omniscient being wasn't proof enough of the maiden's current sense of purpose, the look on her face as she turned to regard the others said it all. Her eyes had narrowed so sharply at the mention of whose company owned the warehouse in question that not even the ensuing hands-free rollercoaster ride through Atlas could thaw the ice emanating from them in waves, and the moment they met Blake's (unmoving as they were) that glacial energy tripled to the point that the Hand's aura prickled faintly at the edge of her senses all the way across the city the moment time unwound itself, the councilwoman's glare no less severe when it settled across the assortment of faces gathered.

"I don't know how much you've been told, so I'll keep this brief. A few minutes ago the Shadow Fang tried to kill me. Believe it or not, I'm acutely aware from our conversations this morning that most of you are disappointed it didn't take, but it might interest you to know one of yours came close to death in the attempt."

Her tone offered nothing in the way of clues as to who that may have been, nor whether they were of any particular significance to her. She placed the Relic back in its containment unit and let neatly manicured fingernails move in a blur as they inputted a rapid string of digits, resealing the pod and folding it back under the floor again with nary a clue to its presence.

"With that stunt they upgraded themselves from nuisance to scourge, and I am not going to tolerate their meddling any longer. Not in my kingdom, not at this juncture. So I'm going to deal with them, and I recommend those of you interested in being a part of that board the Manta the general's about to pilot to where we just saw. That's all." She would've turned away with nary another word wasted, but something in the first sentence to answer made her stop. It was subtle; difficult to put a finger on, an undercurrent of something potent bubbling just below a finely varnished surface of formality and respect.

"Just to clarify, councilwoman. Is this an on-the-books raid... or off?"





To those without Weiss's gift for seeing through people, it could've almost been construed as innocuous. A simple request for further details by an old man, possibly hard of hearing.

Except something wasn't right.

The old man's shoulders were still. His posture was stiff, stance befitting of his station with hands folded neatly behind his back. For all intents and purposes, he looked serene, soldierly, composed.

So for any whose gaze lingered, it may have registered as odd that the general's facial hair trembled so vehemently with each staggered exhale of breath through the nostrils, or that any man could breathe so heavily while standing so incredibly still. He stood in anticipation of her reply, and whatever consideration Carnelian's request prompted with regards to what exactly he was asking took less than a second to resolve in Weiss's mind, all hesitance put to rest by the mental flash of Yang's legs bending the wrong way; the blood that soaked her dress and had it sticking to her skin.

"As off as it gets."

"Thank you, miss Schnee."

That was all he needed. The corners of his lips turned up, skin as old as parchment crinkling into a dark smirk as Carnelian turned and strode from the room with deceptive intensity for a man of his years. Weiss had elected to glide over to the windows rather than turn back to face him, and sliding one open had her close her eyes and inhale the cold air when it crashed into her.

"Ruby?"

She waited until the rest had filed out of the room before speaking again. If the former Masque turned, it was to the sight of Weiss having done the same, gaze fierce in its resolve as she extended a hand for her to come take.

"We're not taking the ship."

As Merlot had alluded to, Weiss didn't have patience to suffer lackeys; Particularly those with a murderous grudge against her. There were just too many for her to bother thinking about. Carnelian could deal with the Talons, aided by those pests if they were so inclined.

But where Blake Belladonna was concerned? Maybe it was just that kind of day, but Weiss was finally willing to admit it was personal. She could fly faster than a Manta, and in those first few minutes had a feeling a lack of an audience might prove prudent, while also being willing to bet Ruby had her own beef with the masked Ozpin enforcer who more or less replaced her in his standings. Assuming the hooded girl took the hand, light jettisoned from the corners of Weiss's eyes briefly before a red-and-blue spiral blur took off through the open window and left.

---

Out the academy, off the side, and down to the rest of atlas below, and so on until they moved through a Warehouse door, through the entire complex, passed a secret door, and finally to the erstwhile breakroom, where Blake Belladonna stood frozen making an uncomfortable, mournful frown at one Eve Taurus.

After what felt like a long, long period (but was in actuality only a few seconds, as if time had frozen) of said Taurus fending off what by the same measure felt like a sea of infinite stares, defensive instincts born from old scars and newfound psychosis inevitably erupted in one of her (increasingly common) volatile outbursts.



"WHAT?????? STOP LOOKING AT ME! I AM SO TIRED OF YOU ALL STARING AT ME LIKE I'M THE FREAK, NO ONE LOOK AT ME!"

It was an explosion of pure loathing, so much of it she didn't know whether it was aimed outward or inward, Eve's eyes flared so dangerously wide it was hard to tell if their glistening state was brought on by tears or just good old fashioned pain as she immediately turned and stormed from the room. Howls and the predictable sound of breaking things soon followed, echoing fainter and fainter up the corridor each time, the tempestuous bull fully intent on secluding herself to the darkest and most neglected corner of the warehouse.​

 

[MyrtenRose]

She burst into giggles and waved her other hand. "Kidding, kidding. Blake Belladonna is currently on Solitas, in Atlas, latitude 44.47 degrees longitude 183.22 degrees, in a warehouse owned by Morsten Communications, on Lafayette Street in the business district, Building 7, in a break room, leaning on a couch, staring at her ex. Here, just to make sure we're all on the same page."

She snapped her fingers, and Weiss, Nora, Grey, and everyone else in the room suddenly saw the world around them start to move, as if the entire building had decided to drift off without taking them with it. They passed through the doors, and it was clear that it was them on the move rather than the other way around as they shifted into the elevator shaft, briefly standing in midair before they went rushing down, through the doors at the ground floor and rushed through the halls at airship speeds. Out the academy, off the side, and down to the rest of atlas below, and so on until they moved through a Warehouse door, through the entire complex, passed a secret door, and finally to the erstwhile breakroom, where Blake Belladonna stood frozen making an uncomfortable, mournful frown at one Eve Taurus.

Then they snapped back to the office they'd started in, travelling the whole route in reverse in an instant. Disorientating, but despite the speed of the trip, they could picture the route ever so clearly in their minds.

"That. Was. AWESOME!"

"So that's what they meant by really showed it! Doesn't get more direct than that!" Nora remarked, more than appreciative of the easy to follow directions as well as how it had literally been shown to them all. "Can we do it again oh please tell me we can do it again!" She was only half-serious, looking around with an easygoing grin. Disorienting, please. Hardly. "Say, is it possible for like...a part or fragment of you to separate from the rest and maybe go live in, I don't know, a water bottle or something and that part can answer like a million questions, but only ones about like geography or map or locations and stuff? Would be nice to never have to worry about being lost ever again." ​

"Well... I do believe that was my last question this century, wasn't it? Bit of a boring one, honestly."

