Chapter 17: Madyln

Snow, it was everywhere, but here the vast whiteness was saturated with blood. There had been a massacre here, the bodies of over a hundred beowolves lay scattered around a field. The only hint as to what happened being the many spent shells lying on the ground everywhere.

As the police looked upon the scene, one person was slipping away. If someone were to look in this person's direction, they would have seen a girl in a red hood walking away from the premise. They would have called her back, to question her about what had happened. But that could only be done if they had seen Ruby quietly escaping the battlefield.

Same day, different location.

"And police say that the giant attacked The White Castle in the middle of one of Weiss Schnee's performance." A news reporter was standing just outside the building where the fight had happened. "And I have just received word that there was one person killed, with another injured."

Everyone turned to see the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company walk out of the building. The reporter turned and pulled Weiss over for questioning.

"What happened in there?" She asked.

"My sister died." The clearly distraught Weiss stormed off, leaving everyone behind as she stalked away from The White Castle.

"There you have it folks," The reporter turned back to the camera. "A very unhappy girl, who has reduced the giant that took her sister to pieces. Back to you Levi."

Present day, exactly two years after the previous events, twenty minutes before the incident at Sundollars.

"STOP IT!" Ruby screamed at the two bickering girls.

Blake and Weiss were shocked into silence, they had never heard Ruby yell like that before.

"Calm down, sis." Yang walked over and laid a hand on Ruby's shoulder.

"Why won't they stop?" Ruby started crying into her sister, letting the tears soak into Yang's clothes.

"I don't know," Yang shot a deadly look at both her girlfriend and her sister's. "Just calm down, let's go somewhere quiet."

And with that, she led Ruby out of the room, shooting another acidic glance at Blake and Weiss.

As soon as the door shut, Weiss was already on the attack.

"Why do you put those innocent children through all that at such a young age? It's inhumane!"

"I agree, I left them for a reason, you know."

"But the fact that you were with them in the first place speaks volumes about how you were raised!"

"I didn't know any better!"

"That's exactly my point, the White Fang is desensitizing infants and toddlers to ruthless violence."

"Again, I agree with you, but you need to knock off this prissy stuff. The real world hits you in a way you never saw coming, a left hook to the jaw that comes out of nowhere. Until you see real hatred and bloodshed, don't try to act like you understand all this."

"I have seen bloodshed," Weiss said with a quiet voice. "I've told you before, you're organization was at war with my family for years."

"You say our system is bad, but have you not looked inside your own walls? How is what the White Fang is doing any worse than what your family is subjecting the infant faunus to now?"

"Because we don't use children at the age of twelve to do kill people! The White Fang is taking children who should be learning how to walk and training them to be cold-blooded killers."

"Answer me for real, how is your family better? Look at you, you have been subjected to ridicule from your parents since you were born."

Weiss looked sadly at the ground before answering.

"But we mine using faunus, not humans."

"How dare you suggest we are less important!"

"I didn't mean..."

"Of course you didn't! You never do! But the way you treat my kind is a disgrace. Why do you think you know what's best for us? It's not like you're one of us." Blake was spitting out the words in rapid succesion, not giving Weiss much of a chance to reply.

"No, I'm, I'm," Weiss stammered.

"Or is that it then? The reason you think you know what's best for us is that you know you are one." Blake put it out, not thinking it would lead to anything.

"I, I." Weiss continued to be inarticulate, looking down at her feet.

Blake looked at Weiss with total surprise, she hadn't expected the girl to be so flustered with the accusation... unless.

"You are one, you're a faunus." Her voice was filled with barely contained scorn. "After the ways you have treated you're own kind in the past."

Weiss set her jaw and looked up, she continued in a sarcastic voice, deadly calm. "Prove it. Prove I'm a faunus then. But not today, because you know what happened today? My little sister died two years ago, so just let me go mourn the death of my most important person." She paused. "Previously most important person, before your kind swept that joy away."

Weiss was out of the room before she even finished.

Blake sat there looking shocked, she had just forced Weiss into a corner. She should feel excited that she had won, but all she felt was hot shame. She had lost her cool, over something that shouldn't have mattered.

