Weiss sighed as the head of security walked away to leave them some privacy, already willing to place a bet on how this conversation would go. "Hello, Father. How are you feeling?"
His expression tightened. "You want to know how I'm feeling, do you? Someone carved a hole in me—a walking graffiti criminal lowlife who by all legal accounts is both my peer and my equal," he said with utter disgust. "I have to shower every morning in front of a dozen other reprehensible men. I'm being forced to do menial labor for ten lien an hour and still have no funds in the canteen to substitute the thrice-daily slop with something with even a tiny scintilla of flavor. Everyone I've once considered an ally has left me in the dirt including those rotting here with me. I don't even know how long it's been since one of my children last visited me but it's been long enough that I'm questioning whether your mother's genetics skipped you and your hair has actually always been black, or if you've really chosen to insult me by dyeing it. Does that tell you how I'm feeling, my dear daughter?"
Weiss crossed her arms. She was amazed. The hostility wasn't unexpected, but the sheer bitterness was more than she knew he was capable of. The last time she'd seen him, her father had been angry and vindictive, but still very much the same prideful and arrogant Jacques Schnee she'd always known. The man lying before her was an empty shell of the influential tycoon he'd once been. He didn't appear to have accepted any responsibility for landing himself in his current predicament yet, still feeling wronged and victimized—but instead of making threats and plotting the downfalls of every last participant of this great betrayal, all he could do now was hate and curse the world and everyone on it for ripping him away from his ivory throne.
"At least you have some perspective of the working conditions you put the majority of your employees through," said Weiss.
"Our lowest-earning workers made a hundred times what I'm making in here," her father argued.
"That's still barely above minimum wage and doesn't factor in the workers you exploited from other countries with even worse labor laws than we have here."
"What do you want from me? Do you want me to apologize? Do you want me to see the error of my ways? The decisions I made turned Nicholas's business from a mere company to a two hundred trillion-lien corporation."
"And now it's worth nothing because your greed—"
"Oh, please," he scoffed. "Spare me the lecture. I've heard it all before. Greed this and greed that. What nugatory tommyrot. I didn't do it for money. I had money. I conquered the economy simply because I could and people feared and respected me for it. I gave you and your siblings a prosperous life that billions around the world would do much worse than I have to see a fraction of. You have no right to complain. I provided you with everything you ever wanted. I paid for your singing, your dancing, your ice-skating. I placed you in the most prestigious school in the entire city and didn't deny you when you decided you'd rather attend a lowly public school instead. You had unlimited hot water, three gourmet meals a day, the finest clothing, the most comfortable bed money could buy." There was a very faint wistfulness in his voice as he spat out that last sentence. "You had everything because of me."
"I would have had all of that even if the STC had stayed the size that Grandfather had left it, and I'd have still been happier with none of it if I'd only just had a father who actually cared about me."
"That's easy enough to say after you've already benefited so much from my riches. You'd have been nothing without me." What he didn't say hurt far more than what he did. He didn't even try to refute her last point; he was beyond pretending he ever had any love in his cold heart.
"I've been doing just fine this past year. Maybe I deserve no better than you, but that just gives me more right than anyone to say just how deplorable you are."
Weiss flinched as her father made a sudden jerking movement with his arms, hindered by the cuffs binding them to the side of his bed. He clenched his fists and scowled. "You're as disrespectful as ever. Is this why you've come here? You came all the way back to Atlas just to slight me?"
Weiss wanted to laugh. She'd spent her entire life catering to his every demand, allowing him to railroad her down a path he'd set out for her before she'd even been conceived. All she'd tried to do as a child was to meet his expectations in the hopes of receiving at least a bit of praise because God knows honest affection was never on the table no matter how perfect a daughter she was—Whitley, who'd been a perfect son in their father's eyes, was living proof of this. Simply having the free will to think for yourself—even if only once in a blue moon—was all it took to be "disrespectful" to her father.
"I don't know why I came here. I suppose it's just simple courtesy to check on family members when they're attacked by knife-wielding lunatics—not that you would know." Weiss touched her scar absentmindedly. "Whatever I was looking for here . . . I don't think I'm ever going to find it."
