The sudden appearance of the flood of golden warriors caught Donovan by surprise, and put him even more on guard. However, the sudden chatter over the comms turned his worry away.
It's Arc!
The Golden General's here!
We're saved! The Heroes are with us!
Donovan found himself smiling as the soldiers around him joined the gold images in fighting the Paladins, their newfound morale making them far more effective against the mechs than previous. He combined his spears into their dual-headed configuration, and in combination with his metal arm, began knocking the legs out of any Paladin he could reach. He had reached his fourth Paladin when he noticed a Glyph appear beneath it. Reflexively jumping back, he watched as Glyphs of identical design appeared beneath every Paladin in sight. Suddenly, pointed columns of ice shot from the Glyphs, goring each of the mechs and hoisting them several stories into the air. Some still fruitlessly twitched their limbs, while others hung limp, red spattered on the end of the column. Donovan turned his shocked gaze from the spectacle to behind him, to meet the irregular, three-beat footsteps he heard approaching. From behind them, Weiss Rose parted the sea of golden soldiers, propped on her cane, and a look of exasperation on her face.
"Honestly, that old man is just showing off now," Weiss said, stopping right next to Donovan. "He could have used Pyrrha's ghost to level the entire city, let alone these antiques. Though, I do suppose there is merit in spectacle for a revolutionary effort. Working with Ruby's accustomed me to that much." She turned to Donovan. "Come on, we've got to get to the capital building. Merletta's on her way there. We should use this clearing to move in." Donovan nodded, and Weiss turned to Jahim and the other troops. "The Major and I are going to press forward towards the enemy's stronghold. This street is clear, so fan out and assist other squadrons and collapse on the capital. Move!"
The chorus of soldiers voiced their recognition of the plan, and Jahim caught Donovan's eye as he marched off, both nodding in the knowledge that they'd be fine. Weiss returned her gaze to Donovan. "Let's get moving," she said, moving onward, Donovan slowing his usual gait to match the shorter woman's. Despite knowing better than to stare, he still felt his eyes linger on her metal prosthetic, the artificial leg still not quite accustomed to Weiss's movements, mandating her use of her cane. Weiss noticed him staring, and only smiled at him. "You're curious how it happened, aren't you?"
"Yeah, yeah I am," Donovan admitted. "Nero said you were disabled, he just never clarified how."
"Well, he is Ruby's son, after all." Weiss chuckled. "The girl couldn't finish a story if the ending was set in a cookie-themed paradise." She sighed, smiling. "There's so much of her in that boy. He especially now, he reminds me so much of the old days." She suddenly cleared her throat. "Though, you asked a question, and I'll answer it for you, if only to give us something to do on this long walk to the capital."
"So, you've finally cornered me. You're tenacious little pups, aren't you? Though, 5 versus 1 hardly seems fair."
Adam Taurus stood in a large warehouse, full of boxes and crates, and was surrounded on all sides by Ruby, Jaune, Ren, Nora, and Weiss. He grinned, staring right at Ruby.
"Where is Blake? You're all friends with her," he said, venom prominent in his words. "I would expect you to take care of your own better than that."
"Shut up." Jaune said, staring daggers at Adam. "We all know what you did. Vale is still a mess, thanks to you."
"To me? I merely attacked for a single night. My organization pulled out as soon as that dreadful woman went missing. No, those Dragons are what's got Vale in that state, and kept it there." Adam chuckled, still looking at Ruby. "And who do we have to thank for that?"
"You're stalling." Weiss said, her voice calm, yet filled with anger. "Surrender, and face your death with some dignity."
"Surrender? Now why would I do that?" He snapped his fingers, and the sides of crates surrounding him were kicked out, and numerous White Fang troops ran out, shooting at the Hunters surrounding them. They scattered, and Jaune turned to Ruby. "Ruby! You and Weiss handle Adam! We've got these goons!"
