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I watched Weiss focus on a needle, a glyph spun to life beneath it and it soon hovered into the air. But then it did nothing while she sat with an arm outstretched and her eyes closed. It made no move to transform instead it just floated, suspended in the Schnee logo.

Ruby watched with me. Examining the floating needle, she rested with my arms down around her waist and her body pulled close to me.

"What do you think will happen if she does it? What will it mean?" Ruby asked.

"It'll mean semblances and magic are the same thing. That there's no difference between them," I muttered.

Weiss sighed and released the needle. It clacked back to the desk. "I don't think this will work," she murmured.

"You have to believe," I encouraged her. "Or else it definitely won't."

"I just don't think I have magic the way that you and Ozpin do. I don't think that's how this works."

"Maybe not but we'll never know unless you give it your best try," I returned. "Out of everyone you and your spells have the best chance of being like our magic. Of having this avenue open to you. That's why I asked you and not Ruby or somebody else. Yours and Ruby's powers are most like mine."

"I always thought your powers were like Yang's semblance," Ruby mumbled.

"Only superficially, I feel like, at least," I defended my position. "It also lets me change states. A bit like yours does Ruby."

"I-I guess," she settled. "I still think it's like Yang's a little."

"And really? You think it's like mine?" Weiss asked.

"My spells. They're a bit like yours. The way I spend the charge on things reminds me of your powers," I defended again. They were putting me in a bit of a tight spot.

My scroll buzzed a little and flipped it out of my pocket.

"Strife speaking," I introduced.

"Hey Cloud it's Bisque. We know where Adam is."

"That's fantastic news. So where is he?"

Bisque gave me an address. "You think you'll be able to beat him this time?" He asked.

"For sure. He got lucky last time. I'm going to end him."

"Well best of luck to you. It would certainly be one fewer problem for me to worry about. Think of it as a load off both of our minds."

"Keep me in the know on my other names, too," I requested. "These are dangerous people."

"You got it. We certainly owe you back here."

"Good of you to remember that."

"We'll see you around, Cloud."

"You too, Bisque."

I hung up the scroll.

"Good call?" Weiss asked.

"I got a hit on Taurus. I'm going to go kill him."

"We're coming too," Ruby said it like an order. She demanded and I didn't argue with her.

"We'd better grab Yang and Blake. Blake especially will want in on this if it's Adam related," Weiss murmured. "I know Yang also wants to avenge her arm. We had better let the General know too."

"Times ticking," I gestured at an invisible watch on my wrist.

"You're not going solo anymore. That means working with us and the General," Weiss countered. She crossed her arms with some heat.

"Guys…" Ruby mumbled. That seemed to settle it. We both shut up mid argument.

I shook my head. "Fine. Whatever. Grab the rest of your team and have them meet me in the garage by my bike and Yang's. We'll roll up on him together."

I grabbed my sword harness and put it on my back. Ruby and Weiss both dashed out of the room to go find Blake and Yang and get their own gear ready.

I checked my pockets and counted my dust crystals. I wasn't sure I'd be eating any of them today but I'd like the extra firepower that they gave me.

Once my gear was set I briskly walked to the academy garage and set about waiting impatiently for team RWBY to join me by the entrance.

When they finally did it was Blake leading with, "you know where Adam is? And the information is good?"

"As good as I can reasonably expect it to be. Got it from these faunus union workers," I told her.

"I've been itching for some payback." Yang rubbed her prosthesis with her real arm. "He won't stand a chance against all of us. Blake and I will take Bumblebee. The rest of you will get on… what is your bike's name, Cloud?"

"Doesn't have one," I replied in gruff monotone.

"Boo," she booed me.

"It was supposed to be temporary anyways," I muttered, crossing my arms as I did. "Why bother with something like that?"

"Whatever. Just send me the address," Yang followed up. I pulled out my scroll and did as she told me to do.

I sat down on my bike and gestured to Ruby and Weiss to join me. Ruby hoped on just behind me this time and put her arms around my waist. She snuggled in tight, rubbing her cheeks into my back adorably. I reached around and patted her hair.

Gods I loved her. She literally had my back.

Weiss plopped down behind her and wrapped herself up in Ruby to keep secure.

"Just so long as this isn't like last time we rode this thing," Weiss muttered.

"Dodging my sisters in the middle of a highway wasn't fun for you?" I asked.

She rolled her eyes at me in reply. "Believe it or not but no. Fighting while riding passenger at sixty kilometers an hour doesn't make me feel comfortable." The sass with this one… I could learn to live with it. Maybe it could even grow on me.

"What if I let you drive next time?" I asked teasingly.

"Still no," she bit back. "Not actually the part of that which had been grinding up my gears."

