Fandom Distorted Mirror [IC]

[MyrtenRose]

Galivanting around for weaponry wasn't why she'd been poking around here. Or why she'd bothered trying to 'recruit' Blondie or any of her friends. They were useful for: figuring out where the relic was being held/being target practice for whenever Schnee inevitably found out there'd been a prison escape.

Neo shook her head.

No deal.

"Listen--"​

She turned and leaned against the hardlight barrier with her prosthetic, the energy sparking against it despite the casual bend of Yang's shoulders. "Nora. Hun. I love you, but what are you talking about? I don't understand why I'm in here and you guys are all out there, but I'm pretty sure most of us are still on the same, very confusing side, and MurderThot 5000 there still has blood on her umbrella from whatever she was doing before she got in here. Also, miss Shortypants, We're already trying to get home, and we already know how. Whether we take you with us or not depends on whether you-"

"I--"​

"I know where it is."

Yang blanched and pushed off the hardlight with a taut frown as she eyed Blake's cell. "...okay, there's no way that's true-"

"Wait--"​

"It is." Blake's eyes slowly rose from where she was slouched against the back wall, a dull glower that was no less potent than the anger that had been there minutes ago. "It is, and I want you all gone. That one-" she sneered at Neo "-betrayed us before we were even done in Mistral. If getting you the relics helps you home, I can get it for you."

"Why would you even-"

"That's not--"​

"Because I want you all gone!" Blake snarled back to Yang. "What, you think you're helping anyone here? Human or faunus? You've been put in jail by the woman who wants to replace Salem as humanity's shadow queen, Ozpin wants you dead, and you've been nothing but a thorn in the faunus' side since you got here. Even the maiden that was supposed to be loyal to your world's Salem betrayed Ozpin. So if getting you this relic gets you all gone, consider it my number two priority. And I'm not strong enough to kill my number one right now." She finished bitterly before she swiveled her gaze back to eyes back to Neo.

"So open this cell, and you get your lamp."

"Now hold on just a--"​

The flicker of hurt in Yang's eyes was quickly replaced by a frantic worry as she tried her best to peer at Neo from the angle they were at "Okay, wait, no, definitely do not do that! I know we're not friends short stuff, but I will be your friend if you just don't do that."

"Let me--"​

There was no lost love between Neo and the others here. Certainly not with this world's Schnee.

If the cat caused a ruckus that took the maiden's full attention then it'd make finding the relic that much easier.

Plus, truth be told, she kinda wanted to see what happened~

"No, just wait--"​

Luckily for all involved, Winter's words reached Neo's ears before the faunus was released.

Neo turned her head and frowned.

"Oh thank--"​

Neo pointed to the barrier keeping Yang and herself apart.

Yang could finally be free and all Neo would ask for in return was help.

"Did you not hear me, I said--oh why am I even bothering..." To hell with all this. While Neo focused on Yang, Nora just sidled over to the nearest control panel out of the puny ice cream murderer's sight and tapped the button that would signal the alarms and draw even more attention here than Winter's screaming probably already had. Sure, she'd hoped to do so after little miss sundae horror had taken her bluff and went away, but it didn't go that lucky. Them's the breaks.

Her eyes remained locked on Neo, readying to deal with however psycho midget responded to that.​

 

[MidwayLives]

"Did you not hear me, I said--oh why am I even bothering..." To hell with all this. While Neo focused on Yang, Nora just sidled over to the nearest control panel out of the puny ice cream murderer's sight and tapped the button that would signal the alarms and draw even more attention here than Winter's screaming probably already had. Sure, she'd hoped to do so after little miss sundae horror had taken her bluff and went away, but it didn't go that lucky. Them's the breaks.

Her eyes remained locked on Neo, readying to deal with however psycho midget responded to that.

As the alarms started to blare, Neo blinked and quickly whipped her head towards Nora.

So, that was how it was going to be huh?

She approached because she simply couldn't do this on her own. But if they were going to refuse then so be it.

Pulling out her scroll, Neo input the codes she'd gotten off the guard she'd taken out.

The hardlight barrier keeping Yang and Winter in their cell vanished.

....But so did the ones keeping Blake and the others.

Neo looked back at Winter and Yang.

The etching of 'HOME?' had changed on the keychain.

'YOUR FAULT'

Then she shattered and footsteps could have been heard down the hall.​

 

[Gus Gungus]

Neo pointed to the barrier keeping Yang and herself apart.

Yang could finally be free and all Neo would ask for in return was help.

A choice to be made soon given that Winter's screams likely hadn't fallen on deaf ears.

Winter huffed in relief at Neo's air of seeming compliance, letting her forehead hit the hardlight pane as her gaze dropped to the floor. Her instincts told her a calamity of monumental proportions had just been averted.

Had her mental integrity not been run ragged from months of acting as a fugitive from the very military she'd dedicated her entire life to, months of witnessing her sister's heinous acts and refusal to acknowledge her efforts to reach out sinking her further and further into despair, those instincts might yet have been sharp enough to tell her they hadn't cleared the woods yet.

"Did you not hear me, I said--oh why am I even bothering..." To hell with all this. While Neo focused on Yang, Nora just sidled over to the nearest control panel out of the puny ice cream murderer's sight and tapped the button that would signal the alarms and draw even more attention here than Winter's screaming probably already had. Sure, she'd hoped to do so after little miss sundae horror had taken her bluff and went away, but it didn't go that lucky. Them's the breaks.

Her eyes remained locked on Neo, readying to deal with however psycho midget responded to that.

As the alarms started to blare, Neo blinked and quickly whipped her head towards Nora.

So, that was how it was going to be huh?

She approached because she simply couldn't do this on her own. But if they were going to refuse then so be it.

Pulling out her scroll, Neo input the codes she'd gotten off the guard she'd taken out.

The hardlight barrier keeping Yang and Winter in their cell vanished.

....But so did the ones keeping Blake and the others.

Neo looked back at Winter and Yang.

The etching of 'HOME?' had changed on the keychain.

'YOUR FAULT'

Then she shattered and footsteps could have been heard down the hall.

Her breath hitched in her throat in the same moment her eyes widened and the alarm started to bounce around the room's metal chassis, and too late she realized her mistake.

It would've been easy to blame Nora, but she didn't. The nod hadn't gone amiss earlier; she was just acting on Winter's own behest. She'd known from the moment she showed up on Ironwood's doorstep that Valkyrie had some glaring issues in the attentionspan department, and more importantly, neither she nor Weiss's loudmouthed floozy were military officials trained in negotiation and crisis defusion.

She was.

Which was why as the miscommunication became evident and every pertinent forcefield fizzled out, Winter let the blame settle squarely on her own shoulders with the rest she'd accrued in her lifetime, and which was why as she felt the familiar aura surge that came with their inhibitors powering down one of the cells immediately found itself with an extra occupant.

The unconscious, severely wounded Greki had her neck gripped in the jaws of a glowing white manticore, and it uttered a low warning growl that Winter hoped might distract enough for her to step forward between the two offworlders and... the rest of them.

"I suggest you think your next actions over very carefully. I'd like to believe at least one of you agrees there's been enough death today."

Her voice was cool and authoritative, glimmers of who she was before all this coming back to the forefront like a conscript of war as she backed up to keep all three in her eyeline, standing between them and the chamber's exit, subtly motioning Yang and Nora towards it.

It was Blake her eyes ended up settling on while she continued.

"But I know better. And I also know what you feel you have to do. Fair enough. But it's as you just said-" She jerked her head towards Yang and Nora. "-they're uninvolved. We both know exactly what this really comes down to, the same as it always has: my surname and your people. Weiss will be here in minutes either way. So my proposal is simple. Allow them to walk away..."

Had she been a lesser woman her gaze might've dropped then, shoulders might've shuddered, or a faint quaver might even have entered her voice. But she wasn't.

She was Winter Schnee, and her stare only hardened, shoulders only squared, voice only projected even more commandingly in the pursuit of her duty as she finished.



"...And whatever happens between now and then... happens. I'm through running from my family name."

Whatever the other's responses, it appeared they had a narrowing window of opportunity to give them; shouts could already be heard from up the hallway as the alarm blared, and all of Atlas Academy seemed to shake as whatever failsafes Merlot had installed in the event of a breakout took effect, thick walls of steel reinforced by hardlight slamming shut around the building's exterior.

It was almost enough to mask the faint rumble that came from far, far further up the tower, which sounded vaguely like its topmost floor being absolutely demolished as something came tearing through it.​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Yang couldn’t have rolled her eyes harder, though she gave Winter enough credit to keep her complaint to matching volume “Wow, bold words from the lady who- DON’T”

As the alarms started to blare, Neo blinked and quickly whipped her head towards Nora.

So, that was how it was going to be huh?

She approached because she simply couldn't do this on her own. But if they were going to refuse then so be it.

Pulling out her scroll, Neo input the codes she'd gotten off the guard she'd taken out.

The hardlight barrier keeping Yang and Winter in their cell vanished.

....But so did the ones keeping Blake and the others.

Neo looked back at Winter and Yang.

The etching of 'HOME?' had changed on the keychain.

'YOUR FAULT'

Then she shattered and footsteps could have been heard down the hall.​

Winter huffed in relief at Neo's air of seeming compliance, letting her forehead hit the hardlight pane as her gaze dropped to the floor. Her instincts told her a calamity of monumental proportions had just been averted.

Had her mental integrity not been run ragged from months of acting as a fugitive from the very military she'd dedicated her entire life to, months of witnessing her sister's heinous acts and refusal to acknowledge her efforts to reach out sinking her further and further into despair, those instincts might yet have been sharp enough to tell her they hadn't cleared the woods yet.






Her breath hitched in her throat in the same moment her eyes widened and the alarm started to bounce around the room's metal chassis, and too late she realized her mistake.

It would've been easy to blame Nora, but she didn't. The nod hadn't gone amiss earlier; she was just acting on Winter's own behest. She'd known from the moment she showed up on Ironwood's doorstep that Valkyrie had some glaring issues in the attentionspan department, and more importantly, neither she nor Weiss's loudmouthed floozy were military officials trained in negotiation and crisis defusion.

She was.

Which was why as the miscommunication became evident and every pertinent forcefield fizzled out, Winter let the blame settle squarely on her own shoulders with the rest she'd accrued in her lifetime, and which was why as she felt the familiar aura surge that came with their inhibitors powering down one of the cells immediately found itself with an extra occupant.

The unconscious, severely wounded Greki had her neck gripped in the jaws of a glowing white manticore, and it uttered a low warning growl that Winter hoped might distract enough for her to step forward between the two offworlders and... the rest of them.

"I suggest you think your next actions over very carefully. I'd like to believe at least one of you agrees there's been enough death today."

Her voice was cool and authoritative, glimmers of who she was before all this coming back to the forefront like a conscript of war as she backed up to keep all three in her eyeline, standing between them and the chamber's exit, subtly motioning Yang and Nora towards it.

It was Blake her eyes ended up settling on while she continued.

"But I know better. And I also know what you feel you have to do. Fair enough. But it's as you just said-" She jerked her head towards Yang and Nora. "-they're uninvolved. We both know exactly what this really comes down to, the same as it always has: my surname and your people. Weiss will be here in minutes either way. So my proposal is simple. Allow them to walk away..."

Had she been a lesser woman her gaze might've dropped then, shoulders might've shuddered, or a faint quaver might even have entered her voice. But she wasn't.

She was Winter Schnee, and her stare only hardened, shoulders only squared, voice only projected even more commandingly in the pursuit of her duty as she finished.

View attachment 811065

"...And whatever happens between now and then... happens. I'm through running from my family name."

Whatever the other's responses, it appeared they had a narrowing window of opportunity to give them; shouts could already be heard from up the hallway as the alarm blared, and all of Atlas Academy seemed to shake as whatever failsafes Merlot had installed in the event of a breakout took effect, thick walls of steel reinforced by hardlight slamming shut around the building's exterior.

It was almost enough to mask the faint rumble that came from far, far further up the tower, which sounded vaguely like its topmost floor being absolutely demolished as something came tearing through it.​

The cells opened, the manticore appeared, and fighters on both sides froze on the onset of violence; Bear halfway to his feet and affixing Greki with a worried glare, Yang with both fists up and giving Winter an incredulous look at her trying wave her and Nora for the door to leave her here alone with… all this.

Blake, however, hadn’t moved an inch.

She was still slumped against the back wall of her cell even as the din of rumbling and crashes filled the room from the tower beyond., only her eyes visible from behind the arm that rested across her knee, her face still covered with the dried blood of her self-inflicted wounds.

“Another Schnee ultimatum.”

The alarm screamed, strangely deadened in the cells itself, or merely hard to hear in favor of the quiet words that were about to decide how much blood painted their walls.

“Work for us, or die. Get in line, or die. Stop resisting, or we kill. Surrender, or she dies.”

She slowly rose to her feet and rolled her neck, the dead look in her eyes starting to coil into something else.



“Except we always die anyways. Never you, unless its a Schnee getting in the way of a Schnee. Its always faunus blood that greases the wheels.”

Yang set her jaw and took a tentative step forward, slowly opening her fists in favor of a placating gesture. “Blake… no one has to die. You said yourself you can’t beat Weiss; Whatever you want to do with your life, you can’t do it if Weiss kills you. Neither of you get what you want that way. Just… just stay there. Stay there, and it doesn’t have to be another faunus dying for Schnee or anything like that. Dont throw your life away for revenge you won't even get”

“....”

Blake took a deep breath and lowered her eyes to the side.

“...Tiger, Bear… be at peace.”

There was a momentary flicker of relief in Yang’s eyes, at the words, and the way the tension left Blake’s shoulders, and at the solemn nod Bear gave. She started to lower her hands-

The last thing Yang saw before the room went black was a flying kick from Blake that she caught on her arm, the fact that she even managed to react a combination of knowing how Blake fought, pure martial skill, and dumb luck. But instead of the heavy impact of combat boots meeting metal, the Blake exploded into black mist that was more than enough to fill the space they were in.

