(trigger warning; graphic descriptions of pain and mild sexual harassment ahead)
(A/N: For anyone who is concerned over the warning, don't fret. THIS CHAPTER IS SKIP ABLE, however you will miss some of the important key points for the next few chapters. Anyone who wishes to proceed, enjoy ^^)
The first thing Weiss picked up on when she came back to her senses was the smell of cold steel. The harsh, pungent, wet odor invaded her nostrils, yanking her from the fuzziness of her subconscious mind. It smelt horrid, like some alleyway in the scums of Mantle, plagued with rotting food and spilled alcohol.
The next thing she noticed was that she was being dragged across the floor by the hood of her jacket, her arms and legs limp and lifeless on either side of her. A groan escaped her throat, her eyes slowly opening to reveal the world again. She quickly realized she wasn't in the forest anymore; she was in a facility of some kind… or at least, that's what Weiss thought it was. Black steel covered the ground, while an arched roof curved above them. They were in a long hall of sorts, the floor beneath her damp and soaking her cold legs.
She blinked the gray fuzz from her vision, lifting her head to look around. Her head felt like it was made of lead, accompanied by a thumping headache that pounded against the back of her eyes. She tried to turn to see who was dragging her away into the unknown, but her body was working against her. She saw the tail of a white coat before her head fell again, dark rings forming around her vision once more. She didn't fight against the lull of sleep, letting her head drop against her chest as she fell under.
Pitch black filled her vision, however Weiss could still hear what was going on. There was a distant dripping noise echoing off the walls, accompanied by a low hum of what Weiss thought was machinery. There were a few voices every now and then, mostly murmurs so quiet that Weiss couldn't hear. One of them spoke multiple times which Weiss quickly assigned to the person dragging her along the ground. It was muffled... the cause, Weiss wasn't sure.
"This is her?"
"Yes."
"T-this is Weiss Schnee."
"Yes."
"Are you daft?! The SDC will kill every Faunus on Remnant if he finds out!-"
"Then we kill her first. Now take her and get her ready before Torchwick gets here, or else you'll be on display as a rug in the next demonstration!"
The loud shout scared away the darkness, jerking Weiss back to reality again. Her eyes fluttered open in a panic, her vision filling with spots at the sudden rush of adrenaline. She lifted her head, scrambling as she tried to take in her surroundings. They were in a completely different place. There was still a steel floor beneath her, but blue glass lined the walls, and bright white lights lit the displays up from beneath. Black shapes sat against other glass cages, just across from her, watching like phantoms with white masks.
White masks?
Weiss jerked away from the glass wall she had leaned against. Grimm lined the walls, watching her excitedly as she wriggled. The closest one let out an ear piercing scream, alarm sirens starting to blare throughout the halls as the other Grimm began to join in with the cries of the first. An open palm hit the glass hard, the surface rattling from the rough impact. Panic began to swallow Weiss whole. She scrambled desperately to get away from the creature, only for a human palm to actually grab a hold of her neck. Driven purely by fight or flight, she drove her elbow into the side of the person's knee, freeing her and allowing her to stumble to her feet.
Weiss' vision swam as she staggered, falling against the railing that lined the glass cages. She took a shaky breath, turning to try and figure out who had been dragging her through wherever she was. Her eyes landed on a masked white figure behind her with what Weiss thought were antlers on their head, through her blurred vision. She took another step back, her knee buckling beneath her own weight.
Move Weiss, she told herself, as she forced herself into a heavy run. Her entire body was weighed down by exhaustion, pulling her towards the ground like a bag of sand. Every step was effort, but slowly began to get lighter as she stumbled through the halls accompanied by heavy, metallic thumps. Weiss shook her head, the muffled noises becoming clear and sharp as whatever drug had been pumped through her system finally wore out.
The walls surrounding her as she ran were all made of double-glazed glass, cages intended for the containment of the Grimm inhabiting them. Weiss didn't recognise the species, but she blamed it on the drowsiness still lingering in her head. Whatever they were, it didn't matter. As long as they stayed away from her she'd be okay. The black monsters were pressed against the glass, desperately trying to reach the source of panic and fear that was passing in front of them. Weiss forced herself not to look at them, instead focusing on trying to escape.