I pulled my foot up off the ground and kicked back the stand. Then together we took off on the bike into the mid-afternoon sun.

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I felt… something as we approached the target destination. It was at once familiar and disparate to me. I'd… I'd felt it before somewhere like in a half baked dream. It made my hair rise and it set my teeth on edge.

"Taurus is here?" Weiss asked. It was a run down warehouse on the edge of Mantle. It reminded me a little of the place Dyne had made his final stand at but it was a different location. It was barely in the city.

Outside of the place were parked three familiar motorbikes. The same ones that had run me down on the road. I knew then what it was I was feeling. My sisters. They were here with Adam. That could only be bad news for me.

I kicked the stand out and slung my legs off the bike.

The building was tall with grey brick and red cross beams to help hold it up. Some fucking offense meant but it looked like the kind of place my sisters and Adam Taurus would have a meeting.

"My sisters are here," I told the others low and slow. Yang's bike came stuttering up next time mine and she shut it off. Blake slid off the back, her weapon already drawn and at the ready.

"You sure?" Blake asked.

"Those are their bikes from when they rode us down," Ruby pointed. "What would your sisters want with Adam Taurus though?"

"Evil begets evil? I don't know," I ran a frustrated hand through my hair.

"Bet you're glad you brought all of us now. Or do you think you can take them all on by yourself?" Weiss asked.

I couldn't. Taurus would have been plenty for me to deal with without my sisters being involved in the fight. Saphron, Lavender, and Violet were really strong. They weren't bad batches like I was. They had some real power behind them and they worked well as a team. They were dangerous.

But why? What did my sisters want with Taurus? Or perhaps just as importantly what did Taurus have to gain by dealing with Salem's agents? Was he already involved with Salem? Maybe.

"Don't…" I exhaled hard. "Don't kill my sisters if you can help it. I want to try and save them. It's not their fault that they're what my Mother wants them to be."

"Cloud… we'll do our best," Ruby promised. It was good enough.

"You three deal with the girls," Blake mumbled. "Yang and I will take Adam."

"Together?" Yang asked Blake. She loaded her shot gauntlets with a ca-chink.

"Together," Blake agreed.

"Very well." Weiss nodded along with Blake's plan.

"How do we wanna assault this place?" I asked. "Or do we just want to wait for them to come out and greet us?"

"Is that a good idea?" Weiss asked.

"It worked when I killed Tyrian. I just waited," I told her. "Then we duked it out in the streets. Lots of room to move that way. I need the space, too. I hate getting corralled in."

"Better to move in, I think," Blake disagreed. She shifted her weapon out of it's plain gun mode, a blade in either hand.

I drew my longsword from my back rather than the broadsword. I left the shield there too, preferring to grip my weapon with both hands by the long handle.

I strode forward past my sisters' bikes. I pressed on the double doors to the place and one of them creaked open. I gestured and the others came through under my outstretched arm.

We crept along up a catwalk steps into the rafters of the warehouse. I could hear my sisters talking, Saphron's voice, but I couldn't make the words out. It was followed by Adam's gruff and low tone. Then it went back to my sister's voice. There was this sort of box like office room built into the catwalk above the lower floor of the warehouse. Their voices were coming from inside that little room.

"-Maybe I don't care what she wants. Salem has never been good for the faunus. We might just be better off without her at all."

"A bad attitude to have," I heard Saphron counter. "The White Fang needs us. You'll never be able to muscle a kingdom like Atlas around without help from my Mother."

"The old White Fang managed it. They didn't have the help of your mommy."

"You're not the old White Fang. Let's be honest you're a shadow of your former selves. You can't even run the unions in this town. You need our help."

Adam snorted. "I'm tired of humans telling me what to do."

"You'll find that I'm barely human. I'm…" Saphron trailed off.

"Do you feel that?" Lavender asked.

"Big brother…" Violet's voice came through. "Is he here? Or just nearby?"

"He is here," Saphron hissed. Her voice came out low. "He must be."

"We've been made out," I muttered to my friends. We'd been gaining up on the doors to the little office room. The door to it burst open and revealed us, just standing there and them on the other side gathering their weapons.

"You can feel each other?" Blake asked, her voice low.

Inside was a small place with a little bedroll and some bottles of water. This was where Adam had been sleeping. He must have had few allies in the city.

Violet drew her double blade and Saphron raised her gun. They were all three of them in these long coats that nearly looked like capes. Saphron was in a deep red, Violet was in purple, and Lavender was in a deep blue.

"Big brother. So nice of you to join us," Saphron murmured.

"Have you given any thought to the reunion?" Violet asked.

"You!" Adam snarled. "And Blake?! My love…"

"Don't be shy, Jaune. Introduce your friends to your family," Lavender grinned up at me. She pulled her gauntlet free and readied it. It pistoned slightly.

