Weiss watched with satisfaction as Ren took her wordless cue and leaped with amazing agility from ice peak to ice peak, slicing the Grimm with StormFlower into clean-cut halves, before they disappeared into a cloud of nothingness. Just as quickly as he appeared, Ren vanished into the thicket of Grimm, slashing and shooting them in a blur. Just as well, because Weiss could easily hear the snarling of an angry Alpha Grimm stomping up behind her. With a pirouette so effortlessly perfect it would make professional ballerinas weep, Weiss spun out of the way of the rampaging beast but swung Myrtenaster with her to slice the Grimm across its belly. It roared in agony as thick foul smelling viscous liquid spilled from its insides and it snarled in anger, ready to tear Weiss limb from limb. It never got the chance as with a pull of the trigger, a burst of fire dust engulfed the Alpha, sending into screeching agony before it burned to death and dissipated into nothingness.
"Wow, they really rolled out the welcome wagon for you, huh?" Ruby joked, appearing by Weiss' side in a poof of rose petals.
"Hmph, must you always crack wise in the middle of a battle?" Weiss scolded with half-seriousness. Ruby just grinned.
"I wouldn't be me if I didn't, Weiss!" she said giving a thumbs up and disappeared in another poof of rose petals. Weiss watched as a red blur sliced through the Grimm with ease, bouncing like a flowery pinball from target to target, eviscerating anything in her path. It was impressive, to say the least. Her methods were unconventional but Weiss could in no way doubt the effectiveness of Ruby Rose.
"Take a picture, it'll last longer." came Yang's voice. She spoke with a casualness like this was a typical Sunday dinner, though she had literally just finished snapping a Borbatusk's neck with her bare hands. Blake was behind her, picking off a few errant Beowolves with carefully timed shots from the broken Gambol Shroud.
"Does everyone in your family have to make wisecracks at inopportune times?" Weiss demanded. Yang shrugged.
"Must be in the Xiao-Long genes," she said simply. Weiss opened her mouth to make a snarky remark when her Scroll began to buzz with Ruby's ringtone.
"Yes?" Weiss said, holding the device to her ear.
"WEISS! Bad news! A pack of Grimm just broke through the front gates of Schnee Manor! You gotta get here quick!" Ruby yelled over the sounds of StormFlower and Magnhild's destruction and she quickly disconnected to join the fray.
"Looks like we better get going," Yang said firmly. "Lead the way?" Weiss' hand was shaking slightly as she sheathed Myrtenaster, though it had nothing to do with the Grimm, but everything about returning to the Manor. She had worked so hard to escape that prison of marble and glass and she was about to go back. And for what? To save Jacques? Whitley? For the briefest of moments, a dark thought popped up in her mind about leaving the both of them, but she quickly snuffed it out. No, she was better than that. She is a Huntress and she will show Jacques what that means.
"Follow me," she said, her nerves now under control and the trio was off to help the others.
Weiss, Yang, and Blake arrived to find a scene of what could only be described as chaos. Dismembered Atlesian Knights scattered the ground, their circuits and wiring occasionally sparking, their weapons smashed or discarded to the gutters. Jaune was fending off viscous swipes from a Beringel, it's claws clanging loudly against Crocea Mors' shield.
"A little help?!" he yelled to no one in particular. Nora and Ren were tied up with a massive King Taijitu, dodging both heads and getting in their shots when they could and Qrow and Oscar (mostly Qrow) were dealing with Beowolves who were clawing at the cast iron gates of the Manor.
"Where's Ruby?!" Yang demanded and as if on cue, the sound of Crescent Rose firing echoed as Ruby somersaulted to the ground, neatly landing in a three-point position as a massive Nevermore crashed behind her. "Never mind. What's the plan, sis?"
"First thing, we help Jaune. Weiss? Ice Flower!" Ruby ordered. Weiss nodded and cast up a massive, ornate glyph and pointed it towards the hulking Grimm. Ruby dropped to one knee, swapped out one magazine for another with expert timing, and fired off several ice rounds that were greatly amplified by the Schnee glyph. The ice blasts smacked right into the evil primate and it was soon covered in the semi-transparent sheen of dust enhanced ice. It wouldn't hold for long, as the beast was already straining against its icy prison, but it was all the time needed for Jaune to slice the creature's head off with a mighty swing of Crocea Mors. Both halves of the Grimm fell to the ground and wafted away into darkly colored specs.
"Thanks…" Jaune gasped in between breaths. "Did you check on Nora and Ren?" And as if to answer that, a huge explosion rocked everyone followed by the crack of thunder as Nora squealed with delight, bringing the heavy head of Magnhild right on the left head of the double-headed serpentine Grimm, causing the right one to roar in pain, only to have its throat slit by the handle of StormFlower. "Or that could happen," Jaune said sarcastically. "Weiss, have you checked in on your family?"
