Chapter 20
Adolph, really, was just like anyone else. For one, he didn't like being fired.
"What?" he snapped.
"You're fired," Mr. S reiterated, bolstered in his convictions until the man said, quite to his chagrin:
"Then give me a name, Jaques! I will be out of here by sundown!"
Mr. S cringed at that request because he understood it.
He understood that: unlike many of the palace servants - who had their own names, and their own ties to the Schnee family - Adolph was an employee.
And, Adolph, without a name of his own, was now looking to Mr. S to provide him with one.
"Name," in this case, had been crudely explained to him to mean 'last name,' and it was often given out by the upper class as part of a standard work contract.
Such an agreement had come about during the industrialization of Solitas, when there were many in the lower class with suddenly valuable technical skills who were looking for the backing of a royal house.
Thus, the concept of given names arose: Duke Pureblood won't even look at you peasants, much less finance your company? Well, do something for me, and you just might find yourself with reputable names.
This entire process was an unnecessary farce, of course, maintained only through inertia; but it was still maintained, and therefore still necessary, at least as a form of accreditation.
That didn't mean anyone took it all that seriously, however.
Often, a given name could, letter for letter, be identical to the recipient's own surname - the only difference lying in the fact that some database somewhere flipped a bit and reassigned them as one of the cool kids.
Other times, it was an utterly novel name that was just as mundane and bog-standard as the person's original.
And, so, we come to Mr. S's problem: because, you see, giving someone a name required a ceremony in which you actually said the name; and Mr.S didn't know Adolph's last name.
Now the remedy to this may seem, to the astute reader, obvious. Why, just pick any old, random German last name; it didn't really matter what the name was, after all.
The second bit of trouble, came with the realization that: while there was a bounty of German surnames Mr. S could have chosen from… right then, for whatever reason, he could only think of one.
He stood like this for a full twelve seconds, trying and failing to force himself to say something appropriate.
At last, the cop out came to mind, "I'll give you one when you're packed and outside of the castle walls," Mr. S said. Yes, that ought to buy him some time.
This... did not sit well with Adolph.
"Vhat!?" he screeched, his accent creeping up to new heights.
To Mr. S's surprise, Adolph immediately turned away from him, spreading his arms wide to address the surrounding audience.
"Do you see!?" he spread his arms wide. "Do you see how the 'great Mr. Schnee' fails to deliver on even his most inconsequential promises!? He has gone mad!"
Adolf pointed a finger in the air, continuing: "But, has that dimmed his sadism? No! It has merely blinded him to his true enemies!? Oh, yes, he turns on me now, but who will be next!? Who?"
And, to Mr. S's surprise, he was starting to rouse them!
Adolph continued, "Oh, surely, it can't be you!" he gestured to the heads of staff, "surely, your destruction is as unthinkable as a fanus being welcomed - no, INVITED - into such a prominent house by this-"
"Enough!" Mr. S felt the words roar from him with a voice not his own.
And, to his surprise, Adolph actually stopped, looking worriedly over at him.
"You shall have your name when you've packed," Mr. S repeated, an icy, clipped quality taking his voice. "Do not make me repeat myself."
Adolf turned away with a wounded expression, pacing quickly towards the metal gate doors.
A rabble of concerned heads followed behind him, as they rushed over themselves to get out of Mister Schnee's unemployment range.
It had been nice, at least, to clear the roster of one of the crazies plaguing it, Mr. S thought, carted along to his next appointment behind Schwarz, as Sieben trailed closely behind.
The meeting, however, was set to find him sooner than he'd expected, as Mr. S turned a corner and caught sight of Ozpin standing on the other side.
Ozpin noticed them from across the hallway, turning away from Glynda to raise a mug in greeting. "Why, hello there!" he smiled.
"Professor Ozpin!" Mr. S shouted back, for once not having to fake the cheer in his voice. "How has the Atlas night treated you?" he asked, glad for the opportunity to use some of the stock, culturally permissible, greetings he'd been taught during his brief foray in the dream world.
"As well as the Atlas day," Ozpin replied in turn, lacing it with such a great sense of irony that Mr. S was left feeling that he hadn't really understood the point of the salute.
"I won't have the opportunity to enjoy it much longer, I'm afraid," Ozpin continued with a down note; "I'm due to return to Vale tonight, and I fear I've already overstayed my welcome, in any case."
"Heresy!" Mr. S laughed, shaking Ozpin's hand and patting his arm in greeting as their paths met, turning to keep pace with the man. "You're welcome here anytime;" he obliged, adding, after a moment: "although, I seem to recall we had some unresolved business as of last night."
"Yes, that's actually why I've come to see you. I'd been hoping to resolve it under more formal circumstances, but… recent events have not been kind to such a precise scheduling of matters, as you know," Ozpin said, gently gliding the topic of conversation around any direct mention of Mr. S's recent faux pas.
"What exactly was it that you needed?" Mr.S asked.
Ozpin was quick to answer.
"Well" - he began - "as I'm sure you're aware, Beacon sustained significant damage in the wake of the attack, and we've been placed in the unfortunate position of having to shut down until repairs and other such security matters can be brought to proper order."
"Oh, wow, that must be terrible," Mr. S said, trying to sound sympathetic.
"It hasn't been easy," Ozpin said straightly. "Thankfully, Ironwood has graciously agreed to host a third of our students at Atlas for the duration of the closure -" he took a sip, adding " - Haven and Shade have made matching proposals, of course."
