Chapter 24: Duet

Knights were the humanoid, person-sized androids that mostly served as fodder for the wall of guns belonging to Atlas. Paladins were the enormous, tank-like mechanized armor pieces that could take over an entire lane of traffic. There were others, of course A Deathknight was the android version of Deathstalkers, for instance.

But what would she call the android King Taijitu?

Weiss spun to the side, evading as it bore a face into the marble floor in its attempt to bite her.

Technically the first one to sight it was Neo, but she was not a Huntress and Weiss doubted she'd come up with a good name. The android was barely identifiable as a King Taijitu, it had a rising lump of drills in place of heads, resolving into what resembled —at a quick glance — a camera's aperture. The sectioned armor's heavy pieces clanged like hammers when it moved. It lacked both of the Grimm's main defining traits, the stealth and the snake-like appearance, only keeping the heads, each at opposite ends of the serpentine body.

Shards and cracks knit themselves into the form of Neo, behind the Grimm and a distance away, opposite to Weiss. A scroll-sized chunk of her left thigh was gone, the rest below the knee was smeared in blood and the smuggler still fought like the wound didn't matter.

"Do you have a plan for this, O Great Heiress?" she signaled.

"For this? We usually just improvise," Weiss said, sarcasm dripping from her words not unlike how Ruby would have done in the same situation, and had done so in the memories shared. Neo only sighed.

The tail-head of the Grimm lashed out at Neo, shattering the image like glass.

Maybe she could call it a Hydra? But that implied things this android could not do? Lancer was a name already taken by a completely different Grimm, so the similarities to a spear were irrelevant. A Tyrant? It was in line with the Grimm name, and the monarchic naming conventions of Atlesian Androids…

A Tyrant it was.

Neo reformed again, a distance away, weapon drawn. As far as Weiss understood it she didn't really teleport, only made herself illusions, invisibility and remote control over illusions a part of the seemingly wide package.

Time to adapt again, Weiss thought. She's not a part of my team, but that's no excuse.

Weiss let a subroutine take over, allowing memories to flash across her mind unimpeded by her own. As if plucking a single leaf out of a many blown by the wind, she pulled one of Blake's memories, then one of Ruby's.

A plan was devised, without the need for deep thought.

She walked forward, a slow and deliberate stride. The Tyrant coiled and struck a moment after, the head meeting with Weiss' glyph, a barrier summoned between moments.

Beneath the strain of multiple drills and tons of force, the Glyphs shattered only an instant later, giving Weiss enough time to slip beneath the Grimm. As she slid across the ground, she unsheathed her knife and delivered cut after cut along the Tyrant's belly.

Opposite to her, Neo had jumped over the second head, and ran along the Tyrant's body toward Weiss, rapidly thrusting the parasol's hidden blade between armor plates.

As soon as they met, both danced backwards, spinning as they avoided the twin heads striking down at them.

Broken marble pieces — turned to gravel — skid across the floor.

As the engines inside the heads whirred and threatened to return to the fight, Neo and Weiss advanced, their weapons digging into the back of the Tyrant's heads.

Weiss engaged Myrtenaster's hard-light setting, both sliced their weapons to the side, separating the Tyrant's heads from the body. Engines died out moments later, and the back soot that spewed from the inside signaled the hybrid's death.

The fight had moved her to a dining hall, one of many no doubt. She recognized the broken table, a piece of their old manor, moved there even though she was at a most definitely new construction.

She faced Neo, "Where's Ironwood?"

"Told him to run ahead. Last I saw he was moving to the inner courtyard."

The inner courtyard, that was not a place where she believed Jacques would run to, not if he wanted to leave the place. The previous manor had secret entrances, tunnels, hidden away behind fireplaces and closets. This was an imperial home, and Jacques was a cautious man.

Rather, the courtyard, that couldn't be a good sign… Weiss recognized the danger, there was no time for consideration!

"We need to run after him! Come on!" she told Neo, running into the depths of the manor. The smuggler obeyed.