Ruby nodded, her attention returned to Adam, who was easily parrying Weiss's handful of blows. She fired a shot from Crescent Rose, propelling herself forward towards the two. Weiss used a glyph to launch herself upward, and out of the way. Adam, turned, and bracing his blade on his free hand, blocked the impact, his hair glowing faintly. Ruby used her momentum to swing around Adam, spinning in the air, and bringing her blade down onto him. This strike was again blocked, his hair glowing again. Ruby hopped back onto a high platform, and retracted her scythe into gun forme, firing suppressive fire as Adam parried while shooting at Weiss to keep her from advancing. Ruby continued firing until she heard a haunting click, as her repeated attempts to fire yielded nothing in return. Adam smiled upon hearing the sound, and suddenly closed the distance on Weiss, avoiding or deflecting fire from her glyphs. He slashed and fired rapidly, and despite Weiss' best efforts at blocking, she was quickly overwhelmed and knocked to the ground. Adam moved to make the killing blow, when another shot rang out, narrowly missing him. It turned his attention back to Ruby, and made him once again split his focus. As he noticed Weiss begin to rise, he looked up, noticing a hanging crate over her. He grinned as he shot the supporting ropes, causing the box to fall. Weiss was barely able to react, but her attempt to roll to safety didn't get her far enough. The crate landed on nearly the entirety of her right leg, a sickening crunch being heard as the box settled. Weiss screamed, resting on her back as she attempted to think anything through the overwhelming pain. Ruby immediately flared in anger, using her semblance to begin to dash at Adam as he sheathed his blade. Ruby begun transforming her scythe right as Adam dropped into a low stance, preparing to draw his blade, and beginning to grin devilishly. She read the scenario and barely managed to raise her half transformed weapon in time to attempt to stop Adam from unleashing his semblance-charged blow. The strike glanced off of Crescent Rose as it destroyed the weapon, and the tip of the blade surged across her abdomen, leaving an enormous gash on her stomach that begun to bleed heavily. She landed hard, and clutched a hand to her midsection to try to stop the flow of blood as she looked at Adam. He had begun walking back to Weiss, the trapped girl unable to do anything but scream. Just as he raised his blade, and Ruby had begun to scream with her, a shot rang out and hit Adam in the back, knocking him over. Ruby turned to the doorway, and standing in it, was the leader of the Dragons herself, Stardust, along with her right hand woman, both clad in their masks. The barrel on one of Stardust's gauntlets smoked as she lowered her arm and began walking forward. She stopped by Ruby, before removing her jacket, and using a blade from the fractured Crescent Rose, cut one of the sleeves into a long strip that she tied tightly around Ruby's giant wound.
"Keep pressure on it, this'll only help it. The gash isn't all that deep, so just stem the bloodflow." Stardust said, before turning her attention to Adam. Her companion began walking forward, but she stuck her mechanical arm out, stopping her.
"No, this fuck's mine. I still owe him one for this." She said, waggling her arm.
"But-" the other woman began to protest.
"Nope! Go help the others mop up the fodder. He's mine, Blake."
"Blake?" Adam said, turing his gaze to the two. "You're the head of the Dragons! How do you know Blake?"
The women removed their masks, revealing a quite angry looking Blake, and an even angrier looking Yang.
"What?" Adam asked, shocked by the reveal.
'Surprise, asshole. We're back." Yang said.
"Y-Yang… you're here…" Ruby whimpered.
"Yep." Yang said, her tone and face unflinching. "I lied to you. Sorry about that, Rubes, but what kinda big sister lets her baby sister fight all the battles by herself?" She returned her gaze to Adam. "I know how you work now. And now that you've blown your big flashy slash on failing to kill my sister, you've got nothing to deal with me." She opened the fingers on her prosthetic, the arm's signature lightning arcing between the metal fingers. Adam's face twisted in disgust.
"You huntresses don't know when to stay down. I'll have no qualms with cutting you down again, and again, and again, until you finally understand."
"Sorry shithead," Yang said, beginning to walk towards him. Adam shouted angrily as he swung his blade at Yang, who caught it in between two fingers on her metal arm. "I don't know what you're trying to make me understand, but it's probably a load of shit anyway." She tore the sword out of his hand, throwing it aside. "I've got a mob to run, I've got people to protect, and I've got people like you to snuff out. So I'm a little low on time to 'understand' any of the shit you're trying to spit at me. Here's what you need to understand." Yang punched Adam in the throat, sending him stumbling backward, gasping for air as he fell. "This place is where you die. You'll lie here, forgotten, until someone bored enough decides that the stench has gotten bad enough."
Adam got to his feet, still clutching his scabbard with everything he had left. He changed it to it's rifle configuration and pointed it at the still kneeling Ruby, who looked up in fear. "Don't move!"
"That's about what I expected." Yang deadpanned. "That saying about the cornered rat or something."
"This isn't over, this never will be over!" Adam shouted. "I'm walking out of here, right now, or your little silver-eyed warrior gets another hole put in her head." Yang tensed, but was confused at the sudden scent of burning flesh. Her gaze wandered to behind Adam, and her resolve softened. She stretched her hand out without thinking, before her eyes shot open wide at her mistake. Adam grinned, but found there was no sensation as he attempted to pull the trigger. He looked to the firearm, and found it lying on the floor, along with the rest of his arm. He turned, to find a giant blade in the hand of an armoured limb, emerging from a glyph manifested in the air. He turned further, to see Weiss Schnee, propped on her sword, having amputated her leg and burned the wound shut with fire Dust. Wordlessly, Adam turned in time to see Yang surging forward, the same limb he had cut off poised to strike him. Yang's fist collided with his chest, and with a crack of lightning, his entire torso violently exploded, scattering pieces of gore across the warehous. Weiss saw that the battle was over, closed her eyes, and collapsed as Ruby ran toward her. She swore she heard someone yelling her name.
