I watched the series Finale of Adventure Time and teared up a little.
Anyways, here's a chap for you lovelies!
Ruby continued to bounce her leg in unfiltered anxiousness as she sat on the Belladonna's couch.
When Ruby informed the rest of the women that Weiss needed help, Blake wasted no time in offering her home as their meeting place. So there they were... patiently waiting for the two Schnee women to arrive at the Belladonna's to tell them just what the heck was going on.
After getting a rather alarming phone call from Weiss which vaguely insinuated that the white-haired girl was in an unfavourable situation, Ruby couldn't help but worry about what they were in for. She figured that it must have been something serious, especially if Weiss was actually calling on all of them for help.
Of course, the redhead was glad that Weiss was actually relying on her and their friends when she was in need. However, that didn't take away from the fact that she felt uneasy at the thought of the former heiress being in trouble.
"Jeez, Rubes. You're going to give me whiplash if you keep shaking your leg like that."
"Then move, woman!" Ruby retorted as she dramatically turned to her Ma sitting next to her on the couch. "I'm ready to start an 8.5 magnitude earthquake with my bouncing leg!"
Raven simply stared back at the redhead with an incredulous, but mildly entertained expression. The dark-haired woman's face was scrunched up in utter confusion, with her mouth slightly ajar. It would seem that Raven decided not to continue on with the conversation, and just let the hyperactive girl be.
Ruby then watched as her Ma leaned against Summer, who was on the other side of the dark-haired woman, and muttered something about how weird Ruby could be when she's relatively upset. In response, Summer playfully smacked the Branwen woman on the shoulder and told her to 'hush!'
The agitated redhead simply leaned back into the couch with a semi-permanent pout. She probably seemed pretty upset because no one even bothered to openly tease her about her actions (which she knew were really childish, but she didn't care at the moment). The longer she waited for the former heiress to show up, the more she played out increasingly outrageous scenarios in her mind about the white-haired girl's situation.
One of which involved gang relations, Beowolves, and the threat of kidnapping and ransom.
Suddenly, the front door creaking! open caused Ruby to whip her head towards the sound. She waited with bated breath as she heard three sets of footsteps approach the living room. First, it was Sienna who came into view, but once she saw a familiar head of white hair, Ruby all but pounced on them from the couch.
"Wha-ommf!"
"Weiss!" Ruby exclaimed as she wrapped her arms around the short girl's shoulders, and held her tight. "Is everything okay? Are you hurt?! Is there a gang of Beowolves threatening to kidnap you for ransom!? Why aren't you saying anything! Am I holding you too tight-?!"
"Ruby?"
Ruby's eyes flew wide open when she heard her name being called. By Weiss. Who the young girl thought was currently in her arms.
The redhead then stopped her bombardment of questions when she realized that she was, in fact, not dramatically embracing Weiss.
This was attributed to the fact that Weiss was behind the said woman that Ruby was physically holding at the moment. The former heiress herself simply stared on at the scene with exasperated mirth. The white-haired girl had a brow quirked at the younger girl, and the smallest trace of a smile that threatened to make its way onto her lips. Ruby, on the other hand, probably held an expression of horror as she realized who she basically glomped!
Thank GOD I didn't blindly kiss her!
She immediately jumped back from the woman in her arms, and began to apologize for literally everything that she could think of - even for things that were completely irrelevant to the situation.
"Ahhh! Ohmygosh! Ms. Schnee I'm so sorry for invading your personal space like this! I just thought you were Weiss because the both of you have really nice white hair and you're basically the same height, with the same petite build and- wow you guys look so much alike now that I think about it..." She paused as she got lost in that thought, but then abruptly continued on with her stress-induced word vomit. "And, AND-!"
Ruby melodramatically gasped when she saw the eyepatch on Viktoria's right eye.
"Ms. Schnee, what happened to your- ACK!"
Before she could even finish her question, Weiss had grabbed the redhead by her collar and pulled her backwards. She then found herself being roughly pushed down onto one of the recliner chairs in the living room.
She let out a 'youch!' when the former heiress flicked her forehead, rather hard; but shortly afterwords displayed a confused grin when Weiss immediately pressed her lips on the part of Ruby's forehead that had been flicked.
When Weiss pulled away, she simply huffed. "Let my mother speak, you dolt."
"Heh... sorry."