"How very generous of them," Mr. S said.
"Yes," Ozpin agreed, "the circumstances have not been kind to such generosity, however."
"Why?" Mr. S asked. "Are they in danger of attack as well?" a probing lilt to his voice.
"No," Ozpin laughed, "nothing so bad, yet."
"Then, what's the matter?"
"A population crisis," Ozpin answered. "The faculties and schools are eager to take on the arrivals, their cities and dorm spaces: less so. This, in particular, has become the major issue in transferring our students to Atlas. "Atlas can grow to accommodate the students," Ozpin rushed to assure, "they've been expanding their facilities in preparation for such a task. However, this is an expansion that has… slowed considerably, due to certain political matters. And, to be frank, Vacuo and Minstral haven't been growing to pace, either."
"Well, that's certainly a shame," Mr. S replied, asking, "but, how do I fit into this?"
Ozpin paused a moment, measuring his words before finally answering, mirthfully: "Well, you are the largest landowner in Remnant, Jaques. We were hoping you'd make available some hotels and other accommodations until the necessary expansions could be completed."
"Oh, of course." Mr. S shook his head as if encountering the obvious. "How many rooms do you need?"
"Oh, about four thousand in total." Ozpin answered with a completely casual nature. "The particulars wouldn't matter as long as they were reasonably close to school grounds; though, to be perfectly honest, I wouldn't expect the living arrangements to last beyond several weeks; certainly, it wouldn't pose a major disruption."
Mr. S found it strange that this was considered the minor favor next to the "fall maiden" issue, but was careful to hide his suspicions.
"Consider it done!" Mr. S said, turning to more fully face the man. "I trust that takes care of your official business?"
"That it does," Ozpin answered happily. "Truly," he added, "I can not express my appreciation enough for all the help you've provided in these matters, Jaques. Should you ever need anything, know that I, and Beacon, are firmly in your service."
Ozpin finished the sentence with a plain gesture and quiet bow, extending his arm to the side as he folded his cane in lengthwise under him.
Of course, despite the naturally subdued manner Ozpin defaulted to in presenting the matter, he really almost did mean anything. Such a favor involving the transfer of a maiden was one for the ages, implying nothing less than the greatest levels of national and personal commitment in the repayment of.
So, this offer, Ozpin made earnestly.
And this offer, Mr. S made the grave mistake of accepting.
For, as all socialized peoples know, the only thing more volatile to a friendship than moving, was an unpaid favor.
A favor was a thing to be carefully cultivated, and not too much overused; to be let forgotten until such a perfect time as when it's moment would ripen, and it would be remembered and repaid, and, in the instant afterward, vanished, forgotten.
To do otherwise would be to introduce into such a sacred concept as friendship, all the material muddies of debts, and reason, and reciprocity.
This, all people, on some level understood the necessity of; the illusion of love required it.
Mr. S, however, was an engineer, and elected to cash in. This, he reasoned, was not only a good way to balance the scales, but indeed a favor to the man, who would be able to rather immediately repay his debt, and thereby be freed from the burden of such an obligation.
Of course, then came the issue of what he would ask for.
So, to what purpose would Mr. S direct such power? On what pressing and important matters would he focus it's great potential?
Why, to help his host's estranged daughter, of course.
Mr. S fell silent in the aftermath of the acknowledgment, and mulled the matter over the course of the next several minutes.
Ozpin, all the while, grew increasingly worried that Mr. Schnee had taken his words literally. More so, he grew worried that the man was about to ask for a favor before they'd ensured the Fall Maiden's permanent presence in the castle.
"Weiss," Mr. S said at last, "which school will she be transferred to?
"Haven, as I recall," Ozpin answered, a horrid intuition developing in the pit of his stomach.
Mr. S felt a similar emotion, remembering vividly the nearly broken-hearted and teary-eyed heiress as she abandoned all pride and asked for shelter in the Schnee manor. How could he, after the promises he'd made, allow such a gentle, confused girl to be shipped off to an unfamiliar land in such tumultuous times?
"I'd like for her to be transferred to Atlas academy," Mr. S said, not with any overt demand in his voice, but with such an incidental agreeableness that it highlighted how unthinkable he considered anything other than complete agreement and approval from the headmaster.
A worried look became Ozpin and he asked: "Is there, perhaps, anything else you'd like?"
"No," Mr. S said generously, "All I ask is that my daughter be well taken care of."
Ozpin felt slightly guilty that he couldn't muster any - more direct - arguments in favor of what surely had to be a humanitarian issue of some sort.
On the other hand, the fate of the world was also a humanitarian issue, and so he immediately quashed that guilt.
"Very well," Ozpin said with a satisfactory smile, "I'll have her and her team transferred to Atlas immediately."
Thus it was that, with a few whispered words, Mr. S irrevocably and indelibly rewrote the history of Weiss Schnee.
And, how did Mr. S feel, having done this?
Quite guilty, actually; to have used his wealth and power to influence such things did bring some niggling doubts to mind. This was far overshadowed, however, by the simple and wholesome good feelings that accompanied such a good deed, done all for a young girl's sake and well being.
Nearly imperceptibly, in the rear of the group, Seiben excused himself with a frightened expression; heading off to the side and out of the manor, he hurried to tell Weiss the good news.
Weiss and Blake stood lonely outside of the deserted airport.