And despite the darkness, and whatever fate it meant for Greki if he was too slow, Bear’s remaining arm slammed a punch home square into Winter with his semblance at full power. Yang could only hear the impact, tried to pivot towards it, only for a leg to catch her full across the throat and send her sprawled against the door with a resounding crash as Blake gave the world’s simplest followup order.

“No survivors.”

One life for every drop of her blood that Blake had to feel pour against her. Ten for every broken finger. Twenty for every scar. They would learn the difference between her justice and her revenge, and the mercy she’d tried to show by only practicing the former

Until now

 

[MidwayLives]

"I suggest you think your next actions over very carefully. I'd like to believe at least one of you agrees there's been enough death today."

Her voice was cool and authoritative, glimmers of who she was before all this coming back to the forefront like a conscript of war as she backed up to keep all three in her eyeline, standing between them and the chamber's exit, subtly motioning Yang and Nora towards it.

Even as the cell's barrier fizzeled briefly before fading away altogether, Tiger said nothing.

Calmly stepping from the interior of her cell, still wrapped up like a mummy, her blood red eyes were all that stood out.

Focusing entirely on the three currently denying her full escape.


​

Blake took a deep breath and lowered her eyes to the side.

“...Tiger, Bear… be at peace.”

There was a momentary flicker of relief in Yang’s eyes, at the words, and the way the tension left Blake’s shoulders, and at the solemn nod Bear gave. She started to lower her hands-

The last thing Yang saw before the room went black was a flying kick from Blake that she caught on her arm, the fact that she even managed to react a combination of knowing how Blake fought, pure martial skill, and dumb luck. But instead of the heavy impact of combat boots meeting metal, the Blake exploded into black mist that was more than enough to fill the space they were in.

And despite the darkness, and whatever fate it meant for Greki if he was too slow, Bear’s remaining arm slammed a punch home square into Winter with his semblance at full power. Yang could only hear the impact, tried to pivot towards it, only for a leg to catch her full across the throat and send her sprawled against the door with a resounding crash as Blake gave the world’s simplest followup order.

Tiger quietly nodded in response.

Gripping onto a loose bandage around her left arm, she gave it a sharp pull. The resulting reveal as the number of bandages hiding the limb grew shorter and shorter was a gruesome sight. Deep scars marked all over the flesh where she'd damaged it as a result of pushing her body past it's current limits. The scars themselves seemed to resemble lightning bolts at first glance. Were Tiger a person to linger on such things, she might have found that amusing.

But she wasn't so she didn't.

Her gaze turned towards Nora: the reason she'd been locked up like an animal.
​

And despite the darkness, and whatever fate it meant for Greki if he was too slow, Bear’s remaining arm slammed a punch home square into Winter with his semblance at full power. Yang could only hear the impact, tried to pivot towards it, only for a leg to catch her full across the throat and send her sprawled against the door with a resounding crash as Blake gave the world’s simplest followup order.

“No survivors.”

One life for every drop of her blood that Blake had to feel pour against her. Ten for every broken finger. Twenty for every scar. They would learn the difference between her justice and her revenge, and the mercy she’d tried to show by only practicing the former

Until now

Tiger wasn't one to hold grudges.

Wasted energy and all that.

But if you were to ask her, she couldn't deny that there was a bit of bitterness as purple smoke began to flow around her person.

"50%."

Her frame shuddered and the bandages around her other arm gave way as her musculature experienced a sudden increase. Scraps of the medical supply fluttered to the floor around Tiger's feet as she started forward, the sole of her boots treading softly against the ground. While Tiger always relished the chance to fight, that excitement didn't come without it's drawbacks.

One that pained her with every step.

But that didn't matter.

Bursting forward, Nora could have seen Tiger's eyes go wide amid the wrappings obscuring her face, as her right arm swung out to try and punch Nora into-and through-the closest wall. If for whatever reason she missed then oh well, it wasn't her wall.

