(AUTHOR'S NOTE: So, in my original outline of the story, the events of this week's chapter and last week's chapter were all just one chapter. As I wrote it out… I realized there was no way in hell that would work, and divided it into two.

Problem is, I alternate perspectives each chapter, and letting the reader gain access to Torchwick's head during the events of such an intimate chapter would produce minor spoilers for some stuff to come. Long story short, I had to write two consecutive chapters from the same perspective. Just wanted to establish why I broke the pattern.

Thanks as always for your continued support! Let me know if you want me to continue.)

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Weiss Schnee

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Weiss' eyes fluttered open slowly, but what waited on the other side of her eyelids was even more intense darkness. For a moment her breath caught itself in her throat, and she feared that she wasn't as awake as she'd believed, but she calmed somewhat when she realized that her other senses were working normally. She could hear the sound of liquid dripping from the ceiling, and taste the cool air her body steadily drew in.

More than anything, she could feel the tremendous warmth pressed firmly against the front of her body, and smell a sweet aroma that surrounded her on all sides. It was like she was embraced by an aura of spiced vanilla and pipe tobacco... heavy, though not overpowering, comfortable, and familiar. Indeed, though Weiss was certain she'd never encountered it before, the scent brought about a wistful feeling of nostalgia for her.

Ah, yes. She'd fallen down a hole. Refocusing on her senses helped her brain to finally process everything that had happened before she lost consciousness. Collapsing the tunnel probably broke the mirrors that had been lighting up the deeper recesses of the cave, too. No wonder it was so dark.

She expected to feel pain, but instead her body only tingled. Her thoughts were lucid enough that she felt like herself, but they were a little foggy and forced, as well. It was a state of mind that reminded her of when the dentist put her under nitrous oxide as a child- she just vaguely felt pleasant and unfiltered.

"That's right. I'm 'Weiss'." She repeated the realization she'd had in her dream and smiled softly. Were she thinking clearly it might have upset her a little to think about why that was a revelation, but in her altered state it just made her happy to remember. She felt like she was floating in the air, attached to something warm and fragrant that was gradually lifting her upward.

"Oh? You finally awake, Ice Queen?" Torchwick's voice, but she didn't just hear it, she felt it. As he spoke, his words seemed to vibrate against her cheek. It was this sensation that helped her finally realize where she was: she was pressed against his back!

Tied to it, more precisely. She could tell by the feeling of momentum that they were slowly traveling upward. In the darkness, it was impossible to tell exactly how, but she was was wrapped in some sort of soft fabric. Multiple strips of cloth were tied around her waist, her shoulders, and both her legs, securing her to Torchwick's form in such a way that he could commit all his limbs to climbing without fear of her falling.

"Mhm..." She murmured in a sleepy, happy tone. "I apologize for worrying you. Are you well?"

Her eyes were mostly useless in this intense darkness, so she allowed them to close, focusing on the sound of Torchwick's boots sliding against the stony wall as he groped in the darkness for hand and footholds, and slowly pulled them upward.

Despite the darkness, the danger, and the head trauma- or perhaps because of the latter- she just couldn't escape the giddy joy that warmed her stomach. Being alive felt so good, tonight!

"Oh, I'm just peachy." Torchwick sighed, clearly perplexed by her good cheer. "You should really consider my feelings before you go bungee jumping. I'd be moderately inconvenienced if you kicked the bucket, you know."

The bitter sarcasm of his words did little to mask his clear relief that she'd regained consciousness, though. Weiss' thoughts fell back to the little girl he'd befriended as a child. Her own relationship with Torchwick was one born entirely out of mutual necessity, and until recently she'd that that was the only kind of bond he was capable of forming. She still wasn't sure what she thought of him, having seen his past.

"If it bothers you so much, try to catch me next time." She replied, reflecting the same concerned sarcasm back at him. "...but you've been trying to save me ever since I passed out, right? I really am grateful for that."

"Heh, you really are an ice queen, aren't you?" He sighed and clicked his tongue. "Seriously, though, we should be a bit more worried about you than me. How are you holding up? Are you warm enough? I wasn't sure if my coat would work or not, but I had to cut yours up. Oh, uh, mental note for next time: we really need to remember to pack rope when we go mountain climbing."

His coat?

His comment helped Weiss understand where she was a little better. With her own coat destroyed, he must have used his own to cover her up. That would explain the fabric she was draped in, and made his uncertainty more clear. After all, does a ghostly coat work at trapping body heat?