They were alone because there was no one else outside; and no one was outside, partially, because there was still another hour until anything opened, but mostly due to the fact that the Atlas Morning, much like the Atlas Night and the Atlas Day, sucked.
Shivering winds cut their way through the morning air, and Blake immersed herself in the quiet solitude of the empty street, glad for the timely privacy and awaiting departure.
Beside her, standing anxiously over their hastily gathered bags and supplies, Weiss stood in an arm-less salute, looking furtively at her silver watch-face - taking momentary breaks from her disciplined observations to reassure Blake that they would get in early onto an empty ship, even if she had to charter one.
Blake, while appreciative, couldn't help but be embarrassed at her girlfriend's worried doting.
Nearby, the smoking wreck of a dilapidated car frame filled half the cool street with a hard heat and the smell of burnt metal: a monument to the city planners who'd built the airport in Mantel of all places. The car sputtered pathetically as the last remnants of its fuel burnt off; already, through the fading curtain of smoke that previously obscured it, it was apparent that the tires had somehow already been stolen.
Despite everything however, Weiss was giddy.
Today was a new day, after all! And she was breathing new air into her lungs! Ahh! That hit the spot.
The panic would die down, eventually, she assured herself. Besides, though it may have been done a bit more roughly than she intended, she would still be leaving here, so it wasn't a complete loss! Well, perhaps her optimism was a bit overdone, she recognized, but It wasn't so bad that a night's rest didn't invigorate her.
So, mission success.
In all, Weiss was glad, and nothing could have made her less so, considering what she'd been through - not even that burning car wreck over there.
Sieben, however, approaching as he was with such a worried expression, could.
Mr. S walked into his office with a novel excitement, feeling as one might on their first day of work.
It was a different office to the one he'd been in yesterday. And, despite this being his first time in the room, what struck Mr. S most about the office was the aura of familiarity which seemed soaked into the space. Everything, from the generally worn appearance of the lightswitch, to the gracefully muted colors of the sun-bleached curtains worked to enhance this effect.
Mr. S almost laughed at its appearance. It really was just another work office. That fact, made so readily apparent, really brought about a humble character to the room which, as far as Mr. S could tell, was the only thing humble about it.
Because the room was enormous, otherwise, fifty feet from end to end, fifteen feet front to back, and tall enough that a full-sized chandelier wouldn't have been out of place: a feature the architect must have taken note of, Mr. S thought, considering the full sized chandelier that hung down in the space.
The Chandelier was peanuts next to the real centerpiece of the room, however.
The real centerpiece was - get this - a wall, made entirely of glass.
Now, while at this point the feature may have been more correctly classified as a recurring motif than as a centerpiece; it still managed to impress on its second showing, due to the fact that this glass-wall was over fifty feet long. Beyond it, the distant horizon and snow-covered courtyard seemed to glow with the reflected light of the morning sun, and sang a medley of brilliant colors into the room.
Sitting almost directly beneath the chandelier, the desk was an island of wood and metal sunk into a sea of light-blue carpeting. And, truly, it was sunk, seeming to grow out of the floor it had been hammered into.
This naturally made rearranging the furniture cumbersome; but it had to be this way for, when Mr. S sat in the chair - and the desk powered on - a light charge sparked from the desk and down into the building, flashing directly into the numerous computer servers that sat housed, thinking, within its deepest reaches.
And, as the desk alighted with electronic activity, and the chair hummed softly to attention, and the computers sprung to life, a thousand scanners and a thousand sensors trained their focus, and honed their sensitive apparati, and made the center of their collective attention, that space of previously empty air Mr. S now resolved to occupy.
And, truly, it was an act of unadulterated temerity on his part, to occupy that space, for no expense had been spared in protecting it, and in ensuring that only Mister Schnee would sit in that desk in the capacity of CEO.
Everything from camera systems, to artificial intelligence networks, to long-distance fingerprint readers, to electromagnetic blood-scanners, to heart monitors, to iris inspectors, worked in perfect tandem to ensure that no one other then Mister Schnee would be sitting at that desk in any capacity other than as a fine mist. And, truly, no expense had been spared in the matter; everything had been done short of peering into his soul.
But, in the end, they had been short in that regard. So it was that all of those readers and scanners and monitors and inspectors, worked to, with the highest certainty, identify the man in the chair as Mister Schnnee.
All of this escaped Mr. S as he leaned comfortably back against his desk-chair, swiveling from side to side as he waited for the various security codes to pass checks.
Looking down at the desk, he noticed more readily all of the finer details which had escaped him when he'd sat at its counterpart in the auxiliary office.
Mister Schnee, during the briefing, had likened the object to the helm of a captain's ship: the one place from which he could see everything and control nearly as much.
And, as Mr. S observed the thin, dark strip of material which ran lengthwise across the top surface of the desk - and noticed the various buttons and screens and textures which mottled its appearance - he could feel he was beginning to appreciate the comparison more and more.
Truly, the comparison was more apt than even Mr. S would realize, for - if one took enough trouble - they could control nearly everything in the castle from that one desk, and learn far more, otherwise.
And one aspect of particular note incorporated into the desk, was security.
For, it could with little exaggeration be said that Mister Schnee, when at his desk, was the most well defended man in the entire world. And that security was bought - in large part - by the unrivaled awareness the desk provided.
As a thousand sensors pointed in to look upon Mr. S, a million more faced out, bringing to bear innumerable tripwires and fracture points which, together, worked to build a security model as real as life and ten times less penetrable.