Alarms were blaring everywhere, a painful headache clawing at her brain. The halls seemed to stretch on forever, dark and gloomy passage ways that twisted and turned into an endless hallway of Grimm displays. Weiss had no idea where she was going, or even where she was. If she could just find a place to hide-
Her foot caught on a ridge in the floor, a piece of unevenly laid metal flooring that stuck up dangerously. Weiss staggered to the side, her ribs hitting off the protective railing that isolated the path from the creatures in the glass. The sudden change of direction made the girl dizzy, her small figure leaning against the metal, desperately trying to catch her breath. The world swam beneath her, tilting back and forth. Her stomach churned.
"Hey!" A rough voice yelled from behind Weiss, a rough hand reaching forward and grasping her shoulder. Weiss spun around in surprise, just to see a fist collide with her cheek. She fell to the ground with a gasp, her face throbbing painfully.
A knee landed on her shoulder, pinning her to the floor. Weiss grunted, lifting her hands to cover her face as a fist struck her hard, stars dancing across her vision. She let out a cry as another hit her face, then a sharp jab struck her leg and her vision turned hazy again. Her hands dropped against her chest as her strength ebbed away, leaving her listening as the man hissed every derogatory term under the sun. Weiss hissed, trying to hold onto any shred of consciousness she could, but it slipped through her fingers like sand. Her head fell back against the ground, the sounds of blaring alarms and howling Grimm fading from her mind.
.
.
Weiss shot awake, startled, her eyes snapping open as she came to for a third time. She wriggled in panic, the jingling and subsequent loud clatter of chains sounding off the confines of… wherever this was now. By inspecting her wrists, Weiss found that she was chained with her hands bound together above her head, the thick, silver chains cutting off circulation as she hung from a rusty hook in the ceiling, the four walls surrounding her a stark white.
"What..?" Weiss muttered to herself, her throat so dry that it made her wince, her old headache returning at the base of her skull. She swung her body around, looking for any signs of where she was. The room was mostly empty, a long mirror stretching along the width of the wall opposite her. There was a door not too far from it, right in front of her. If Weiss wasn't being held captive and chained up by her wrists, she would've thought she was in a hospital of some sort.
She looked down to her legs, finding that one of her ankles was clamped to the floor as well, probably as another form of 'precaution'. She tugged at it a few times, finding the cold steel to be wrapped tight against her skin. That's when she realised that her coat and boots had been taken off, leaving her only in her sleeveless white dress.
Weiss grit her teeth, looking back up to her wrists above her head. Opening her palm, she tried to will her semblance to work. A blue glyph briefly sputtered to life, before dying and fading away once more. Her heart dropped, making a few more attempts, however no symbol formed. It was almost like her semblance wasn't there, which meant her aura was either shattered or close to zero.
Panic settled in her chest as she tried to pull herself free, her leg holding her down and keeping her from swinging. She tried to pull her hands down, growling as the chains pinched the skin on her wrists painfully. She gave up with a breath, letting herself hang free as she regained her strength. She looked at the mirror, watching her own hanging body in the reflection.
"Hello? Can anyone hear me?" she called out, her voice laced with fear and anxiety. She winced at the sound of her own voice, closing her eyes and taking a breath before trying again. "Hello?!"
Nothing but her own voice echoed back at her, leaving the heiress stumped and confused. She glared at her ankle, twisting it around to see if there was a way to slip free, only to give up a few minutes later. She narrowed her eyes, thinking back on the past few hours, or at least she thought it had been hours. She had been in a forest, no, they had been in a forest. Ruby had been with her on a date. Then Torchwick appeared out of nowhere and attacked them. Weiss had passed out at some stage, though she couldn't remember why.
A pit of worry opened in the depths of Weiss' stomach. If she was here in this strange facility, was Ruby here too?
The door in front of her opened with a hiss. Weiss' head shot up quickly, eyes landing on a small girl that lazily moved into the room. She was short, shorter than Weiss, with pink and brown hair, and matching heterochromia coloured eyes. A frilled umbrella was closed over her shoulder, the handle clutched loosely in her hand.
Neo strode into the room with a small smirk, twirling her umbrella over her shoulder as she walked in, her heels clicking beneath every step. The door closed behind her swiftly, blocking any means of escape with a quiet hiss. Weiss watched the door close in despair, before her eyes quickly shifted to Neo. She had only met the mute girl once before, and even then it was a rather brief encounter.