Her face expressed profound disappointment but in truth she was also glad she didn't use any questions up with what she had just asked.​

"What is THAT supposed to mean??? YOU'RE boring. Pardon me, I thought this was the Relic of Knowledge, not boorish facetiousness. If the experience was lacking in some way then you'll just have to get back inside your desk ornament and hope I have more to discuss with you at the turn of the next century, won't you? And by the way, blue and gold have never paired well. Add that to your information database."

Her eyes drifted over that way and she muttered quietly to herself. "Oh yeah, you're definitely a Weiss Schnee alright. Classic Ice Queen attitude, right out of those early days at Beacon."​

"I don't know how much you've been told, so I'll keep this brief. A few minutes ago the Shadow Fang tried to kill me. Believe it or not, I'm acutely aware from our conversations this morning that most of you are disappointed it didn't take, but it might interest you to know one of yours came close to death in the attempt."

"Wanting justice doesn't mean wanting you brutally killed." Nora countered, only disappointed in the fact that Weiss thought that was true of her. That she had wished the attempt had been successful. Nora hadn't even been in the center of it but even so she wouldn't have wished that kind of attack on somebody. Not on even this Weiss...and certainly not on Yang.​

To those without Weiss's gift for seeing through people, it could've almost been construed as innocuous. A simple request for further details by an old man, possibly hard of hearing.

Except something wasn't right.

The old man's shoulders were still. His posture was stiff, stance befitting of his station with hands folded neatly behind his back. For all intents and purposes, he looked serene, soldierly, composed.

So for any whose gaze lingered, it may have registered as odd that the general's facial hair trembled so vehemently with each staggered exhale of breath through the nostrils, or that any man could breathe so heavily while standing so incredibly still. He stood in anticipation of her reply, and whatever consideration Carnelian's request prompted with regards to what exactly he was asking took less than a second to resolve in Weiss's mind, all hesitance put to rest by the mental flash of Yang's legs bending the wrong way; the blood that soaked her dress and had it sticking to her skin.

"As off as it gets."

"Thank you, miss Schnee."

That was all he needed. The corners of his lips turned up, skin as old as parchment crinkling into a dark smirk as Carnelian turned and strode from the room with deceptive intensity for a man of his years. Weiss had elected to glide over to the windows rather than turn back to face him, and sliding one open had her close her eyes and inhale the cold air when it crashed into her.

"..." People tended to think of her as the hyperactive, super energetic, borderline crazy one, and yeah, maybe she was all those except the last one. But she wasn't stupid. She knew exactly what was being actually said between the two, and that smile he wore as he left only cemented the bad feeling she had about the proposed response. He was a general. And not just any general, perhaps Atlas's top general discounting the currently more rebellious Ironwood. You don't send off a man like that for any other reason than to go to war. A man well known historically for brutal acts directed towards the faunus. This could be...extremely bad. That was putting it mildly. Nora stood there a while, weighing if she could be part of something like that. Of everything it could mean.

But soon enough she reasoned that perhaps, if she was there in the middle of it all, she could...do what she could to lessen the damage or keep it from getting too awful. More than she possibly could by staying out of it, at least. It was with that hope of de-escalation that Nora turned and left, following after the man. Robyn, on the other hand, while she had some of the same sort of thoughts...she lingered longer, still trying to process a lot of what had just gone down around her. She was no stranger to going against the Atlas military but to take it to that extreme was a step too far. At the same time though, if she joined in on that response...if she helped out Schnee's attack dog with whatever he planned...no matter how she tried to spin it, people were going to perceive it in their way.

"..."

When Robyn did leave, it was through the same exit but she turned decisively, going a different way than the general had.​

"WHAT?????? STOP LOOKING AT ME! I AM SO TIRED OF YOU ALL STARING AT ME LIKE I'M THE FREAK, NO ONE LOOK AT ME!"

It was an explosion of pure loathing, so much of it she didn't know whether it was aimed outward or inward, Eve's eyes flared so dangerously wide it was hard to tell if their glistening state was brought on by tears or just good old fashioned pain as she immediately turned and stormed from the room. Howls and the predictable sound of breaking things soon followed, echoing fainter and fainter up the corridor each time, the tempestuous bull fully intent on secluding herself to the darkest and most neglected corner of the warehouse.

It was perhaps...no, it was definitely hypocritical given how she had felt about it being done to her as well as how they had briefly talked about it, but back during that whole...honestly she still had no idea what to call what had gone down between them, but during it she had brought her semblance to use upon Eve. In the middle of all that frankly wild, almost feral stuff, she wasn't certain if the bull had noticed but if Eve had, it hadn't been commented on. Without much else to do, she had done what she could to hone her semblance, and now not only could she see through their eyes but she could also hear what was said. Even at this considerable distance, Eve's words and actions as Ilia peered through those beautiful eyes...it...the feelings had her flinch and forced her out of the chair she'd been sitting in.

The chameleon girl gulped, briefly considering what to do...before straightening up with resolve. She knew exactly where the Shadow Fang were hiding out. What she didn't know was how she could help, but...she was going to try all the same.​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

After what felt like a long, long period (but was in actuality only a few seconds, as if time had frozen) of said Taurus fending off what by the same measure felt like a sea of infinite stares, defensive instincts born from old scars and newfound psychosis inevitably erupted in one of her (increasingly common) volatile outbursts.

"WHAT?????? STOP LOOKING AT ME! I AM SO TIRED OF YOU ALL STARING AT ME LIKE I'M THE FREAK, NO ONE LOOK AT ME!"

It was an explosion of pure loathing, so much of it she didn't know whether it was aimed outward or inward, Eve's eyes flared so dangerously wide it was hard to tell if their glistening state was brought on by tears or just good old fashioned pain as she immediately turned and stormed from the room. Howls and the predictable sound of breaking things soon followed, echoing fainter and fainter up the corridor each time, the tempestuous bull fully intent on secluding herself to the darkest and most neglected corner of the warehouse.

"Eve, that's not-"

There'd been a wounded a shock on Blake's face as Eve suddenly exploded. Eve had been a lot of things to Blake over the years, particularly the last few.

But never that.

She'd stood there frozen for a split second as Eve stalked out, but she quick to fall into step behind her. Not this time. She was not going to just let Eve keep... brushing her off, ignore her while she looked at Ilia like that while Ilia glared right back, not let her just... keep... deteriorating like this. Ilia growled and stood up to follow as well, but while Blake slipped past unaccosted, the chameleon found a hand caught on her shoulder as she tried to move past Bear, who gave her a single shake of his head as she looked up at him in frustrated surprise. "What-"

"We are on the cusp of such bloodshed, young fang." His voice rumbled, stern. "We should not steep ourselves in it before it's even begun. Not among allies. Let the hand guide her own talons."