For the sake of presentation, however, it was a radically simplified version of this model which ended up being coded onto Mister Schnee's desk.
Simply, three, little lights had been inserted into the center of the black bar - in order: Blue, Green, and Yellow - as a visual indication of the progress of any particular infiltrator.
A blue light would mean that the enemy had breached the outer walls or perimeter of airspace.
Should the intruder enter into the castle itself, the green light would activate, leaving a pattern of "Blue-Green."
Here, in most scenarios, the intruder would have been stopped; their assault halted due to their sudden and tragic lack of solidity or life.
Failing that, however, were an enemy to enter into the secure, inner recesses of the castle, the Yellow beacon would - in its turn - light, leaving a pattern of "Blue-Green-Yellow."
And, here, most complete briefings of manor security would have ended.
There was, however, a hidden, fourth layer.
Should the truly unthinkable have happened: should the enemy, having breached all defenses, and thwarted all detection, enter into his office, the very heart of the castle itself: then, and only then, would the secret light shine with its fiery, red glare. And this horrible sequence of increasingly broken defenses would be left, transcribed, simply, as that unlucky pattern of lights: "Blue-Green-Yellow-Red."
That morning, on Mister Schnees desk, on the dark band which ran lengthwise across it, in the housing which held the security lights, the red light sat alone.
It was an ominous sight, seeing that red eye sitting lonely beside the darkened faces of it's brethren.
It was an ominous and horrible and sinister sight because the light could mean only one thing: that someone had broached every defense and protection of the castle, had mastered their way past every form of detection yet conceived of by man, and was now sitting, quietly hidden, in that very room which housed them.
It could only mean that that person, who had shown enough wherewithal to slip, unnoticed, by a thousand layers of security, who had shown enough deftness and skill to do so without revealing a single hint of their existence, had also allowed the primitive afterthought that was the room's personal security to light the red light.
Someone was in this room with him, and they wanted him to know.
Mr. S looked passively at the discreet, subtly flashing, red light on his desk and - failing to find a button which could switch it off - slowly covered it up with the stack of files he'd brought in.
It was probably nothing too pressing, he concluded, opening up a manila envelope he'd brought with him and spreading its internals all across the wooden surface; anyhow, he had important, immediately necessary things to go over, like what the stock situation was like.
Ten Minutes.
It had taken Weiss ten minutes to get to here from Mantel.
To leave the airport, take a short-cut through Mantel's gangland, depopulate Mantel's gangland, find the nearest tether point, take the trolley up to Atlas, travel to the Schnee manor, and navigate her way through the inner recesses of the palace to here, had taken her ten minutes.
Funnily enough, she couldn't recall, really, the details of how it was she'd gotten herself here. It was a blur; all she ever noticed when she was in this state of mind were obstacles, and none had posed any notable hindrance.
Well, no obstacle except one.
"No," Schwarz stood, statuesque and with her arms crossed, in front of the studied pair.
"Why not?" Weiss asked calmly, huffing from her marathon sprint and brandishing her rapier as if it were an icepick. "He can't be that busy. I just want to talk with him."
"Mister Schnee doesn't accept guests without an appoin-"
"I'm not a guest!" Weiss said through ground teeth, eyes flickering crazily while, directly behind her, Blake wrung her hands with a worried expression. "I just really need to see him," she spat the word; "now," she cracked the tip of her rapier twice onto the stone varnish of the hallway, sending a chipped, ringing sound echoing into its vast extent.
"I'm afraid-"
"Why don't you just ask him," Blake suddenly came forward, taking hold of Weiss in a restraining grip disguised as a hug. She'd grown quite familiar with the heiress's mannerisms, and, lately, Weiss seemed less and less like a calm, rational person, and more and more like a high explosive.
"We'll come back later if he says he's busy," Blake promised, pressing gently onto the heiress's sword hand.
Schwarz looked into the girl's harried, pleading expression and sighed. Shaking her head, she walked back to her desk.
Schwarz pressed the button on her intercom and Mr. S sat up at the sharp ring which flashed up from his own. Looking down, he noticed a small, violet light, blinking urgently next to a stalk microphone.
Mr. S pressed the voice button, setting it flush against the grey surface of the mic with a click.
"Mister Schnee," Schwarz's voice came, oddly formal, "you have visitors. Weiss Schnee and Blake Belladonna are asking to see you."
"Of course, let them in," Mr. S said before promptly ending the call.
Schwarz blinked back from the desk, turning to see the look of utter glee which crossed Weiss's face, as well as the look of horror that marred Blake's.
Weiss immediately made for the stairs, stopped only when Schwarz interjected herself onto their path.
"Mister Schnee's office is ten flights up" - Schwarz began to explain - "it's the third door on the r-"
"Thank you -" Weiss smiled pleasantly at the woman "- but I know where his office is." She made to walk around the secretary only to find a hand extended to halt her progress.
Weiss, now scowling, sent a questioning glance up at the secretary. "Yes?" she asked.
"Your weapons," Schwarz demanded, matching her gaze.
Weiss redoubled her attention onto Schwarz, indignant. "Surely, that's just a formality!" she protested with a breathy air, trying to sound friendly.
"Your weapons," Schwarz repeated, her voice hardening.
Weiss extended her arm out in silent fury, dropping the hilt into Schwarz's expectant hand and sprinting for the stairs.
Blake, removing her weapon, found Weiss gone before it had fully left her grip. And, having dropped her weapon, and feeling Schwarz recede back to her desk, Blake looked heavily up at the flight of stairs before her.
