Black and Weiss
Perhaps it said something about him, but ever since he was naught but a boy, Adam could predict the flow of his anger. Try as he might to keep everything pent up to withstand agitation after agitation and shoulder the pain, he would snap in a single burst. Maybe not for a while, but it would happen eventually. It was fitting, really, considering his Semblance: to block and deflect abuse constantly only to throw every last bit back in a single, all-encompassing blow.
And then, when the hate was expended and the fires died down, reality would drown him and his anger in ice. Like a thief in the night, his wrath would abandon and leave him alone with only the inevitable consequences it had left behind and a sinking feeling. He could rekindle it, of course: in combat he had no choice but to do so. Often, it would return on its own to plant the seeds of hate and start all over again, but in grave situations, he would be left only with his guilt and fear.
So, he learned to ignore it. Ignore the pleading just as he ignored his heart. Indeed, it was when he learned to do so, Adam thought, that he'd finally descended into the abyss.
Yet it was so, so hard to ignore, right now.
Without any other enemy nearby to refocus his wrath upon, his anger had receded too much. Even as his legs carried him in a dead sprint towards the source of the chromatic explosion, every drop of blood resting on Wilt's crimson surface felt like a weight on his hand. 'Disgraces' or not, they were still his soldiers that he'd slain. Soldiers he may have trained, may have even known at some point, blown away like wilting petals in the wind. So much time as a student had left him soft: Adam realized he couldn't ignore his heart, this time.
The only reason he was alive, after all, was because Blake did not make the same mistake he had just made: believing bloodshed would solve all problems. That, even if she ran from him, he shouldn't have been put down like he just had done to his own people.
Adam was almost thankful when he caught a Bullhead's attention. He distracted his guilt and focused on the task at hand: he was nearing the multi-colored containers now, where flames and wreckage both created a solid wall of carnage. Adam knew that rat Torchwick was inside: the Bullhead and a second one were circling, yet refusing to fire down, clearly out of fear of hitting something—or someone—important.
Zigzagging his way closer, Adam heard and felt the hundreds of bullets impacting the ground behind him from the Bullhead's mighty gun all the way up until he curled his legs in and sprung to the top of the shipping containers. His foot slammed into the edge of the topmost one, already prepared to launch him further, with a resounding bang sounding far too loud to be from a step alone. His gaze dropped down to look for the source of the sound.
To him, time came screeching to a halt.
Torchwick. Disheveled and without a hat, yet unscathed. His cane was raised and firing, with the light of a shot already moving out. But it was the target that left his thoughts moving so quickly that the shell was crawling at a snail's pace: Schnee, slumped against a dented shipping container beneath him. She was a mess: scorched and torn clothing, hair down, aura clearly weak. Yet, her grip on her weapon was tight.
She'd try to fight, even now? The shell was almost a quarter of the way there, even with how quickly he was thinking. Yet, her hand hadn't moved: she didn't have the strength to react! She could barely stand!
Adam found himself with two choices and a rapidly ticking clock in this state of mind where every thought took up precious time.
The shot had crossed a third of the distance.
He could propel himself to Torchwick in an instant and take advantage of his lack of perception to deal a potentially deadly blow. Even if he were to survive the first strike, the second and third would no doubt take his life. Schnee would likely die or be gravely injured, yes, but she chose her path.
Halfway to the Schnee.
He could leap in the way of the shell and block it: his aura could save him from deadly injury but he knew not about the Schnee. Adam would lose the element of surprise, however, he would... would what, exactly? What would he gain from it? If anyone asked, he wouldn't even have been able to make it to her in time. No one would blame him. No one would know, even if he didn't run away. If anything, he would gain another enemy in this battle, and yet...
Two-thirds of the way.
He had to think, but rational thought took time, damnit!
Gravity had begun to tug him downwards. He needed to make a decision entirely on instinct: the instinct of a revolutionary, a student, a murderer, a friend, a terrorist, a member of RWAY, and an officer of the White Fang.
Three-quarters of the way to Weiss.
Adam jumped.
The explosion washed out Weiss' sight, and once more, she found herself wondering if she had perished.
"Oh great, another one!" The grating sound of Torchwick's complaining alleviated her of that brief fear.
Her eyes slowly readjusted themselves, but the world was still blurry and bright to her even at night: the fires creeping along the sides of this arena were almost blinding, Torchwick was nigh-on invisible other than smudges of white and orange, and the person who apparently saved her was only a shapeless, black and red mass. Crimson extended from what looked like an arm, and Weiss could faintly smell roses mixed in with the fumes.