When they both turned their heads to face the Schnee woman, the girls were met with a slightly surprised but kind expression. Then, Viktoria silently made her way towards Ruby's previous spot on the couch, while Weiss herself decided to sit on the recliner's armrest beside the redhead.
Ruby's gaze briefly flitted towards the third person who arrived with the Schnee women.
Sienna comfortably perched herself atop one of Blake's countertops by the kitchen area, next to the bumblebee pair who were sitting on the stools by the said counter. The Bengal Tigress held an unreadable expression that almost made her look like she was bored, but continued to watch as Viktoria seemed to be thinking about how she was going to explain what was going on .
Everyone then watched the white-haired woman with anticipation as she opened her mouth to speak.
"A lot has happened within the past few hours which made me realize that things need to change." Viktoria slowly began. Ruby took notice of how worn out the woman sounded, and studied her carefully as she spoke. The Schnee Matron looked off into the distance with an expression that the redhead couldn't quite figure out. If she took a guess, it seemed like Viktoria held a gaze full of regret.
There was also a sense of ferocity and anger lying dormant within her expression. But it wasn't the type of anger that was spiteful.
It was the type of anger driven by determination.
"And these changes are long past overdue..." the Schnee Matron continued on as she held everybody's attention. "I have let Jacques control my life, and the lives of the people whom I hold dear for far too long." Viktoria stared at her daughter with an apologetic gaze. "And now, he's threatening my daughter's happiness, and all of your livelihoods. I've decided that I care for you all too deeply to let him do whatever he wants. His tyranny needs to stop."
The Schnee Matron then slowly stared at everybody in the room, and communicated with her gaze just how determined she truly was about her words.
"So please, bear with me, and lend me your strength."
Suddenly, Summer stood up and walked over to Viktoria's side of the couch. Ruby and the others watched as her Mom crouched in front of the woman, and gently placed a hand atop Viktoria's own.
"We've always been ready to help you, Vi." Summer stated as she smiled at the Schnee. "We're going to get you through this."
"I second that notion." Raven chimed in, with a wicked smirk. However, the dark-haired woman's facial expression soon took a more serious turn. "But... you still got some explaining to do, Vi. What do you mean that Jacques is threatening our livelihoods..." she then grabbed the woman's chin and tilted it to the side to get a good look at her injury. "and what happened to your eye."
Viktoria moved her head away from Raven's hand, and exhaled slowly. Ruby observed as the Schnee woman directed her gaze towards the younger Schnee in the room. Weiss simply nodded.
"Let me explain." Weiss began. Everyone directed their attention towards the white-haired girl, and patiently waited as she collected her thoughts. Soon, the girl let out a deep breath, and started to answer Raven's questions.
"In order to control me, Jacques presented me with an ultimatum; which was to choose between Ruby or publicly announcing an engagement to Salem's daughter. He threatened the safety of your family if I didn't choose Cinder."
"What."
"What?!"
Both of the Rose-Xiao Long sisters interrupted. However, one of the girls had expressed genuine shock, whereas the other sister expressed rage.
It was Ruby who felt unadulterated animosity while she listened to the white-haired girl's words.
"Rubes..." Raven interjected, with a warning edge in her voice, "let Weiss finish her explanation." Ruby begrudgingly complied, and decided to take out her anger on one of the chair's armrests. She gripped onto the damn thing so tightly that her knuckles began to go white. She didn't really care if she was damaging the chair at the moment. She was too pissed.
She was pissed at Jacques, for putting Weiss through this ordeal.
And she was also pissed at herself, for not noticing that Weiss was even going through an ordeal!
Suddenly, she felt Weiss' hand gently cover her own; which resulted in some of her anger dissipating. The former heiress rubbed small circles on the back of her hand as she continued on with her explanation of what was going on.
"Of course, I chose Ruby, regardless of what Jacques would throw my way." Weiss declared softly. "But when it became apparent that I wasn't deterred by Jacques' threat, he made the decision to hire a number of Salem's henchmen to destroy your weapons shop. It was supposed to serve as some kind of 'warning' to show me what he was capable of doing."
The white-haired girl began to scowl. "Instead, I let my anger overtake me and ended up confronting him about it back at the Schnee Manor. Things began to escalate, and he raised his hand against me..." Weiss trailed off, but then directed her gaze at Viktoria. "That was when my mother jumped in. Literally. She went between us and took the brunt of Jacques' violent outburst."