'Tenth floor, third on the right,' Blake recalled as she mournfully climbed the final set of steps and faced down the short hallway ahead. She found it easy to locate the room by dint of the massive doors that led into it, as well as the long, empty stretch of wall which framed either side of them.
Pausing a brief moment outside of the wood-face exterior of the doors, Blake felt her ears perk at the fairly expected round of muffled yelling that bled into the hallway. A crack in the doors allowed the sound to escape and, once her eyes had adjusted to the bright line of light, allowed Blake a glimpse into the room.
Mr. S was sat back against his chair facing down a familiar sight: namely, that of Weiss bearing over his desk, staring daggers.
Weiss, was careful not to yell.
This because, whatever her faults may have been, a failure to learn wasn't one of them; and, having had a night to sleep on it, Weiss realized that this wasn't the time for emotional pleas or petty revenge. All she could do right now was cut her losses and salvage as much of her dignity as possible before leaving. So, she resolved herself, speaking with unnaturally stilted and robotic language that peaked at odd places.
"I'm not staying here." She spoke with dreadful calm, fingers tensing across the overhang of table-top she'd grasped onto. "Even if I go to Atlas, I'll just be staying in the dorms, or a hotel, or in the streets, or somewhere else, not here" - she raised a hand to gesture at her surroundings - "so... I'm not sure why you even bothered."
Her head tilted at the observation in a quick, strained motion of calm, an artifact of the harsh, almost painful, level of control she was maintaining over herself.
Right now, her main and only priority was to get her point across as simply and unambiguously as possible.
So, of course Mr. S misread the situation completely.
You see, with the memories of her tearful proposal fresh in his mind, it seemed natural to him to assume that she was just worried that she wouldn't get to stay in the manor. So, it was with the greatest relief that he assured her:
"Weiss," he said a relieved smile playing at the fringes of his expression, "if you think I asked for your transfer to Atlas just to let you move schools, then you're sorely mistaken. I asked Ozpin to transfer you with the express intention of having you stay here, and - I realize this may come as a surprise after yesterday's events, but - you should banish any doubts about where you'll be living in the near future. This is your home," Mr. S said, "and I intend for you to stay here for as long as that remains the case."
Weiss blinked in disbelief.
"You- you can't be serious," she spoke with a startled monotone, eyes fixed unblinkingly at Mr. S in just such a way that a person overwhelmed with happiness or any other particular emotion might.
"I'm deadly serious, Weiss," Mr. S assured, crossing his fingers over the table and affording himself a respectful silence at the importance of the moment.
"You…" Weiss almost stumbled back from the desk, tripping over her words. "You can't." She managed to say, talking like she was running out of air.
"Of course I can," Mr. S replied resolutely, working his hardest to sound earnest, to communicate that: no, you're not dreaming, I am absolutely serious about this.
"No, no, no," Weiss redoubled, "you literally, legally can't," trying to feel as certain as she knew she should. "I'm emancipated," Weiss continued, voice weakening, "I can stay wherever I want. There's nothing you can do about that."
Weiss concluded her sentence on a questioning note, her clear face marred with worry as she took a defensive posture.
"Well" - Mr. S looked up into a corner in thought - "I suppose that's true-" he began, and then immediately paused.
He stopped because the red light on his desk had stopped flashing. And, though he didn't notice the light ceasing, he had noticed what caused that to be the case.
There, behind Weiss, now clearly exposed in the mid-center of the room, was Adam.
And, it was at just this moment that Blake arrived on the other side of the doors.
Weiss jumped back toward the desk with a yelp, moving out of the field of view afforded to Blake through the narrow slat. Adam, however, was center stage, and Blake could feel her eyes narrowing.
Immediately, her hand closed around the open air where Gambol Shroud should have been, and her heart thundered, and her view narrowed as she took several, dreadfully quiet steps back.
Twelve Hours.
It had taken Adam twelve hours to arrive here from Minstral; a continent had been traversed and favors had been called and vehicles commandeered and people intimidated; and all of this had been accomplished without a single word spoken on his part, every step of journey conducted through sheer rage and as much of that rage as could be expressed through stoic silence and peremptory gestures.
And every haggard mark those hours had left on him were plainly visible as he stood there on the carpet, legs in a wide stance and body hunched forward with a weary, though tense, posture.
Soot blackened patches mottled his otherwise orderly clothes and fair skin, and a fearful aura of rage seemed to weigh on him, dramatically resisting his steady rise into an assured stand.
Weiss was scared; only recognizing the fact when her hand swiped through the empty space where her sword-hilt should have been.
Her eyes opened wide with horrible understanding, growing weak as, again, vainly, she reached a blind hand beside her hip, a jolt of panic running through her at the missing contact.
Weiss stumbled back at this, throat choked with unsaid exclamations as she tried to press back against a steadying wall that wasn't there, her own alarm explicit as she looked at the man who should have been dead.
Adam was breathing steam, his mask doing nothing to conceal the frenzy of his eyes as he focused the full fury of his hatred on Mr. Schnee. And, for the moment… that was all he did.
A sudden silence fell over the room, a quiet so crisp and empty that it crashed into place in the intermittent pauses between Adam's tempered breaths.
In the quiet and the stillness, Mr. S looked at Adam as if he were a painting, heavily stylized.