With a heavy heart, she realized there was nothing left to say. Her father seemed to have noticed as well, as he spoke up right as she was about to start walking away.
"Wait. You are going to find who's behind this, are you not?" he said.
Weiss furrowed her brow. "What? Why me?"
He rolled his eyes. "You were always an inquisitive child, seldom missing an opportunity to stick your nose where it doesn't belong. Don't tell me you've outgrown that trait now that it might actually serve some good."
Weiss hesitated. "Whatever I do, I won't be doing it for you. Don't expect to see me here again."
"Is that another promise?" her father sneered.
She ignored him and left.
Weiss sat in the back seat of the humvee with her head resting against the window; they'd just taken off and weren't even outside the prison's walls yet. The soldiers guarding her both sat up front in silence, oblivious to the tears she was holding back. She was grateful for that. She didn't need anyone else judging her while she was already judging herself harshly enough.
It was hard to say how she felt. She really hadn't expected too much from him, but she'd still managed to delude herself into hoping for something—anything—better than that. This should be all she needs now, the last straw before cutting her father out of her life for good. So why wasn't it? He'd already caused her so much pain and he was still doing it, but only because she continued to let him.
She envied Penny in more ways than one. It was a cruel world where a sweet, innocent girl like her can never remember her own mother while Weiss has to go through the rest of her life knowing exactly who her father is. It wasn't fair.
Weiss was so lost in her thoughts that it wasn't until several seconds after everything suddenly went dark that she registered that something was wrong. The vehicle came to a stop and the two soldiers looked around as they muttered to each other, clearly just as confused as she was. All the lights around the facility had gone out, leaving only the night's sky as a source of light. A minute later, alarm sirens began to wail. Immediately, the soldier in the driver's seat stepped on the gas pedal while her partner talked into his radio.
"What's going on?" Weiss asked.
"Never you mind," said the driver, accelerating to double their previous speed. "We're getting you out of here."
Weiss was concerned, but not overly so. Atlas Supermax was the most heavily fortified prison in the nation—their protocols to handle riots, gang fights, attempted escapes, and whatever else had a higher success rate than the next best prison's ability to serve dinner. This would surely be taken care of before they even reached the city.
The lights came back on a few minutes later right before they arrived at the gate, yet the sirens didn't stop. What was more, it was now joined by the faint pop! pop! pop! of what could only be gunshots going off in the distance.
He's trying again, Weiss thought. She was here for the second attempt on her father's life, this one not even bothering with subtlety.
They rolled to a stop, but the gate didn't open. There was no one in the booth. The guard in the passenger side got out and began trying to force his way in, impeded by the door being locked. Meanwhile, Weiss stared out the back window and saw the tiny figure of a person literally flying away, unsupported by anything, with a spotlight attempting to follow them. The gunshots seemed to be guards failing to snipe the paragon out of the sky.
Nearer to the towers on the ground, more people were sprinting away from the shortest of the three at full speed. A blinding flash of light suddenly erupted from one of them, bright enough to even cause Weiss a few seconds of disorientation from a mile away. Another laid down a trail of red smoke that slowly spread out and enveloped the grounds, obscuring their escape. Just outside of the smoke, Weiss could barely make out one figure exiting the building before immediately diving and burrowing into the dirt as if it were water. For some reason, there didn't seem to be any guards in pursuit of them.
A helicopter took off from on top of the Big Brother and began firing warning shots down in front of the fleeing convicts while someone spoke words through a speaker that Weiss couldn't discern. The flying paragon, who'd made it three-quarters of the way toward the outer wall, decided to turn back and help their fellow escapees. They shot straight toward the helicopter. When they reached it, they pulled the pilot out of the cockpit and sent them falling to their doom, caught at the last second by a paragon whose semblance was apparently enhanced jumping. The jumper knocked the pilot out and left them laying there before retreating into the smoke. The flier's attempt to make the copilot meet the same fate was halted when one of the snipers finally hit their mark. The paragon went limp, and their body plummeted to the ground.