"...That was the Eve Taurus? Fearless general of the White Fang that was so a thorn in your side?" The skepticism in Feri's voice was palpable as she sat against the table with her arms crossed and a leery frown. "How... disappointing."

"She'd kill you in two seconds sunshine." Hound barked without sitting up.

"Hmph. Unlikely."

Ilia simmered with a resentful glare and shook her shoulder free, but she stalked back to the couch to slump back into it. Snake stepped in shortly after, a slightly harrowed look on her face from presumably passing two of the Fang's most dangerous talons and a very destroyed hallway, but she managed to smile as she clasped her hands together, her tone far less serious than the situation demanded

"Right then. Let's plot a murder, shall we?"

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Whatever shadow Eve ended up in, the stare that haunted her most found it. Blake's normally quiet voice was even more soft than usual.

"...Mind if I sit next to you?"

 

[Gus Gungus]

Whatever shadow Eve ended up in, the stare that haunted her most found it. Blake's normally quiet voice was even more soft than usual.

"...Mind if I sit next to you?"

The current of bubbling anger Eve was riding had carried her all the way to the catwalks above the main warehouse floor, where she sat with shoulders hunched and a leg dangling between the railings as her other knee drew tight against her chest. The trail of smashed glass, upended filing cabinets and conspicuously sliced everything drew a clear line to her location even when she quickened her pace around corners in response to Blake's tailing, and the talon's shoulders were hunched with her forehead pressed against the lower part of the rail as she stared blankly at the close-up view of her reflection in the metal.

Any assumption that the stare was blank was just that, however, Eve having taken the time during her aggressive stomping to pull the thin strip of cloth she carried tight around both eyes and tie it there, concealing whatever lay beneath. The amount of resentment she bore her scars had seemingly lessened over the years as more and more disenfranchised faunus glorified her, but with the White Fang gone and her current pariah status even among her own kind it appeared it hadn't taken long for old habits to shoot up from their roots in her mind again.

Whatever red haze she flew into seemed to have dissipated at least somewhat in the wake of her destructive mode of stress relief, Blake's request drawing little more than a shrinking of the shoulders as she turned her head slightly with a low warning growl that was presumably intended to carry more threat than that of a dying animal.

"I said don't look at me."

It didn't.​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Whatever red haze she flew into seemed to have dissipated at least somewhat in the wake of her destructive mode of stress relief, Blake's request drawing little more than a shrinking of the shoulders as she turned her head slightly with a low warning growl that was presumably intended to carry more threat than that of a dying animal.

"I said don't look at me."

It didn't.

"I won't"

Blake slid her legs through the railing as she sat down a few feet away and crossed her arms against the top bar to rest her head against. The silence simmered for a few seconds afterwards as Blake searched for the right words and came up short, but tried anyways as her voice came out quiet yet earnest.

"You're not a freak Eve. You were a victim, and you've been a warrior since. Nothing about that makes you a freak."

She started to turn for Eve but caught herself, her head thumping back against her arms.

"But you are hurting. Eve if... you don't have to be here." She settled on saying. "You hate Ozpin, you hate this fight, and I'm pretty sure you just hate all of us." She said with a rueful smile that faded just as quick as it came. "As much as I'd want you at my back to the end of this, its not worth destroying yourself over. You've already done so much more for the faunus than almost anyone else, and you've proven yourself to Sienna already. If you wanted to walk away from all of this, no one would stop you."

Blake wouldn't let them.

 

[Gus Gungus]

"I won't"

Blake slid her legs through the railing as she sat down a few feet away and crossed her arms against the top bar to rest her head against. The silence simmered for a few seconds afterwards as Blake searched for the right words and came up short, but tried anyways as her voice came out quiet yet earnest.

"You're not a freak Eve. You were a victim, and you've been a warrior since. Nothing about that makes you a freak."

She started to turn for Eve but caught herself, her head thumping back against her arms.

"But you are hurting. Eve if... you don't have to be here." She settled on saying. "You hate Ozpin, you hate this fight, and I'm pretty sure you just hate all of us." She said with a rueful smile that faded just as quick as it came. "As much as I'd want you at my back to the end of this, its not worth destroying yourself over. You've already done so much more for the faunus than almost anyone else, and you've proven yourself to Sienna already. If you wanted to walk away from all of this, no one would stop you."

Blake wouldn't let them.

"I hate everything except you. What we had must really be a distant memory if you think that's changed."

The correction was muted, harsh, and immediate, an edge of acerbic sarcasm to the words that disrupted an otherwise enduring silence. Even her quiet was choked by the same implicit clumsiness that had dictated much of Eve's behavior to her over the past months as Blake sat, the awkward, petty thread that joined the many attempts to get the Hand's attention without ever actually giving her the time of day. Eve was honestly just too ground down and drained to enforce the conscious distance she'd kept from the other faunus since she rejoined, and in spite of some uneasy squirming made no effort to leave; She did, however, shift so more of her back was to her, taking a few moments to simmer quietly with chin resting on her knee before she answered in a bitter, frustrated snort.

"That is such a you thing to say. And do what, Blake? I am this fight. I didn't 'walk away' from loving parents and a nice manor in Menagerie when I decided to do this, I crawled out of a pit. I have nothing to go back to, nothing waiting for me, just... nothing."

Blake didn't need to see the scowl on her face to recognize the undercurrent of resentment spiking the words, a dark inflection that bordered on accusatory as whatever feelings were tearing Eve to shreds roiled in her gut before she forced out a deep, grounding breath, shoulders shrinking with the relief in tension. When she next spoke, the veiled hostility was replaced by an open moroseness.

"...You might not think I'm a freak, but there are people in this building who don't agree. Not even your new girlfriend does. And even you know there are only two things I can be. You said it yourself: Warrior or victim." She huffed, a scratchy, guttural noise that died in the throat. "I can't be the victim again. I'm so glad everyone adopted the mask thing as a fashion statement, really, but that's not why I started wearing one. I did it for the same reason I can't just 'walk away'; There's nothing left under here but scars."

The question of whether there was still anything left of the gothic, brooding mystique persona Eve once embodied in the unstable shell of herself she was becoming was, at the very least, answered, as though the calming breeze of Blake's presence unconsciously drew it out of her through all the rage and impotence clouding her.