She was Torchwick's partner in crime, always following him around as if she were his shadow. She was infamous for appearing out of nowhere to help criminals escape flawlessly. Any attempts to apprehend her had failed, so nothing specific was known about her. Yang had fought her, and lost. That's all Weiss needed to know. Neo was extremely dangerous and devious, something to carefully consider while interacting with her.
"Let me go!" Weiss demanded, watching Neo as she circled around her. Weiss heard the slither of a blade unsheathing from somewhere close, before feeling the flat of the weapon trace lightly along her hip and against her thigh. The heiress jerked away with a grunt, twisting around to face the older girl while the chains jingled above her. Neo twirled a sword on her finger, a teasing smirk on her face. Weiss turned to try and kick the smaller girl, only for her to hop away.
Neo chuckled silently as she bounced on the balls of her feet. She flipped the blade in her hand, catching it by its grip and sliding it back into the handle of the umbrella. Then, her umbrella vanished into tiny glass splinters, disintegrating before the Schnee. She took a step away with a smug look, her hands folding behind her back as she did. Weiss squinted as the girl disappeared in a flash of bright pink and black, followed by the sound of more shattering glass. The heiress blinked away the stinging blurriness from her eyes, before lifting her head to look for her silent kidnapper.
Weiss' eyes widened in horror as the small woman reappeared, except with a new appearance. Now, she had short, red tipped black hair, an old dusty cape, and dull silver eyes. A sick, knowing smile had found its way onto the mute's lips as she stood, arms crossed over her chest as she waited.
The heiress froze, her stomach sinking to the pits of hell as 'Ruby' came closer to her. 'Ruby' smiled, one of those big goofy, toothy grins Ruby only used to win someone over, that Weiss was more than used to seeing. A feeling of rage boiled through Weiss' veins, her face growing dark.
"Your tricks won't work against me," Weiss snarled venomously, her fists balling above her as Neo stepped closer, "I won't fall for your mind games."
Neo smirked, a glow appearing in her eye. She stepped closer to Weiss, her face barely an inch away from the Schnee's. Her hands rested on Weiss' hips, her thumbs resting carefully in the divots of her bones. An involuntary shiver escaped the heiress at her fake partner's touch, a foggy memory resurfacing of them by the lake. Weiss clamped her mouth shut, chewing on the back of her lips in fear of making a sound. An intrigued hum came from the fake in front of her, a hand moving away from the Schnee's hip to trace her stomach. Weiss shut her eyes, holding her head up so she didn't have to look at her cloned partner.
This was cruel. She could feel Neo's hands tracing along her body. The hands felt so familiar, so sickly familiar, but so wrong at the same time. She flinched as two fingers grasped at her chin and tilted her head down, the presence of an unfamiliar aura brushing off her skin. She could feel Ruby's calloused thumbs against her own skin, an effect of her prolonged use of Crescent Rose. A hot breath of air passed Weiss' ear, a blush crawling up her neck at the sensation.
"Weiss…" Ruby whispered teasingly, her voice soft and sweet, "Weiss…"
"Get away from me!" Weiss shouted, driving her head forward to headbutt the fake in front of her. A loud yelp of surprise came from Ruby, followed by the illusion cracking into tiny pieces. Neo staggered away from Weiss, her eyes watering while she held her nose. Weiss found herself smirking while the chains above her settled, watching in satisfaction as Neo wiped crimson from her upper lip. Neo looked down at the back of her hand, Weiss' brief look of triumph quickly fading from her face. The girl's eyes gained a glow of malice, a feeling of dread crawling down Weiss' back.
The Schnee watched as Neo brandished her umbrella again out of thin air, pulling the blade from the handle swiftly. She appeared before Weiss in a heartbeat, flicking the blade up to the Schnee's neck. Weiss stiffened, gulping nervously, all feeling of satisfaction wiped out instantly. She could feel Neo's aura flowing through the cold steel at her neck, angry and cold.
Weiss took a delicate breath, holding her head up, "Do it already. I'd rather die than be tortured by scum like you."
Another wave of fury pulsed through the foreign aura like a fire, the edge of the blade pressing tighter against her skin. Weiss shut her eyes, holding her breath as she waited for the cold steel to make the killing move. She certainly wasn't ready to leave the world behind, but, if she was going to choose between being tortured before dying, and dying at the hands of a blade quickly, she was going to pick the latter.