Before Weiss had to see any more, she heard the passenger side door open and close once again. The driver didn't hesitate to take off now that the gate was open, speeding their way back to Amity and leaving the chaos well behind them.
The following morning, Weiss, Ruby, and Penny watched the news together in Ruby's room.
"Last night, the supposedly most secure prison in Remnant, Atlas Supermax, had not only its first successful escape attempt, but its first dozen," said the reporter. "That's right. The previously infallible prison has suffered what is confirmed to be a mass breakout. It is still unclear as to how this incident occurred and who orchestrated it, but what we do know is that somehow an entire cell block of semblance-inhibiting chambers was temporarily shut down, and a reported nineteen paragon inmates were able to make a bid for freedom. Of those nineteen, four died in the attempt and only three were recaptured alive. We've also been informed that eight soldiers serving as prison security were killed, and nine more were gravely injured."
"Regarding the twelve inmates who successfully managed to flee the prison grounds," said the co-anchor, "exactly half have already been tracked down by the military and brought back into custody, and the hunt is ongoing for the remaining six. We have not yet been able to ascertain the names of all these fugitives, but General Ironwood himself has announced that Tyrian Callows is among them."
A chill ran down Weiss's spine.
"Yes," continued the anchor. "As difficult as it may be for many to accept, Salem's infamous lapdog is on the loose once again after being two years into serving his fifty life sentences. For those somehow unfamiliar with him, Tyrian Callows was a serial killer who operated out of Vacuo for many years until becoming, for reasons still unclear, devoutly loyal to Salem and her organization. He single-handedly committed the Vacuan City Hall Genocide that resulted in the deaths of nearly every one of the city's officials, playing a pivotal role in her temporarily taking total control over the city right before her march on Vale. He is personally responsible for over two hundred murders, not counting those still unverified nor the casualties suffered as a result of his service to Salem."
"The CAB has his semblance on file as the ability to manipulate emotions," the other newsperson informed. "Due to the one hundred percent fatality rate of his victims, there are no witnesses to shed light as to how precisely he uses this semblance against them, and so we can only speculate. It is worth noting, however, that failed attempts at interrogating him have yielded only that he has a strong obsession with fear."
Nothing else of interest was reported. "Please take caution," "lock your doors", "we'll keep you posted as the situation further develops", etc. The only other thing they had to say was that the warden had stepped down and Ironwood would be personally selecting their replacement, which was a given. There was no one alive who could keep their job after letting something like that happen under their watch.
"I do not understand how something like this can have occurred," said Penny. "Is this not what the Atlas Supermax facility was specifically designed to prevent?"
"You would think," said Weiss. She was just as clueless as Penny was. After getting back to Amity, Clover had taken a second to make sure she was unharmed before ordering her to return to her room and stay there until further notice while he debriefed with General Ironwood and the soldiers who'd guarded her. Later, someone came by to inform her that her father had not been attacked during the breakout, as the Little Sister had been the only tower affected. This just raised a whole new plethora of questions.
The timing of this incident was too close to everything else to be a coincidence. The person who'd tried to have Weiss's father killed had already exploited the prison's vulnerabilities once, which made them the most likely candidate to have orchestrated this mass breakout. But if he could do something like this, why wouldn't he try to kill her father again? If that wasn't his goal, then what was? Who among the paragon escapees was the person he intended to free, and what did he need from them?
Whomever it was, Weiss felt fairly confident that it couldn't be Tyrian Callows. No one could control him. It was doubtful whether even Salem herself had ever had full control over him. Some of her surviving subordinates had testified to seeing him lash out and kill some of their own well before she died. To try to use him to get something you wanted would be suicide.
"That is an unusual-looking scroll," Penny commented.
Weiss, who'd previously been staring through the muted television with unfocused eyes, found Penny curiously watching Ruby fiddle with the Skeleton Key. Weiss quickly plucked it out of her hand and looked at the screen, seeing a bunch of shapes and connected lines in varying shades of blue.