She gasped and managed a smile as the world all rushed back to her at once. At least, now, Weiss could feel safe in admitting to herself that she was actually starting to become afraid for a moment. She didn't even try to hide how grateful she was that Ruby had managed to...
Wait.
Adam slowly sheathed Wilt, his crimson aura flickering briefly from the impact, but not breaking just yet. That pale, nightmarish mask turned back to look at her, and Adam murmured something inaudible to her with a snarl. Weiss' shoulders slumped and Myrtenaster threatened to roll out of her grip as her smile twisted into a grimace.
Scratch that, death was feeling perfectly fine to Weiss right about now.
"Ha! So let me get this straight: Princess over there was not just telling the truth about backup, but she managed to have her own pet White Fang officer doing her dirty work? Man, and I thought they were slipping on their morals when they rang me up!" Torchwick mocked Adam relentlessly and let his cane-gun rest its tip on the ground. His smile only faded when he got no response at all.
"I see. You're still dazed, then," Adam spoke down to Weiss, and only after bothering to turn towards Torchwick. He was glad to feel that seed of hatred growing again: it kept him focused.
Torchwick leaned forward on his cane and waved Adam on with a look of agitation. "Come on, kid, this is the part where you snarl and growl and say something you think is cool but really—" Torchwick didn't have the chance to finish that sentence before Adam rushed forward and slammed his shoulder into the crime boss, forcing him a step back. Adam viciously tore Wilt from Blush and slashed at his neck, but Torchwick regained his footing faster than he thought, and fired his cane for the momentum to carry it up in his hand high enough to clash and send him back.
He crouched low with a speed unfitting of some common criminal and swept his leg for Adam's own. Batting it aside was child's play, and jamming his foot into that smug smirk of his was more so.
Adam's hand went for Wilt as the crime boss stumbled away in a daze, only for his eyes to widen behind his mask as Torchwick accurately fired off a veritable wave of rockets at him. Though the explosions were blinding, all they did was fuel Adam's hatred further, each swatted away by slashes too quick to see.
But one of the projectiles wasn't a rocket. Flying through the smoke and fire left behind, the hook of Torchwick's cane had come flying out, recognized by Adam only in the split-second of his blade connecting with it. It retracted immediately, hooking Wilt in the process.
So, Adam thought, this was how Torchwick managed to survive in a world of Huntsmen: cheap tricks. Adam snorted and with a shout of effort twisted his form and swung his blade behind him, carrying the hook with it. As expected, Torchwick went soaring overhead, cane snapping back to one piece as he crashed to the ground just beside Weiss. A couple shots from behind Adam's back punished him further.
Unfortunately for Torchwick, he was no mere Huntsman. Not in skill, not in strategy, and certainly not in morality. His blade was sheathed in an instant, and every inch of red across him began to glow. It was time for his life to end.
Torchwick, still rising, snapped his cane up to point at Weiss' head, and the glowing ceased. The heiress only glared up at him with frozen eyes.
"Careful there, Red Bull!" Torchwick jeered, grinning. "If you came this far for her, I'm gonna guess you wouldn't be too happy if—"
Adam briefly caught a smirk from Weiss and saw her aura surge: she was waiting for this moment. She spun, stabbed her rapier down right into Torchwick's boot and, ignoring the girly scream that ensued, leaped up to kick him in the stomach against the steel container. Adam followed it up by firing Wilt right between Torchwick's eyes.
Through some miracle, Torchwick managed to fire his cane into the ground and dive with the momentum just as Adam grabbed onto his blade and slashed across the entirety of the steel box as if it were butter.
And for only a moment, Adam and Weiss' eyes met. Myrtenaster was raised, runes glowing red with charged Dust, yet was not fired. With his blade still arced out above her head, still trailing molten metal, he would've been wide open. Had he swung lower, he would have caught Torchwick, but the blade would have trailed right into her as well. And yet...
No words were shared, yet an alliance was formed.
Adam snapped Blush up and fired half the clip down at Torchwick just as Weiss let loose with a series of fireballs past him, forcing the crime boss to twirl and spin his cane to deflect them. Those twirls turned into an intricate dance as Adam rushed over to his side, blurs of crimson striking his cane time and time again. With Weiss darting forward to flank him and that telltale glow rising across Adam's form once more, Torchwick smirked and flicked something out of his pocket.