"Neo!" A voice behind Neo interrupted. Neo flinched in surprise at the voice, moving the weapon away from Weiss' neck. Weiss opened her eyes in surprise, finding another person leaning into the open doorway watching in disapproval. Neo straightened her stance immediately as Torchwick glared at her. He took another deep puff from his cigar, his face lighting up in the darkness. "What have I told you about damaging the goods?"
Weiss looked back towards Neo as the mute dipped her head in shame, before frantically signing something towards Torchwick. The man tutted, stepping into the room and out of the shadows while the door closed automatically behind him, "I don't want your excuses. You work for me, understand?"
The girl's shoulders sagged in defeat, nodding quietly as she stepped back. Roman sighed, looking up from beneath his hat as he moved closer. He leaned against his cane as he examined Weiss, a cock in his brow as he found her furious eyes glaring back at him. He laughed, standing back up straight.
"You're awfully quiet for a damsel in distress," He teased, chewing on the butt of his cigar, "And to think I was excited. You're really crushing my dreams here Princess."
"I am not a damsel in distress," Weiss growled, careful what words she let slip out of her mouth. She didn't have the upper hand here yet. She narrowed her eyes, her hands turning into fists above her head, "Let me out of these chains and I'll show you how much of a damsel in distress I am."
Roman laughed, looking back at Neo in bewilderment, "There's the spunk I was looking forward to!" He took the cigar from between his teeth, blowing a cloud of toxic smoke into Weiss' face. The Schnee gagged, coughing the toxic fumes from her lungs while Roman carefully tapped the burnt tobacco from the cigar. He hummed. "However, as much as I'd love to watch Neo beat some manners into you, we can't afford another breakout." He looked up from behind his cigar, a smirk forming on his lips, "Fortytwo good men were injured last time, y'know."
Weiss narrowed her eyes, her voice croaky from the smoke, "...By what?"
"I believe you saw them already, Snow Pea" Roman hummed, flicking his cigar to the ground before crushing it beneath his cane, "The Grimm hybrids in the halls. The ones you sent into a frenzy."
Weiss watched the taller man as he leaned against his cane before her, waiting for the Schnee's response. Weiss' azure eyes flicked back to Neo in the corner before returning to Roman, uncertainty stirring within her, "You experimented on Grimm?" Weiss knew Grimm were often used in Dust experiments at the SDC, but why did Roman Torchwick have them? Why did he want them? Neo flashed a smirk as the ginger haired man stopped in front of Weiss again, shaking his head.
"No no no, not Grimm," Roman turned to face the heiress with a grin, locking eyes with the girl in chains "Humans."
Weiss frowned, her face scrunching as Torchwick's words sunk in. Humans? Weiss certainly hadn't seen any humans, only faunus and the grimm creatures behind the glass. The White Fang didn't work with humans usually, but it seemed Roman was an exception. Roman leaned on his cane, leaning forward to examine Weiss' expression with a look of intrigue. Weiss shook her head.
"I.. I don't understand."
"Well Snow Pea, it's really quite simple" Roman started, the door opening behind him as a white fang grunt pushed a silver cart into the room, "Ah, just in time Garry. Leave it there." Weiss leaned to see what was on the cart. On it was an array of medical equipment; blades, scissors, needles, anything you would need for a surgery. The criminal inspected the cart for a moment while another, bigger black crate was wheeled into the room beside him. He made a pleased noise, before shoo-ing the faunus out of the room with his cane. He came back and picked up one of the syringes from the first tray, which was filled with a strange, thick black liquid.
"See this?" Roman lifted the needle into the air, "This is Grimm essence. Let me tell you, it's extremely hard to find this. Do you know how many people I killed before I got my hands on a source?" Roman flicked the side of the glass tube holding the substance twice, before squeezing a single drop from the tip. It fell onto his glove, the liquid bubbling and morphing into a tiny moth grimm. Weiss watched on in shocked horror as the tiny moth creature crawled around Roman's hand, before being crushed beneath his grip.
"Anyway! Introduce this bad boy to someone's blood and you get a Nuckleeave," he explained, leaving the vial down, "Or, theoretically. I've still got to get it to work."