Well, it turns out the answer there was a pretty firm 'yes'. Whatever other complaints Weiss may have about her current situation, she was feeling very warm. Perhaps it was her addled mental state shielding her from how cold she was, in the same way it shielded her from her pain, but between the warmth of his 'body' before her and his coat behind her, she felt like she was resting on a personal cloud of heat as it gently floated upward.

"You smell wonderful." She said dreamily, her mental filter a bit compromised. She was literally surrounded by him in the moment, and that would have left her feeling strange even if she'd been in her right mind. "Like vanilla."

Even Torchwick seemed taken aback by the non-sequitur, a concerned hum escaping his throat as he tried to cast an eye back to check on her.

"That, uh, didn't answer my question, but thanks? Attention to little details is the secret to success in villainy." He looked forward again, trying as best he could to study the wall before him for crevices he could put their weight onto, but groaned as a realization hit him. "Wait, 'vanilla', you said? So, as a ghost, I'm not allowed to have my hat, but I'm allowed to keep my aftershave? That is… that is mildly infuriating."

"You were truly fond of that hat, huh?" Weiss tittered a bit, pressing her cheek against his back as she shifted to get comfortable. Shielded as she was from the gravity of their current situation, she was almost having fun. The two of them alone in the darkness like this reminded her of the 'slumber party' they'd had back when he was still a new factor in her life.

"FOND!?" Torchwick was indignant. "Ice Queen, you don't get it. If I hadn't gotten the use of my hands back today, we probably would have been dragon chow. Even then, if I'd been given the choice between my hands or my hat, I'd have taken the hat. A man is only as good as his brand, and that hat was my brand. I cared about that thing more than life itself."

"...but not more than your cat." Weiss had meant to frame it as a question, but it'd come out blunt and confident- a contradiction of his claim. She could feel his breath hitch in his chest, but he only paused for a moment before shaking his head.

"...but not more than my cat." He repeated thoughtfully. A heavy silence fell over them, but in her pleasant haze, Weiss only barely felt it.

"I saw her, while I was asleep." Weiss confessed, "I think I see your memories in my dreams, sometimes." Torchwick continued to steadily pull the two of them up the wall as she spoke, though she thought she could feel him grow warmer beneath her as she spoke.

"I had a suspicion something like that may be going on." He finally said, his tone betraying a bit of annoyance, but no real anger. "I'm not thrilled to imagine one of Little Red's friends rummaging about my inner-most thoughts, but it's not like I was keeping Neo a secret, or anything."

"Well, it's not as though I was doing it on purpose! I have enough traumatic memories of my own without borrowing yours." Weiss replied, much more playfully than she'd intended. In her current head-space it took a lot of effort for her to experience a negative emotion. "Though, now that I think about it, what I saw was more 'sweet' than 'traumatic'."

"No surprise there, I guess, if you saw Neo." Torchwick shrugged, pretending to gracefully accept the news that his most private memories had been spied on. Weiss was pressed so close against him that she could feel him start to tremble at the thought of it, though. "I'm not fond of people, even on the best of days, but she was the exception that proved the rule. In my defense, calling her a cat was only a half-lie, at worst. She was only ever affectionate on her own terms, liked to play with her food before she ate it, and preferred to fall asleep curled up on my chest."

That mental image brought a light blush to Weiss' cheeks, though she had to admit she understood the appeal. He may be a criminal, but Torchwick had a very comforting scent to him.

...That felt like yet another thought that would have been alarming to her if she were in her right mind. As she was now, though, it just felt like a neutral statement of fact.

"It was a side of you I hadn't known existed, I admit. You think about her a lot, don't you?" She blinked her eyes, the memories she'd seen playing out as vividly as if she'd lived them herself. "All your talk about how I'm better off alone, when it turns out you were never alone from the start. Pretending to understand the world when you don't even understand yourself. You're such a dolt."

"Don't go picking fights when you're half dead, Snowflake. I'd feel bad smacking you down in a war of wit when you're… whatever the hell is going on with you right now."

"I apologize." She giggled like a schoolgirl, endorphins dancing about in her brain. Why had the fall had this effect on her? Part of her felt like she was still dreaming, and it imparted a sort of fearlessness to her thoughts and words that she was normally too reserved to feel. "So, then, we've been partners for a while now. Yet every time we speak on any sort of personal level, you always goad me into venting my feelings while offering none of your own in return. I say it's payback time! Tell me about Neo."

"'Partners'?" Torchwick mused, not seeming especially bothered by the notion. "You sure are making a lot of demands of the guy who's breaking his back trying to prevent you from dying in a hole! What do you even wanna know about her?"