Adam scowled: a pair of Dust crystals, one red and one ice-blue, haphazardly taped together. Wilt cleaved it in two, and in a flash of light and burst of elements, the space was wrapped in steam.
A makeshift smoke bomb. Naturally.
"Enough tricks!" Weiss refused to let that get in her way. The two silhouettes might have been similar, but only one wasn't glowing. Keeping Myrtenaster charged to leave her visible to Adam as well, she dived in towards Torchwick, stabs slower yet still accurate.
Not confident enough in keeping Weiss out of his Semblance, Adam remained as close as possible to Torchwick as the deadly dance of cane and blades continued. Flashes of sparks as their weapons clashed along with the glow of aura and Dust both lit the way for Adam's blows, leaving Torchwick trapped between the weak yet determined girl thrusting constantly at his chest and the mad faunus' lightning-fast swings that left gashes across the shipping container with every deflected swing.
Adam grunted as an errant slash left Wilt ripping through an unseen container and scattering powdered Dust across his face. By the time he'd brushed it away from the slits in his mask, Roman was gone.
"You kids don't think a single round's going to put me down that quick, do you? Come on! You can do better than that!" Lighting a cigar, Torchwick leaned against another steel crate. Though his precious Melodic Cudgel was adorned with numerous scratches and gashes and his breath came heavy, Torchwick managed to chuckle. He had a plan.
Well, he stole one, the crime lord thought as he looked at the powdered Dust and scattered crystals spilling out at his feet.
A short hop to his side had him narrowly escaping a wave of red aura that crumpled the box and threw up a prismatic cloud of Dust. A blur of black and one of white the two lunged through the cloud in unison, a crimson blade coming from one side, a silver streak coming towards from the other.
Suckers.
Torchwick kicked off the container with all his might, spun in midair and, with a wink to the two conned kids, flicked his cigar to them.
"Catch!"
As one, their eyes dropped towards the Dust not just on the ground where he once stood, but now spreading in the air and scattered on them. Weiss recognized exactly what Torchwick was doing: that rapscallion stole her scheme! But if Torchwick thought they were going to be the only ones in the blast while he jumped to a safer distance, he had another thing coming: spinning Myrtenaster's Dust cylinder to purple in the split-second before the cigar hit the ground, she pushed her Aura to its limits and pulled. A black glyph began to form on Torchwick's chest, gravity began pulling him towards the incoming explosion—
And she was shoulder-checked clean into another wreckage of a Bullhead by Adam, shattering her concentration and a sizable chunk of what little Aura she had left.
The explosion didn't help anything. The reaction was a lot smaller than the one she'd sparked, erupting out only a few feet in a blinding array of color, smoke and elements. With Torchwick was only dragged to the edge of the explosion, it was Adam who received the brunt of it, sent crashing into the same Bullhead wreckage she was in hard enough to shake it.
Torchwick skid to a halt in the center of the ring and grit his teeth. He was low on aura, lower on ammo and damn near out of tricks. The only thing he could rely on was that those two brats were probably put down for the count, but now there was the cops to worry about. He turned away from the still-sparking smoke and waved one of the circling Bullheads down.
Honestly, he thought, where was Neo when you needed her!
Ruby sprinted across the final building between her and the warehouses of the docks fast enough to leave a trail of rose petals in her wake. She didn't even know if that huge explosion was from Weiss or Adam or anyone else she knew, but what she did know was nothing that explosive could mean anything good! She glanced over her shoulder to see if her new partner was able to keep up.
Penny grinned and waved to her. Ruby just smiled back.
Ruby had qualms about Penny joining her after literally running into her outside one of those fancy-pansy hotels, but after seeing her sprinting right behind her without breaking a sweat, Ruby was sure she'd be safe. Maybe. She did seem awfully innocent, though...
The two took the last leap onto the warehouse roof and could already both hear and see the hovering Bullheads around the supposed source of all this madness. Ruby rolled on her landing and sprung back up with her Crescent Rose fully unfolded and ready for combat. Both girls found themselves stopping short soon after. There was a new girl that wasn't there a second ago.
Shorter than even Ruby, with hair the color of strawberry and chocolate with vanilla streaks, a short, white and pink suit jacket and brown corset underneath with matching pants, Ruby briefly mistook her for another student. The colors would've fit a Huntress-in-training, anyway. She daintily spun a pink parasol on her shoulder, just staring silently at the two with a curious smile, particularly at Ruby. Yet, some instinct left Ruby knowing she wasn't from any Academy.