Still she wouldn't turn, and even the few feet the Hand had made sure to put between them seemed too little for her liking as she tensed up in response to her every movement, like she wanted to shrink away. Her next words were reluctant, the act of drawing them out of herself excruciating as she braced in trepidation of what they might evoke. Not a single night went by where she didn't replay the night at Beacon in her head, where a conversation turned to an assassination attempt before Eve could ever even have fathomed the idea of Blake meaning her harm.

So she stiffened even more than the tension in her shoulders had already encouraged, and one of her hands had a visible shake even where it was gripping the railing tight as she ground her teeth.

"...And... I already tried walking away once. So afraid you'd leave me, make me feel weak again, that I had to be the one who did it first. So I did, and I didn't need Amitola's threats to tell me what I already knew. Everything that's happened since... to our people, to you... The things you've done... The road all of us are going down..."

She almost sounded dizzy as her hand went to her temple, as if pressure might sooth whatever headache she could feel pounding on the walls from within.

"...That's what I've 'done for the faunus'. And I'm so sorry if it's hard for you to watch, but I will never be able to live with that. I might not approve of just about any of your life decisions nowadays, but the one part of any of this I'm glad about is that you'll never have to feel the way I feel."

She scoffed, shaking her head. Even with the reluctance, the consternation, the sheer anguish and pain brought on by her part in what she ironically saw as Blake's decline, there was no mistaking the words for anything other than sincere. Even now she couldn't lie to Blake, couldn't conceal anything from her, couldn't do anything but wear her heart on her sleeve and hope for the best. She was the only person she ever really felt safe around, and their relationship being put through a garlic mincer hadn't been enough to change that. Blake had literally tried to murder her and she still felt more comfortable with her sitting here than she would've with literally anybody else.

In hindsight, she never stood a chance.​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"I hate everything except you. What we had must really be a distant memory if you think that's changed."

"...You should"

The tone that answered Eve's first proclamation was raw, a distant cry from the attempts at soothing calm that had been their moments before. Blake regretted little in her life; Hated some of the things she had to do, for certain, but that was a different beast entirely from regret, and she'd do most of them over and over again if it meant achieving her goals.

Except one.

"Out of everyone, I should've been the one to give you a chance. No, that's not even the right wording; I should've been the one to not care; and I wasn't." Her eyes were narrowed in a hateful glare that was entirely pointed inward. "I was so sure that you were dooming yourself; that Sienna would cut you down or that Ozpin would do much worse. I thought I was doing you a kindness. Yet out of the three, only one of us tried to kill you. Sienna saw that you didn't have to be an enemy. Ozpin never even said your name. I almost killed one of the most important people in my life for... for no reason. At all."

She knew it wasn't no reason. A small part of her knew that was just the way she was now, how she'd been forged, by masters of both shadow and faunus; she was a killer, and killing was how she solved problems. But that malice should've never been pointed at the faunus sitting next to her.

She kept her promise as she sighed and kept her eyes forward, the ire at herself giving way to a sad and exhausted tone. "... It doesn't matter what the others think. You're not just a warrior or a victim, Eve. You're a person. I was on this path before you left, and I didn't double down because of it. This is what I'm supposed to do. Its what I was born for." A bit of the fire was creeping back into her voice no matter how she tried to stomp it down, well aware it was a blaze that had scared Eve away in the first place.

"And its not a path I intend on stepping off until the work's done. I can't. This is so much bigger than a person, or two people, or even the entire Fang."

It was for every faunus that had died under humanity's misplaced hatred in the last thousand years, and for every faunus that would born in the next thousand to come. But she finally managed to snuff the fire, and a quiet, miserable smile quirked across her face as she finished in similar tone.

"...But it doesn't have to be yours, Eve. You can even get in the way of it, if you want; I won't make the same mistake twice. Because no matter which path each of us choose, you're always going to matter to me. I'll keep my shitty idea of mercy to myself, and just hope that, whatever you do, you make it out the other side in one piece. And not just physically."

She pulled herself up with the railing and landed lightly on her feet, and started to turn away, no matter how much she wanted to turn towards.

"No matter what your choice is, though, the work still has to continue. Schnee needs to die. If you're still on board, we'll be ready for you."

She vaulted over the edge to land silently on the warehouse floor below, and started the trek back towards the break room that was soon to be a warzone.

 

[Gus Gungus]

"...You should"

The tone that answered Eve's first proclamation was raw, a distant cry from the attempts at soothing calm that had been their moments before. Blake regretted little in her life; Hated some of the things she had to do, for certain, but that was a different beast entirely from regret, and she'd do most of them over and over again if it meant achieving her goals.

Except one.

"Out of everyone, I should've been the one to give you a chance. No, that's not even the right wording; I should've been the one to not care; and I wasn't." Her eyes were narrowed in a hateful glare that was entirely pointed inward. "I was so sure that you were dooming yourself; that Sienna would cut you down or that Ozpin would do much worse. I thought I was doing you a kindness. Yet out of the three, only one of us tried to kill you. Sienna saw that you didn't have to be an enemy. Ozpin never even said your name. I almost killed one of the most important people in my life for... for no reason. At all."

She knew it wasn't no reason. A small part of her knew that was just the way she was now, how she'd been forged, by masters of both shadow and faunus; she was a killer, and killing was how she solved problems. But that malice should've never been pointed at the faunus sitting next to her.

She kept her promise as she sighed and kept her eyes forward, the ire at herself giving way to a sad and exhausted tone. "... It doesn't matter what the others think. You're not just a warrior or a victim, Eve. You're a person. I was on this path before you left, and I didn't double down because of it. This is what I'm supposed to do. Its what I was born for." A bit of the fire was creeping back into her voice no matter how she tried to stomp it down, well aware it was a blaze that had scared Eve away in the first place.

"And its not a path I intend on stepping off until the work's done. I can't. This is so much bigger than a person, or two people, or even the entire Fang."

It was for every faunus that had died under humanity's misplaced hatred in the last thousand years, and for every faunus that would born in the next thousand to come. But she finally managed to snuff the fire, and a quiet, miserable smile quirked across her face as she finished in similar tone.

"...But it doesn't have to be yours, Eve. You can even get in the way of it, if you want; I won't make the same mistake twice. Because no matter which path each of us choose, you're always going to matter to me. I'll keep my shitty idea of mercy to myself, and just hope that, whatever you do, you make it out the other side in one piece. And not just physically."

She pulled herself up with the railing and landed lightly on her feet, and started to turn away, no matter how much she wanted to turn towards.

"No matter what your choice is, though, the work still has to continue. Schnee needs to die. If you're still on board, we'll be ready for you."

She vaulted over the edge to land silently on the warehouse floor below, and started the trek back towards the break room that was soon to be a warzone.