Meanwhile...

~~~

Sleep had been nice. After speaking with Weiss and getting certain things off her chest, Ruby slept a lot nicer than she had before.

No nightmares or anything of the sort this time.

But that was okay, one was happening right now.

Jumping awake with a start as the alarms wailed, Ruby was at a loss of what could have happened.

More faunus that Weiss and her forces hadn't accounted for? An intruder of some kind making their move? How far would Blake get and what about...

"Yang...."

Ruby raced out of whatever room she'd been dumped in and tried her best to catch up to the chaos that was quickly unraveling..

​

 

[Gus Gungus]

Yang couldn’t have rolled her eyes harder, though she gave Winter enough credit to keep her complaint to matching volume “Wow, bold words from the lady who- DON’T”




The cells opened, the manticore appeared, and fighters on both sides froze on the onset of violence; Bear halfway to his feet and affixing Greki with a worried glare, Yang with both fists up and giving Winter an incredulous look at her trying wave her and Nora for the door to leave her here alone with… all this.

Blake, however, hadn’t moved an inch.

She was still slumped against the back wall of her cell even as the din of rumbling and crashes filled the room from the tower beyond., only her eyes visible from behind the arm that rested across her knee, her face still covered with the dried blood of her self-inflicted wounds.

“Another Schnee ultimatum.”

The alarm screamed, strangely deadened in the cells itself, or merely hard to hear in favor of the quiet words that were about to decide how much blood painted their walls.

“Work for us, or die. Get in line, or die. Stop resisting, or we kill. Surrender, or she dies.”

She slowly rose to her feet and rolled her neck, the dead look in her eyes starting to coil into something else.



“Except we always die anyways. Never you, unless its a Schnee getting in the way of a Schnee. Its always faunus blood that greases the wheels.”

Yang set her jaw and took a tentative step forward, slowly opening her fists in favor of a placating gesture. “Blake… no one has to die. You said yourself you can’t beat Weiss; Whatever you want to do with your life, you can’t do it if Weiss kills you. Neither of you get what you want that way. Just… just stay there. Stay there, and it doesn’t have to be another faunus dying for Schnee or anything like that. Dont throw your life away for revenge you won't even get”

“....”

Blake took a deep breath and lowered her eyes to the side.

“...Tiger, Bear… be at peace.”

There was a momentary flicker of relief in Yang’s eyes, at the words, and the way the tension left Blake’s shoulders, and at the solemn nod Bear gave. She started to lower her hands-

The last thing Yang saw before the room went black was a flying kick from Blake that she caught on her arm, the fact that she even managed to react a combination of knowing how Blake fought, pure martial skill, and dumb luck. But instead of the heavy impact of combat boots meeting metal, the Blake exploded into black mist that was more than enough to fill the space they were in.

And despite the darkness, and whatever fate it meant for Greki if he was too slow, Bear’s remaining arm slammed a punch home square into Winter with his semblance at full power. Yang could only hear the impact, tried to pivot towards it, only for a leg to catch her full across the throat and send her sprawled against the door with a resounding crash as Blake gave the world’s simplest followup order.

“No survivors.”

One life for every drop of her blood that Blake had to feel pour against her. Ten for every broken finger. Twenty for every scar. They would learn the difference between her justice and her revenge, and the mercy she’d tried to show by only practicing the former

Until now

BOOM

The noises were gradually getting closer, but Atlas Academy was a tall building with a lot of floors; too many. Winter's vexation at Yang continuing to be a pest at the worst of times was palpable even through the tension cutting through the room, but she saw the weariness in Blake's eyes. Heard the dullness in her tone. Saw the coiled stiffness leave her shoulders and the relief flood Yang's.

And she didn't buy it. Not for one second.

BOOM

Because however much she felt compelled to protest, James's aspersions at the very least had an element of truth to them. This other world's Yang Xiao Long looked at these people and saw friends. Loved ones. She had done it with her own sister, with Winter's, and now she was doing it with the most dangerous woman in Remnant.

BOOM

Winter harbored no such delusions. She looked at this woman and saw, whether it was directly or otherwise, the latest face of the group of murderers and assassins that had been plaguing her family since they were children, whatever they may have done to bring it on themselves. She wasn't seeing Belladonna through the same lens Yang was. She saw neither friend nor teammate, only the deadliest woman alive. She knew better than to think there was ever any hope of her being anything other than that.

And so, in the brief lull before the storm, she said something she wasn't going to live to regret.

BOOM

"She deserved what my sister did to her."

Her eyes, ever cold, firm and unyielding, hadn't moved a centimeter from Blake's. Her tones could've been mistaken for her sister's in their level of iciness, of uncaring apathy for Blake's loss and grief.

BOOM

She snorted and gave a bitter shake of the head. "No more or less than you or I. It's the cost of a cause. It's what happens when you put on a uniform and think, through whatever absurd, naive flight of fancy, that you can actually do something right for the world. No matter how right you feel, someone undeserving is going to suffer. Someone who thinks you're wrong is going to come for that pound of flesh. And chances are..."

BOOM

She heaved out a short, tense sigh, offering the pretense of a lowered guard even while she continued to carefully study the other's reaction.

"You're going to deserve whatever they do to you."

There was no mistaking the raw sincerity of the words as pretense, though; as anything other than the resigned words of a woman who, for better or worse, had accepted what was about to happen.

Except for one thing.

These were three of the most deadly people in Remnant, but Winter was arguably the finest specialist the Atlesian military had to offer. There was a reason Ironwood had handpicked her to be his personal attendant at such a young age, out of all the prospective graduates in the very academy they stood in.

And there was a reason for all the combat drills, all the laborious training and intensive studying of every scrap of footage of the Shadow Fang in the field there was to find. And it was Atlas; information capital of the world. There was plenty of it. Sienna's faction had evolved. Become more efficient killers, more effective warriors. But Atlas's best had not stood idly by and watched it happen. More to the point, she was rested and they weren't.

None of it was enough to save her. But then, that wasn't really her focus.

She narrowed her eyes at Blake with a sudden intensity.

BOOM

"So spare me your hypocrisy and do whatever you're going to-"

Whenever it was Blake had decided she'd heard enough, at whatever point in her rebuttal she was cut off, and however it may or may not have affected who had the bulk of her focus in the room, she was, at the very least, ready in one respect.

The manticore was no longer holding Greki in its maw, the mercenary slumping to the floor unharmed.

Instead it was slamming into Yang and Nora at speeds that would've winded something triple their mass, scooping them under its arms like a thief snatching a pair of purses. The first beat of its wings was powerful enough to disperse the mist beneath it, to carry them through the door with enough force that it took most of the frame with it. The second hurtled them clear of the mist entirely and down the adjacent hallway like a bullet, past the extremely bemused unit of armed guardsmen mobilizing about two thirds of the way down the hall, guns trained on the containment room with precision enough that they managed to avoid riddling the manticore and its cargo with bullets even though at least half of them were wondering if they probably should. The third-

-never happened, and the manticore emitted what could best be described as the closest either of them would ever get to hearing a grimm whimper as its back arched in unnatural fashion. There was a sense of finality to how it evaporated into mist like a ghost, leaving the squad leader to look down at the pair where they slumped with an air of astonishment.

BOOM

"...What the hell's goin' on????"​

 

[MyrtenRose]

The hardlight barrier keeping Yang and Winter in their cell vanished.

....But so did the ones keeping Blake and the others.​

"...Damn it."​

"I suggest you think your next actions over very carefully. I'd like to believe at least one of you agrees there's been enough death today."

Her voice was cool and authoritative, glimmers of who she was before all this coming back to the forefront like a conscript of war as she backed up to keep all three in her eyeline, standing between them and the chamber's exit, subtly motioning Yang and Nora towards it.

It was Blake her eyes ended up settling on while she continued.

"But I know better. And I also know what you feel you have to do. Fair enough. But it's as you just said-" She jerked her head towards Yang and Nora. "-they're uninvolved. We both know exactly what this really comes down to, the same as it always has: my surname and your people. Weiss will be here in minutes either way. So my proposal is simple. Allow them to walk away..."

Had she been a lesser woman her gaze might've dropped then, shoulders might've shuddered, or a faint quaver might even have entered her voice. But she wasn't.

She was Winter Schnee, and her stare only hardened, shoulders only squared, voice only projected even more commandingly in the pursuit of her duty as she finished.

"...And whatever happens between now and then... happens. I'm through running from my family name."

"No. I'm not just going to--"​

Whatever the other's responses, it appeared they had a narrowing window of opportunity to give them; shouts could already be heard from up the hallway as the alarm blared, and all of Atlas Academy seemed to shake as whatever failsafes Merlot had installed in the event of a breakout took effect, thick walls of steel reinforced by hardlight slamming shut around the building's exterior.

It was almost enough to mask the faint rumble that came from far, far further up the tower, which sounded vaguely like its topmost floor being absolutely demolished as something came tearing through it.

Her words drifted away, the sentence left unfinished as her eyes briefly glanced all around at the sounds of the security engaging hardcore and...whatever that was. It was in those moments that all hell broke loose.​

“...Tiger, Bear… be at peace.”

There was a momentary flicker of relief in Yang’s eyes, at the words, and the way the tension left Blake’s shoulders, and at the solemn nod Bear gave. She started to lower her hands-

The last thing Yang saw before the room went black was a flying kick from Blake that she caught on her arm, the fact that she even managed to react a combination of knowing how Blake fought, pure martial skill, and dumb luck. But instead of the heavy impact of combat boots meeting metal, the Blake exploded into black mist that was more than enough to fill the space they were in.

And despite the darkness, and whatever fate it meant for Greki if he was too slow, Bear’s remaining arm slammed a punch home square into Winter with his semblance at full power. Yang could only hear the impact, tried to pivot towards it, only for a leg to catch her full across the throat and send her sprawled against the door with a resounding crash as Blake gave the world’s simplest followup order.

“No survivors.”

One life for every drop of her blood that Blake had to feel pour against her. Ten for every broken finger. Twenty for every scar. They would learn the difference between her justice and her revenge, and the mercy she’d tried to show by only practicing the former

Until now

"YANG! WINTER!" Nora shouted in pure alarmed concern, the sounds of her boots already echoing through the area as she hurriedly charged forward--​

Tiger wasn't one to hold grudges.

Wasted energy and all that.

But if you were to ask her, she couldn't deny that there was a bit of bitterness as purple smoke began to flow around her person.

"50%."

Her frame shuddered and the bandages around her other arm gave way as her musculature experienced a sudden increase. Scraps of the medical supply fluttered to the floor around Tiger's feet as she started forward, the sole of her boots treading softly against the ground. While Tiger always relished the chance to fight, that excitement didn't come without it's drawbacks.

One that pained her all the same.

But that didn't matter.

Bursting forward, Nora could have seen Tiger's eyes go wide amid the wrappings obscuring her face, as her right arm swung out to try and punch Nora into-and through-the closest wall. If for whatever reason she missed then oh well, it wasn't her wall.

-only for the sound of the same boots screeching to a sudden halt to replace the thuds of her running as the massive Tiger now stood in her path. This, again? There was no excitement, no gleeful look characteristic of the small warrior Nora Valkyrie. She just glared, her expression doing it's best to simultaneously show as much anger as any of Yang's most furious expressions could, to be just as serious as any of Winter's icy cold looks could be. There was no fun to be had here. This was beyond all that now. "You want to try for round three that badly, huh?" She growled. "You asked for it. I'll just have to put you down, AGAIN, AND EVEN HARDER THIS TIME--"

The punch never hit her.​

The manticore was no longer holding Greki in its maw, the mercenary slumping to the floor unharmed.

Instead it was slamming into Yang and Nora at speeds that would've winded something triple their mass, scooping them under its arms like a thief snatching a pair of purses. The first beat of its wings was powerful enough to disperse the mist beneath it, to carry them through the door with enough force that it took most of the frame with it. The second hurtled them clear of the most entirely and down the adjacent hallway like a bullet, past an the extremely bemused unit of armed guardsmen mobilizing about two thirds of the way the hall, guns trained on the containment room with precision enough that they managed to avoid riddling the manticore and its cargo with bullets even though at least half of them were wondering if it probably should. The third-

-never happened, and the manticore emitted what could best be described as the closest either of them would ever get to hearing a grimm whimper as its back arched in unnatural fashion, and there was a sense of finality to how it evaporated into mist like a ghost, leaving the squad leader to look down at the pair where they slumped with an air of astonishment.

BOOM

"...What the hell's goin' on????"

That did, and while Nora had been steeling herself for another prolonged fight with that faunus, that had come so unexpectedly that it caught her extremely off guard. Her breath was just gone, and it took a couple seconds after the pale summoned grimm broke apart and vanished to catch her breath again. She laid there, inhaling deeply before she answered the guy. "Um...worst case scenario?" She said, entirely unsure if that was indeed worst case scenario for these Atlas guys but thoroughly not caring about that at all. "And sort of...my fault..." She admitted quietly as she pushed herself up off the floor. Her initial thought after pressing the button was to yank the psycho midget into a headlock hold, but she'd second guessed herself. Figured the slippery girl would have just gotten out of it with ease...but if she'd done it, maybe Neo wouldn't have had gotten the chance to release all of them.

Still, it was too late to do that now. All she could do was try to make up for it. "You guys wouldn't happen to have any lightning dust on you, would ya?"​

Neo looked back at Winter and Yang.

The etching of 'HOME?' had changed on the keychain.

'YOUR FAULT'

Then she shattered and footsteps could have been heard down the hall.

Meanwhile, as Neo raced through the hallways on her escape run, by the time she got through the third hall away from the prison breakout...she barely managed to step into the fourth before the door swung closed immediately behind her. Almost every other door in that hallway followed suit, joining the cacophonous noise of Merlot's security measures. Only one remained open...briefly. Yet it wasn't really a good option either. A few robots stepped through the open doorway in complete uniformity, their frames recognizable as the AK-200 model but they stood apart from most of their brethren, heavily modified as they were. And behind them...

Her eyebrows raised in surprise. "You." She stood there, briefly taken aback before Gwen smiled. "To think you'd come directly to me after all this time. Well. That suits me." One of her hands waved across and the last door directly behind her slid shut too, sealing them all in this locked hallway. "If I was a betting woman, I'd reason you're the one responsible for all this commotion. Am I close? No, you don't have to answer that. Rhetorical." She drew her pistol. "So, there's no way out now. Be smart and surrender." ​

 

[Gus Gungus]

That did, and while Nora had been steeling herself for another prolonged fight with that faunus, that had come so unexpectedly that it caught her extremely off guard. Her breath was just gone, and it took a couple seconds after the pale summoned grimm broke apart and vanished to catch her breath again. She laid there, inhaling deeply before she answered the guy. "Um...worst case scenario?" She said, entirely unsure if that was indeed worst case scenario for these Atlas guys but thoroughly not caring about that at all. "And sort of...my fault..." She admitted quietly as she pushed herself up off the floor. Her initial thought after pressing the button was to yank the psycho midget into a headlock hold, but she'd second guessed herself. Figured the slippery girl would have just gotten out of it with ease...but if she'd done it, maybe Neo wouldn't have had gotten the chance to release all of them.

Still, it was too late to do that now. All she could do was try to make up for it. "You guys wouldn't happen to have any lightning dust on you, would ya?"

Though it was hard to tell, the guard sputtered something that sounded like a curse and dropped to one knee, frantically signalling his unit to take up a six-point position with guns trained in the direction of the cells. Her query seemingly went ignored, though barely a second went by before a more familiar voice spoke up from behind.

"Lucky for you."

Two dust vials were tossed her way with the perfect trajectory to land in her open palms, and if she or Yang turned it was to a sight of welcome normalcy, however distant the associated memories may have been at this point.



Clover strode through the parting squadron of soldiers with purpose, flanked by what remained of this Remnant's Ace Ops in Vine and Elm as all three took up position and fell into a ready stance.

"Worst-case scenario is our specialty. What's the situation?"

BOOM

The tail end of his sentence was nearly drowned out by the proximity of the next thunderous crash, by now surely no more than a floor or two away. He shifted his weapon's grip and squinted into the mist, the wall of muscle and scrappiness that was Elm clearly itching for the fight already.

"Room's reinforced. One way in and out, nothing to use as a crawlspace. Heh. Can't figure how this ends well for them."​

 

[MyrtenRose]

The tail end of his sentence was nearly drowned out by the proximity of the next thunderous crash, by now surely no more than a floor or two away. He shifted his weapon's grip and squinted into the mist, the wall of muscle and scrappiness that was Elm clearly itching for the fight already.

"Room's reinforced. One way in and out, nothing to use as a crawlspace. Heh. Can't figure how this ends well for them."

The time has come.

​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

Whatever revolutionary fury had started to build up in Blake was suddenly engulfed in a wave of something far less righteous but no less dark. The last thing Winter saw before sleep took her were those eyes, widening into brief shock before it shifted into an ugly, despair filled snarl, and then it all went dark.

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

There was far too much adrenaline in Winter's system for Bear's semblance to last a second past when he removed his hand from her.

In the intervening, however long it was, entirely unclear to Winter's groggy mind, four jagged pieces of metal ripped straight off the wall had been driven through her limbs, her aura flickering and sputtering as it tried to make sense of how to protect from a wound that happened before it had been allowed to work. A far less rabid pain came from her scalp, her hair balled into Blake's fist as she dragged Winter across the floor towards one of the cells.