Weiss felt her body lock up, a cold sweat breaking across her shoulders. She gulped, watching the vial on the tray with fear. She looked over at Neo, who was leaning against the wall with a pleased look on her face. How many of those cages had Weiss passed when she had tried to run away? There had to be a hundred, at least. The halls seemed to go on forever, and some of the cages had more than one Grimm in it. Weiss took a trembling breath, "Those Grimm in the halls…"
"They were all people once. Faunus mostly, but there's a few humans in there somewhere," Roman explained, leaning back from the table. He stopped to read Weiss' features, before a frown set on his face. "Oh, but don't worry Ice Queen, I won't turn you into one of them. That'd be a waste." The red haired man moved towards the second box the grunt had brought in, "Although, I wonder what you would look like. A horse maybe?" Roman shrugged, reaching down to the black crate that had sat untouched until now.
He carefully unbuckled the straps off the side, before opening the lid carefully. He threw off the protective foam covering that laid across the top, before stopping to admire the sight before him. Weiss immediately recognized her family logo sewn into the red fabric inside the lid with silver thread.
It was Dust. Purified Dust.
"H-how did you get that?" Weiss asked, ignoring the tremble in her own voice. Roman looked back in surprise, holding one of the crystals in his hand. Unlike weaponized Dust, purified Dust was filtered to the point of just having elemental abilities in it. The crystal itself was almost clear, only having a red tint on the inside, flickering like fire.
Roman threw the red crystal back into the case lazily, before pulling out a blue one instead. An ice Dust shard. It was a beautiful cyan colour that resembled glass, a cold fog coming from the surface as Roman held it, "I don't know if you noticed Snow Pea, but we've been busy robbing every single piece of Dust in Vale; we hit the jackpot a few days ago with a private shipment." He looked down to the crystal in his hand, "I guess good things really do come to those who wait."
He paced closer to Weiss again, lining the Dust piece up with the heiress' chest haphazardly. Weiss tried to shrug away from the sheer cold of the shard, her chains ringing as she moved. Roman frowned, tilting his head so he could line up the piece more, "I always wanted to know what would happen if you put purified Dust inside a person." An evil glint formed in the back of his eyes as he met Weiss' scared blue orbs, "And there's no better test subject than the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company herself."
Panic struck Weiss like lightning as she realized what Roman's plans were, her stomach sinking. She immediately began to writhe in the chains as Torchwick moved back towards the table. Weiss tried to force her semblance to life, grunting in pain as she tensed her body to try and squeeze something- anything out. Nothing appeared, no familiar blue light that she had practiced summoning for years. She hadn't even noticed Roman coming back up to her until it was too late, a rough gloved hand grasping her tightly by the throat. Weiss gasped in surprise, gritting her teeth as his fingers squeezed the skin below her jaw.
"Now, be a good princess and stay still for me," Roman mumbled, brandishing the scissors Weiss had seen on the tray earlier to cut the front of her dress open. Weiss let out a choked cry in terror, swinging her leg hard to try and kick the man in front of her. A hand reached out and caught it mid swing, strong fingers digging into her ankle. Weiss glared down to find Neo frowning up at her, a scroll clutched in her free hand that Weiss was positive hadn't been there earlier.
Weiss didn't notice the little red light blinking sporadically on it though.
"LET ME GO!" Weiss screeched as her dress fell from her body freely, landing on the floor along with the scissors Roman had tossed to the side. Weiss' heart was hammering against her chest, the thumping reverberating in her ears like a drum beat. A shiver rushed down her spine, goosebumps rising along her pale skin, having been left in nothing but her undergarments. An embarrassed flush covered her face as she fought against the chains, glaring poisoned daggers at Roman. He lifted a brow in admiration, his eyes lingering on the heiress' slim but toned body, before pulling a syringe from his pocket.
"I don't know how much of this stuff is enough to kill, buuuut I'm sure we'll find out at some point," he said, pulling Weiss' head to the side as he lined the needle up to the first vein he could find. He snorted as he pressed the tip to the skin, the pure Dust inside immediately leaving a white, frozen dot in its place. He jammed his thumb against a particularly painful spot on Weiss' throat, making the girl in his grasp wince. "Hickeys?" He laughed, "What would dear ol' daddy Schnee say about that?"
Weiss had readied a viscous remark back on her tongue when she felt the frozen needle slide beneath her skin quickly. The heiress whimpered in fright, wriggling her body desperately as she tried to get free. Suddenly, a blistering amalgamation of burning and frozen pain shot through Weiss like a bolt of electricity. She let out a pained yelp, curling in on herself as the cold pain spilled across her shoulder. Deep, ragged breaths racked her chest as she tried to breathe through the pain, but each second it just got worse, like millions of tiny needles pressing deeper and deeper into her skin.