"Did you love her?"

"I wonder..." He grew warmer beneath her again as he spoke. Perhaps as a ghost his 'body' heat was tied to his emotional state? Or it correlated to how connected the two of them were? Come to think of it, it was strange that he had a heartbeat, too. Even when she was testing the limits of what he could do as a ghost, it never occurred to her to think much about how his body worked.

Either way, he fell silent for a while after saying that. For so long, in fact, that Weiss began to worry she'd been a little too direct, and caused him to withdraw inside his ego, as he often did when she cornered him. To her surprise, though, just as she was about to apologize and change the subject, he continued.

"Neo was a lot like me. From the moment we met, I could see that she had the same kind of darkness inside her. People like us aren't properly fit to be plugged into the social machine… bad things happen when we try. So, when the two of us found each other, we made a promise. 'Even if everyone else rejects you, I'll be the one thing in this world that's always on your side.' An oath of protection, as it were—though, admittedly, over they years she protected me a bit more frequently than I could return the favor. I think she appreciated the sentiment, at least."

Weiss listened to him in half-lidded silence. She hadn't actually expected him to open up at all. It seemed she wasn't the only one in a strange mood!

"That sounds like love, to me." She eventually offered. It was true she was far from an expert on the subject, though. Had she ever been in love before? She wasn't confident she could even name more than a handful of crushes she'd had, across her life. Ugh, like Neptune! Trying to associate that whole mess with the idea of 'love' made her a little nauseous, even in her current euphoric haze.

"Could be. Does that really change anything between you and I, though?" Weiss' observation had elicited a casual shrug from Torchwick, who spoke dismissively. "Whether I loved Neo or not, I still helped the Witch destroy Beacon."

She opened her eyes and her smile wavered a bit. She wasn't entirely sure how to feel about him, anymore. Before they came together, she'd never really thought about him at all, to be honest. Roman Torchwick was just a sociopath, utterly incapable of feeling the slightest stirring of compassion or regret for the lives he destroyed just to make money.

In a way, seeing his bond with Neo firsthand did worsen Weiss' impression of him. It showed he had the common empathy needed to form a bond with another person, yet behaved monstrously in spite of it. An incomprehensible beast committing acts of evil was easier to accept than a normal person doing the same.

"I realized we were alike, is all." She finally admitted, instinctively drawing closer to the heat he radiated as she closed her eyes and thought back to the day he'd met Neo. She actually felt a closer kinship to Neo than she had to him, in those memories, but she refrained from admitting it, as some part of her perceived that as entirely too intimate a confession to make.

"When I was little, I was alone, too. Other people, my family, the world… they all felt so random and cruel, to me. It scared me, but it made me angry too. I came so close to hating all of it... If things in my life had played out just a little differently, I could have ended up thinking a lot like you. So, that's why I want to believe in you, Roman. I want to believe you can atone for what you've done, because I want to believe the person I might have wound up becoming was someone who could be saved."

"'Atone', huh?" After a moment of silence, Roman finally spoke, repeating her word somberly. There was no hostility in his voice, just a cool resignation. "I appreciate the sentiment, but I think the only reason you can say something like that with a straight face is because you're not really considering the nasty crap I've done. There's a line in the sand where you can't fix things with an 'I'm sorry', anymore- regardless how sincere- and I crossed it a long time ago. I've been a liar, a cheat, and a killer for way too long to dream I could ever be anything else."

"Maybe," Weiss conceded, taking in a deep, tired breath. Her sheltered upbringing had left her very naive, even by the generous curve one might grade someone her age. Even still, she couldn't help but hope for him. After all, unlike him, she didn't believe the world was cold.

"You like to give up really fast though, Roman. Way too fast, most of the time! It's true that 'I'm sorry' can't fix what you've done, but so what? Work for your forgiveness. Pay what you owe, for once, you thug! It's okay if it hurts, or if it takes a long time. I'll be there for you when you're finished."

Torchwick continued to climb as she spoke, but he paused at this, casting a glance over his shoulder.

"Why, Ice Queen. I dare say it sounds like you're falling for me."

"Oh please!" She said with a dismissive grunt, her addled brain protecting her from the realization that that really was a reasonable way of interpreting what she'd just said. "You're not my type. At all."

"Mm-hmm, whatever you say." He was wearing such a wide, cocky grin that Weiss could feel herself blushing even more fiercely. "If I'm not your type, then you have catastrophically bad taste in men, and I question your judgment. You are injured, though, so I'll cut you some slack."