"You're wrong. Eve Taurus deserved none of the pain you people subjected her to." Her voice was thick and heavy with rage and sadness, the cold she'd felt before torched away by the Schnee's callous words. "I won't speak for myself, but you, you don't deserve to die either. You will, now, but you don't deserve it. You're just another human. But your sister?" she said as they reached the cell and forcefully jerked winter to face the other way around, almost all of the way into the cell.

Almost.

Bear's eyes narrowed, what he assumed was about to happen and what seemed to be the truth not aligning, yet a glance to Tiger showed no similar qualms as Blake nodded to her to head for the cell controls.

"She deserves death. She deserves worse. And now you suffer for it."

"Hand... No, Blake. Daughter of-"

Blake held a hand up to Tiger as Bear spoke. "What."

His voice was solemn as he slowly shook his head. "We fight a war. I accept this. I understand now we were too quick to bend all those years ago. But war, violence, that is one thing. This, little one... This is something else. There are lines even warriors do not cross."

"...There were."

She looked down at Winter, and all she could see was a brand across a blue eyed face, burned on at far too young and age.

"Not anymore."

Bear hung his head and took a deep, weary breath, and slowly shook his head once more as Tiger turned the cell on.

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

Yang was halfway to her feet with a mixture of hurt pride and terror already, and the only thing that stopped her from sprinting right back to return Winter's favor with a rescue she hadn't asked for was the sound of Clover's voice. The surprise that lit up her face was, honestly, probably the happiest she'd looked since she ended up on the wrong side of Raven's portal.

"Clover?! You're still a good guy here?!"

ignorance was bliss sometimes, and Yang's shoulders dropped in exhausted relief she let herself bask in for all of two seconds before a horrifying scream of pain echoed through the hall, followed by a crash and another scream, this one of raw, animal fury.

"TRAITOR!"

A moment later, Blake Belladonna came exploding out of the mist;

Or rather, ten of her did, all weilding a jagged piece of metal and in a mad dash down the hall and with murder in their eyes.


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

Bear gave a vexed growl as his hand slammed into the hardlight shield instead of the back of Blake's head. She was always too quick for her own good. His own good too it seemed. He looked down at the state winter was in, how clean the line could be seen from where part of her face had been on the wrong side of the cell, and how far Blake had pulled her before he gave into his weakness. Or fought past it. He would have to decide once he was done following through. If he lived that long

He turned to Tiger with solemn glare as he shifted his stance towards her instead, and gave her his gravelly ultimatum

"Turn it off, young TIger. This is not revolution. Not a fight for a better future. This is revenge, and torture, with no purpose or scale to balance on. The Hand must see this, and so must you. There must be a limit."

 

[Gus Gungus]

There was far too much adrenaline in Winter's system for Bear's semblance to last a second past when he removed his hand from her.

In the intervening, however long it was, entirely unclear to Winter's groggy mind, four jagged pieces of metal ripped straight off the wall had been driven through her limbs, her aura flickering and sputtering as it tried to make sense of how to protect from a wound that happened before it had been allowed to work. A far less rabid pain came from her scalp, her hair balled into Blake's fist as she dragged Winter across the floor towards one of the cells.

"You're wrong. Eve Taurus deserved none of the pain you people subjected her to." Her voice was thick and heavy with rage and sadness, the cold she'd felt before torched away by the Schnee's callous words. "I won't speak for myself, but you, you don't deserve to die either. You will, now, but you don't deserve it. You're just another human. But your sister?" she said as they reached the cell and forcefully jerked winter to face the other way around, almost all of the way into the cell.

Almost.

Bear's eyes narrowed, what he assumed was about to happen and what seemed to be the truth not aligning, yet a glance to Tiger showed no similar qualms as Blake nodded to her to head for the cell controls.

"She deserves death. She deserves worse. And now you suffer for it."

The sound of someone rousing from the depths of unconsciousness to instant, searing pain was a distinct experience shared uniquely among medics, soldiers, and torture specialists. Whether Blake had crossed that particular ethical threshold to this point in her tormented existence was for her to know, but either way the odds were none present would forget the slow-to-start, quick-to-crescendo scream that tore itself from Winter's lungs as she instinctively started to thrash and fight in the midst of being dragged, accomplishing little save intensifying the pain as her strategic impalements were aggravated. Harsh, indomitable wills were one thing, but pain on this level was another entirely, the kind that stripped people of who they were and reduced them to terrified animals desperate to survive.

Still, through the hot tears stinging her cheeks and choked gasps wracking her shoulders as she continued to struggle enough that Blake had to keep an active hold on her to get her in position, the Winter who sobbed her (admittedly delirious) reply still wasn't that; just a prideful soul trying to stave off the end.

"M-m-maybe. I don't know. I don't know what happened to her."

There it was. The admission she'd been avoiding ever since her sister first made her grab for power, the dark anchor that had gripped her through as Weiss's crimes mounted and pulled her deeper and deeper into the depths of despair. But even with the feverish, agonized gibbering her words were coming out as, the final note of fierce, defiant bitterness still rang through in her voice.

"S-s-somewhere... s-someone is saying the same thing about you."

Yang was halfway to her feet with a mixture of hurt pride and terror already, and the only thing that stopped her from sprinting right back to return Winter's favor with a rescue she hadn't asked for was the sound of Clover's voice. The surprise that lit up her face was, honestly, probably the happiest she'd looked since she ended up on the wrong side of Raven's portal.

"Clover?! You're still a good guy here?!"

"Seems like a loaded question..." The Ace Ops' leader muttered without glancing down at Yang, in truth wrestling with some conflicted feelings about their government's direction ever since Ironwood was deposed. Now wasn't the time to indulge them, and without taking his eyes off the cell block entrance he turned his head slightly to acknowledge the guard squad leader where he stood waiting. "Can someone give these kids their weapons? Don't tell me no one here knows where to tow the line between actual enemy-of-the-state prisoners and the councilwoman's fits of whimsy."

The patrolman seemed even more shook than before, if that was even possible, and had just sent a subordinate scurrying off to do exactly that when-

ignorance was bliss sometimes, and Yang's shoulders dropped in exhausted relief she let herself bask in for all of two seconds before a horrifying scream of pain echoed through the hall, followed by a crash and another scream, this one of raw, animal fury.

"TRAITOR!"

A moment later, Blake Belladonna came exploding out of the mist;

Or rather, ten of her did, all weilding a jagged piece of metal and in a mad dash down the hall and with murder in their eyes.

That scream had everyone in the hallway stiffen. Guard, ace op, it didn't matter. Nobody was talking now, and nobody took their eyes off the door. Which meant that when she came, ten identical duplicates sprinting for them like ten identical panthers, the entire hallway was lit up by soldiers who by now had very sweaty trigger fingers. Whatever chaos that prompted, only the ace ops kept their composure, though the faintest note of uncertainty lingered in even Vine's tone.

"Just one of them? Er, no, ten?"

"Easy."

Clover's tone, in contrast, was as confident and smooth as ever, bolstering his team and the men around him alike as he kept his eyes fixed on one of the Belladonnas in particular.

"Ace Ops? Let's show 'em what we train f-"



BOOOOOOM

Spoiler

The ceiling caved in in a shower of metal circuitry and sparking wire, dust raining down on an irate Weiss's head as she rose from her half-crouch between Blake and the others and glared icicles through the core of Blake's soul, prompting the hail of bullets to stop and Clover to throw up the ceasefire motion with his hand. A wave of cold swept the room, one that had followed her all the way down from the headmaster's office to the prison level and through the symmetrical row of holes she'd left on every floor between them, but the moment their eyes locked Blake could tell.

She didn't know. Weiss had no concept of what awaited the next room over; as far as she was concerned her sister was behind her, standing alongside the others she'd yet to face. Her eyes exploded into beams of celestial light, and an icy wind started to howl through the room.

Then she held up an innocuous controller and pushed a button.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT

Blake, along with Tiger and Bear a room over, felt their aura recede inwards until it was just gone, leaving them with the same numbing sensation Yang had awoken with all those weeks ago.

It was, however, somewhat overpowered by the continuous volts of electricity that coursed through their systems suddenly from the chips implanted in their necks, potent enough that even the Talon's two mightiest behemoths were driven to their knees as their muscles seized and refused to obey them. Weiss's tone stayed calm and rational as she took a few brisk, unconcerned steps towards whichever Blake was revealed as the true one and stood over her, looking down on her yet again, air of haughtiness and sanctimony completely intact. She casually raised the device her other hand held, not even bothering to draw her weapon for this, and raised it to her lips to speak into the scroll's receiver in a calm, rational tone.

"Ghira and Kali Belladonna. Fifty million each. Leave their heads somewhere public."

She hung up, lowered it, sucked a deep breath through her nose. She still hadn't turned around, still hadn't done a headcount. It was strange from her; almost as if she was unwilling to.

That was when Blake's vision cleared enough to clock the maiden's sheet-white face, the beads of perspiration in her hands and forehead, the way the veneer of calm was a practiced, manufactured force of labor. Almost as if, on some level, she did know. Knew what to expect if she did turn, knew which head wouldn't be there. As if she were choosing to substitute that reality with a different one, for however long she could, like she could somehow will it into being the correct one.

Another debilitating jolt coursed through Blake's body, and Weiss sucked in a terse, shallow breath as her grip on the remote shifted, almost jittery.

"In about ten minutes every assassin in the kingdom is going to look at their scroll and read those words. Within a day, it'll have reached Mistral, Vacuo, even Menagerie itself, unless I call it off. But I'm not going to call it off, Blake. As it stands, I'm going to call back in five minutes and double the payout. I don't want to, but apparently I have to."

Another deep breath in what by now was a sea of shallow ones, Weiss torn somewhere between the cold, unrelenting robot she'd turned herself into for the purpose of defeating Ozpin and a flustered little girl with no control over the situation at all, making desperate grabs for it anyway.

"Is that what has to happen, Belladonna?"

One more breath. This one almost became something else, required she close her eyes to overpower it, and when they opened again they once again erupted with volatile, dangerous light. The scream that followed matched Winter's in sheer volume.



"OR ARE YOU GOING TO GET BACK IN YOUR FUCKING CELL?!"​

 

[MidwayLives]

Meanwhile, as Neo raced through the hallways on her escape run, by the time she got through the third hall away from the prison breakout...she barely managed to step into the fourth before the door swung closed immediately behind her. Almost every other door in that hallway followed suit, joining the cacophonous noise of Merlot's security measures. Only one remained open...briefly. Yet it wasn't really a good option either. A few robots stepped through the open doorway in complete uniformity, their frames recognizable as the AK-200 model but they stood apart from most of their brethren, heavily modified as they were. And behind them...

Ugh, this woman again!!!

Neo had come here with one goal in mind.

To secure a way for Emerald and her to get out of this world and back to their own.

Leave the misery behind.

Gripping tightly onto Hush, Neo's eyes narrowed.
​

Her eyebrows raised in surprise. "You." She stood there, briefly taken aback before Gwen smiled. "To think you'd come directly to me after all this time. Well. That suits me." One of her hands waved across and the last door directly behind her slid shut too, sealing them all in this locked hallway. "If I was a betting woman, I'd reason you're the one responsible for all this commotion. Am I close? No, you don't have to answer that. Rhetorical." She drew her pistol. "So, there's no way out now. Be smart and surrender."

Neo spit on the ground near Gwen.

Then she shattered and everything went silent...

Reappearing before Gwen, Neo removed Hush's blade from her parasol as fluid as a expert swimer moving through the water.

The blade lashed out.

Regardless of what happened to her, Neo's thoughts weren't of her own safety or what Schnee would do to her.

But of Emerald and how alone she'd be.

Neo frowned.

'Sorry' was all she could think.​

 

[MidwayLives]

There was far too much adrenaline in Winter's system for Bear's semblance to last a second past when he removed his hand from her.

In the intervening, however long it was, entirely unclear to Winter's groggy mind, four jagged pieces of metal ripped straight off the wall had been driven through her limbs, her aura flickering and sputtering as it tried to make sense of how to protect from a wound that happened before it had been allowed to work. A far less rabid pain came from her scalp, her hair balled into Blake's fist as she dragged Winter across the floor towards one of the cells.

"You're wrong. Eve Taurus deserved none of the pain you people subjected her to." Her voice was thick and heavy with rage and sadness, the cold she'd felt before torched away by the Schnee's callous words. "I won't speak for myself, but you, you don't deserve to die either. You will, now, but you don't deserve it. You're just another human. But your sister?" she said as they reached the cell and forcefully jerked winter to face the other way around, almost all of the way into the cell.

Almost.

Bear's eyes narrowed, what he assumed was about to happen and what seemed to be the truth not aligning, yet a glance to Tiger showed no similar qualms as Blake nodded to her to head for the cell controls.

"She deserves death. She deserves worse. And now you suffer for it."

"Hand... No, Blake. Daughter of-"

Blake held a hand up to Tiger as Bear spoke. "What."

His voice was solemn as he slowly shook his head. "We fight a war. I accept this. I understand now we were too quick to bend all those years ago. But war, violence, that is one thing. This, little one... This is something else. There are lines even warriors do not cross."

"...There were."

She looked down at Winter, and all she could see was a brand across a blue eyed face, burned on at far too young and age.

"Not anymore."

Bear hung his head and took a deep, weary breath, and slowly shook his head once more as Tiger turned the cell on.

"..."

Tiger pulled her fist back from where instead of Nora, she'd simply destroyed a chunk of wall.

The musculature returned to normal and Tiger glanced back at Winter in Blake's grasp.

Tiger did as was asked of her without question, her stare unblinking.
​

The sound of someone rousing from the depths of unconsciousness to instant, searing pain was a distinct experience shared uniquely among medics, soldiers, and torture specialists. Whether Blake had crossed that particular ethical threshold to this point in her tormented existence was for her to know, but either way the odds were none present would forget the slow-to-start, quick-to-crescendo scream that tore itself from Winter's lungs as she instinctively started to thrash and fight in the midst of being dragged, accomplishing little save intensifying the pain as her strategic impalements were aggravated. Harsh, indomitable wills were one thing, but pain on this level was another entirely, the kind that stripped people of who they were and reduced them to terrified animals desperate to survive.

Still, through the hot tears stinging her cheeks and choked gasps wracking her shoulders as she continued to struggle enough that Blake had to keep an active hold on her to get her in position, the Winter who sobbed her (admittedly delirious) reply still wasn't that; just a prideful soul trying to stave off the end.

"M-m-maybe. I don't know. I don't know what happened to her."

There it was. The admission she'd been avoiding ever since her sister first made her grab for power, the dark anchor that had gripped her through as Weiss's crimes mounted and pulled her deeper and deeper into the depths of despair. But even with the feverish, agonized gibbering her words were coming out as, the final note of fierce, defiant bitterness still rang through in her voice.

"S-s-somewhere... s-someone is saying the same thing about you."

Tiger simply watched quietly.

Not a noise escaped her lips.
​

Bear gave a vexed growl as his hand slammed into the hardlight shield instead of the back of Blake's head. She was always too quick for her own good. His own good too it seemed. He looked down at the state winter was in, how clean the line could be seen from where part of her face had been on the wrong side of the cell, and how far Blake had pulled her before he gave into his weakness. Or fought past it. He would have to decide once he was done following through. If he lived that long

He turned to Tiger with solemn glare as he shifted his stance towards her instead, and gave her his gravelly ultimatum

"Turn it off, young TIger. This is not revolution. Not a fight for a better future. This is revenge, and torture, with no purpose or scale to balance on. The Hand must see this, and so must you. There must be a limit."

As Blake raced off leaving Tiger and Bear behind, the faunus listened to Bear's words.

But she didn't seem to move or really acknowledge him.

"Why?"

What did it really matter?

"Where do you plan on going? After what's been done, we're not escaping. She'll kill us where we stand. I've accepted that."

Tiger's head slowly turned to look towards Bear.



"Wait until the end."

....All of this is what Tiger would have said if she'd felt so inclined.

But as Bear asked for her to stop this, she....just stared.

Why waste the energy speaking when they'd be dead soon anyway?
​

Blake, along with Tiger and Bear a room over, felt their aura recede inwards until it was just gone, leaving them with the same numbing sensation Yang had awoken with all those weeks ago.

It was, however, somewhat overpowered by the continuous volts of electricity that coursed through their systems suddenly from the chips implanted in their necks, potent enough that even the Talon's two mightiest behemoths were driven to their knees as their muscles seized and refused to obey them. Weiss's tone stayed calm and rational as she took a few brisk, unconcerned steps towards whichever Blake was revealed as the true one and stood over her, looking down on her yet again, air of haughtiness and sanctimony completely intact. She casually raised the device her other hand held, not even bothering to draw her weapon for this, and raised it to her lips to speak into the scroll's receiver in a calm, rational tone.

Tiger fell to her knees, her body trembling and twitching.

The pain felt not at all dissimilar to the destructive feedback from pushing her semblance too far.

Whatever happened from here, Tiger looked towards Winter.

Schnee wasn't going to spare them this time.

​

 

[MyrtenRose]

Though it was hard to tell, the guard sputtered something that sounded like a curse and dropped to one knee, frantically signalling his unit to take up a six-point position with guns trained in the direction of the cells. Her query seemingly went ignored, though barely a second went by before a more familiar voice spoke up from behind.

"Lucky for you."

Two dust vials were tossed her way with the perfect trajectory to land in her open palms, and if she or Yang turned it was to a sight of welcome normalcy, however distant the associated memories may have been at this point.

"Thanks!" She replied with a trademark grin, fingers curling in around the dust as soon as they landed in her hands.​

"Seems like a loaded question..." The Ace Ops' leader muttered without glancing down at Yang, in truth wrestling with some conflicted feelings about their government's direction ever since Ironwood was deposed. Now wasn't the time to indulge them, and without taking his eyes off the cell block entrance he turned his head slightly to acknowledge the guard squad leader where he stood waiting. "Can someone give these kids their weapons? Don't tell me no one here knows where to tow the line between actual enemy-of-the-state prisoners and the councilwoman's fits of whimsy."