It was like someone had spilled molten metal across her shoulder and neck, bolts of pain shooting up her neck and back down along her arm as the Dust traveled through her bloodstream. Her muscles tensed up, a deep drilling sensation running through her joints. Her eyes were glued shut in pain, loud, desperate wheezes of air coming from her mouth as she desperately tried to overcome the white hot agony flowing through her.
"Well now, that was exciting," Roman said aloud, before lifting another needle to Weiss' collar bone, "What if we put some in here?"
Weiss let out another cry of anguish as the monster in front of her injected more of the purified Dust underneath her skin, the pain instantly refreshed across her body. Her vision was filled with white dots as the searing pain in her shoulder flowed down her back, burning its way across her body like a spill of lava. A sob escaped her. What had Weiss done to deserve this? She had tried to be a good person, she had been learning. She had improved so much, she had made friends. So why- why were the Gods punishing her so cruelly like this?
Weiss felt tears stream from her eyes as the pain slowly- ever so slowly ebbed away, settling into a frigid frostbite along her chest. She heaved, her hair covering her face as she fought to regain herself. She found herself shivering as the hot pain subsided, replaced by a sub zero sensation along her body, a cold so sharp that it settled across her bones and formed prickly ice crystals of their own beneath her skin. She couldn't feel any of her chest, the numbness fading away just below her ribs. She coughed, her throat raw from her cries. She didn't know how long it had been. It was hard to breathe, a weight having settled across her lungs.
A hand grasped her hair, tugging her face up to look up. Angry violet eyes glaring at her through the cheap plastic. The white masked man examined her face, before spitting in it and dropping the girl's head carelessly. "Schnee scum. Time for you to suffer for all the pain our comrades had to go through." He pressed his hand against the raw wound along Weiss' chest, a pained whimper coming from the heiress, "'You watching Jacques Schnee? This is what happens when you mess with the White Fang!" He tilted his head back to the hanging woman before him, before slamming his fist hard into Weiss' stomach. She answered with a hoarse cry of agony. "You will release the faunus you treat unfairly, or watch your daughter suffer."
"Wh...Why?" Weiss breathed, looking through the shadows of her silvery bangs, "Why are you doing this? What do you get out of it?"
Weiss was quickly silenced by another rough punch to the side of her jaw, a metal ring cutting into skin just above her eyebrow, "I didn't say you could speak, wretch." He grabbed her hair again, tugging her body down sharply to look him in the eyes. Weiss looked through glassy vision, finally noticing the tall ears that poked from beneath his hood. "Someone called for you to be knocked down a peg or two, and we gladly accepted."
Weiss' heart lurched at the man's words. Someone had called? He jerked her head up further, her neck screaming in agony at the unwanted motion. Her muscles were almost so tense they were solid, and Weiss could've swore she heard them pop while she moved. "What..do you.. mean?"
"That's for you to find out," he said as he brandished another cursed syringe. He looked to Neo, who was standing close behind him, her scroll still clutched tight in her fingers, "Besides, as long as we have another Schnee to beat up, who cares? Now we have something to do while we wait for that human to finish those experiments of his."
Weiss looked at the new syringe in distress, unable to move her numb body as the crazed criminal came closer again. He sauntered behind Weiss, looking for the perfect place to continue his sick experiments before pressing the tip of the needle into the crooks of Weiss' spine. Weiss cried, white hot, piercing pain ripping up her spine and across her upper back. The crushing feeling sank deep into her body and across her skin, her chest growing heavier while her breathing grew shallow. She wheezed desperately, trying to get some form of oxygen into her lungs, but her throat was swelling faster than she could breathe.
Her vision wavered, her strength suddenly slipping away from her as she began to run out of air. Thick black fog clouded her vision quickly, her world fading in a stark collection of white and black dots. Her head dropped, laying against her chest as her body grew numb and distant. She didn't fight the embrace of the darkness, her vision completely failing on her. A faint red shadow mocked her from the distance, the particular smell of roses forming in her nose.
Weiss recognised her immediately, a feeling of regret and guilt pooling in her gut. She couldn't give up yet. She couldn't abandon Ruby yet, not after she had promised to be the best partner ever. She needed to hold out. Ruby would come for her, Weiss knew she would. She just needed to have faith.
Ruby would come.