"Y-you're not half as great as you think you are. You realize that, right?" Weiss retorted, turning away from his gaze. Torchwick pretended to reel, as if overcome by her harsh words.

"Such a cruel thing to say, Snowflake." He said with a chuckle. "Implying that I'm merely five times greater than everyone else."

"Oh my god..." Weiss muttered, pressing her face against his back, since their position made it impossible to facepalm. He took a lot more after his dad than he seemed to realize, though she thought better of pointing it out to him right now. The thought reminded her of the person Roman had been as a child, and returned that memory of the day he'd met Neo to the fore of her mind.

"Hey, Roman? Can I ask you a question?"

Torchwick arched his brow, surprised by her sudden reticence.

"Uh, Ice Queen, you just did." He replied. She playfully smacked the back of his shoulder.

"Smartass..." She muttered.

"Well, time is the one thing we've got at the moment. What's on your mind?" He finally replied, his tone softer and more apologetic. Weiss took a deep breath.

"If we'd met each other- back when we were young, I mean- do you think we would have been friends?"

Torchwick halted their climb again, pressing his forehead against the stone wall before him and closing his eyes, as if debating how much he wanted to say about something. After a long second he sighed, shrugged, and began to climb once again.

"You seem like you were pretty miserable kid, for sure." He finally said. "I was a pretty stupid brat myself, back then, so I'm not sure I could have ignored that. I'd probably have taken you home with me. I mean, I did already adopt Neo, after all. What's one more stray cat?"

"I think we would have had a lot of fun..." Weiss smile returned at the mental image this cast, while Torchwick snickered in reply.

"It would have been fun recruiting you into our gang, at least! You could finally fulfill your destiny of becoming a dust smuggler."

"Hmph! Don't be so arrogant as to assume you'll have a monopoly on peer influence! You wouldn't have had anything to atone for if I'd been around. I would have dragged the two of you into the light even if you kicked and screamed the whole time."

"Oh? Would have been interesting to see you try." Replied Torchwick, winking over his shoulder.

"I recall that you were considering becoming a huntsman, when you were young! We could have all joined the academy together."

"For, like, fifteen minutes when I was 12!" He protested, but something about her suggestion clearly appealed to him, as even in the darkness she could see his smile. "The mental image of you and Neo on the same hunting team is amusing, though."

"Indeed! She seemed like an… intense… sort, but I'd like to think I could have been friends with her, too."

"Wait, wait, hear me out, Ice Queen!" Torchwick's voice became childish and excited, suddenly, as if he'd just thought of something terribly clever. "So, you, me, and Neo join a hunting team, right? Since it's a pipe dream anyway, why not say we also came to the village here and recruited that little pickpocket, Erica? Think about it: We could be team 'WENR'!"

Silence fell over them.

Weiss blinked. She blinked again, and then still a third time. All the while the silence between them grew more and more intense.

...then she snorted, which lead into a deep, unrestrained laugh.

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[Document Manager keeps erasing my transition breaks and attempts to add spacing... so consider this a transition break]

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Weiss wasn't sure how much time had passed, but Torchwick eventually brought them to the mouth of the hole that had swallowed them. He hooked his arm up and over the edge, pulling them back up to the cavern's entrance with an exhausted sigh. Now that they were free of the constant fear of losing his grip and causing them to plunge back into the abyss, a visible weight seemed to be pulled off of him as he fell onto his hands and knees and worked to steady his breathing.

"Why does this body of mine only ever pretend to be real when it's inconvenient!?" He protested weakly, before turning his head and casting his gaze back at Weiss. "You still holding up okay?"

In the time between their defeat of Aibell and their escape from the hole, night had fallen. That said, it was a full moon tonight, and this- coupled with the blanket of unbroken snow outside- caused the entire cavern around them to be bathed in pale light.

Weiss looked up at Torchwick as he looked back at her. The silvery aura of the snowy moonlight surrounding his pale form like a halo and causing his emerald eyes to glow. Weiss felt her heart start to race as her gaze met his, and she wasn't sure why.

"I'm… fine." Weiss did her best to sound reassuring, though her tone was still a little distant, and another blush had began to color her cheeks. The ethereal light made her feel all the more like she was experiencing a waking dream.

"You don't look fine. At all. We need to get you some help." Torchwick frowned and shook his head. "I'm normally not one to assume the best of strangers who try to murder me, but given the circumstances, we'll just have to hope the villagers aren't so petty they'll still want to kill you after the Grimm are gone."