"After that, I woke up in a hospital, several days later. Everyone had been worried sick," Weiss concluded with a sigh. "Though, everything had to be reconstructed for me. I barely remember it, I lost so much blood."
Donovan gave a mortified chuckle. "Man, I can't imagine Ruby was pleased with you."
Weiss gave a hearty laugh. "It's one of the only three times I've ever seen her genuinely angry at anything not trying to kill her. Once when Nero beat a kid up at school when he was young, once at me, and once at Yang when she killed Cinder Fall."
"Ruby was mad over that? Wasn't she the one who killed Ms. Nikos?"
Weiss nodded. "Ruby didn't like killing people, no matter what. The only reason she wasn't mad about Adam was because of how much she was mad at me, she kind of forgot to. She's too sweet for her own good, y'know? She gave up working for over a year when we had Nero, and when we had Echo, it took over a month of convincing for her to let me carry the baby." Weiss sighed. "I can't wait to go home, to get back to her. She's probably worried sick."
"Me either," Donovan said, thinking back to the photo on his scroll.
The two reached the door to the capital building, where Jay was firing at Paladins from a distance with her suit's cannons. When she spied the other two, she exited the larger suit, remaining in just her standard armour.
"Are you two okay?" Jay asked the two as they approached. "Where's Jahim?"
"We're all fine, he's leading the charge to clean out the rest of the Paladins." Donovan said.
"It looks like it'll be just us from here on out," Weiss said. "Be prepared."
Both nodded, and readied themselves. On Weiss' signal, Jay kicked the door down, and the three ran inside the building. The inside of the capital building was spacious, despite being a single room. It served as a half meeting hall, half throne room for the monarch that Schnee really was. At the end of the long room, the dictator's desk sat, the chair turned to face the wall. Weiss walked toward the desk, stopping halfway across the room.
"Father!" she shouted at the desk, and in response, the giant, high back chair began to swivel around. In the chair, was Weiss' father, long dried blood coating his jacket, and insects beginning to crawl on his corpse. He had easily been dead for days, if not weeks. As Weiss let out a gasp, slow clapping began to resonate through the room. From behind the chair, walked a man of moderate height, clad in a long black coat, and a mask with red eyelenses. Horns poked out of his skull, and a slender, curved sword sat on his hip. His clawed fingers continued clapping as he strode in front of the desk. He spoke through a voice filter, the robotic voice filling the room as the clapping ceased.
"Man, I was beginning to worry all that talk of you war heroes was smoke and mirrors. It's good to see some of you have made it through the antiques I brought with me." He looked directly at Weiss, and chuckled. "And I love who showed up. Two thorns in my side, and daddy's little girl herself." Weiss tensed at the language, her anger showing. "Oh, did I strike a nerve? That's fine. I just find it ironic, is all. The person who showed up to pull this bastard out of power is just another Schnee. What a load of change. Even then, she had to get the littler Schnee to do the dirty work, huh?"
"I…" Weiss drew her sword, her face twisting into an angry grimace. She spawned a Glyph, surging toward him, tip aimed at his throat, "am not a Schnee!"
As the tip would have hit his neck, the terrorist once again became intangible, sidestepping the attack before regaining his mass and encircling his hand around her throat.
"Ah, my apologies. I know what you are." He slammed her headfirst into the desk, her unconscious form crumpling to the ground. "An amateur."
"You bastard!" Jay angrily shouted. Donovan, however, was entranced towards the symbol on the terrorist's chest, his horns, the way he moved, everything. He lowered his weapons, speaking calmly and steadily.
"Cole… Cole I know that's you. Take off that damned mask."
"Cole?" Jay asked Donovan, more confused than ever. "You know him?"
The terrorist chuckled. "I was wondering when you'd be around. I knew it wouldn't last long." He undid the clasps on his mask, tossing it to the ground. Beneath it lied cold brown eyes, skin the same shade as Donovan's and three jagged scars of a clawed strike slashed across his face. "I'm glad though. Now, I can finally just kill you for knowing who I am, and not have to worry about any bullshit from the Lady. There's no beasts to save you this time, Donnie. I'll have your skin this time." His tone was manic now. Jay's eyes had gone wide, the face being too burned into her memory for her not to recognize. She turned to Donovan for answers, but he only raised his own weapon.
"We'll see about that, won't we, brother?"