"Not yet," she said with a head shake. "We ran over here to answer Ruby's distress call and I haven't been inside yet. The gates are down, but the front door seems to be holding up."
"Go in and check on them," Nora added, walking up to the group. "We'll hold down the fort out here and won't let anything get in."
Team RWBY dashed up the curvy driveway to the front door of the Manor to find the heavy oak doors to be locked tightly. Weiss tried punching in the access code, but it buzzed for an incorrect sequence.
"Figures he'd change the code…" she muttered to herself. She tried knocking several times, yelling for Klein to open the door, but no reply.
"Don't suppose he left a key under the doormat, huh?" Yang quipped. "No? Then let me use my key." and with a devilish smirk, the blonde brawler reared her cybernetic arm back and punched through the door with a thunderous crack. She fumbled around the other side of the door to find the lock and with a soft click, the massive door swung open. Weiss braced herself, half expecting to see shredded remains of her family or destruction and damage to priceless Schnee heirlooms, but there was nothing. At least, nothing out of the ordinary. There wasn't even a single speck of dust, as everything was in the right place, tidy and organized. The soft sounds of classical music seemed to be coming from the ballroom down the main hall. Wordlessly, Weiss began to walk towards this music, the rest of her team shrugging and following her.
If there was a war with Grimm outside, you would never notice it here. The upper crust of Atlesian elite society was making small talk, enjoying expensive hors d'oeuvres and drinking glasses of vintage champagne and wine, while a full orchestra performed. And there in the middle, surrounded by the same brown-nosing sycophants that Weiss had grown to loathe, was Jacques Schnee.
"Ah, the prodigal daughter returns." he mused, putting his glass down on a nearby table. "I was wondering when you would return. Come to your senses?"
"What…what are you doing?!" Weiss yelled. "There is a war outside, Grimm are attacking everyone and you're here having a party?!"
"Oh, the little dustup outside? Hardly worth noting. The SDC has been working on special Grimm repellant technology that masks any potential negative emotions. As of now, it's currently in the beta stage, but as you can see, it works perfectly. Of course, it would only be available for those are willing to pay the cost." Jacques said smugly. "You would know all of this if you hadn't abandoned me."
"Abandoned you?!" Weiss erupted with rage. "You imprisoned me! You gave me nothing but misery because I wouldn't obey your every word." Jacques said nothing, but reared his hand back and slapped Weiss hard across the face. The rest of RWBY, especially Ruby, immediately reached for their weapons, but Weiss held up a hand to tell them to stay where they are. This was her fight.
"Was that supposed to hurt?" she sneered. Jacque's eyebrow twitched with rage.
"What I gave you was a life of luxury, you ignorant brat! I gave you silks, pearls, diamonds, perfumes, money…a future with the greatest company in the world! And you forsake it all to play dress up with some underclass scum?!"
"You never gave me LOVE!" Weiss screamed with hot tears in her eyes. The mood had turned sour, the entire party now staring at this altercation. "And these 'underclass scum' as you call them? I would trust them with life. They are my family now, not you. Yang, Blake and especially Ruby, mean more to me than any amount of Lien you can throw at me, you heartless ghoul."
As if that were a command, Ruby quickly scampered next to Weiss, taking her hand in her own and squeezing it tightly. Weiss smiled warmly at this and, much to everyone's surprise including Ruby's gave the team leader a gentle peck on the cheek. Ruby's cheeks burned hot.
"Ladies. Gentlemen. You have eaten well. You have eaten Atlas' wealth. It's spirit. Your feast is nearly over. From this moment on, none of you are safe. There is a threat far greater than anything you could ever imagine and my friends and I will fight it with everything we have." Weiss said. "Come, Ruby. Let's take the rest of the team and be on our way."
"You expect to simply stride in here, disrupt this party, destroy my property and expect to leave?!" Jacques bellowed.
"Uh, basically?" Yang replied, flipping him off and popping on her aviators. "Later, gramps."
"You are going nowhere!" Jacques ordered. "I have the full might of the Atlesian military at my command!"
"Ha, that's nothing," Ruby replied. "We have a Nora."
Another loud explosion echoed through the manor, followed by a frantic conversation between Jaune and Nora from just outside the front door.
"NORA! You didn't have to blow up that statue!"
"It was looking at me funny, Jaune!"
"It's a statue it can't look any other way than what it does now!"
"So if you excuse me, Jacques," Weiss said, letting his name drip off her tongue with an acidic bite, "My friends and I shall be leaving."
And they walked right out of the Manor, leaving Jacques and the guests speechless and full of impotent shock. Weiss held Ruby's hand firmly in her own, as the sun began to set across the Atlas sky.
"You okay?" Ruby asked. Weiss rested her head on Ruby's shoulder and gently closed her eyes.
"Honestly? I'm better than ever."