Yang's shoulders dropped in exhausted relief she let herself bask in for all of two seconds before a horrifying scream of pain echoed through the hall, followed by a crash and another scream, this one of raw, animal fury.

"TRAITOR!"

A moment later, Blake Belladonna came exploding out of the mist;

Or rather, ten of her did, all wielding a jagged piece of metal and in a mad dash down the hall and with murder in their eyes.

Her whole body tensed up at the sound of the ear-piercing scream filled the air, fingers tightening even further as all the Blakes came rushing in, frenzied and murderous. It...really wasn't a sight that Nora relished seeing. Her gaze shifted to the side for a brief second, locking on to Yang, with both worry and concern evident in her eyes. The sight definitely had to hit Yang harder than it did her. Nora wished she had the ability to call a time out, even if only for a few seconds, but...that really wasn't something she could do. No matter how much she wished it so.​

"Ace Ops? Let's show 'em what we train f-"


BOOOOOOM

Spoiler

The ceiling caved in in a shower of metal circuitry and sparking wire, dust raining down on an irate Weiss's head as she rose from her half-crouch between Blake and the others and glared icicles through the core of Blake's soul, prompting the hail of bullets to stop and Clover to throw up the ceasefire motion with his hand. A wave of cold swept the room, one that had followed her all the way down from the headmaster's office to the prison level and through the symmetrical row of holes she'd left on every floor between them, but the moment their eyes locked Blake could tell.

But it seemed the Brothers had seen fit to throw them a bone. Weiss hit the floor just then like the absolute force of nature that she was in this world, and with such perfect timing that, for a few seconds, she felt relieved that she wouldn't have to actually fight extensively again. She would have done all she could against the big one again, but she wasn't actually as confident in victory as she had tried to make herself seem back there. That relief evaporated as soon as Weiss made a move, as soon as she talked.​

Then she held up an innocuous controller and pushed a button.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT

Blake, along with Tiger and Bear a room over, felt their aura recede inwards until it was just gone, leaving them with the same numbing sensation Yang had awoken with all those weeks ago.

It was, however, somewhat overpowered by the continuous volts of electricity that coursed through their systems suddenly from the chips implanted in their necks, potent enough that even the Talon's two mightiest behemoths were driven to their knees as their muscles seized and refused to obey them. Weiss's tone stayed calm and rational as she took a few brisk, unconcerned steps towards whichever Blake was revealed as the true one and stood over her, looking down on her yet again, air of haughtiness and sanctimony completely intact. She casually raised the device her other hand held, not even bothering to draw her weapon for this, and raised it to her lips to speak into the scroll's receiver in a calm, rational tone.

Her eyes widened as she witnessed that, and one hand slowly and casually rose up to rub at the back of her own neck. There was no denying the obvious worry she felt. She had been unconscious too, who was to say that she didn't have one of whatever that was inside her as well? Something she couldn't fight against that brought her to her knees. It truly wasn't pleasant thinking, but that was not the worst bit.​

"Ghira and Kali Belladonna. Fifty million each. Leave their heads somewhere public."

She hung up, lowered it, sucked a deep breath through her nose. She still hadn't turned around, still hadn't done a headcount. It was strange from her; almost as if she was unwilling to.

That was when Blake's vision cleared enough to clock the maiden's sheet-white face, the beads of perspiration in her hands and forehead, the way the veneer of calm was a practiced, manufactured force of labor. Almost as if, on some level, she did know. Knew what to expect if she did turn, knew which head wouldn't be there. As if she were choosing to substitute that reality with a different one, for however long she could, like she could somehow will it into being the correct one.

Another debilitating jolt coursed through Blake's body, and Weiss sucked in a terse, shallow breath as her grip on the remote shifted, almost jittery.

"In about ten minutes every assassin in the kingdom is going to look at their scroll and read those words. Within a day, it'll have reached Mistral, Vacuo, even Menagerie itself, unless I call it off. But I'm not going to call it off, Blake. As it stands, I'm going to call back in five minutes and double the payout. I don't want to, but apparently I have to."

Another deep breath in what by now was a sea of shallow ones, Weiss torn somewhere between the cold, unrelenting robot she'd turned herself into for the purpose of defeating Ozpin and a flustered little girl with no control over the situation at all, making desperate grabs for it anyway.

"Is that what has to happen, Belladonna?"

One more breath. This one almost became something else, required she close her eyes to overpower it, and when they opened again they once again erupted with volatile, dangerous light. The scream that followed matched Winter's in sheer volume.

"OR ARE YOU GOING TO GET BACK IN YOUR FUCKING CELL?!"

That brought a look of shocked pain to her face, a soft and quiet gasp escaping her lips at the same time. She didn't know Blake's parents all that well, only having met them briefly after the battle at Haven back home, but they seemed like really good people. The kind of parents that she wished she still...Nora shook her head and buried those thoughts. Going so far as to put those two's lives on the line...there was no telling from her perspective if that was a bluff or not. Weiss was extraordinarily hard to read. Nora stood petrified, rooted to the spot, waiting with bated breath to see how this went down.​

 

[MyrtenRose]

Neo spit on the ground near Gwen.

Then she shattered and everything went silent...

Reappearing before Gwen, Neo removed Hush's blade from her parasol as fluid as a expert swimmer moving through the water.

The blade lashed out.

Regardless of what happened to her, Neo's thoughts weren't of her own safety or what Schnee would do to her.

But of Emerald and how alone she'd be.

Neo frowned.

'Sorry' was all she could think.

"I'll take that as a no." Gwen dryly remarked, gaze remaining locked on Neo...right up until the moment that the tiny woman was no longer standing there. Her stare re-locked onto Neo the very second she reappeared right in front of her, and yet the special operative did nothing. She didn't jump back, she didn't try to duck under the blade, she didn't raise her gun up and fire, she simply stood there and watched as the blade strike came lashing in. Right up until it wasn't.

Only after the blade had bounced off the hardlight shield that suddenly popped into existence between the weapon and herself, did Gwen's expression change. She cracked a smirk as she looked down at the smaller woman. "Hmm. Neat trick, but tell me you didn't really think it would be that easy." The Atlesian knights started to take steps over towards Neo, but they got waved off by Helios herself and they instead took a few steps back. "I would have honestly been fine with it if you had just surrendered. That would have been smart. But you'll get no objections from me with this. Doing it the fun way is good too. Perhaps you'll even give me the chance to test out some of my newer weapons. They've been dying for more field testing." Her pistol began to shift just then, not just mere reassembling. It became more fluid than solid, melding with the armor that covered her arm and transforming by the will of her semblance. It was over in a second, and it was with a satisfying sound that a sizable wrist blade emerged from the form Malware had just taken. A blade that was lined with glowing white.

Gwen's grin got bigger and after she fell into a combat stance, she mockingly beckoned for Neo to bring it.​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

The sound of someone rousing from the depths of unconsciousness to instant, searing pain was a distinct experience shared uniquely among medics, soldiers, and torture specialists. Whether Blake had crossed that particular ethical threshold to this point in her tormented existence was for her to know, but either way the odds were none present would forget the slow-to-start, quick-to-crescendo scream that tore itself from Winter's lungs as she instinctively started to thrash and fight in the midst of being dragged, accomplishing little save intensifying the pain as her strategic impalements were aggravated. Harsh, indomitable wills were one thing, but pain on this level was another entirely, the kind that stripped people of who they were and reduced them to terrified animals desperate to survive.

Still, through the hot tears stinging her cheeks and choked gasps wracking her shoulders as she continued to struggle enough that Blake had to keep an active hold on her to get her in position, the Winter who sobbed her (admittedly delirious) reply still wasn't that; just a prideful soul trying to stave off the end.

"M-m-maybe. I don't know. I don't know what happened to her."

There it was. The admission she'd been avoiding ever since her sister first made her grab for power, the dark anchor that had gripped her through as Weiss's crimes mounted and pulled her deeper and deeper into the depths of despair. But even with the feverish, agonized gibbering her words were coming out as, the final note of fierce, defiant bitterness still rang through in her voice.

"S-s-somewhere... s-someone is saying the same thing about you."




"Seems like a loaded question..." The Ace Ops' leader muttered without glancing down at Yang, in truth wrestling with some conflicted feelings about their government's direction ever since Ironwood was deposed. Now wasn't the time to indulge them, and without taking his eyes off the cell block entrance he turned his head slightly to acknowledge the guard squad leader where he stood waiting. "Can someone give these kids their weapons? Don't tell me no one here knows where to tow the line between actual enemy-of-the-state prisoners and the councilwoman's fits of whimsy."

The patrolman seemed even more shook than before, if that was even possible, and had just sent a subordinate scurrying off to do exactly that when-




That scream had everyone in the hallway stiffen. Guard, ace op, it didn't matter. Nobody was talking now, and nobody took their eyes off the door. Which meant that when she came, ten identical duplicates sprinting for them like ten identical panthers, the entire hallway was lit up by soldiers who by now had very sweaty trigger fingers. Whatever chaos that prompted, only the ace ops kept their composure, though the faintest note of uncertainty lingered in even Vine's tone.

"Just one of them? Er, no, ten?"

"Easy."

Clover's tone, in contrast, was as confident and smooth as ever, bolstering his team and the men around him alike as he kept his eyes fixed on one of the Belladonnas in particular.

"Ace Ops? Let's show 'em what we train f-"



BOOOOOOM

Spoiler

View attachment 811438

The ceiling caved in in a shower of metal circuitry and sparking wire, dust raining down on an irate Weiss's head as she rose from her half-crouch between Blake and the others and glared icicles through the core of Blake's soul, prompting the hail of bullets to stop and Clover to throw up the ceasefire motion with his hand. A wave of cold swept the room, one that had followed her all the way down from the headmaster's office to the prison level and through the symmetrical row of holes she'd left on every floor between them, but the moment their eyes locked Blake could tell.

She didn't know. Weiss had no concept of what awaited the next room over; as far as she was concerned her sister was behind her, standing alongside the others she'd yet to face. Her eyes exploded into beams of celestial light, and an icy wind started to howl through the room.

Then she held up an innocuous controller and pushed a button.

BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT

Blake, along with Tiger and Bear a room over, felt their aura recede inwards until it was just gone, leaving them with the same numbing sensation Yang had awoken with all those weeks ago.

It was, however, somewhat overpowered by the continuous volts of electricity that coursed through their systems suddenly from the chips implanted in their necks, potent enough that even the Talon's two mightiest behemoths were driven to their knees as their muscles seized and refused to obey them. Weiss's tone stayed calm and rational as she took a few brisk, unconcerned steps towards whichever Blake was revealed as the true one and stood over her, looking down on her yet again, air of haughtiness and sanctimony completely intact. She casually raised the device her other hand held, not even bothering to draw her weapon for this, and raised it to her lips to speak into the scroll's receiver in a calm, rational tone.

"Ghira and Kali Belladonna. Fifty million each. Leave their heads somewhere public."

She hung up, lowered it, sucked a deep breath through her nose. She still hadn't turned around, still hadn't done a headcount. It was strange from her; almost as if she was unwilling to.

That was when Blake's vision cleared enough to clock the maiden's sheet-white face, the beads of perspiration in her hands and forehead, the way the veneer of calm was a practiced, manufactured force of labor. Almost as if, on some level, she did know. Knew what to expect if she did turn, knew which head wouldn't be there. As if she were choosing to substitute that reality with a different one, for however long she could, like she could somehow will it into being the correct one.

Another debilitating jolt coursed through Blake's body, and Weiss sucked in a terse, shallow breath as her grip on the remote shifted, almost jittery.

"In about ten minutes every assassin in the kingdom is going to look at their scroll and read those words. Within a day, it'll have reached Mistral, Vacuo, even Menagerie itself, unless I call it off. But I'm not going to call it off, Blake. As it stands, I'm going to call back in five minutes and double the payout. I don't want to, but apparently I have to."

Another deep breath in what by now was a sea of shallow ones, Weiss torn somewhere between the cold, unrelenting robot she'd turned herself into for the purpose of defeating Ozpin and a flustered little girl with no control over the situation at all, making desperate grabs for it anyway.

"Is that what has to happen, Belladonna?"

One more breath. This one almost became something else, required she close her eyes to overpower it, and when they opened again they once again erupted with volatile, dangerous light. The scream that followed matched Winter's in sheer volume.

View attachment 811455

"OR ARE YOU GOING TO GET BACK IN YOUR FUCKING CELL?!"​

The pack vanished along with Blake's aura.

The real Blake had let out a gasp of surprise and pain and rolled to a stop not a few feet from Weiss, crouched on her feet despite it the sudden onset of pain, her makeshift sword leaving a drag mark in the floor where it had been used to stop her momentum. There was no response initially. Then the second jolt hit, and Blake, instead of falling farther to her knees, slowly stood up through it.

It wasn't that she didn't feel the pain. She did, every inch of it. Blake Belladonna was still just faunus, not an speck of grimm blood in her system or a ounce of cybernetics in her body

But it was just pain. Nothing more. Sienna had years sharpening her blade, and an adverse reaction to pain was one of the first chunks of excess metal she had hewn off. The only reason it took Blake as long as it did to get to her feet sheer biological inability, the electricity spasming her muscles involuntarily. The eyes that met Weiss' were wild, feral, and absolutely, utterly in control. The last few hours had hardened a part of Blake she hadn't even realized she still had, and the last few minutes had been the final tempering blows. She was a bloodsoaked, broken ghost of a person, and yet there had never been more clarity of purpose in her eyes as she slowly answered.

"Two more corpses on the pile, Weiss."

Weiss. Not Schnee, or even Weiss Schnee.

"Two more reasons for me to kill you. Keep adding more. See where it gets you."

And yet, despite her words, she turned and started back towards the cells. First a hobble, as her legs fought to remember the motions, but then with a full, confident stride. She paused in front of her cell, and turned to face backwards towards Weiss.

"I'll do the same. And we will find who buckles firs-"

*BANG*

A slug shell tore straight through Blake, and through the shoulder of the Blake behind her, sending her spinning to the ground and her blade out of her hands. One last semblence clone, with the last vestiges or aura or siphoned out of Blake's very soul, perfectly lined up with her form to hide what should've been a kill shot for Winter Schnee. An impossible and perfect assassination in front of a crowd, cut short because Blake Belladonna's partner recognized something about the way the clone's head turned, the way it moved, the way its eyes were just the tiniest bit dimmer.

Yang slowly lowered her gauntlet, a haunted anguish on her face before she turned and shoved her way past the aceops, towards absolutely anywhere but here.

 

[MidwayLives]

​

Only after the blade had bounced off the hardlight shield that suddenly popped into existence between the weapon and herself, did Gwen's expression change. She cracked a smirk as she looked down at the smaller woman. "Hmm. Neat trick, but tell me you didn't really think it would be that easy."

As Hush's blade clashed against the shield, Neo's eyes only narrowed and she drew the blade back. Ready for as many stabs as it could possibly take until the shield gave way. Or until this bitch and her toys broke every bone in Neo's body. She'd made a gamble and it was clear that it'd backfired. But she had too much riding on this to simply throw in the towel and accept being arrested as her only choice. Neo didn't want to think about what Emerald would do...if Neo simply never came back. Would she assume that she'd been caught or that maybe Schnee had killed her? Given whatever may have happened after the killer's hand was forced, the chances of that happening may or may not have skyrocketed.
​

The Atlesian knights started to take steps over towards Neo, but they got waved off by Helios herself and they instead took a few steps back. "I would have honestly been fine with it if you had just surrendered. That would have been smart. But you'll get no objections from me with this. Doing it the fun way is good too. Perhaps you'll even give me the chance to test out some of my newer weapons. They've been dying for more field testing." Her pistol began to shift just then, not just mere reassembling. It became more fluid than solid, melding with the armor that covered her arm and transforming by the will of her semblance. It was over in a second, and it was with a satisfying sound that a sizable wrist blade emerged from the form Malware had just taken. A blade that was lined with glowing white.

Gwen's grin got bigger and after she fell into a combat stance, she mockingly beckoned for Neo to bring it.

Neo quietly scoffed.

So, what was this just a game to her?

Well, so be it then. But win or lose, Neo...

*shatter*

Reappearing and giving a flurry of attempted thrusts/stabs with Hush...

...She wouldn't make it easy.
​

And yet, despite her words, she turned and started back towards the cells. First a hobble, as her legs fought to remember the motions, but then with a full, confident stride. She paused in front of her cell, and turned to face backwards towards Weiss.

"I'll do the same. And we will find who buckles firs-"

*BANG*

Even in the thrall of pain from both her broken body and Weiss's chip, Tiger's ears had picked up the noise and the thud that followed.

The woman who'd killed to adopt the Tiger moniker wasn't a dreamer of any kind.

She simply did what she was told-having deemed that to be her only worthwhile role in life-but as things seemed their bleakest, it was almost kinda funny.

For once in her life it'd felt as though she was acting on her own.

That action: accepting whatever came next.
​

A slug shell tore straight through Blake, and through the shoulder of the Blake behind her, sending her spinning to the ground and her blade out of her hands. One last semblence clone, with the last vestiges or aura or siphoned out of Blake's very soul, perfectly lined up with her form to hide what should've been a kill shot for Winter Schnee. An impossible and perfect assassination in front of a crowd, cut short because Blake Belladonna's partner recognized something about the way the clone's head turned, the way it moved, the way its eyes were just the tiniest bit dimmer.