It was those mismatched, pink and brown eyes. She was smiling, but there was too much malice in them to mean anything good. Ruby glanced back to Penny, but the girl only shrugged: she didn't seem to know who this was, either.
"Can I... help you?" Ruby didn't risk pointing Crescent Rose at her just because her stare weirded her out, but she did subtly shift herself to be ready for a fight.
The mysterious ice cream girl brought a finger to her lips and shook her head with a devious smirk.
Ruby narrowed her eyes. "Riiiight... Look, there's something I kinda have to get to, so... uh, bye?" She took a hop, a skip, and tried to fly past the newcomer with as much speed as she could muster.
She didn't expect to get caught, let alone by having the end of a parasol slammed into her stomach.
Probably off getting ice cream on crime company time... Torchwick scowled and watched a Bullhead descend.
A crimson wave of sharpened aura ripped through the smoke and the Bullhead's engine alike, sending it spiraling down behind the arena of debris that surrounded them. Torchwick cursed and whipped around, cane already raised to block the inevitable hit that... never came. He blinked, then squinted through the smoke.
The heiress was still crouched and catching her breath, but Adam was standing tall, smoke still trailing off of him, his aura wavering and a jagged crack now across the center of his mask. But while Adam was staring at Torchwick, that's not where his attention was on. Instead...
"I had that handled, you cretin!" Weiss spat at Adam while she found her stance once more.
Adam scoffed as he sheathed his blade.
"I did not know 'handled' meant 'one second away from dying'," he dryly retorted, sight hidden from Torchwick. As far as he knew, whereas Weiss was focused on Adam, the White Fang traitor was still focused on every move he made.
The Schnee's cheeks grew red with rage. "And I don't know if I ever called for your help or not!" she seethed and stomped her foot.
"Then feel free to die once we're done. You'll be doing the world a favor."
"Fitting words for a violent barbarian like you. At least I'd be missed."
Adam popped his neck as he turned fully to face the Schnee, Torchwick now completely gone from his mind even in the middle of combat. "Oh, this should be good. By whom? I bet your own family wouldn't even be on that list!"
Runes across Myrtenaster began to glow as the Schnee's grip grew tighter. "You are just the worst, most insensitive, arrogant—"
"Haughty, self-important, blind—"
Adam and Weiss' shouts over one another left Torchwick... dumbfounded, to say the least. His eyes bounced from one arguing student to another. He was certain he heard police sirens, but those stupid Vale cops wouldn't dare step close to here while even a single armed Bullhead was up. Still, were they really doing this, right here and now? There's no way. No one's that stubborn. This just had to be some kind of trick, right? Slowly, he started raising his cane.
"You!" Adam pointed his sword at Torchwick in an instant. "What did you do to get the White Fang to betray their ideals!"
Ah well, worth a shot. Torchwick twirled his cane and put on a smirk. "Why, I just offered them a deal, that's all! Consider this a... joint-business venture. They want one thing, we want the same! I thought someone like you..."
Torchwick continued talking, but Adam wasn't listening. He had him monologuing, that's all he needed.
"How much Dust can you use right now?" Adam hissed to Weiss as if their argument had never happened, earning a scowl from her. Her tactical mind wouldn't let her waste potential advantages, though.
"Enough."
Torchwick sounded like he was winding down. He needed to keep prodding him. "You humans aren't so foolish as to work with the organization that wants you wretched beasts destroyed: do not play dumb with me, Torchwick, what's the real reason they're doing this!" It was a stalling measure and nothing more: Adam already knew someone like him wouldn't talk. Not without a little... motivation.
"Oh-ho-ho, my boss barely qualifies as that... but that's enough chit-chat, don't you think?" Torchwick's eye lit up as he pointed the Melodic Cudgel at Weiss. He'd caught on.
"Schnee. When you see an opening, strike me with the strongest blast you've got."
Weiss gritted her teeth at being commanded by Adam of all people, but forced a jagged, vicious smile at the thought. She didn't question why she had to attack him: she didn't really need a reason, right now.
When Torchwick fired, they broke in different directions, Weiss focusing only on gathering up her remaining strength, Adam banking around to Torchwick's side and swinging Wilt up from below. He might've ducked away from it, but Torchwick had a distinct feeling he wouldn't be getting so lucky again.