He took another deep breath, held it, and pushed himself up onto his feet. It wasn't as obvious to Weiss when he was scaling a wall, but Torchwick was really tall, wasn't he? Suspended as she was against his back, she could peer out so much further than she could when she was walking. Was she really that tiny?

Weiss began to snicker, a sound which quickly transformed into a full-on giggle as the pair of them began to head to the cavern's exit.

"What's got you in such a good mood?" Torchwick asked. Weiss' laughter only grew more intense at the question, and she tightened the grip of her slender arms around his chest.

"I wa-I was just thinking..." She began to explain in between fits of giggles. "Now I know… Now I know how a backpack feels!"

Weiss' laughter echoed through the cave as her own punchline destroyed her, possessing her so violently that she began to tremble against his back as they moved. Torchwick sighed in resignation.

"You hit your head, and somehow it only makes your sense of humor slightly more incomprehensible than it was before." He said with a shrug. "I'm not sure what that says about you, Snowflake."

"Complain as you please, but it made you smile." She said with pride. Indeed, dim though the light may have been, she could see his lips had been pulled wide. An expression of happiness that belied his grumpy words. Torchwick didn't even deny it, instead shrugging again with a soft chuckle.

"It's part of your appeal, I guess."

Weiss smiled as well, her cheek pressing firmly to his back as she relaxed against him. She felt warm, safe, and happy.

It was strange: her desire to reunite with her friends, to reclaim the Schnee name in her own way, and to walk her own path regardless of where it led… none of those feelings had diminished in the slightest. In fact, at this point in her life, she was more confident in her ability to succeed than she had ever been before.

All the same, if a genie were to appear before her right this instant, and offer to let her remain in this moment for the rest of eternity, she wasn't confident she could resist accepting.

As she rested against Torchwick, she absently watched the cavern walls grow brighter as they neared the exit, feeling equal parts relief for their safety and melancholy that this feeling within her would eventually have to end.

When they finally reached the exit, and stepped into the open air, a sigh of chilly mountain air swept over them, and she instinctively recoiled, ducking her head down inside Torchwick's coat like a turtle receding into her shell. Torchwick continued to march forward resolutely for a few more paces, but came to a sudden halt that jerked Weiss from her thoughts.

"No..." Exasperation and horror dripped from Torchwick's voice as he stopped walking, motionless save for the tremble that shook him. "The birds! I forgot about the damned birds!"

Weiss was confused, but as she hesitantly poked her head out from under the confines of Torchwick's coat, she quickly realized what he meant. Several black blurs dotted the skies above them, flying through the air in irrational patterns. As her eyes focused, she recognized them… Griffons.

That's right! How could she have forgotten? The only Grimm they encountered within the cavern had been the scorpion-like Death Stalkers and Aibell herself, but those weren't the only species she controlled, were they? Aibell had used Griffons to force their airship to the ground! A few of them had died taking out the engines, but most had simply vanished after the attack.

Aibell must have decided the flying Grimm would be worthless within the confines of the mine, and thus gathered them around the entrance to intercept Weiss if she had attempted to flee the battle inside. Now that the Fable was dead, the Griffons were freed of her control, and now flew aimlessly. This wasn't a region of the world that they naturally congregated, and their reaction to the unfamiliar scenery and inhospitable climate was anger and primal confusion.

"Don't suppose you have any fight left in ya, Ice Queen?" Torchwick's voice was as firm and confident as ever, though there was an undeniable hint of worry to his words.

The question gave Weiss pause. She could move her arms and legs well enough, but when she pressed her foot against the side of Torchwick's knee and attempted to put weight on her leg, the limb felt tingly and numb. She doubted she was capable of standing under her own power right now, much less fighting.

"I don't think so..." She muttered, shaking her head. Her dreamy haze sheltered her from feeling fear or stress, but she had an intellectual concept of how much trouble they were in. If Torchwick was any more susceptible to fear than she was, he showed no obvious signs of it as she spoke. A wry smile crossed his lips as he closed his eyes.

"I had a feeling you'd say that. Plan 'b', then. Make sure you hold on tight." He grabbed the ends of the coat that was draped about them and pulled it more securely about his shoulders, tying the empty sleeves in front of him like a belt. As he did so, Weiss obliged his request. Her arms coiled about his torso and she pulled her chest firmly against his back.

Torchwick spent one last second bracing himself, then took off at a sprint down the mountain path. Weiss scoured her memory, but she couldn't recall anything along the trail that they could use for cover. No trees, no rocks, just an endless, open expanse of snow between two sheer cliff walls.