"What have I done?" She whispered to the sky.

The door burst open and admitted Yang and Ruby.

"What happened?" Yang asked, looking around. "Where's Weiss?"

"I, I, I." Blake looked down at her feet and started to cry.

"Ruby, go find Weiss." Ruby was out the door before Yang had finished. "What happened Blake?"

"We continued our argument as soon as you two left," Blake was talking between sobs. "I figured something out about Weiss, something she doesn't want anyone to know about. She left when I figured it out, Yang, I'm so sorry!"

"There, there," Yang was holding Blake now, trying to get her to calm down. "Ruby will find Weiss soon, and everything will be okay."

Oh, if Yang only knew how wrong she was.

Ruby did not find Weiss in the cafeteria, or the library, or the auditorium, or anywhere. Weiss had basically disappeared off the face of the planet.

"Weiss?" Ruby's concern was escalating every second. "Weiss?"

Ruby started running through the halls, eventually ending up back at their room. She passed Ren, who immediately went to Sun's room after she told him what happened.

"I can't find her." Ruby burst into tears as she walked into the room.

Blake had been starting to calm down, but as she heard Ruby she started bawling again.

"It's okay." Yang said to Blake in a soft voice while rocking her.

"But what about Weiss?" Ruby asked. "Blake was the one who got her to run."

"I don't think she entirely knew what she was doing." Yang replied, looking down at her broken girlfriend. "She certainly seems to be concerned now."

"But what about Weiss?" Ruby persisted.

"We will find her, just as soon as you two clean yourselves up."

Blake stopped crying and looked up in awe at Yang.

'Is she really trying to get us to clean up?' Blake thought. 'With how she goes about on a daily basis?'

She gave one last sob and stood up.

"I'm okay."

"You sure?" Yang got up behind her.

"Ruby," Blake looked at her. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to do that."

"It's fine Blake, I just care about finding her."

"Thank you Ruby, now let's go get her."

"What's the sitch?" Sun asked, to the confusion of the other people in the room.

"Weiss is missing."

"Really?" Krystal popped her head up and joined the conversation.

"Was it before or after they got back to Beacon?" Colton asked.

"After, or so I would assume." Ren replied. "Let's just go see how Team RWBY plans to deal with it."

Team RWBY, as it turns out, had no other way of dealing with it aside from telling Ozpin. So everyone found themselves on their way to tell the headmaster about Weiss' disappearance.

"So you say you checked everywhere?" Ozpin queried when they told him the whole story, from the meeting with Vayla until present time.

"Pretty much." Ruby replied in a small voice.

Ozpin leaned back in his chair, massaging his temple.

"Well, I can't do much without knowing where she went." When he saw the look of despair on Ruby's face, he hastily continued. "But I will check the security footage and tell my staff to look out for her."

"I guess that's all you can do, thank you sir." Ruby replied.

"If you find anything, please do not hesitate to tell me."

In an undisclosed location, miles away from any human life.

"Why have you taken me here?" Weiss cried, looking at the back of the girl in front of her.

"Because I will use you, in a way that I have been used in the past." The girl replied.

"But who are you anyway?"

"Oh, do you not know? I thought you would have been able to tell from the beginning."

"Why? I've never seen you before."

"How about now?" The girl turned and pulled off the balaclava she had been wearing over her face.

"Madyln?"

Author's Note:
Wow, longest chapter so far... Until the finale, which will blow this out of the water. So this required a lot of help from a good friend of mine here on Fan Fiction. You might have heard me refer to him before, but he has been a very huge help to this story. This person is Leviticus Wilkes. Without him, this argument would have been horrendous, and I owe a good amount of this chapter's polish to his careful scrutiny. So, Chapter 18 will be released on March 12, while Chapter 19 will be released on March 16. Again, full release schedule is shown on my profile, so go check there if you want a more in-depth version. I would like to thank everyone for being so supportive of this story, and if you enjoyed, don't forget to follow, favorite, and review. Chas1881