"She protected me."
After Weiss was done with explaining what had happened, everyone simply sat there in shocked silence, trying to digest the story.
It was Blake who broke the silence.
"So you're saying that Jacques was the one who hurt your mother..."
Weiss nodded. "Yes."
"Oh no..." the Cat-Faunus muttered under her breath. "When mom finds out-"
BAM!
The sound of the front door slamming open startled everybody in the Belladonna's living room. Soon, Ruby could hear hurried footsteps, along with a mildly panicked voice.
"I-I came as soon as I could. What's all this about Weiss and Viktoria needing help-!?" Kali stopped mid-sentence when she saw Viktoria's eye.
"What happened."
All was silent yet again in the living room... and again it was the younger Cat-Faunus who broke that silence.
"She's going to freak out."
"She's going to freak out."
Well that's an understatement, Summer thought to herself as she watched the elder Belladonna with bated breath. When the redhead briefly flitted her gaze to the rest of the women in the room, they also seemed to brace themselves for the storm that was to come. But once Summer laid her eyes on Viktoria, she took notice of how the Schnee looked off to the side to try and hide her affected eye.
Kali simply repeated herself calmly. However, everyone knew that there was nothing calm about the Belladonna Matron's demeanour. Anyone could see that the woman was about ready to explode.
"What happened?"
Summer sighed, and took it upon herself to answer the Cat-Faunus woman. "Viktoria got hurt trying to protect Weiss from Jacques and- where are you going?!"
The redhead couldn't even finish her sentence before Kali began storming out of the living room. Raven abruptly stood up to stop the woman, but was beat to it by one Sienna Khan. Summer then watched as the Bengal Tigress grabbed the back of Kali's shirt and whipped her backwards. The Cat-Faunus automatically lifted her arm to elbow the other Faunus woman in the face, but Sienna swiftly dodged the attack.
"Let me go!"
Sienna scoffed, "And where the hell do you think you're going?"
"I'm going to-!"
"Going to what?" the Bengal Tigress interrupted, clearly not having it. "Punch Jacques freaking Schnee in the face? How well do you think that's going to go?"
"I'll let you know after I've done it!"
Suddenly, Ruby shot up from her seat and matched Kali with her anger. "Let's go punch Jacques freaking Schnee together, Miss Belladonna!"
"You will do no such thing, Ruby Rose!" Summer interjected, with authority.
"But MOM!"
"Sit. Down!"
Ruby's gusto immediately dissipated when Summer went into 'serious mom mode.' The young girl just sat back down and grumbled incoherently under her breath. However, once Weiss started to offer Ruby some comforting words, her daughter's mood seemed to have lightened a little bit.
Shortly after, Summer's attention returned back to the Faunus sisters, but the bubbling tension between them was still present. She looked over to her wife to see how she was dealing with the situation, but she seemed just as lost as Summer herself. She had a feeling that if either of them jumped in to physically hold Kali back, the Faunus woman would snap.
"Why are you even here, Sienna?"
The Bengal Tigress exhaled sharply, "I was the one who treated Viktoria's wound."
"You were there?!" Kali growled, "Why didn't you do anything!"
"Did I not just say that I tended to Viktoria's wound?"
"That's not what I meant-!"
"I wasn't there to protect Viktoria." Sienna stated matter-of-factly. "I happened to be there because I'm Salem's bodyguard. And I wasn't about to go and raise my hand against Jacques Schnee." There was a venomous edge laced within the Faunus' voice when she uttered the man's name.
Sienna laughed scornfully. "Do you really think I'm going to risk my own damn livelihood by letting people speculate about how I, Sienna Khan - the former high leader of the White Fang, had the audacity to get 'physically violent' with the head of the Schnee household? The very household that paints our kind as violent creatures?"
Kali set her jaw, and silently stared back at her older sister. Even the two Schnee women couldn't say anything against the Bengal Tigress' words.
"No."
"Exactly." Sienna stated, shoving the Cat-Faunus back into the living room. "Now sit down and listen to what Viktoria has to say. If you actually stood still for a second and let her talk, then you would know that she has a plan to deal with Jacques."
Everyone whipped their head towards Viktoria after Sienna revealed that fact.
"You're actually going to go against Jacques?" The Belladonna Matron asked incredulously.
Hell, even Summer and Raven were staring on at the Schnee woman in mild disbelief.