He was surrounded by Adam, and he wished that was a joke: he could catch glimpses of Adam himself literally running circles around him, but with him were black and red blurs in his image. Afterimages of aura. He twirled his cane idly in a desperate attempt to bolster his defense, but when the first strike came in, it was instinct, not thought that kept Wilt away from his neck. Yet, the attacks were rare, nowhere near as often as all of Adam's speed implied he should've been capable of.
His eyes fell onto Weiss. Adam was stalling. This wasn't an attack, it was a distraction! Clever little animal!
"Nice try!" Not letting his smirk falter, he launched the hook of his cane backwards. It had no chance of hitting Adam, but it did strike wreckage of a container. A tug pulled him away from a wave of aura and left him with his back against the wall. No more encircling tricks.
Adam didn't need them, bolting forward and launching into an outright frenzy of swings only broken up by a sneaky shot from the short rifle in his other hand. Torchwick threw his all into his defense, momentum of his cane leaving the spark-filled space between them as naught but a blur of gray and red. It wasn't enough to stop a slash or two from sneaking past and ripping away chunks of his aura at a time, though.
There was a brief reprieve, but only for Adam to crouch down and begin to glow, aura flaring up to absurd levels and the red light almost blinding. Torchwick snapped his cane to aim into the container without a second of thought: he didn't know if there was any fuel left in there to detonate, but neither did Adam.
The bluff worked: the glow ceased, and he leaped back. Roman resisted the urge to sigh in relief before sprinting for Adam, desperate to keep the initiative on his side.
Then came that instinct niggling at the back of his mind again. A turn of the eye and Torchwick saw why: a wide spear of flame racing straight for him from the girl. Torchwick couldn't believe his luck: with Adam ahead of him, that left that faunus right in the way. All he needed to do was move!
Laughing, Torchwick leaped to the side just as the fire rushed by where he once was, raised his cane and fired a shot at Adam to add to the deadly payload.
Adam began to unsheathe his blade once more and... stood there ready for both.
It was at this point that Torchwick realized he'd been had.
"Neo!" Torchwick called as the explosion of fire and dust lasted for nary half a second before it all swirled into Adam's blade, turning that dim glow of aura into a burning light. He aimed again, his focus entirely drawn on Adam but not the heiress he argued with, leaving him open for a glyph-propelled stab to his side.
He cursed and spun to face her. "Neo, we need to get out of here!" he shouted in the increasingly desperate hopes that his henchwoman would hear him.
Getting the heiress in his sights and snapping his cane up one last time, he caught Weiss just as she was forming a golden glyph beneath her feet. Her eyes widened. With a toothy grin, Torchwick slammed his finger down on the trigger.
Click. Nothing.
He paled. Weiss vanished. Only the hazy image of a ticking clock was left in her place. He hadn't even the time to turn and search for her before a thrust threw him backwards, and another blasted him into the scorched container with far more force than a rapier should have carried. Torchwick's hand searched out for a crystal of Dust, shells, anything to keep him up for longer.
But it was too late: appearing before him with her long, snow-white hair flowing freely without its hairpin and frozen fury in her eyes, Weiss sent a rush of ice forth like a livid sorceress and encased his legs precisely as Adam finally came into view in the air above him, radiating aura in a bloody glow.
"Neo!"
On the warehouses above, Neo flipped and spun herself between a constant flurry of blades and scythe swings alike, not even throwing a blow of her own until one of them attempted to escape. She stopped moving for the first time in her little bout with Ruby and Penny just on the edge of the warehouse roof and winked at them.
Seeing her chance, Ruby slammed down her scythe and took a shot.
Neo shattered into glass.
For the briefest moment, Adam could have sworn he'd seen someone else amidst the ice: a girl in pastel reflected infinite times across its shining surface. But that didn't matter.
"Disappear."
Adam took all of his hatred, his rage, every bit of indignation and wrath he'd gathered in this night, every scratch and blast to his Aura, every blow he had deflected and swung. All that his blade so much as passed near disintegrated and faded not to dust, but to a whirlwind of darkening rose petals: the wreckage of the Bullheads, the shipping containers, the ice, even a passing Bullhead, all were erased in an instant invisible to all but Adam in the blinding blaze of crimson.
Just as quickly as the world was dyed red, Adam landed, sheathed his blade, and all was normal. Adam slowly rose up in the storm of petals while they lasted. It was done.