"Hey!" Ruby protested.
"What do you think you're doing?" Weiss hissed in a low enough voice that only she could hear. "I thought you already figured this thing out?"
"I did! And now I'm using it to . . . try and find out what the military has dug up on all this so far." She said the last part very quickly and quietly, as if in hope that Weiss wouldn't be able to make out what she'd said.
Weiss took a deep breath and massaged her temple. After she was sure she could speak calmly, she held a finger up to Penny, who looked very confused, and then continued to whisper to Ruby.
"You know exactly how stupid I think this is, right?"
"Mhm," Ruby nodded guiltily.
"And you know I'd be yelling at you right now if Penny wasn't here, right?"
"Yep."
"Then we can just pretend I did and skip to the part where I take this away from you and never let you touch it again."
"What? No!" Ruby tried and failed to snatch the Skeleton Key back from Weiss before she could slip it into her pocket.
"What are you two talking about?" Penny asked.
"Nothing important," Weiss said as she got to her feet. "I'm going to go for a walk."
She waved goodbye to Penny, ignored a glare from Ruby, and then left without any further preamble. Mainly, she wanted an excuse to talk to Ruby in private, who would no doubt be following after her any second now. But a walk really would be a good way to clear her mind as she tried to process the fact that she was currently in the same city where the most dangerous serial killer currently living was roaming freely.
Ruby caught up with her right as she was leaving the building. "What was that about?"
"I can understand you using the Key in such an asinine way," Weiss said, "but what I can't understand is why you had to do it right in plain view of Penny."
"You heard her, she thought it was just a scroll. You're the one who made a big deal out of it."
"I had to stop you before you actually managed to infiltrate the Remnant Military's network."
"Well, you had nothing to worry about, anyway. I wasn't able to. It's got a limited range and we're not near enough to any access points. Are you really not going to give it back to me?"
"Of course not. You figured out what it does and how to work it. Well done. We don't need to turn this thing on ever again. I'm sure we could probably get in trouble just for possessing it. The last thing we need is to get caught using it to commit cyberespionage against the federal government."
"But what if we need it for something and I haven't practiced enough with it to do it?"
"What could you possibly need it for? And trying to find classified information on an investigation we have no right to access doesn't qualify."
"It's your family Partridge is targeting. Why shouldn't you get to know everything?"
"Partridge?" Weiss repeated, withholding the fact that she partially agreed with what Ruby was saying.
"Yeah, remember? Wrath of Partridge. I was doing some digging on it and couldn't find anything. But I was talking to Penny and she—"
"You told her about this?"
"No, not everything. I just asked her if she had any idea what it meant since she's pretty smart. And would it really be that big of a deal if we did tell her? She let us in on a pretty big secret. It's only fair that we give her that same trust."
"That's different."
"How?"
"Because knowing our secrets can get her into trouble. It wouldn't be fair to return her trust by making her an accomplice to your cybercrimes."
Ruby sheepishly scratched her neck. "Okay, yeah, I guess you have a point, there."
"And I wouldn't be so quick to disclose secrets to someone who revealed the existence of confidential and dangerous technology to two people she doesn't know and has no reason to trust."
"I think she's just a good judge of character. We are good people after all."
"You're obtuse."
"Well, whatever. As I was saying, I talked to Penny and she remembered this old myth. You know that saying about flying too close to the sun, right? Well, there was another story about the same inventor guy from that one. He took on his nephew as an apprentice and was teaching him how to build and craft and stuff, but got jealous because the kid was a prodigy. His nephew invented a whole bunch of things he'd never thought of and probably would have eventually surpassed him. But one day, the inventor acted on impulse and killed his nephew out of spite."
"What does that have to do with anything?" Weiss asked.
"Well, the boy's name translates to 'partridge' in English. In some versions, a goddess even turns him into a partridge right before he dies in order to save him. So I think 'Wrath of Partridge' means the revenge of a victim of envy. Which of your dad's enemies was he jealous of?"