The layout of the place was the same, to the point where Weiss had to wonder if their previous house was simply transplanted into Atlas. Turning a corner, a corridor was framed by pillars, illuminated by an array of tall, arched windows. It brought memories to the surface, of running after Winter, of the times they'd spent together sneaking out of their rooms. In her mind's eye she could see their past selves running by, the servants either keeping an eye out for them and failing, or running after the sisters, as their father demanded.

Yet that same corridor was plagued by the presence of knights, dozens of them aiming down at the inner courtyard, firing in staggered bursts. The corridors that surrounded the main courtyard were filled with knights, the place was a shooting gallery, a trap, and Ironwood, amid the haze of snow, was bound to be shot eventually despite the androids and their lack of working aiming systems.

Weiss set her jaw. Father, she thought, no doubt it was a work of his.

With the aid of a glyph she lunged forward, cutting the knights apart as she flashed from android to android, barely a thought between the swing of sword and the cleaving of automatons. As she stopped on the other side, they all fell at the same time, cut to pieces.

Two other corridors remained. As she moved out of view, the knights shifted their focus her away, a barrage of bullets fired at her. She ran up a column, a bullet nicked her left calf, another her right shoulder just as she took cover.

Underneath, Neo rushed ahead, bullets ricocheting from her parasol as she ran. A barrage hit and she dispersed into a cloud of shards, then reappeared a moment later behind a line of knights, destroying them one by one as she disappeared between attacks.

Weiss aimed Myrtenaster at the final squad, only faintly able to see them through the snow. Before she could fire a full round of gravity Dust, a shot was fired from below, and a knight detonated.

Ironwood!

Five shots followed, and five androids detonated. A full second later another half dozen shots destroyed what was left of the knights, and Ironwood leaped up to the corridor, through one of the broken windows.

He collapsed to the floor a moment later, Weiss jumped down to his side. His prosthetics were riddled with bullet dents and smoking cracks. The human side was no better, bullet wounds all over, the skin pale, the veins radiating from the prosthetics blackened in a way that did not instill Weiss with confidence.

The killswitch, Weiss thought, no doubt aware Ironwood knew the same.

Neo limped their way, it seemed as if the rush of battle delayed the pain of her wounds. She stopped when she saw the ex-General's state.

"Did you see him?" Weiss asked, "Do you know where he went

Ironwood propped himself up with the aid of his human arm, "He ran to the breakfast hall—" a cough escaped him, "I found him coming back from a hidden door…"

Returning from a hidden door? So Jacques had the time to escape, yet for some reason he chose not to? Or perhaps…

The storm was roaring outside, snow flooding the corridors and inner courtyard. Neo and Ironwood were already too injured, and neither would help the other much. She'd be running and fighting in a completely different rhythm, and they'd be breaking themselves catching up.

Following her path would only ruin them too.

"I'll go after him," she said, then turned to Neo, "Meet back with Ruby and Blake! You know what to do from there!"

Neo nodded, "You're not getting cold feet on us, are you?"

"Not a chance," Weiss answered, without a moment of hesitation. She leaped out to the courtyard, found the magnificent double doors of the breakfast hall.

Then pointed Myrtenaster at it, firing a full round of gravity Dust, the resulting dark orb blew the door off its hinges.

Hulking as it was for a mere breakfast room, the place was completely dark, save for the faint light from the door Weiss blew away. Chandeliers were off, the storey tall arched windows found themselves completely covered in snow, and the long table marched its way into the dark end of the room. At the walls, some of the family portraits, replicas, she assumed, Mother had spilled a full glass of wine at one of the originals years ago. Deliberately.

"You can't leave this place!" Weiss asserted. "The ice and snow covered up the exits, the secret ones, didn't it?"

There was a pause. From the dark end of the room Weiss heard her father sigh, "So it was you."

Weiss took a careful step inside, "Yes."