Torchwick was dead.
"Adios, kids! Please forget to write!"
Or not.
Adam whipped around to find Torchwick and the same girl he'd seen in the ice riding off in a Bullhead far and fast out of sight. Another followed close behind with a crate of Dust, all that remained of the fleet they'd come in on. Adam stood there in stunned silence, only moving to look at the gash cut practically in the fabric of reality itself: entire containers even beyond their arena now looked as if someone had brought an eraser to them, their edges tinged with rust and decay. The Bullhead wreckage simply ceased to exist. Even the ground had a perfectly smooth-edged gash stretching in a half-circle where their obstacles once were.
"It was a nice light show, at least." From how soft Weiss' voice was, Adam wasn't sure if she was just trying to tease him or actually mock him.
The police arrived soon after.
Hiding his horns under Torchwick's bowler hat—a souvenir, he decided to call it—Adam sat in a circle with Ruby, Weiss and Penny as police officers scurried about the scene trying to preserve what they could and paramedics carried off bodies. To say the mood was tense would have been a grave understatement: bar a few lackluster attempts by Penny or Ruby trying to break the ice, they'd remained completely silent. Adam's eyes stayed locked onto the bodies being carried away even after they were taken off the scene. Without combat or anger to guide him once more, all Adam had was his thoughts.
Weiss' eyes fell onto Adam as he stared off at the ambulances driving off.
"The other attacker at the warehouse... was that you?" Her voice brought Adam's gaze to hers.
"Ruby!" Yang came sprinting in, bulldozing past a pair of police officers trying to hold her back. "Weiss! Adam! ... Other girl! I was so worried about you, I heard what happened, is everyone alright?!" Her tackling Ruby into a desperate hug ended that conversation before it began, but Weiss had her answer. It was in plain sight, inside his hollow gaze.
"I'm fine, sis, really!" Ruby squeaked out just as the tension in the air struck Yang.
"Are you sure? Because it looks like someone died."
"Actually sis that's me if-you-don'tletgo!" She took a big gulp of air as Yang finally let her drop back down onto her crate.
Soon, Ruby, Yang and Penny's eyes were on Weiss and Adam. The former looked like she'd went through hell and back: her aura had dropped low enough for her skirt and blouse to be torn and burnt in several spots, her normally pristine hair hung around her face like it did before she went to bed, and light bruises were still being healed by her recovering aura. The latter looked better, but not by much: bangs of his red hair hung in front of his face, his clothes were disheveled from the fighting, and Ruby's keen eyes could catch the weariness in his eyes and occasional tremble in his hands.
After a few more seconds of silence, Adam closed his eyes and sighed.
"I suppose they're waiting on us, then."
"What's there to say that we already haven't?" Bitterness dripped from Weiss' voice.
Adam only shrugged: he hadn't planned on getting this far. The sound of detective work remained for seconds longer. After it was clear Weiss had no intentions to continue speaking, he let out a ragged sigh.
"You were right," Adam growled: it physically pained him to say that. "It was the White Fang committing these robberies and... it should also be clear that my 'sympathies' are drying up fast." He finally opened his eyes and turned to Weiss. Her own were downcast.
"... My turn, then." Weiss sighed. "You were right: the Schnee name is tainted by my company... but, as heiress, it is going to be my job to fix that for humans and faunus." She furrowed her brow. "I don't agree with my father on a lot of things."
Ruby and Yang's eyes gleamed: were they finally connecting? Was this war finally over?
"But that doesn't mean I can forgive the things you've done to my family."
Adam narrowed his eyes. "Nor can I forgive what your family has done to the faunus," he replied.
The two sisters slumped down. The two warring students glanced away from one another, sensing they'd come to an impasse. They simply didn't have the adrenaline left in them to fight any longer.
"... I propose a peace treaty," Adam suggested with a dry, mirthless smile.
Weiss arched an eyebrow. "Oh, because the truce worked so well."
"That is why this is a peace treaty. I..." He sighed. "I promise I will not lump you in with your family and treat you as such. In return, I request you not lump all faunus—myself included—with the White Fang... and I also request that you try to forget my 'sympathies.' "
Weiss' nose crinkled in disgruntlement.
"I thought I just said I won't forgive what you've done."
"I never said to forgive, I said to try and forget." He dug through his mind for the right words until Ruby cleared her throat and quietly piped up.