Yang slowly lowered her gauntlet, a haunted anguish on her face before she turned and shoved her way past the aceops, towards absolutely anywhere but here.

It'd taken her longer than she would have liked to have arrived.

Crescent Rose was in hand and in scythe mode.

But as the scene seemed to reach it's crescendo, Ruby could only look on.

Blake's body on the floor, a messy hole where Yang's shot had landed.

How had everything gone so wrong so quick?
​

 

[Gus Gungus]

The pack vanished along with Blake's aura.

The real Blake had let out a gasp of surprise and pain and rolled to a stop not a few feet from Weiss, crouched on her feet despite it the sudden onset of pain, her makeshift sword leaving a drag mark in the floor where it had been used to stop her momentum. There was no response initially. Then the second jolt hit, and Blake, instead of falling farther to her knees, slowly stood up through it.

It wasn't that she didn't feel the pain. She did, every inch of it. Blake Belladonna was still just faunus, not an speck of grimm blood in her system or a ounce of cybernetics in her body

But it was just pain. Nothing more. Sienna had years sharpening her blade, and an adverse reaction to pain was one of the first chunks of excess metal she had hewn off. The only reason it took Blake as long as it did to get to her feet sheer biological inability, the electricity spasming her muscles involuntarily. The eyes that met Weiss' were wild, feral, and absolutely, utterly in control. The last few hours had hardened a part of Blake she hadn't even realized she still had, and the last few minutes had been the final tempering blows. She was a bloodsoaked, broken ghost of a person, and yet there had never been more clarity of purpose in her eyes as she slowly answered.

"Two more corpses on the pile, Weiss."

Weiss. Not Schnee, or even Weiss Schnee.

"Two more reasons for me to kill you. Keep adding more. See where it gets you."

And yet, despite her words, she turned and started back towards the cells. First a hobble, as her legs fought to remember the motions, but then with a full, confident stride. She paused in front of her cell, and turned to face backwards towards Weiss.

"I'll do the same. And we will find who buckles firs-"

*BANG*

A slug shell tore straight through Blake, and through the shoulder of the Blake behind her, sending her spinning to the ground and her blade out of her hands. One last semblence clone, with the last vestiges or aura or siphoned out of Blake's very soul, perfectly lined up with her form to hide what should've been a kill shot for Winter Schnee. An impossible and perfect assassination in front of a crowd, cut short because Blake Belladonna's partner recognized something about the way the clone's head turned, the way it moved, the way its eyes were just the tiniest bit dimmer.

Yang slowly lowered her gauntlet, a haunted anguish on her face before she turned and shoved her way past the aceops, towards absolutely anywhere but here.

Outside of the incredulous, disgusted stare prompted by the sight of Blake ignoring her body's limits so thoroughly, Weiss appeared unimpressed by the show of will, probably because in her own mind she wrote the book on such things. The accompanying words garnered little more than another scoff, another patronizing roll of the eyes, another bout of the same dismissive, unconcerned flippancy the Schnee oligarch had given Blake Belladonna's many promises and threats ever since the day the two first met; that perennial, humoring indifference of a crocodile letting a bird pick its teeth. She couldn't afford to show any weakness to these people. To anyone. That very first chink of frailty was what inevitably grew as wide as a chasm, was what toppled empires and made mice of kings.

That was why she didn't let her shoulders sag from the release of tension, nor her head hang with the weariness of an anchor, until she was sure Blake had turned around, her own step much less confident and far more trancelike as she followed.

Why was she feeling this way? This... this apprehensiveness, no, dread, even. That wasn't something she was supposed to feel. That was a ridiculous thing to feel. Winter was behind her. She had won, again. So what if she cracked privately and almost made a grievous misstep in an unscheduled sleep break? That was fine because the situation was defusing now, Winter was behind her. Everything was fine now. Everyone else made it out of the cells. She didn't need to look back and check if it was fine because she knew Winter was behind her, and if she spared her so much as a glance it'd only put all manner of infuriating notions of reconciliation in the bootlicking idiot's head, and she didn't need to because it was fine, she won. She was Weiss Schnee. She always won.

Winter was behind her-

BANG

The first solid indicator to any onlookers that Weiss might not have been as delusional as she seemed, that any sort of awareness existed in her mind that it was not fine, that Winter wasn't behind her, was that she jumped about a foot in the air at the sound of Yang's stupid graceless shotgun arm. The second was that she hadn't clocked Blake's deception, apparently too tripped up by whatever feedback loop her thoughts had twisted themselves into.

Only Blake, as the sole set of eyes with a clear line of sight to Weiss's own, saw the third, however blurry and pain-wracked her vision may have been at this point. It came after she fell, after the shadow clone vanished from the doorway to reveal the contents of the room beyond, the body laying on the floor. Like a private gift to her.





Maybe it wasn't as overt as it might've played out in Blake's most indulgent, wish fulfillment-laden dreams. There was no heart-rending exclamation of agony as the weight of her family's sins finally caught up to Weiss, or a cartoonish, flailing tantrum as the mosaic of absolute control and authority she'd carefully rebuilt since childhood was suddenly yanked out from under her like a rug.

But there was no mistaking it as anything else. She saw the exact moment Weiss finally broke.

It was a more subtle affair than most. It was just a look, yet one that somehow carried both the aforementioned sentiments and more. A look Blake had never even come close to seeing on Weiss's face before, and in all honesty probably never would again no matter what she did to her. It was just so... unbecoming, so utterly opposed to everything she had come to know about Weiss Schnee; The moment her eyes came to rest on what was left of Winter, the woman standing there ceased to be the almighty Winter-Spring Maiden, the SDC's ruthless ice queen, or even Atlas's incorrigible political saboteur.

She just looked small. Maybe smaller than she actually was. Lips trembling, hands wringing themselves habitually; there was a dark irony in the fact that one of the first comparisons that came to mind was Eve herself, a proud, unyielding figure being forced to relive their worst moments. But it was different. Eve was who she was, a defiant force of nature who had at one point been burdened with the ill-suiting role of victim.

Weiss looked like she was born one. As if underneath all the grandstanding and bluster, all the overbearing projections of command and superiority, this was the reality she could never admit to, the role she was meant to play; the person she really was. The victim.

The person who lost.

Spoiler: THEN

You CANNOT leave me here!

Weiss...

What am I supposed to DO?! He HATES me! He hates all of us! You're the only one who knows how to stand up to him, Winter, if y-you're gone t-then I don't know h-h-how I can-

That's enough. You're better than letting him reduce you to this.

*snff* B-But he...

I said enough.

...

You're stronger than him, Weiss. You're the strongest person I know. But strength only flourishes through independence. I would never have learned that if I had someone to fight my battles for me.

You need to learn to be strong alone.

Weiss, committed as she was to the creed of rationality over feeling, had a private theory that her emotional state was like the tide. The human mind was largely an enigma even to most Atlas fields of research, but she had scoured countless theses and studies looking for anything she could relate to; almost entirely guesswork and suppositions, but now and then she hit on a proposal that looked right. The child's mind, when recipient of sufficient coldness and hostility from caregivers in place of the expected warmth and support, had been known to... check out in certain ways, as a method of self-defense. The ability to process emotions the conventional way became strained. The worse an expected emotional toll, the more disconnected from reality the individual in question became; the tide retreated further and further out to sea, as it were. She'd worked long and hard to ensure the world only ever saw her rational side, the pragmatic leader who could get things done. As she developed, it became easier and easier to disconnect from things that should have affected her.

She killed her father. The tide receded.

Her mother abandoned her. The tide receded.

Stripmining smaller companies, abetting Ozpin's crimes, even treating the Shadow Fang like pests to be stamped out. None of it invoked the slightest ounce of remorse, shame or sorrow. Only the ever-receding tide.

Now Winter was dying and it was her fault and everything was crashing down on her like a tidal wave.

"You didn't have to... have to..."

She wasn't entirely sure when she'd crossed the room to Winter's side, or when exactly her legs gave out from under her, or when Winter faintly turned her burned, skinless head and tried to say something with no lips. When she took the hand that grasped weakly for hers.

It wasn't like with Yang. Flaying wasn't something that could just... heal, and aura couldn't spontaneously grow an entire new layer of skin any more than it could regrow a lost arm, no matter how amplified it was. Beyond that, it was a question of infection. Every known instance of a hardlight-related accident had demanded the affected limb be amputated; Not even Atlesian science could sterilize that wide of a surface area thoroughly enough for it to matter, at least without inducing shock. Even if by some miracle there was anything in Winter's future other than a painful death on an operating table a few hours from now, she honestly wasn't sure if... if she'd want to live with what came after.

Weiss... couldn't fix this. There was nothing she could do.

Except this.

Her left hand still clasping Winter's, she reached out with her right and held it to her sister's heart.



The flash of dazzling blue that consumed the prison wing was so bright that Clover had to shield his eyes where he was entering, and by the time his vision cleared Weiss was kneeling alone, her hand grasping nothing save a few icy snowflakes scattering in the breeze.

Her arms fell limply to her sides, and it was several long moments before she managed to lift her gaze to where Blake lay. In that one glance the tide went from being a frozen pang in her chest to being scalding, a raging typhoon that threatened to erupt from her being with such potency that the winds beginning to howl were almost blistering. Only then did her features finally shift, contorting with the sort of destructive hatred and rage more becoming of her father at his worst than of Weiss, and if at that moment a crack in the ground opened and swallowed Blake into hell it still wouldn't have been sufficient punishment in Weiss's eyes, that bitch, that ungrateful BITCH-

She slowly lifted the scroll from where it was set down next to her, redialed the last number. The same faceless, anonymous caller ID she'd spoken to just moments before picked up, saying nothing, waiting wordlessly for further instruction. The malefic loathing in Weiss's eyes reached its peak in the same instant she spoke through her teeth, shaking with so much fury she had to enunciate just to get the words out.

"C-c-call it off. Just forget it."

She hung up and drew in a deep breath.

Then she screamed, louder, more furiously, and more piercingly than even a subordinate in Clover knew she was capable of, soaring higher than any note she'd dare to approach in concert. She launched the device for Blake's head so hard it actually broke, and only then did the tears finally come; more than she knew her body could hold.

"Don't you dare claim you've done anything for the faunus. Y-you have nothing to offer anyone in this world other than yourself. S-s-something is wrong with you."

Everything was wrong. She couldn't control her breathing, her tears, not even her hands. They wouldn't stop shaking. This was far from the sanctimonious preaching of before, far from even something as base as a threat; it was just a pure, undisguised expression of hatred and disgust, as honest an appraisal as she'd ever given.

What made it authentic was how much of it was obviously directed at herself, her rage quelling as she looked down at her hands.

"...with both of us."

She sniffed then, finally stood, swept out of the room with so much finality Blake would've been forgiven for thinking she never planned on looking her way again. Clover took a step in her direction, obviously concerned.

"Councilwoman Schnee, are you-?"

"Take this." She walked right past him and slapped the device controlling the pacification chips into his chest with a tired, uncaring yawn.

"...What... should I-?"

"I don't care. Whatever you want."

It was such a bizarre, uncharacteristic non-order from the councilwoman that he couldn't help but stare after her with a frown as Vine scooped up Blake and Tiger from afar and reintroduced them to their cells, trying to puzzle out if it was some kind of joke or not.

She meant it.

That brought a look of shocked pain to her face, a soft and quiet gasp escaping her lips at the same time. She didn't know Blake's parents all that well, only having met them briefly after the battle at Haven back home, but they seemed like really good people. The kind of parents that she wished she still...Nora shook her head and buried those thoughts. Going so far as to put those two's lives on the line...there was no telling from her perspective if that was a bluff or not. Weiss was extraordinarily hard to read. Nora stood petrified, rooted to the spot, waiting with bated breath to see how this went down.

Yang slowly lowered her gauntlet, a haunted anguish on her face before she turned and shoved her way past the aceops, towards absolutely anywhere but here.

The plus(?) side was that Yang found Elm about as hard to shove as she remembered.

"Hold on. You can't just like, storm off to your room without supper now, you were a prisoner two seconds ago. Plus aren't you really crazy and dangerous???"

At whatever point that was on the verge of escalating was thankfully(?) also the point Weiss glided past, movements drained and listless in stark contrast to her usual self. She gave Elm a brief once-over. "Go away."

The grappler was as offended as she was taken aback by how obviously this lady had been bawling her eyes out like probably less than thirty seconds ago, and her solution was to just not even bother as she shook her head and strode for the cell block. Weiss turned to face Yang and Nora, and if the latter thought she was hard to read during her standoff with Blake then she was getting absolutely nothing from the sunken, hollow eyes and monotone voice she was being met with currently.

"You both have to come with me now."

It was honestly slightly disturbing, as if Weiss had left part of her soul in that room.​

 

[MyrtenRose]

Neo quietly scoffed.

So, what was this just a game to her?

Well, so be it then. But win or lose, Neo...

*shatter*

Reappearing and giving a flurry of attempted thrusts/stabs with Hush...

...She wouldn't make it easy.

As before, each and every strike that came in impacted against the pale blue hardlight shield. No matter where the blows were intended to hit, the stabs never brushed against her protective aura. Her secondary defense system did its job. When the flurry of attacks let up, Gwen didn't even initially counterstrike. Her head tilted ever so slightly, a low but appreciative whistle coming from her. "That's the spirit, little waffle cone." Finally she bothered to attack back, her own series of slashes and stabs coming from her wrist-mounted blade aimed for the diminutive criminal. It culminated with a final slash that cut through nothing but empty space...the gale-force blast of highly compressed air that followed, less so.​

 

[MidwayLives]

In the search for the Mistral Murderer, the Boss had made some moves of his own.

Spiders were now being targeted and seemed to be winding up dead. Some due to knife stabs, others to gunshots(all headshots for some reason...)

Had the killer somehow learned of the Anti-Murderer Defense Squad(Tyrian's name he picked out)'s intentions? If so then how? Who was watching out for him? Who had the resources to keep finding and knocking off the Spiders? The killings seemed too clean for a simple butcher....

The bodies as they continued to pile up seemed to leave clues behind as they were found.

'STOP NOW IF YOU WANT TO LIVE' 'GET OUT OF MISTRAL' 'YOU'LL DIE BEFORE YOU FIND ME' all warnings and yet the wind seemed particularly strong this day...

As he looked over a particular gruesome looking corpse-half of his head was missing due to a headshot-Blanco huffed and tucked his hands into his pockets.

"The Killer...Tyrian's the only one who's made mention of his weaponry and had a personal encounter with him. He wouldn't be using a gun. I doubt it'd get him the same sense of carnal urges that acts like these bring out in madmen like him. No, somebody is covering for him.." Watching as windows were shuttered and blown shut by the wind picking up, his gaze hardened. "...To get rid of us." Tyrian's tail smashing against the ground broke up Blanco's speech as the faunus groaned in frustration.

"AGH! I don't care who's helping this guy! I just wanna find him! The more we scramble, the more..." He didn't look over at Callie. "The more bodies are gonna pile up. If that wind's him reaching out then it's the best lead we got so far..." Thoughts of Trifa sailed through his head: if she was okay, what was happening to her, and if she'd be in one piece by the time they found her. As Tyrian moved to race towards where the wind seemed to be blowing, it'd end up taking the AMDS down to a rather worn-out looking warehouse. One that someone as well-versed as Callie could have recognized as having been used to previously smuggle/store drugs/weapons/etc for the Narcotics Team and possibly even smaller groups. It also happened to be one of the places that suffered due to the Boss's continued insistence on making and keeping a foothold in Atlas. It hadn't been touched since.

"Hey, uh...if we find this killer guy...WE don't have to fight him, right?" Blanche asked.

"Bring him on!"

"Char!"

"Sorry, sorry. I just get excited..."

Blanco wasn't convinced to believe that the killer would so casually invite his pursuers to come confront him. No, there had to be something more to using this location in particular. "Tyrian and anyone else who wishes to accompany me? I'm going to have a look inside and see what might be...lurking around." Making his way inside with Tyrian following in step behind him, a chill ran up the faunus's back. His unfortunate encounter with the one called 'Jack' had been at a warehouse much like this and needless to say if the scar on Tyrian's side wasn't enough proof, it hadn't gone well for the teenager.

Declining Blanco's offer(and not really liking the idea of him ordering Blanche and himself around anyway)to investigate the outside, Char and Blanche remained outside. Blanche's semblance wasn't much good in a group fight anyway. But as the two stood guard outside the front doors to the warehouse, the two hitmen could feel an ill omen in the air. "....I think something's off, Char."

"...Eh?"

"..I mean like...I dunno...Feels like nothing's gone right since we took up this case. I know we didn't have much choice in it and hell, they'll kill us if we don't toe the line. But I gotta wonder if something's out there.." While Char attempted to brush aside his dear partner's fears, the two hitmen failed to notice a figure was indeed watching them from behind a nearby shipping container, a tuft of pink hair poking out between a loosely strung together mess of bandages. His eyes wide and his chest heaving with every breath, his hands clenched and unclenched with such regularity that his knuckles had turned snow white.

"...Finally, I've managed to track those insignificant pests down. In this tiresome search for the 'Mistral Murderer' what started out as a brief inquiry into the wretched spawn of one of my former assassins' has turned into something of a complete farce. I've spent almost my entire adult life building my position in Mistral to where it is today. Indulging the whims of a serial killer of course shouldn't come without it's consequences....but I am beyond such things! I am Mistral and Mistral is me! I won't have decades of work undone by sniveling children! The Elite Guard will dispose of them and if any-god forbid-are able to cross that unforseeable threshold and survive the encounter? They'll come face to face with the murderer they've so desired. Any connections to the Boss or the gang will die with them and I can live in peace and solitude once more...."

The Boss's eyes narrowed as he eyed Char in particular...

"....But first thing's first. I must dispose of that meddlesome semblance before it can plague me!"