"My father considered it a personal offense if anyone wasn't envious of him. If he was ever jealous of anyone else, he'd never admit to it. He'd just do what he does with everyone he considered a threat and quietly lash out at them and try to discredit their name."
"And there's no one who—?"
"My father's done it too many times. It'd be impossible to narrow down the list to this so-called Partridge. Do we have to call him that? It sounds dumb."
"I mean, if you just let me have a go with the Skeleton Key again, then maybe I could—"
"Forget it."
Ruby pouted in a way that Weiss, for some reason, found kind of adorable.
Come lunch, Weiss was facing a predicament. She'd come to Atlas because her father had been attacked. Now that she'd seen him, there was nothing left for her to do. She loathed doing nothing, yet, doing something meant doing something that Ruby would do.
Someone probably should have come to talk to her and Ruby by now about returning to Vale. Since it seems everyone had forgotten, they should be going to Clover to ask him about it. But, inexplicably, Weiss didn't. She had nothing left to do in Atlas, yet she wasn't trying to leave. Tyrian Callows being on the loose here only gave her further incentive to want to be boarding a plane as soon as possible, but still she sat twirling ice cubes around the bottom of her glass with a straw.
"You are going to find who's behind this, are you not?" her father had said.
Of course she wasn't. Why would she ever go out of her way to meddle in the affairs of dangerous criminals when there were higher authorities much more capable of doing so . . .? Oh.
"I want to help," Weiss told Sergeant Ebi after finding him in his office and waiting for him to finish talking on his scroll.
"You want to help with what?" Clover said, bemused.
"I want to aid in the investigation. It's my father who was stabbed. It was my sister, my best friend, and I who nearly died in that plane crash. It was me who was minutes away from being potentially killed by paragon escapees. I want to help you track down the person behind all of this."
"You know I can't allow that."
"Why not? I have a right as a civilian to volunteer my assistance in criminal investigations."
"And we have the right to deny your help for any reason, especially in circumstances that prove to be a conflict of interest."
"My interests don't conflict with yours at all. All I want is for this person to be brought to justice."
"You're still too close to the situation. Your sister has already abstained from involving herself in this for the same reason. And regardless, it's too dangerous for you to be doing anything like this while there's a target on your back. We need to keep you safe within Amity."
"I can help without leaving the base. Just ask my sister or even General Ironwood. They know what I'm capable of. I can be a valuable asset."
"The answer is no," came a firm voice from Clover's scroll. Apparently, he hadn't hung up—he'd just put it on speaker.
"Winter?" said Weiss.
"I do know what you're capable of," her sister said from the other end of the line. "You're capable of acute short-sightedness and prone to acting recklessly without giving much consideration to the risk you put on yourself and others. You will be staying well away from this."
"But I managed to find—" Weiss cut herself off before she said too much. She knew Winter had reported her and Ruby's activities involving Torchwick to the general, but Clover still knew nothing about that.
"You managed a fluke and nothing more," said Winter. "The answer is no and that's final." The call ended.
"I'm sorry, Miss Schnee," said Clover.
"Please," Weiss pleaded. "I can't just sit around here doing nothing while other people are facing my battles for me."
"Then, if you'd like, we can begin making arrangements for your flight back to Vale. I'm sure you're eager to get back home and get ready for the Vytal Festival."
"No," Weiss said quickly. "I mean, I am, but not yet. Ruby still wanted a chance to see the city while we're here. Would it be possible to have someone escort us outside the base again?"
"I'll see what I can do, but I can't make any promises while all those escaped convicts are still on the loose."
"I understand."
Weiss left the room filled not with disappointment, but with a renewed determination. She'd do her part to track down Partridge whether she had permission or not, and Ruby would almost definitely be on board. And there was nothing "short-sighted" or "reckless" about this. She'd found Torchwick's base of operations when no one else could. Perhaps she could pull off something similar again. If she succeeded, then great. If not, it wasn't like she was interfering in the Ace Operative's investigation by failing to conduct her own. What was the worst that could happen?
A/N: Credit to my beta readers: Bardothren and I Write Big. They're great writers who are a huge help with making this story as good as it can be.