"Start fresh?" She pointed to Adam. "You're trying to do good now that you left your 'old life,' " Then Weiss. "And you want to make your family less... evil, right? Sticking to the past isn't going to solve anything..." Ruby tried to offer a smile.
Adam pursed his lips and came to his decision. "I came here for a second chance to do right. Something tells me, Weiss, that's the reason you're here too." Her silence was all the answer Adam needed. He looked down at his gloved hands, then reached one out to Weiss.
"So, what do you say? I'm Adam Taurus, no relation to the Major. I guess I'm your new teammate." He cracked a smirk.
Weiss looked over at Adam for a time, trying so hard to push the image of his mask replacing his face and his hands coated in blood out of her mind. Slowly, she took Adam's hand.
"Weiss Schnee. No relation to the Schnees. Likewise. A little odd for Professor Ozpin to wait this late to add team members, isn't it?" The two were silent for a moment until, finally, quiet chuckles built up in the both of them that threatened to turn to laughter. Neither wanted to admit to the relief they felt.
"Yeah! Team RWAY's back together!" Ruby cheered and threw her arms out. "Come on, group hug, huh? Huh?"
"Don't push it," Weiss and Adam dryly replied. Yang took the offer, at least!
Ruby paused, then mentally did a headcount of everyone there.
"Hey wait a minute, where's Penny?"
In an unmarked, black car, Penny stared on at the team and wondered why she was ever programmed to feel alone. In the seat across from her, Ironwood's secretary sighed.
"You gave us quite a scare, Penny, disappearing for three entire days." Penny hung her head in shame.
"I'm sorry, Mister Soliel."
He looked down on her with sympathy, and waved his hand to bring Penny's attention to his smiling face.
"You'll be free soon, Penny, trust me. Just give us time."
The car pulled away.
Yang snapped her fingers. "Aha! Before I forget! Yoooou owe me 20 lien! Oh! So does Jaune and Pyrrha!"
Ruby groaned as Yang swung an arm around her shoulders.
Adam, having tuned out of the conversation to instead fall into his thoughts—or, brooding, as Ruby called it, which it still wasn't—glanced up at the two and sighed.
"Dare I ask what for?"
Yang had nothing short of a Cheshire grin. "Weeeell, about two weeks after you showed up, I bet Ruby 20 lien that you had a dark, evil past."
Adam's jaw hung slack. "... Excuse me?"
"Would you believe Jaune made the same bet without me even mentioning it? I just threw it in the pile, really." Yang continued on as if Adam had never even asked a thing.
He rubbed his temples and just decided to come out with it: "You said two weeks after I joined. How?"
Ruby sighed as Yang only got more smug.
"Well, I mean, come on! The red hair, the glowy-red eye thing," Yang started.
"Black and red clothes, the brooding," Ruby continued with a pout.
"The red sword too, seriously there's so much brooding..." Yang kept piling it on.
"The horns," Weiss reluctantly added. "N-not being a faunus!" she quickly clarified. "Just... horns."
Adam just looked between the three of them as they just kept going down the list of how half of his aspects pointed to him having been evil at one point. And they'd gotten it right. Just from that.
The girls stopped when Adam growled at them. But after a second, it clicked that it wasn't that at all: it was actually a real chuckle building up from his very core. It wasn't even that funny, to him, but on top of the recent events, it was just the straw that broke the camel's back. Something nice happened for the first time in days and his mind latched onto it as if it'd been months. A mere chuckle turned into the first truly genuine laugh he remembered having in months, loud and full of energy.
Maybe it was hearing Adam of all people laughing that finally brought the whole weekend and the future after into context for Weiss. What kind of weird irony was it that her teammate for four years was one of her former worst enemies? Confirmed and secured by the two taking out a human crime lord ordering around a bunch of extremist faunus? All the stress and relief alike came pouring out of Weiss as she joined Adam in laughter.
Finally glad to have her team truly unified, Ruby's giggles mixed in, almost drowned out by Yang getting a laugh both at her own list, and just how villainous Adam's real laugh sounded.
For the first time, RWAY felt like a true team.
For the first time, Weiss didn't feel alone surrounded by others.
For the first time, Adam felt like he belonged. He'd never felt so stupid before for choosing his past over his present. He'd never felt so stupid, having once chosen the White Fang over them.
Far from the docks, Adam's mask reached its final resting place, nestled down on the sea floor.
END VOLUME 1