It wouldn't have been inaccurate to say Eve had been waiting for this conversation. The erratic behavior, the outbursts, the standoffish disposition and the general hovering she tended to do on the fringes of Blake's line of sight; all of it was a genuine reflection of Bull's waning mental integrity, but claiming she wasn't trying to attract Blake's notice somehow would've been a boldfaced lie. In truth, she didn't even know what she wanted from it. Some attention, maybe. Pity. Anything. Some kind of acknowledgment of what they used to be.

It was pathetic, but she didn't know what else to do. She had tried appealing to reason, to her emotions; even direct force. Nothing worked. Whatever anyone else in this stupid club thought of her, from her perspective Blake was the one who was deteriorating, shaving away pieces of herself right in front of her eyes to become whoever or whatever she felt she needed to be. No amount of conviction, determination or well-researched arguments about the long documented suffering of their people could hide that the impassioned dreamer she fell in love with was almost gone. And she had no idea how to stop it. This was the conversation she'd been trying to provoke since returning, and the only thing that fell into place as it got going was the gutpunch of a realization that she still didn't know what to say.



"Look at me, Blake."

Until the moment she made to leave. That was when things really fell into place, Eve's mind a heady buzz as she tried to process most of that; yet rather than leaving her as dazed or scattered as she'd been at the start of the exchange, the speech had actually sharpened her clarity of thought. Emboldened her. Because past the words Blake used as a buffer, entrenched in the very depths of her emotions, Eve saw the one thing she needed to to reignite her sense of purpose like an old flame. It invigorated her, reminded her of the reason she came to the Shadow Fang in the first place.

Remorse. Actual, genuine regret for something.

Should Blake have spared a moment in her departure to look back, it was far less the unstable headcase Bull was becoming and far more the dark, prideful sneer of the White Fang-leading Eve Taurus of old she was met with, the scarred warrior standing with one hand on the railing and a look of drive, determination and even flat-out stubbornness on her face that rivaled the one worn during some of her most rallying and triumphant moments. Only this time it wasn't a determination to save all faunus.

Just one.

"Whatever you've come to believe, you're wrong. Whatever 'kindness' you think you're doing our people, it's as misguided as the one you thought you were doing me. Whoever put it in your head that this path is one you were born on, that you didn't just choose it because you happened to run with the ugliest, most broken bulls when you were younger and all their pain started to feel like yours, that person fed you a mountain of lies. One as tall and hateful as any human ever built. Because the thing is, Blake, I know who you are. I know who you're 'supposed' to be. And it is not this."

Obscured though the bull's eyes were, Blake could practically feel them narrowing on her behind the fabric as Eve's gloved hand tightened around the railing. One corner of her lips twitched upward, baring her teeth in a daring (yet oddly sinister) grin.

"Doesn't matter if you agree. Doesn't matter if you've found someone else to make you happy. You must be joking if you think I'm gonna let the humans and their tyranny corrupt the most beautiful soul I ever knew into... whatever this is you're making yourself out to be. You can try to convince yourself you're as screwed up and hideous as I am all you want, but we both know who you really are, Blake. You're kind. You're empathetic. You're the bookworm with the big, cozy house and rich parents who thinks she understands our people's pain because her daddy happened to get grazed once. But you'll never be me. You'll never understand how deeply the faunus can suffer enough to decide their future, to be their revenge. And you don't have to worry about 'stepping off' the path, my love."

She drew the two words out through her teeth, an edge to them that was somehow as mocking as it was genuinely affectionate. The intensity of her grin had settled to a calm, condescending smirk, Eve's eyes never wavering from Blake as she leaned forward over the railing and let her chin hit her hand.

"I'm in it for the long haul. And the second you do something the girl I fell for wouldn't be able to live with, I promise you I'll be there to knock you off that path. After all, from what I remember? You always did like it rough."

Her laugh was bitter, and unless Blake had a rebuttal it was what escorted her from the warehouse floor as Eve pushed off the railing and skulked further away into the shadows. She'd rejoin the others in a while; she of all people needed no convincing on the prospect of killing a Schnee.

Too bad the circumstances were gonna keep her from enjoying it.​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"Look at me, Blake."

Until the moment she made to leave. That was when things really fell into place, Eve's mind a heady buzz as she tried to process most of that; yet rather than leaving her as dazed or scattered as she'd been at the start of the exchange, the speech had actually sharpened her clarity of thought. Emboldened her. Because past the words Blake used as a buffer, entrenched in the very depths of her emotions, Eve saw the one thing she needed to to reignite her sense of purpose like an old flame. It invigorated her, reminded her of the reason she came to the Shadow Fang in the first place.

Remorse. Actual, genuine regret for something.

Should Blake have spared a moment in her departure to look back, it was far less the unstable headcase Bull was becoming and far more the dark, prideful sneer of the White Fang-leading Eve Taurus of old she was met with, the scarred warrior standing with one hand on the railing and a look of drive, determination and even flat-out stubbornness on her face that rivaled the one worn during some of her most rallying and triumphant moments. Only this time it wasn't a determination to save all faunus.

Just one.

"Whatever you've come to believe, you're wrong. Whatever 'kindness' you think you're doing our people, it's as misguided as the one you thought you were doing me. Whoever put it in your head that this path is one you were born on, that you didn't just choose it because you happened to run with the ugliest, most broken bulls when you were younger and all their pain started to feel like yours, that person fed you a mountain of lies. One as tall and hateful as any human ever built. Because the thing is, Blake, I know who you are. I know who you're 'supposed' to be. And it is not this."

Obscured though the bull's eyes were, Blake could practically feel them narrowing on her behind the fabric as Eve's gloved hand tightened around the railing. One corner of her lips twitched upward, baring her teeth in a daring (yet oddly sinister) grin.

"Doesn't matter if you agree. Doesn't matter if you've found someone else to make you happy. You must be joking if you think I'm gonna let the humans and their tyranny corrupt the most beautiful soul I ever knew into... whatever this is you're making yourself out to be. You can try to convince yourself you're as screwed up and hideous as I am all you want, but we both know who you really are, Blake. You're kind. You're empathetic. You're the bookworm with the big, cozy house and rich parents who thinks she understands our people's pain because her daddy happened to get grazed once. But you'll never be me. You'll never understand how deeply the faunus can suffer enough to decide their future, to be their revenge. And you don't have to worry about 'stepping off' the path, my love."

She drew the two words out through her teeth, an edge to them that was somehow as mocking as it was genuinely affectionate. The intensity of her grin had settled to a calm, condescending smirk, Eve's eyes never wavering from Blake as she leaned forward over the railing and let her chin hit her hand.

"I'm in it for the long haul. And the second you do something the girl I fell for wouldn't be able to live with, I promise you I'll be there to knock you off that path. After all, from what I remember? You always did like it rough."