And, in the quiet, and the stillness, as he looked at the figure, Mr. S couldn't help but feel, running violently through him, the most pure and unadulterated…
Cringe.
Mr. S converted right then to platonic idealism. He looked at the man and just understood that: whatever an ideal form was supposed to be, this guy was the dork version of it.
The worst part was how obvious it was that the guy was trying! Overly gelled hair that made him look like an airplane, a partially buttoned shirt that just screamed 'I don't put any effort into my looks', dyed hair that made it obvious he put effort into his looks.
I mean, this guy had dyyyyyeeeeeeed haiiiiir! You know, like a girl!
The only thing his outfit was missing was a pair of aviators that he only wore at night. Of course, he outdid himself even on that front because he elected to wear a stupid mask instead; a mask that not only looked dumb, but had, Mr. S was sure, less than zero visibility; It had four eye slits, not one of which was positioned over an eye!
He'd been warned about - in fact he'd been expecting - the hordes of crazy people that would gravitate towards him because he was rich. He'd been told that they would corner him in dark places and try to get him to invest in their start-up, or, alternatively, throw buckets of blood onto him; all this and worse, he'd braced himself to accept, but… this... this was just unfair!
There were minor celebrities - not even famous anymore - that were regularly stalked by naked girls and wealthy confidence artists; and Mr. S was now the richest man on the planet, so in what universe was this-!?
Mr. S's musings were suddenly and cruelly cut short when Adam, with a slow hiss of metal against sheathe, pulled out the longsword he'd hidden at his hip.
Mr. S quickly stalled his flippant treatment of the subject matter when he spotted the weapon... and then started it right back up again.
He brought a sword! A SWORD! Oh my God, it was a Japanese one, too!
How quaint!
What was wrong with this world!? Every time! Every time he thought it couldn't get worse-!
This, he was sure, had to be the height of hilarity! The look, the attitude, the SWORD! This mouth-breathing nerd! He'd even painted it red! Probably to represent the blood of his enemies or something gay like that. Hell, at this point, he wouldn't be surprised if he'd named the thing.
Adam - in the meantime - took a calming breath, looking down at the gleaming flat of his blade with an unreadable expression.
"Schnee," he said, a dramatic, musical quality to his voice, "my sword" he gestured the object up, "do you know… why I crafted it with a red blade?"
"No," Mr. S answered, not showing at all the aneurysms he was suffering in trying to suppress his laughter.
"I suppose you wouldn't," Adam scoffed, "your kind are always... conveniently oblivious."
Mr. S doubled over slightly, leaning a forearm across the desk, just barely keeping himself from dissolving into uncontrolled laughter.
This guy thought he was a movie villain! What was his back story? Did he fall into a vat of toxic boy-bands?
'Come on, you're better than this!' Mr. S psyched himself up as he looked back up at Adam, coughing himself back into composure. He was still dealing with an armed person: he figured that, probably, he still had a responsibility to de-escalate, even if only to keep the guy from tripping onto his sword and suing for damages.
"Do you have a name, young man?" Mr. S asked, managing to retain some sense of decency.
The man answered hoarsely: "Adam."
"A fine name," Mr. S nodded respectfully, hooking his hands over the desk. "I don't suppose I'd be able to talk you out of whatever it is you came here to do?"
"I came here to kill you," Adam answered, voice veiled in a stony quiet.
"Have you ever killed anyone before?" Mr. S asked, trying to reason with the man.
"So far?" Adam rolled his head back in idle thought, "ninety one -"
'Riiiiight' Mr. S felt his eyes trying to roll like bus wheels inside his head at the impossible figure, and wondered next how to approach talking with the man.
Really, he wasn't sure what to do at this point. The guy was obviously crazy and decked out to do everything except kill somebody. Probably, he was actually here to dance badly while watching an eclipse, but that much Mr. S couldn't have hoped for.
Adam took a hasty step forward, moving to walk around the desk and drawing, incidentally, closer to Weiss.
Weiss skirted back, keeping close to the exit as she crouched low in a defensive stance.
Mr. S stepped quickly out of his chair at this, putting himself bodily in between Adam and the girl, hearing a nervous breath behind him as Adam took another step forward.
Suddenly, the situation took on a dangerous gravity. Perhaps it had been the reality of his life as of late, or maybe it was due to the defensive distance his desk no longer provided, but Mr. S realized now that he hadn't been taking this situation nearly seriously enough.
Despite everything, a crazy person with a sword was no laughing matter.
And, it wasn't so much the potential danger of the man that caused Mr. S so much worry; rather, it was the realization that: if Adam did decide to rush him, he'd really only have his gun as any measure of defense. And he really, really didn't want to have to shoot someone.
"That's enough," Mr. S scowled over at the man with an unhappy tone. "I don't want to have to kill you," Mr. S said, "but that is what will happen if you take another step forward."
Mr. S took the greatest care to ensure his words were laden with all the honest weight such a statement could carry. He'd never threatened anyone's life before; in fact, doing such a thing to someone so obviously lost only left him feeling genuinely sick; but, this wasn't a joke any more, Mr. S realized. He'd have to stop this guy before things got out of hand, and if it took a threat or even a bullet… he really wasn't sure he was up to that.
Adam stopped his forward march. He sensed the sincerity in the man's words, but, that hadn't been the cause for his halt.
The reason he stopped, rather, was because of the cool voice which suddenly filled the air.
"You make so many threats, Jaques. I often wonder how you manage them." The voice came from everywhere and spread just as widely, but seemed trained, in particular, to address Mr. S.