She knew he would never admit it, but they were in a lot of trouble. With her injured as she was, Torchwick didn't even consider waiting around inside the cave for the Grimm to disperse, knowing that it could take hours, if not days, for them to finally leave, and that she was in desperate need of medical attention. They seemed to be stuck with the choice between staying in the cave and dying, or running for the village and dying…

Despite that, he still made an attempt to save her. Torchwick moved with surprising agility, given he was carrying an entire person behind him. He darted down the path, carefully hopping from foot to foot as he tried to maximize his pace despite the accumulated snow beneath attempting to trip him up.

In the bright moonlight, the two of them were obvious targets, though, and the nearest Grimm set down upon them within seconds of their dash. The creature dove down in an effort to pounce upon them, but Torchwick managed to jump away at the last second. Unfortunately, the difference in speed between the agile, flying Griffon and an encumbered human was already apparent. Each time it rebounded and attacked again, it came closer to striking true.

Eventually, the creature angled its wings, diving for the ground in front of Torchwick as it turned and raised one of its foreclaws, slashing toward him violently. Torchwick must have decided that dodging wouldn't work, because he didn't even try. Instead, he turned so that his body was positioned between the Grimm's claws and Weiss, and braced himself for impact.

There was a sickening cracking sound as the sharp talons slammed against Torchwick's aura. The barrier resisted the attack, but the force still sent the human flying backward, who landed on his side with an agitated grunt.

"Well, my aura still works!" He shouted. "Good to know. I wasn't excited to see what my ghostly guts looked like."

The sound of the battle had attracted the attention of two more Griffons, though, who began to circle about them in search of their own opportunity to dive into the fray. Torchwick saw them circling above, saw his attacker draw closer, and let out a low, resigned laugh.

"I'll be real with you, though. This may be as far as we go." He whispered in a somber tone. "I'm sorry, Weiss."

Weiss struggled to work the gravity of their situation into her mind. She absently watched as Torchwick inched his way toward the cliff wall behind them, turning his back toward it in a last, futile effort to protect her from the Grimm. Even now, though, the comfortable haze that shielded her from the pain in her head made all the danger feel far away and unreal.

Dying scared her, of course, but it was never what she'd been most afraid of. Loneliness was. The cage of isolation that had been her prison for so much of her life, and whose shadow eternally gnawed at the back of her mind, reminding her that it could return to claim her at any time, and she could never escape.

That specter hadn't haunted her in a long time, though. Now, she was never alone.

Ruby, Blake, Yang, Winter…

A twinge of sadness finally succeeded in penetrating the fog within her brain as she realized she was never going to see them again.

"I'm sorry, too, Roman." She whispered as she closed her eyes and embraced him tightly, the apology wasn't just for him, but for everyone who cared about her. She'd been reckless.

...but at least she wasn't alone.

BOOM!

A thunderous clap echoed through the mountain, followed by a flash of blinding light that burst across the horizon, striking one of the circling Grimm above and causing it to explode into black flames. The Grimm on the ground made a confused cry, its bird-like head darting in a quick circle as it tried to determine what had happened.

BOOM! BOOM!

Two more peals of thunder. Two more flashes of light. Two more airborne Grimm erupting into flames. The Griffon on the ground was furious know, beating its wings in a torrent as it dashed into the sky to aid its flock, only to vanish in still another explosion of light.

Weiss' eyes traced the beam of light back to its source, finding that the silhouette of a large, dark machine was illuminated by the full moon. An aircraft with long, flipper-like wings extended behind it.

"The Atlesian military!?" Torchwick's cool was gone as he openly expressed his shock, watching alongside Weiss as the airship swiftly annihilated all the remaining Griffons.

"The village must have called them again after we left." Weiss said thoughtfully, wearing a vacant smile. Her thoughts once again fell on Erica, and on the face the little girl had made as they parted ways. She just couldn't believe someone who could make a face like that was evil.

"Even if they did, that doesn't explain why the military actually came!" Torchwick scratched the back of his head. In spite of his complaints, his body language was excited. Even a cynic like him had to be relieved to have been saved from certain death. "No way in hell an Atlas airship would waste time and resources rescuing a group of hillbilly faunus after ignoring them for months."

"Yet here they are… are you ready, Roman?"

"Ready for what?"

Weiss' smile grew broader, and an affectionate warmth filled her as she looked into his eyes.

"I plan to spend the next few days being insufferably smug about how right I was about everything."