Her laugh was bitter, and unless Blake had a rebuttal it was what escorted her from the warehouse floor as Eve pushed off the railing and skulked further away into the shadows. She'd rejoin the others in a while; she of all people needed no convincing on the prospect of killing a Schnee.

Too bad the circumstances were gonna keep her from enjoying it.

She looked.

She met Eve's blindfold with a gaze full of wounded affection, and said nothing in her own defense, nor anything to dissuade Eve from the notion that she was something that needed to be fixed. She had no qualms with letting her have the last word, even as a few of those words felt like stabs in the gut. That she was too soft, that she didn't understand the pain of the faunus, that she hadn't suffered enough herself to lay claim to the sword of justice in vengeance's name. She'd more than earned Eve's ire, thought it didn't run as deep as it should.

"Okay."

That was all she said before she turned and walked the other way. If that was Eve's goal, then it was fine, but she was wrong about one thing; the dreamer inside of her hadn't be chipped at or shaved away. It was the very core of the blade she'd been sharpened into. Blake the dreamer had never died or been forgotten, she'd only realized just what her dream was going to take. Change in her lifetime couldn't happen in the way the world was, and no amount of good will or kind thoughts would change the world, tear out the institutions that for so very long had profitted off faunus pain. So she fought. She killed. Even as her hands were covered in blood they reached for the stars. By now the blood pooled at her ankles, and before it was all said and done, she'd be drowning in it, but even then she'd still reach up past the surface until she caught the light in her grasp

If Eve was determined to right her if she ever did something she couldn't live with, then that was fine.

She could only hope that Eve understood just how much she was willing to live with to see her dreams realized.


----------------------------------------------------------


Whether Eve had yet joined them or not, a while later the Talons were once more scattered across the 'break room', though Weiss' knowledge painted a stranger picture; why would a break room for a warehouse be behind a secret wall?

Whatever the reason, it wasn't important to the talons right now. Blake was crosslegged in one of the chairs at the table, Ilia at her side, and all but Bear and Snake likewise seated around it. Bear was too large to sit comfortably, and still held position by the door. Snake was the current topic of conversation.

"It's bullshit" Hound sneered as he crossed his arms and glared at the ceiling. "Why does she need to 'protect her position?' Atlas is gonna burn in a few weeks, and when Mistral's done there ain't gonna be no question as to who's side she's on. That she's not willing to call in every favor she's got and just lose this lame heiress gig is-"

"You think Atlas burns." Came Feri's prim response.

"Haaaah?" Hound sneered, tilting his head to regard her from a sideways angle. "Excuse me, princess?"

"She said as much herself; that you did not understand is, well, not surprising to me, after these last few days."

Ilia failed to cover a snort as Feri continued.

"To put all your eggs on one basket is foolish. This Ozpin fellow, he is very powerful, yes? So is Atlas. We wouldn't hate it so were it not. If his victory was so truly assured, why would he even send you here to shit in Schnee's cereal? Any chieftan worth their salt would look a rival in the eye as they died, were victory guaranteed. What happens to the Fang here if it doesn't end in victory? You'd have us all flapping uselessly in the wind, with no support, no cover? Pfft." She rolled her eyes. "No wonder you all needed me. Common sense seems to be the super power you all lack. Thankfully, I have it in spades. In addition to power. And beauty. And- ow!" She flinched as her sister slapped her side thigh, narrowed her eyes, and did it back ,earning a flinch but nothing more than an eye roll in response.

"It was our best option to close in on Schnee though." Blake said, thoughtful rather than irate. "Without the element of surprise, even I'd have trouble with a maiden using glyphs."

"...What if we had a maiden on our side?" Greki slowly suggested. Hound, Blake, and Ilia all turned to face her with varying degrees of confusion.

"Explain."

"Y'forget so soon boss? Back in Argus. You passed some of her stuff to me, the littler maiden. We know she's in Atlas. The resistance gotta be stretched thin right now too yea? I bust out my semblance...."

"And we even the playing field before we strike" Ilia finished, somber.

Blake frowned, considering.

And right about then is when it all went to shit in whatever method that shit was going down

 

[Gus Gungus]

"And we even the playing field before we strike" Ilia finished, somber.

Blake frowned, considering.

And right about then is when it all went to shit in whatever method that shit was going down

It was cold.

The icy chill had been steadily creeping in from somewhere throughout the discussions, though not tangibly enough to comment on until it was too late to preempt what happened next. Elsewhere in the nondescript warehouse, Eve found her attempts to simmer in isolation at Blake's brush-off increasingly complicated by the fact her breath was emerging a fine mist. She stiffened and went tense, the door to her brooding spot practically kicked off its hinges so she could stride out with a hand grasping the hilt on her waist, casting her glare around in suspicious trepidation. What she saw when her gaze reached the nearest window made her eyes, though hidden, go wide.

The entire building was encased in ice. A layer multiple sheets thick sealed every exit, window and vent, anything with a remote possibility of being used as a way out; to outside eyes, Atlas's warehouse district was currently playing host to what looked like a frozen castle.

For anyone inside, it felt more like a rat trap.

Just about any sentence from the Talons' exchange could've found itself drenched in irony by what happened next, but Ilia's words rang with a special significance as someone took that moment to even the playing field before they struck.

BOOOOOOOOOOOM-





What came thundering through the wall of the breakroom in that moment was at once blizzard, tornado and hurricane. It brought with it howling winds, swirling shards of ice and snow that danced on the gales amid frost-flecked rose petals of varying colors, the gusts nearly enough to wrench bodies out of seating arrangements even without the added kinetic impact of the tornado itself. Twin human-sized streaks of red and blue that struck with all the speed and vigor of a lightning storm speared Bear in the chest with impact comparable to a missile of similar size, at which point it pinged off to do likewise to Blake and proceeded to pinball around the cramped space at blinding speeds to batter or sweep every member of the Shadow Fang gathered over to the end of the room opposite the hole it made, where they swiftly found their wrists and ankles ensnared in glyphs that tightened like opulent cuffs.

The blur pivoted in the air, arced downwards, and finally made contact with the floor. The staggered clicks of two heels touching down were the crack of thunder to the lightning that preceded them; Petals and snowflakes mingles on the breeze still sweeping through the hole, a wall of intricate glyphs sprang up to cover it, and in their midst Weiss fucking Schnee rose up with rapier in hand, face locked into a hard, severe glower and feet rooted at a proper distance in what was an elegant stance.