"And I suppose you're here to arrest me, good Huntress that you are?" he asked.

Weiss didn't answer, only kept her gaze forward, tried to locate where in the darkness of the room Jacques was. There was something wrong, she could feel it.

It was a reflex, Weiss spun Myrtenaster's barrel to fire. With her blade alight, she could see a gigantic blade guillotine down at her. She danced backwards, flipping out of the blade's reach as it struck solid ground. The impact sent a shockwave strong enough to shatter and break every window in the breakfast hall, suddenly revealing the giant armored knight — the medieval kind — and the figure at the other end, Jacques Schnee.

He was completely unaffected by the cold, and holding her grandfather's two-handed sword. The giant knight — an Arma Gigas? No, there was no sign of a Grimm infestation or engines, mechanisms. It meant that sometime in the last five years, be it through stress, research or sheer luck, her father had developed not only Aura, but a Semblance too.

He planted the blade down, "I've been wondering who'd go for a first strike, if it'd be the military or me. It's not often that things turn violent in our trade."

Weiss sheathed her dagger and took a defensive stance, switching Myrtenaster from hand to hand as she stepped carefully.

The knight struck twice, both of them overhead cuts. Weiss danced to the left to avoid the first, then flashed to the right to avoid the second.

The blade left ridges in the floor where it slammed into.

He spoke up again, "So I spent months wondering: 'Who'll be the first? Me? Watts? One of the smugglers?' Months."

Weiss parried another downward cut with a glyph, summoned it at an angle forcing the blade to the side.

"How about…Me!" Weiss said, as she charged ahead.

—❖—

She hoped Weiss was right. They had to take the chance, if only because the pure possibility she could be correct would mean a catastrophe. Death on all sides, Huntress, Military, SDC and civilians alike.

Ruby ran into the tower's entrance, Blake running almost to her side. The main chamber was dimly lit by the few working fluorescent lights, but she could see that already Blake was healing.

Behind them were Beacon Operators, men and women, faunus and humans, about twenty of them, armored with body armor and full-face helmets. All armed with a combat knife and short sword each.

The view ahead of them at the main gallery was both worrisome and a relief.

A relief, because the Knights in the place were unarmed, no dust weaponry in sight, only blades.

She remembered Weiss during their planning, "Just look at the intel from Roman. They've been fighting, in a way, all this time. Jacques steals their Dust, he's been stealing their androids and research the more they demand of him. They're bound to have fought already, covertly. The military will have a lot of raw Dust but androids spend that just to function. They'll resort to close quarters for sure."

And it was worrisome because Ruby, in a moment, saw the lines and lines of android knights and counted over a hundred guarding the Dust vault, covering the chamber from wall to wall.

Weiss was already right once, her other suspicion? That her father had planted bombs on the Dust vaults. It lined up with Jacques' other actions, and from everything Ruby had seen it seemed like something he would definitely pull off. Even one vault, if detonated, could set off a chain reaction that would most likely envelop all of Atlas. If they were being optimistic.

But on the other hand, this was key to their success. If the androids had no fuel, and the soldiers had no ammo…

The Operators formed a line to her sides from wall to wall, blades out. This was as much as many people as they could spare and still, their force was only one fighter deep.

Androids marched forward, recognizing them as threats. Their footsteps were perfectly synchronized, thundering of them echoing across the chamber.

Ruby broke formation alongside Blake, diving into the fray. She engaged Crescent Rose's scythe form in the air, and swung it wide as she landed, tossing androids around them.

Blake was a blur, when it seemed as if one android would cut a limb or decapitate her, her Semblance clones dissipated, revealing themselves as nothing but decoys and giving her time to weave into their ranks, cutting them as she passed.

Behind them, Operators fought, locking blades with androids, and slowly advancing through the crowd of knights as they cut them down, stepped over the destroyed remains.

Then the walls shook, dust falling from the ceiling, and a second later there was the sound of an impact. Something was happening above, where Yang, Penny and Winter fought.