~~~Prior to the gang arriving to the warehouse~~

"The Boss wants us to work with-what?!"

"..."

"A member of the Elite Guard. Aurora says Char and Blanche have gone rogue and the punishment for that..." Abyss let the obvious answer hang there for Vanille and Violet to figure out on their own and deal with as they wished. Vanille didn't speak as was expected/respected by her comrades at this point. The drink she'd been sipping on though trembled lightly under her increased grip. Violet had a much more volatile reaction to the 'news.'

"Yeah, I'll tell you right now Abyss. I respect you, hell I admire that you've gotten this far without having a semblance. But that little shitheel Aurora can tell me til he's blue in the face, I still won't believe that those two idiots packed up and bailed on us. We've been through too much together. Years upon years of work taking out the gang's enemies. Fuck, we nearly died together and you're expecting not just me-" She thumbed over to Vanille."-To buy this slop hook line and sinker?? It's an absolute bowl of bullshit and I'm not listening to it! What's more likely is that those kids either killed the two of them and Aurora's trying to get us psyched up to go murder the shitty little brats or they got their asses kicked and the kids are holding em hostage. But...when I put it like that." Violet grumbled. "Maybe they should have just died. Getting beat and caught by some dickhead's son and his band of merry little buddies. Pour one out for the Hitman Team's credibility...'

Abyss listened until Violet was finished.

"I agree with you."

" Then why the hell did you-"

Abyss held up her hand.

"I didn't mention it the last time we met up. I didn't want to cause any trouble while Char and Blanche's statuses were still unknown. But I had a scuffle with Aurora the last time I spoke to him and he managed to do this to me." Abyss let her jacket slip from her shoulders and pulled it down slightly to show the bruise on her left arm and ran a finger under her nose. "Took my own gun and smacked me with it. If it hadn't been for my aura, I probably wouldn't have been able to hide the injuries as well as I did. Whoever Aurora 'is', he's not just the Boss's underling. He's just as dangerous and until I know what's really happened to Char and Blanche, we're going to play along."

That...was a lot for Violet to take in. Mostly the whole 'Aurora being dangerous' bit.

"...Well, if those two idiots are still alive then what?"

"Once we're all back together....we're leaving Mistral. The Boss's influence runs too deep and I'm not going to risk the lives of my comrades while living in fear. I'm not sure where we'll go or if we won't be stopped by the Narcotics Team or the Community Team. He'll probably say whatever he needs to say to turn them against us. If we die on the streets like dogs then, well,..." Abyss drew one of her many firearms and loaded the pistol before holstering it. "Then we'll have at least died on our own terms, not his."

"...Can't say I much like the idea of bolting from Mistral. This place is the only home I've ever known. So it's gone to shit, who cares, no hometown is perfect." She rose to her feet and drew her twin pistols. "But if you're saying that's what's best for the team then we'll do it. Vanille?"

The wolf faunus nodded her head and finished off her soda before tossing the cup aside.

"Then consider this the last mission for the Hitman Team! Our goal is to retrieve Char and Blanche if they're still alive. If they're not...." Violet's face broke out into a grin. "Then we kill Black's kid and his friends. Blood for blood and all that."

"HELL YEAH! LET'S-uh, wait hold on a second. The Elite who's gonna be with us isn't gonna just let us bounce. Who is it anyway...?"

"Well, you know the one that acts around town as a street clown-"