Weiss herself did not look elegant. Indeed, the figure standing before them was worlds removed from the last time Blake herself had seen her, intervening to fish her out of custody. Nothing bound up her hair in its typically-pristine ponytail, letting it cascade freely around her shoulders in ways that looked neither glamorous nor intentional. Blood had matted its platinum locks, dried against her porcelain face, splattered the entire front of her perfectly tailored dress. Her left eye was a burning, wrathful crimson, a shade deeper and more vibrant than any of the blood surrounding it, and the jagged jets of maiden energy curling up from its corner looked more frazzled and unstable than the more standard wisps emitted by her blue eye.

It was almost frightening. She looked practically inhuman, verging on demonic; every bit the towering monster the name Schnee called to mind for many a faunus across Remnant, with a glare that turned hearts to ice and bore no enemy even a single ounce of mercy or pity. And then she opened her mouth.



"You know what vexes me about you? I'm a little drunk, so bear with me. "

Her voice was entirely composed, a marked contrast from the way she looked. The columns of glyphs gently swirled, yet there was neither a glow to Myrtenaster's barrels nor a flare in the energy streaming from her eyes to indicate any immediate signs of them unleashing their payload. The Red Masque was crouched at her side, cloak flapping amid the air currents, but likewise made no move to attack.

The words, spoken with a steely inflection of sharp, draconian authority, assailed all of them like a cold bucket of ice, though the amber eyes hers were locked on made it clear who exactly she was speaking to.

"A plethora of things, really. You're rude. Genocidally racist. Arrogant enough to believe you can attack me in my own seat of power and get away with it, driven by an incorrigible vendetta against me for the sin of being born. But no, would you like to know the most infuriating thing?"

Her eyes flared a bit, both in energy and proportion, and her mouth made a disapproving tut as she curled her lips downward in a scowl. It was the closest even Blake had ever seen her to angry, and it very much belied the cold impartiality her next words were spoken with that her hands balled into fists.

"I don't hate you. And believe me when I say I have every reason to after the things you and your type have unleashed on my life, but I don't. Far from it; I'd even go so far as to say we're similar. You won't compromise from what you believe is the right path, and now that I no longer need to play the part of Ozpin's soulless doll I wanted to take this one opportunity to say I admire that. Sincerely."

There was nothing to indicate the admission was anything but genuine, but it was followed shortly by a soft, almost mournful exhale through the nostrils.

"You aren't cruel for the sake of it like Yang. You're not senselessly deluded like Ruby—" Her eyes didn't waver from Blake, but a slight shift in tone made it clear whose benefit she added her next words for. "—used to be. When it came to those ridiculous meetings you always looked as out of place as I felt, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel some kind of a rapport with you in light of that. You are what I very easily could've been, Belladonna, if not for one major difference."

She shook her head scornfully, though surprisingly none of the scorn was directed Blake's way. It was even a little pitying.

"When the monsters came calling, you let them have their way. You buckled at the knees, and have shown no signs of rising from them. You've transformed yourself into the ideal pawn, subjugated yourself to the whims and wishes of whoever's telling you what you most want to hear. Your strength of purpose is admirable, you have all the bravery and resolve in the world to achieve your goals, and yet I honestly can't tell if you're even capable of functioning without someone telling you what to do at this point. I think that's sad. Deliciously ironic, maybe, but sad all the same. I always had an inkling that in another world we might've been friends; in point of fact, I have it on good authority that we are. But here, Blake? Here I feel nothing but pity for you."

Bizarre though it may have been from Blake's perspective (this entire ambush notwithstanding) to get the in-person equivalent of a drunk voice message from Weiss Schnee as if they had any kind of a personal dynamic, Weiss herself was reasonably sure she knew where it came from. As had been pointed out to her recently, she was a woman who had few-to-no friends before [redacted] showed up. It was by choice, even necessity, but her brain sought to compensate for that in its own ways, and the barbs she exchanged with Blake on occasion had been a consistent enough source of amusement that—Much to her surprise and annoyance—It had actually stung when the faunus brought her charade with Ozpin crashing down around her. Not in the sense of an enemy's sting, like she had so adeptly numbed herself to over the years. Like a betrayal.

"...So to you and you alone, I apologize for what's about to happen. That said, I doubt you care. So let's proceed."

At the very least it felt good to finally get that off her chest, and she promptly buried the matter somewhere so deep in her heart she'd likely never think about it involuntarily again as she slid her right foot back and whipped Myrtenaster's immaculate blade up to divide her face in half. Taking a breath to steady herself, she traced out a glyph beneath Ruby's feet, the dials of a clock spinning rapidly into existence below her as she felt a surge of lightning dust imbue her with its quickening properties. During one of their very first training exercises together she had learned she could more or less just do this to Ruby and let her become the spinning top of speed and death she was always meant to be.

"Ruby? Keep them away from me. Don't let the big ones touch you, overwhelm the short fellow with your speed, don't let the chameleon girl leave your field of vision. Oh, and mind yourself around the shorter-haired sister. I have no idea who that is."

She nodded stiffly, swished her rapier out to one side, and whether any of them had found success in freeing any of their limbs yet or not the Shadow Fang members promptly found the glyphs binding them dispelled.

In the same moment the glyphs behind her all started to glow in their center, and they had barely dropped down by the time their entire end of the room was eviscerated by volley upon volley of dust, lightning, fire, meteorites, ice, all bolstered by a variety of energy conjured straight from the gods themselves.​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

It was cold.

The icy chill had been steadily creeping in from somewhere throughout the discussions, though not tangibly enough to comment on until it was too late to preempt what happened next. Elsewhere in the nondescript warehouse, Eve found her attempts to simmer in isolation at Blake's brush-off increasingly complicated by the fact her breath was emerging a fine mist. She stiffened and went tense, the door to her brooding spot practically kicked off its hinges so she could stride out with a hand grasping the hilt on her waist, casting her glare around in suspicious trepidation. What she saw when her gaze reached the nearest window made her eyes, though hidden, go wide.

The entire building was encased in ice. A layer multiple sheets thick sealed every exit, window and vent, anything with a remote possibility of being used as a way out; to outside eyes, Atlas's warehouse district was currently playing host to what looked like a frozen castle.

For anyone inside, it felt more like a rat trap.

Just about any sentence from the Talons' exchange could've found itself drenched in irony by what happened next, but Ilia's words rang with a special significance as someone took that moment to even the playing field before they struck.