Soon, the sound localized, and a swirling, red plane unfurled in the space beside Adam.
From out that portal, a woman entered, moving with an innate confidence that belied her unconcerned stride.
She stopped several feet beside Adam.
And, slowly, she swiveled that large, grotesquely masked, head about herself, taking in the upper corners of the roof line with a slow pan before tilting her head suddenly downward, focusing the four, monstrously-colored eyes of her bone mask onto Mr. S.
Mr. S looked closely at the woman. "I wasn't making a threat," he answered, externally confident and internally shitting himself.
For the first time, as he looked at the woman and the portal she'd summoned to arrive here, It… seemed apparent that he'd vastly underestimated the nature of the forces that had aligned against him that day.
Oddly, he felt his emotions seep underground at that realization. He should have been panicking, but as the woman unsheathed her own blade, and the hissing exit of the sword seemed, like a knife, to cut through his mask of calm - he found that he wasn't thinking of his fear.
Rather, he found himself considering only action, and, again the conflict arose as to whether he really would be able to shoot.
In actuality, that was probably a misstatement of his dilemma. He knew he could shoot… but weather he'd be able to shoot to kill-
Raven took a step forward and - immediately - he realized that the answer was yes.
He took a step back. His hand twitched for the holster.
In none of his worries, however, was there any fear that he could actually lose this conflict.
This was an undeserved confidence, considering the capabilities his enemies had shown, but, in the frazzled confusion of his mind, there was room only for instinctual fears and beliefs. And, at the moment, the centuries-deep cultural intuition of "bring a gun to a sword fight, trust me" won out.
Sure, their technology was a bit more advanced, but… he had a gun! Besides, his having a gun proved that the people here weren't bulletproof in any case. Above that, he had the element of surprise; it's not likely they expected him to be armed, considering their actions.
And, undeserved or not, his confidence showed.
This… gave Raven pause. His fears were plain but, in his eyes, there was also composure; more than there should have been.
Cocking her head, Raven spoke with an expression that was almost humorous, "That wasn't a threat?" she asked, "I'm curious to know what it was."
"I'd rather not have to kill you," Mr. S repeated, mind stony from indecision, and unable to muster a better defense of his argument.
He answered openly, Raven noted, with none of the guardedness of a hunter. It was as if he wanted them to know what he was thinking.
And, looking into his eyes, Raven saw what that was. He was confident he could kill them, and he had...something...a trump card that they didn't know about. Raven keely eyed her surroundings, looking deeper than she had at first. This place had worried her from the moment she'd started this mission, and... more and more, it seemed she was putting her life in the muster of outdated blueprints for this deathtrap.
"Oh, and how do you plan to kill us?" Raven asked, eyes gliding idly across the room.
Mr. S, heart now thundering as the reality of imminent violence drew closer, and still mired deeply within his own sudden up-well of moralism, answered with surprising honesty: "one at a time."
And, despite himself, Mr. S felt his eyes hardening, taking on that steely, cold look which so naturally varnished them.
Raven, for an instant, felt her pride rising up, but quashed it before even a hint of it could influence her thoughts. It was obvious to her that he was telling the truth, or rather, the dying flame of her sparked irritation added, that he thought he was telling the truth. On the other hand, It was obvious that he wasn't ignorant of her own strength: she remembered, clearly, the sharp change in his composure when she'd shown up.
In fact, the more she mulled over the matter, the more it seemed that he knew more about her than anyone else in the world... Yes, when faced with Adam, he'd shown no sign that he was anything but in the greatest ease, but, when she'd shown up… he'd changed totally, as if it were only then that he was even in the slightest danger.
That… as much as it wounded her self-image to admit, was too great a credit to her. Professional hunters were all within the same range of ability. No, the sheer range of difference in his reaction… could it be, that he knew she was the spring maiden?
More and more, Raven was regretting her coming here. And, more and more, as she looked over the indefinite figure of Mr. Schnee, she was starting to intensely dislike the man.
Abruptly, Raven felt her head clear, and, with a clack of her sword slamming into her sheathe, she turned away towards the portal.
"Where are you going!?" Adam demanded, turning his head towards her.
Raven stopped at that, moving only to look over her shoulder at the man.
Abruptly, Adam fell silent.
"The winter Maiden is near, and you've undoubtedly set off the alarms if her rushing is any indication," Raven answered, with a tone that seemed to challenge further rebuttal. "I've brought you here, and I'll do nothing more. If you want to kill him, stay and do it yourself; I'll be closing the window in fifteen seconds -" Raven moved once again towards the portal, saying, with a determined finality, "- with or without you."
The last traces of her voice seemed to whisper, as she disappeared through the turbulent surface of the portal, and Adam felt a rage flare up at the ultimatum.
Hurriedly, he looked between the portal and Mr. S. His expressions grew wilder and his breaths grew heavier until, finally, his hand blurred into a ready stance and… letting out a harsh snarl, Adam flicked his sword in petulant anger, directing the blade off to the side.
From Mr. S's perspective, the sword seemed to... flicker out of existence, disappearing from sight despite the overpowering glow that had overtaken it by the time Adam's hand stopped in the abrupt gesture of a completed swing.
Just as abruptly, a curved slash exploded into existence on the face of the glass wall. Screaming shards billowed into the outside world, glittering in violent vortices of wind which - in a flash - flooded back into the office.