"AH, I FUCKIN HATE THAT GUY!!!"

~~~Now~~~

Despite the shutdown of the warehouse, the inside seemed relatively clean.

No real signs of dust or wear and tear. When the operation had been shut down, the Narcotics Team apparently packed up and moved out without question. While violence wasn't their go-to, they were remarkably adept at getting things done and not leaving a trace of their actions behind. The fan built into the wall atop the second floor of the warehouse was still spinning though. As if there was still something generating power into the building. Blanco held up his hand figuring that'd be enough as the other's aura would have given them the inklings that something wasn't right here and why would it be? Tyrian and Blanco had expected whoever had been covering for Jack to show themselves and silence the group before it could continue pursuing the lead.

What they got instead was one foul-mouthed gangster and her silent faunus partner staring down at them from the second floor.

"Hey, you little shitbirds!"

Vanille gave a little wave.

"Dunno what happened beyond you guys giving our pals an assbeating but nobody disgraces the Hitman Team and gets away with it." Violet warned and Vanille nodded in agreement. Standing in the center between the two women was one of the Boss's most trusted subordinates, a member of his elite guard: Ghastly Ebony. His curly blonde hair poked out like a dirty bush behind the bloodstained clown mask he wore. Eyeing Emerald in particular out of the group, he leaned onto the railing and gave Violet a hearty slap on the back for encouragement and all that! Anyone else would have gotten put on their ass but Ghastly was a big shot so...Violet let it slide.

Both her and Vanille's eyes narrowed upon seeing Blanco.

"Well if it isn't Mistral's 'Golden Boy.' Let's see if we can knock a little of that sheen off, Vanille..."

The faunus nodded and as energy cycled through her legs, she leapt from the second floor and straight down to the main one, the spot where she landed little more than a miniature crater. Hefting her sword over her shoulder, she looked over those gathered as if waiting to see who'd try attacking her first. Violet was a bit more direct and took aim at the trio(Emerald, Mercury, and Tyrian)and promptly opened fire, the light coming from her shots illuminating the otherwise dim warehosue.

Ghastly quietly clasped his hands and leaned back, watching the proceedings....​

 

[MyrtenRose]

"Two more reasons for me to kill you. Keep adding more. See where it gets you."

And yet, despite her words, she turned and started back towards the cells. First a hobble, as her legs fought to remember the motions, but then with a full, confident stride. She paused in front of her cell, and turned to face backwards towards Weiss.

"I'll do the same. And we will find who buckles firs-"

*BANG*

A slug shell tore straight through Blake, and through the shoulder of the Blake behind her, sending her spinning to the ground and her blade out of her hands. One last semblence clone, with the last vestiges or aura or siphoned out of Blake's very soul, perfectly lined up with her form to hide what should've been a kill shot for Winter Schnee. An impossible and perfect assassination in front of a crowd, cut short because Blake Belladonna's partner recognized something about the way the clone's head turned, the way it moved, the way its eyes were just the tiniest bit dimmer.

Yang slowly lowered her gauntlet, a haunted anguish on her face before she turned and shoved her way past the aceops, towards absolutely anywhere but here.

"....................."

At the best of times, it was difficult to get Nora to shut up once her mouth got going. Ridiculously so, sometimes. On the other hand, when she was left speechless...when the normally hyperactive, enthusiastic girl who never hesitated to speak her mind, whether it was for good things or chewing out the most important and powerful people in the kingdoms...that was a solid tell for how bad the situation got. The sound of that gunshot seemed so much louder in the absence of her voice. Like it almost physically hurt her ears. But that couldn't compare to how it felt inside. Her head moved slightly, a side-eye glance letting her briefly catch sight of that look on Yang's face after she...had to do that. A picture is worth a thousand words, and the haunted expression there said so much.

Nora swung her head away, the feeling of guilt hanging over her like a shadow. If she had stopped Neo back there, prevented her from releasing them from their cells, then...then it wouldn't have had to go down that way. In that regard, it was her fault. Back home, Blake and Yang had rapidly mended their relationship after everything following Beacon, and it was honestly so nice to see the two's bond become even stronger than it had been. This Blake, this wild, casually murderous woman before her...it wasn't the same Blake, but that didn't mean shooting her wouldn't sting. Not at all.

Though Yang and Nora herself often had arm-wrestling matches, bouts that could go either way...in several ways Nora felt Yang was undeniably stronger. If this situation was reversed, if it had been the twisted version of Ren here threatening to go for that and if it had fallen to her to...to...she didn't honestly know if she could have taken that shot. Part of her hoped she never had to find out.

As Yang got stopped in her path by Elm, Nora lifted her gaze back up from the ground and looked that way. She took a few determined steps over and just...hugged the blonde fellow huntress. No spine-crushing strength applied, no tackling or anything. Just a simple gesture of subdued kindness that she hoped helped, even the smallest degree. "I'm...sorry." That was about when the loud, anguished scream from nearby drew her attention.​

She hung up and drew in a deep breath.

Then she screamed, louder, more furiously, and more piercingly than even a subordinate in Clover knew she was capable of, soaring higher than any note she'd dare to approach in concert. She launched the device for Blake's head so hard it actually broke, and only then did the tears finally come; more than she knew her body could hold.

"................."​

The grappler was as offended as she was taken aback by how obviously this lady had been bawling her eyes out like probably less than thirty seconds ago, and her solution was to just not even bother as she shook her head and strode for the cell block. Weiss turned to face Yang and Nora, and if the latter thought she was hard to read during her standoff with Blake then she was getting absolutely nothing from the sunken, hollow eyes and monotone voice she was being met with currently.

"You both have to come with me now."

It was honestly slightly disturbing, as if Weiss had left part of her soul in that room.

"....................."

If the guilt before had been hanging over her like a shadow, the guilt now was a tidal wave swallowing her whole. The cold, calculating, oftentimes seemingly emotionless Weiss of this world, had obviously just been intensely crying. The eerily empty eyes and monotone voice now couldn't hide that. All the insufferable lectures and harsh responses and all that from before were irrelevant now, in this moment. She didn't even attempt to disguise how sorry and sympathetic she felt for this Weiss. What it would take to reduce somebody like the councilwoman to this state, the pain had to be overwhelming. All that sorrow, sympathy and guilt swirled around inside her, and unlike their meetings before, this time as the two of them stood face to face, Nora didn't bite back. Didn't try to resist or harshly counter or anything like that.

She just nodded, almost imperceptibly, and let out a soft agreement. "Okay." ​

 

[Schnee Corp Lawyer]

"C-c-call it off. Just forget it."

She hung up and drew in a deep breath.

Then she screamed, louder, more furiously, and more piercingly than even a subordinate in Clover knew she was capable of, soaring higher than any note she'd dare to approach in concert. She launched the device for Blake's head so hard it actually broke, and only then did the tears finally come; more than she knew her body could hold.

"Don't you dare claim you've done anything for the faunus. Y-you have nothing to offer anyone in this world other than yourself. S-s-something is wrong with you."

Everything was wrong. She couldn't control her breathing, her tears, not even her hands. They wouldn't stop shaking. This was far from the sanctimonious preaching of before, far from even something as base as a threat; it was just a pure, undisguised expression of hatred and disgust, as honest an appraisal as she'd ever given.

What made it authentic was how much of it was obviously directed at herself, her rage quelling as she looked down at her hands.

"...with both of us."

She sniffed then, finally stood, swept out of the room with so much finality Blake would've been forgiven for thinking she never planned on looking her way again. Clover took a step in her direction, obviously concerned.

"Councilwoman Schnee, are you-?"

"Take this." She walked right past him and slapped the device controlling the pacification chips into his chest with a tired, uncaring yawn.

"...What... should I-?"

"I don't care. Whatever you want."

It was such a bizarre, uncharacteristic non-order from the councilwoman that he couldn't help but stare after her with a frown as Vine scooped up Blake and Tiger from afar and reintroduced them to their cells, trying to puzzle out if it was some kind of joke or not.

She meant it.

Blake had dragged herself to prop against the back wall of the cell hallway by the time Weiss had addressed her, gripping her shoulder limp to stop the bleeding. Her dull, fuzzy eyes could see Eve in weiss in those moments, but also someone else; The same small look, the clasped hands, the horror, the realization that everything wouldn't be alright, that the world wouldn't work itself out.

The feeling of loss. Powerlessness Complete and consuming. A young faunus girl holding her father's hand as he bled on the makeshift operating table that was really just a blanket, while a doctor who was really just a nurse did his best to save a life. A feeling Blake had never wanted to have ever again.

Twice had Blake Belladonna killed at her own behest rather than the will of another. Once long, long ago, and tonight. All over that feeling of loss that Weiss now understood.

Good.

She knew what she came next The dull hatred never left her eyes. There was no remorse in them for her actions, no empathy for the woman who now stood a little closer to understanding her pain, no shame at Weiss' broken admonition of them both. But the words that came out were far rawer that simple hatred could create. "This wasn't for the faunus. This was for her. I told you what would happen. I don't make false promises Weiss. And this is not the end."

She held her head up, letting the defiance roar in her heart one last time. "Even after I die, the Shadow Fang will..."

....Weiss was walking away.

"No."

Her eyes widened slowly as she passed the remote to Clover and kept going

"Weiss. WEISS! SCHNEE!"

She snatched her faux sword from the ground with her good arm and tried to stumble forward, but between the wound and the strain her muscles had taken from the chip, Vine may as well have been wrangling a kitten. "No, no no, you CAN'T, you don't GET TO JUST WALK AWAY! You have... you have to-!"

The cell walls sprang back to life, cutting her loose from Vine just so she could slam into the hardlight wall with shaky, adrenaline fueled breaths as she tried to peer through the hall for Weiss.

...

She slowly slid down the wall, her fists still planted against it as her eyes fell to the floor with a blank look.

She was still here.

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

The plus(?) side was that Yang found Elm about as hard to shove as she remembered.

"Hold on. You can't just like, storm off to your room without supper now, you were a prisoner two seconds ago. Plus aren't you really crazy and dangerous???"

The look Yang gave elm when she butted her head against her bulk and fonund it unmoved was the sort that would've made her double blush with glee; all red eyes that were a mixture of frustration, anger, and sadness that all boiled down to one simple fact;

Yang Xiao Long was really good at solving her problems with violence, no matter how much she tried to preferred not to. This wasn't one of those times.

She gripped Elm's lapel with a growl. "Look, Woody. We're sorta friends back home, so I'm giving you one free warning that-"

At whatever point that was on the verge of escalating was thankfully(?) also the point Weiss glided past, movements drained and listless in stark contrast to her usual self. She gave Elm a brief once-over. "Go away."

The grappler was as offended as she was taken aback by how obviously this lady had been bawling her eyes out like probably less than thirty seconds ago, and her solution was to just not even bother as she shook her head and strode for the cell block. Weiss turned to face Yang and Nora, and if the latter thought she was hard to read during her standoff with Blake then she was getting absolutely nothing from the sunken, hollow eyes and monotone voice she was being met with currently.

"You both have to come with me now."

It was honestly slightly disturbing, as if Weiss had left part of her soul in that room.​

Her eyes whirled to Weiss with the same look of hostile frustration as she decided to butt in. She was the reason she had to play it tough here anyways, and a source of fifty percent of the misery she was feeling right now. She wanted so bad to be angry at Weiss. For lying to her, for using her, for not trusting her, for being the entire reason her and Winter were anywhere near the Fang in the first place. She wanted to yell at her, break down her stupid walls so they could just have a god damn conversation, throw a punch and get socked right back until they both worked out whatever the hell this mess was supposed to be.

And then she saw what she looked like, and finally registered that scream her brain tried to ignore, and what it meant, and what her last words to Winter were, and vice versa, and she hated that she couldn't even hate that all her anger evaporated like the sucker this world was determined to make her.

She let go of Elm's jacket and gave a deep breath before a curt nod of her head as her eyes softened back to their true colors.

"...Okay."

 

[Gus Gungus]

"....................."

If the guilt before had been hanging over her like a shadow, the guilt now was a tidal wave swallowing her whole. The cold, calculating, oftentimes seemingly emotionless Weiss of this world, had obviously just been intensely crying. The eerily empty eyes and monotone voice now couldn't hide that. All the insufferable lectures and harsh responses and all that from before were irrelevant now, in this moment. She didn't even attempt to disguise how sorry and sympathetic she felt for this Weiss. What it would take to reduce somebody like the councilwoman to this state, the pain had to be overwhelming. All that sorrow, sympathy and guilt swirled around inside her, and unlike their meetings before, this time as the two of them stood face to face, Nora didn't bite back. Didn't try to resist or harshly counter or anything like that.

She just nodded, almost imperceptibly, and let out a soft agreement. "Okay."

Her eyes whirled to Weiss with the same look of hostile frustration as she decided to butt in. She was the reason she had to play it tough here anyways, and a source of fifty percent of the misery she was feeling right now. She wanted so bad to be angry at Weiss. For lying to her, for using her, for not trusting her, for being the entire reason her and Winter were anywhere near the Fang in the first place. She wanted to yell at her, break down her stupid walls so they could just have a god damn conversation, throw a punch and get socked right back until they both worked out whatever the hell this mess was supposed to be.

And then she saw what she looked like, and finally registered that scream her brain tried to ignore, and what it meant, and what her last words to Winter were, and vice versa, and she hated that she couldn't even hate that all her anger evaporated like the sucker this world was determined to make her.

She let go of Elm's jacket and gave a deep breath before a curt nod of her head as her eyes softened back to their true colors.

"...Okay."

It spoke more to where Weiss's head was at presently than anything that the twice-minted maiden gave a kneejerk flinch as Yang rounded on her, and spoke to god knows what that she seemed more uncomfortable under the softer gaze, unable or unwilling to meet it. She clasped and unclasped her hands unconsciously, parting a hair bang and shifting her weight between her feet, and for a second it seemed as if the seal had been broken and her enduring cold shoulder to Yang would at last defrost, that she might explain her actions with perfect clarity and-



"Hf."

No, apparently that was still going on.

But not jail was a start, and without acknowledging Yang any further she gave Valkyrie a muted nod and veered around them to walk up the hall, giving both a wide berth despite the listlessness in her step. She was too numb to do anything more than tap Ruby on the shoulder to bid her follow too, and without any further elaboration started leading them through the academy's vast network of labyrinthian hallways, simultaneously firing off round after round of messages on the backup scroll she of course had.

A few minutes of that went by before she brought them to a stop, periodically checking over her shoulder and offering little in the way of details or even acknowledgement at all if any questions were asked, outside of a few stray mutterings that were so hard to make out it was honestly hard to tell if they were even aimed at them or if they were watching Weiss manifest a new neurosis. Finally they halted in front of a very, very nondescript door, so basic and well-hidden it looked exactly like a janitor's closet from the outside.

"Wait."

She opened the door and stepped into what indeed by all accounts seemed to be a janitor's closet, making a point of waiting until it slid shut behind her. The ensuing sounds of her violently getting sick inside were the final nail in the coffin in favor of the 'straight up just a regular closet Weiss is throwing up in' theory.​

 

[MyrtenRose]

A few minutes of that went by before she brought them to a stop, periodically checking over her shoulder and offering little in the way of details or even acknowledgement at all if any questions were asked, outside of a few stray mutterings that were so hard to make out it was honestly hard to tell if they were even aimed at them or if they were watching Weiss manifest a new neurosis. Finally they halted in front of a very, very nondescript door, so basic and well-hidden it looked exactly like a janitor's closet from the outside.

"Wait."

She opened the door and stepped into what indeed by all accounts seemed to be a janitor's closet, making a point of waiting until it slid shut behind her. The ensuing sounds of her violently getting sick inside were the final nail in the coffin in favor of the 'straight up just a regular closet Weiss is throwing up in' theory.

"........Oh." She blinked a couple of times. The sounds of things just behind that door were far from pleasant. Not that she could blame Weiss for it at all. Nora glanced at the other two before clearing her throat. "So, uh......." She trailed off, really unsure what else to say in that moment, but hoping somebody would pick up the slack.​

 

[Gus Gungus]

"........Oh." She blinked a couple of times. The sounds of things just behind that door were far from pleasant. Not that she could blame Weiss for it at all. Nora glanced at the other two before clearing her throat. "So, uh......." She trailed off, really unsure what else to say in that moment, but hoping somebody would pick up the slack.

Eventually the retching noises stopped, and after a few seconds the door slid open and she stormed past the three of them with a muttered apology and distinct lack of eye contact.

A short time later she rounded the corner into what should've been a long and unimpeded corridor, but instead was sealed by security doors. She stepped forward, hazily entered the (extremely lengthy) executive override code on the connecting interface and subsequently scanned her palm, the barrier sliding open to reveal—

Neo quietly scoffed.

So, what was this just a game to her?

Well, so be it then. But win or lose, Neo...

*shatter*

Reappearing and giving a flurry of attempted thrusts/stabs with Hush...

...She wouldn't make it easy.

As before, each and every strike that came in impacted against the pale blue hardlight shield. No matter where the blows were intended to hit, the stabs never brushed against her protective aura. Her secondary defense system did its job. When the flurry of attacks let up, Gwen didn't even initially counterstrike. Her head tilted ever so slightly, a low but appreciative whistle coming from her. "That's the spirit, little waffle cone." Finally she bothered to attack back, her own series of slashes and stabs coming from her wrist-mounted blade aimed for the diminutive criminal. It culminated with a final slash that cut through nothing but empty space...the gale-force blast of highly compressed air that followed, less so.

—This nonsense, which preceded Weiss waving two fingers without breaking stride and Neo promptly finding herself at the center of an octagonal glyph structure that looked about as inviting as a venus flytrap.

Spoiler: Glyphbardment equivalent of this

And so the greatest chase Remnant had never seen ended, somehow, with both a bang and a whimper. The bombardment ceased immediately following the few seconds it took Neo's aura to shatter, Weiss continuing her torpid pace until she stepped right up to the woman whose actions had arguably drawn the single most direct line to what had become of her sister.

And continued stepping. Head down, shoulders hung, barely even acknowledging Neo save for a brief passover with the same vacant eyes, a vague motion towards Yang or Nora with her hand, and couple of sentences spoken in the same drab, burned out monotone that had characterized her entire bearing for the last few minutes.

"Pick her up. She's your problem. Helios..."



"...no one likes a showoff."

Then she just kept walking.​