Viktoria held their gazes with a sense of renewed determination.
"Yeah. I am."
"No way!"
Weiss swatted at her girlfriend who interrupted the white-haired girl's older sister as she explained what Jacques had done to their grandfather. Not too long after the dispute between the Belladonna-Khan sisters, Winter had made an appearance too. When she showed up, their mother had questioned her sister where a man named Qrow was. Apparently, he couldn't be bothered to actually leave his bed so he passed on task of explaining everything to Winter.
She wasted no time in informing them of the entire situation. She made sure to include the lies and the elaborate schemes that Jacques had done to obtain the Schnee heritage.
Weiss had to admit that she was also shocked about the revelation herself when Viktoria told her. So she didn't blame Ruby for reacting in such a way.
But what was more daunting than Jacques' schemes was the very scheme that they were about to pull on the man himself.
"I don't get it." Sienna interjected, "Why don't you just let Jacques know that you know what he did to Nicholas, and go to the cops right now?"
"If it were that simple, we wouldn't be having this meeting." Winter, rather rudely, retorted. Weiss quirked a brow at her sister for answering the Faunus woman in such a way, but decided to stay quiet. The elder Schnee daughter caught herself immediately, and simply huffed. "I'm sorry, I don't mean to be rude... its just, when it comes to taking down high profile people like Jacques, we have to be extremely careful with the information that we have against him."
Sienna nodded, and gestured for the girl to go on.
"Jacques has some serious connections within the Justice System here in Vale." Winter continued, "If we confront him first, then that gives him the time to retrieve the right kind of back up from the people who stand behind him in the Justice System. However, if we blindly expose him to the wrong person within the System then-"
"Then that person would probably inform Jacques of our plan, and help him cover it up..." Sienna finished.
"Precisely."
"But the way you guys want to expose him is pretty crazy." Raven chimed in, with a voice that bordered between bewilderment and entertainment. "I mean, you basically want to throw him under the bus at one of his own parties, and a lot of his business associates are going to be there. How are you sure that they're not just gonna band together?"
"Jacques has many business associates that he even meets with socially," Viktoria joined in. "In reality they truly loathe the man, but he's way too powerful for anyone to openly display how they feel about him. If anything, we're giving them a concrete reason to express their hatred for him."
Ruby then hummed in understanding. "Ohhhh! And if the elitists have an openly negative opinion on him, then the System might be pressed to actually find him guilty for what he did! The general public already hates him too... so that's going to help a tonne!"
"That's what we are hoping for, yes." Weiss added on. "We need to create enough of an upset so that his scandal won't be ignored or covered up."
The room fell silent once more, as everyone seemed to slowly process what was happening.
The white-haired girl then turned her head towards Coco, who let out a low whistle after they explained what was going down. "You Schnee's have quite the affinity for dramatics..." the fashionista playfully commented.
Weiss rolled her eyes at the brunette. But then Coco's demeanour took a more serious turn. "But a lot of big name business associates are going to be at the event that Jacques is hosting. Despite the fact that they hate him, The SDC might end up losing some major connections, especially if they don't like the stunt that you're going to pull on him. I'm not saying that you shouldn't go through with this plan, but there's a lot of risk."
"It's a risk we're willing to take." Weiss responded without hesitation. She looked over to the other Schnee's in the vicinity, and they nodded in affirmation. The small gestures were enough to completely solidify the white-haired girl's resolve.
The former heiress then directed her gaze towards each person in the room, and communicated through her eyes that she was nothing but serious about their plan. Everyone else silently reciprocated Weiss' resolve, with a mixture of apprehension, excitement, and raging determination.
Something seemed to well up inside her when she saw the undeterred fury in Viktoria's gaze.
"Then mark this on your calendars, everyone." Weiss continued on. "In exactly seven days..."
The white-haired girl let out an uncharacteristic, wicked smirk.
"We're taking Jacques down!"
*It's the final countdown plays as they plan to give Jacques some well-deserved comeuppance xD**
Welp, that was another chapter :P I hope you guys enjoyed it!
And please, don't hesitate to give me some feedback about the fic! My ears are always open to the opinions of you readers :) If you don't want to leave feedback and just casually comment then that's fine too! I actually love reading how the story makes y'all feel after you read a new chapter :P Motivates me to play with your emotions even more~
LOL, and I hope everybody is having a good week back to school!
Until Next Time,
MediocreWriter.