BOOOOOOOOOOOM-



View attachment 756505

What came thundering through the wall of the breakroom in that moment was at once blizzard, tornado and hurricane. It brought with it howling winds, swirling shards of ice and snow that danced on the gales amid frost-flecked rose petals of varying colors, the gusts nearly enough to wrench bodies out of seating arrangements even without the added kinetic impact of the tornado itself. Twin human-sized streaks of red and blue that struck with all the speed and vigor of a lightning storm speared Bear in the chest with impact comparable to a missile of similar size, at which point it pinged off to do likewise to Blake and proceeded to pinball around the cramped space at blinding speeds to batter or sweep every member of the Shadow Fang gathered over to the end of the room opposite the hole it made, where they swiftly found their wrists and ankles ensnared in glyphs that tightened like opulent cuffs.

The blur pivoted in the air, arced downwards, and finally made contact with the floor. The staggered clicks of two heels touching down were the crack of thunder to the lightning that preceded them; Petals and snowflakes mingles on the breeze still sweeping through the hole, a wall of intricate glyphs sprang up to cover it, and in their midst Weiss fucking Schnee rose up with rapier in hand, face locked into a hard, severe glower and feet rooted at a proper distance in what was an elegant stance.

Weiss herself did not look elegant. Indeed, the figure standing before them was worlds removed from the last time Blake herself had seen her, intervening to fish her out of custody. Nothing bound up her hair in its typically-pristine ponytail, letting it cascade freely around her shoulders in ways that looked neither glamorous nor intentional. Blood had matted its platinum locks, dried against her porcelain face, splattered the entire front of her perfectly tailored dress. Her left eye was a burning, wrathful crimson, a shade deeper and more vibrant than any of the blood surrounding it, and the jagged jets of maiden energy curling up from its corner looked more frazzled and unstable than the more standard wisps emitted by her blue eye.

It was almost frightening. She looked practically inhuman, verging on demonic; every bit the towering monster the name Schnee called to mind for many a faunus across Remnant, with a glare that turned hearts to ice and bore no enemy even a single ounce of mercy or pity. And then she opened her mouth.

View attachment 756529

"You know what vexes me about you? I'm a little drunk, so bear with me. "

Her voice was entirely composed, a marked contrast from the way she looked. The columns of glyphs gently swirled, yet there was neither a glow to Myrtenaster's barrels nor a flare in the energy streaming from her eyes to indicate any immediate signs of them unleashing their payload. The Red Masque was crouched at her side, cloak flapping amid the air currents, but likewise made no move to attack.

The words, spoken with a steely inflection of sharp, draconian authority, assailed all of them like a cold bucket of ice, though the amber eyes hers were locked on made it clear who exactly she was speaking to.

"A plethora of things, really. You're rude. Genocidally racist. Arrogant enough to believe you can attack me in my own seat of power and get away with it, driven by an incorrigible vendetta against me for the sin of being born. But no, would you like to know the most infuriating thing?"

Her eyes flared a bit, both in energy and proportion, and her mouth made a disapproving tut as she curled her lips downward in a scowl. It was the closest even Blake had ever seen her to angry, and it very much belied the cold impartiality her next words were spoken with that her hands balled into fists.

"I don't hate you. And believe me when I say I have every reason to after the things you and your type have unleashed on my life, but I don't. Far from it; I'd even go so far as to say we're similar. You won't compromise from what you believe is the right path, and now that I no longer need to play the part of Ozpin's soulless doll I wanted to take this one opportunity to say I admire that. Sincerely."

There was nothing to indicate the admission was anything but genuine, but it was followed shortly by a soft, almost mournful exhale through the nostrils.

"You aren't cruel for the sake of it like Yang. You're not senselessly deluded like Ruby—" Her eyes didn't waver from Blake, but a slight shift in tone made it clear whose benefit she added her next words for. "—used to be. When it came to those ridiculous meetings you always looked as out of place as I felt, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel some kind of a rapport with you in light of that. You are what I very easily could've been, Belladonna, if not for one major difference."

She shook her head scornfully, though surprisingly none of the scorn was directed Blake's way. It was even a little pitying.

"When the monsters came calling, you let them have their way. You buckled at the knees, and have shown no signs of rising from them. You've transformed yourself into the ideal pawn, subjugated yourself to the whims and wishes of whoever's telling you what you most want to hear. Your strength of purpose is admirable, you have all the bravery and resolve in the world to achieve your goals, and yet I honestly can't tell if you're even capable of functioning without someone telling you what to do at this point. I think that's sad. Deliciously ironic, maybe, but sad all the same. I always had an inkling that in another world we might've been friends; in point of fact, I have it on good authority that we are. But here, Blake? Here I feel -"​

Blake's response was no response. The moment the glyphs locked around her, she simply met Weiss' mixture of frustration and icy rage with a placid stare of indifference through every word she threw.

The same could not be said for the rest of the talons. Hound was swearing up a storm, Greki and Feri were silently arguing with each other, and Bear treated Weiss to the frankly absurd sight of one of her very powerful glyphs bending as he flexed his arms with a stoic frown, the semblance apparently not enough to keep his massive frame and matching strength contained.

Ilia didn't even have the courtesy of letting Weiss monologue, absolutely howling with rage as she bucked against the glyph's cuffs and interrupted her speech more directly with a glare and a vitriolic shout scream that put even some of Eve's more violent displays to shame

"SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP!"

She bucked against against the glyphs as she snarled.

"You don't get to come in here and claim fucking moral high ground, Schnee. Paint it however you want, you did the same thing we did; made a deal with the devil to save your kind. What, you think the fact that you weren't really on his side washes your hands? You could've stopped Beacon and Mistral way before they happened! There's just as much blood on your hand as ours, all in the name of saving YOUR species! The fact that you think Blake's just some puppet, that, that she doesn't know what she's doing?"

The rage gave way to a resolute and rebellious grin who's teeth were far too tight to be anything but yet another expression of anger.

"Its proof you Schnees are all the same. Drunk on power and faunus blood for centuries. My FAMILY'S blood. Oh, I know you think you're different. You think you're better. The next human savior of the faunus, different from all the other ones who promised us things would change, that this time things would be better. You wanna prove it?" She sneered

"Then choke on your shitty messiah complex and die. and let the world get a chance to heal without your fucking bloodline tainting it. and if not-"

Moments before the glyphs were released, the rubble nearby exploded, a black blur aiming to crash two blades into the maiden's aura at the neck before immediately reversing the momentum with another semblance dash as Blake spun about face with the same motion to slash into Weiss' back as she roared "SCATTER!" as the shadow clone that was imprisoned in the glyphs finally began to dissipate

Ruby had her moment to react, but all of the talons (and special guests Ilia and Feri) all exploded for different exits; Blake's half seen blur going for the hole in the wall White Rose had created, Hound and the argent twins bursting out the door into the hallway, and Bear giving a martial roar as he smashed through an entirely different wall into what looked like a hangar, Ilia dashing to keep pace with him and tiger probably went with one of those groups