Gale winds howled loudly past the glass lips of the cracked smile which decorated the crystal window; a smile which was immediately obscured behind the screen of white papers that billowed up into the air and seemed to fill the entire world white before - in an instant as short as the one which had raised them - they drifted away to dissipate; leaving behind them a scene devoid of anything but the aftermath.
Adam was gone, and the alarms were ringing, loud and shrill against the backdrop of howling air-streams.
To Mr. S, they might have been as distant as the stars, with how much notice he took of them.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he walked to his desk, putting his hand out to support his weight against it as soon as he was able, and thereafter lowering himself gently into the chair. He felt weak, and this facet of himself grew only more pronounced with time.
He was conscious that his body was moving with jerky, uncoordinated movements as he leaned his elbows against his desk, rested his lips against hooked fingers, and just sat there; sat there and contemplated his life choices.
The doors burst suddenly open, sending his heart into arrhythmia as he peeked his head up from his hands, looking tensely over to the scene as Winter strode in, holding up a gleaming rapier in a guard position.
She said something, he wasn't sure what.
She repeated herself and, faintly, he heard Weiss answer: "It… was Adam!...got past security…!"
Security!
The word seemed comical as it came to mind. And suddenly he remembered Schwarz; she was the head of his security!
That, he remembered, had been the last of her jobs.
He felt a sudden upwell of anger at that.
Not at Schwarz in particular but… at the situation where a secretary had been put in charge of his security when there were people like that running around!
And that wasn't even her primary function!
He would have to have a stern talk with her about the security measures she'd put in place; possibly, he'd even have to fire the girl! He didn't want to do that!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Ahead of him, a deafening, almost painful, explosion rocked through the space, making the world go awry as it hit his inner ears.
It was quite an unimaginable noise, terrifyingly loud and brief for all that it seemed to rattle Mr. S's jawbones.
The thunderous rapture deftly smothered all the alarms and all the noise within its immense mass, leaving behind a vacuous stillness, as if something had torn away the air's capacity to carry sound.
Meanwhile, below him, an ominous tremor shook through the ground, running almost painfully up through his leg bones and leaving his soles stinging with darting pains.
Either side of him, cement blocks the size of bowling balls skittered across the floor like tossed jacks. The girls beside him, he could see, took only the slightest effort in dodging or outright stopping the onslaught of shattered bricks, some of which slammed with irregular darts into the front of his anchored desk.
Ahead, the thick cloud of rock dust cleared in the wind, rapidly dissipating in the streaming vortexes of air to reveal the ten foot wide hole which had been torn through the fifteen foot wide wall.
There, half kneeling, Schwarz stood in the center-point of the wound with two, white-hilted short swords in either hand. Violet aura flaring, swirls of dust played conspicuously in the air about her form; her face was an intense mask of barely concealed fury as black eyes went darting furiously in search of potential enemies.
Mr. S felt her eyes lock onto him for a moment before moving on to scan throughout the rest of the room, no hint of thought or motive behind her actions, or anything, for that matter, other than harshly trained instinct.
Mr. S, for his part, took a beat or two to recognize the expression that was drawn on Schwarz's face, this being the first time he'd seen it without the accompanying camouflage stripes.
What he did recognize, however, was the truth of his earlier conviction: he really wouldn't be able to fire her. As in, he was fairly incapable of performing the task while maintaining a healthy blood pressure.
Schwarz, of course, was all apologies.
"...I accept full responsibility for this lapse in security," Schwarz bowed again, and not just to him, either, but seemingly to every servant and tramp that swarmed their way through the now crowded office, vastly delaying their departure as she did so. "Truly, I-"
"Schwarz, please," Mr. S said, finally having regained the power of speech as he exited the office, "I could never even imagine blaming you for such a thing," he said, quite honestly, "so, quit your apologies."
As he walked to the stairs, flanked on both sides by monochrome pairs, he tried desperately to erase that eyes-wide terror he was sure had taken over his expression; finding no satisfactory way to belay the tell except by blinking more.
He was sure he was blinking too much, now.
And, it was in the brief blindness of one of those blinks that Adolf appeared, yelling.
Mr. S, physically, didn't care what the man had to say at this point. So much was this the case, that his ears actually failed to discern Adolf's initial exclamations.
"...What?" Mr. S asked, after a brief moment had passed.
"My Name!" Adolf requested. "My name, my name, my name, my name!" he gestured violently down with each intonation. "Give it to me! Give it to me as you promised on your honor that you would! Say it, and I will go! Say it!"
Mr. S wanted to say, "Shut the fuck up!" but honestly lacked the energy for such leaps of imagination.
"As you have been sworn to, say it! I will have my name before-" Adolf continued his tirade, and, as it was, Mr. S could - in the panic of the moment, and in the confines of his rattled shell-shock - only think to grant the request. Still, that nagging problem of association persisted, as did Adolf.
"...you shall not have gotten a servant's due out of me for nothing, Jaques! What is my name!?" Adolf shouted, repeating, with a stark finality: "WHAT IS MY NAME!?"
Hurrying and not particularly interested, Mr. S threw himself to the winds and just spoke, praying internally as he did so: 'don't say "Hitler," don't say "Hitler," don't say "Hitler."'
"What is my name!" Adolf repeated, cutting through his thoughts and driving him irreconcilably on to his goal.
So it was that Mr. S answered, at last, with:
"Stalin!" he blurted, waving with a flick of a hand.