I activated my semblance with a thought and hovered the rest of the way over the catwalk. I sliced at the hanging supports for the catwalk as I approached. Saphron did this long side-flip that held her in the air for way too long and met me in the middle with a short dagger.

Then we, and my other sisters, fell down as the damage I did to the catwalk meant that it couldn't take our weight. Adam flew like a bullet out of the room with his katana in a wide slash. He met an 'x' formed by the two blades of Gambol Shroud. He went straight for her, Blake that is, his hatred for me was apparently vastly second to whatever he felt for her. I watched Blake get shoved back on the catwalk with Yang while Ruby and Weiss jumped down to join me and my sisters.

I could hear Blake and Adam and Yang fighting above me and cutting up the catwalk while I hovered down to the first floor where my sisters had crashed to.

"Rude, Jaune." Saphron clicked her tongue at me. She shot at me twice. The first bullet sort of held her in mid-air and she fell and shot the second one.

I deflected them off my weapon rather than start being shot this early.

"Yeah, play nice, big brother," Lavender followed her up. She thrust her gauntlet up at my face and I shoved it to the side.

Then I blocked a third cut from Violet before my girlfriends joined me on the floor of the warehouse. "Who are they Jaune? Are you dating one of them, I wonder? Mother won't like that. She's awfully strict about dating, but of course you should know that."

"You don't have to do what she says. You don't have to obey her." I grunted and pushed Violet back.

"You know that's not true, Jaune," Lavender giggled. "We have to do what she says. We're a part of her. She's a part of us."

"Undying," Violet whispered.

"You can fight back!" I howled. I did a side-flip to back up a bit but I found Saphron to be all over me with a short stab of her dagger as she jumped. She slashed at me and I hopped back.

"How much does that cost you? I wonder? Day by day you become a little weaker while she holds all the cards," Saphron purred. She grinned and she slashed at me in this long drawn out backflip that I couldn't quite manage to block. "Your suffering must be terrible, Jaune."

"Oh it's not so bad," I grunted. I met her weapon at the long range of my own. She twisted and pulled her gun on me and shot three times right in my face. I flinched away from the bullets and she cut me with two quick jabs. "And I'm not Jaune Arc. Not anymore," I finished. I warded her off with my weapon.

"Do you really think changing your name will matter at all to her? Besides, you're an Arc. Like the rest of us. You can't run from that. No escaping fate."

"No! She can be beaten. She's not invincible," I protested. "I'll save you from this, Saphron. Even if it kills me."

"'Save,'" she mocked as Ruby and Weiss engaged Violet and Lavender. "Save yourself if you truly can. Leave me out of it. I want Mother to be around. I love her."

I slashed into her aura and though it bit deep she took it with an strange twist of blue and red flames that once more left her hovering in the air oddly.

It was like… it was like she was storing the attack for later. Taking it where she wanted so she could dish it back at another point.

"She's twisted your mind!" I shouted. Our weapons clashed. Then again she blocked to the side as I tried to cut at her again. Then she blocked in a roof like motion as I brought my weapon down on her. "What you feel for her is just her manipulations. You have to fight back!"

"No, Jaune. My emotions about it are the only things that are true. Nothing else presses so much."

"You're living a half life," I shot back. "You're a slave."

"And you're not?" She wondered right back at me.

I slashed at her twice horizontally and I hovered right into her range. I kicked at her twice and she blocked both. Then I drew back and brought my sword down diagonally on her.

"I'm more free than you are," I spat. "I'm nobody's puppet. Never again."

"Say that to her face," Saphron whispered. "I bet you won't. I bet you can't. Give in, Jaune. It feels so good." Our blades struck again. She reversed her grip on her knife and stabbed it back into my face. I back-flipped in place and brought my weapon around and down on her. She caught it on her aura once again and a red and blue flashed around her as something coalesced behind her and in her space. Her semblance must be charged. Just like mine was.

"Where would it end? I can help you, Saphron! I can show you how to fight back." I swung forward in a wide slash. She blocked it, then she moved in tandem with the specter behind her. It clashed with long claws right behind her knife's motion. I struggled to meet it, even with my semblance active. She was very strong in this state.

I back-flipped and flicked my blade up behind me in a vertical fashion. It caught her in the chest and knocked her off her feet. She grunted with it. Then she side-flipped at me drawing her blade around her and the specter imitated her and slashed with her. It drilled into my aura.

Then she landed and stabbed forward three times now that she was inside my guard. The three attacks were strong enough to lift me off my feet and send me crashing to the ground.

"You've never even met her face to face. How would you know what you can and can't do for me? You have no idea what she's really like. You have no idea what she can really do to us."

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-WG