"You know I can't allow this, right? You have to have known, this is just some part of your… rebellious phase, like that awful haircut you've embarrassed yourself with."

The dining room table was a mile long, but Weiss could still see the tomato soup clinging to her father's mustache. Beside her, Ruby nudged Weiss with an elbow and mimicked having a mustache that was covered in tomato soup, which was funny, and Weiss loved her, and they would kiss later.

"Ugh, just look at her, daughter," Jacques insisted. Weiss did look, and Ruby was making a stupid face that was very cute. "This is simply not happening, I won't allow it, you can't even have kids!"

A laugh came out of Weiss' mouth, feeling very much like Ruby was laughing through her. "Don't be such a stickler, father," Weiss told him. "I mean, it's literally not true— assuming we'd even want kids, which," Weiss turned to the lovely Ruby Rose, who shrugged indecisively. "Yeah, I don't, especially not at this age."

"I forbid it!" Jacques shouted dramatically. He stomped his foot like a baby. "No, no, no, no!"

Weiss continued, "I mean, if you want grandchildren, why not just wait for Whitley? Or un-disown Winter?"

Winter poked her head out from under the table to announce: "I have no plans for children. I'm asexual."

Whitley poked out from the same spot as his eldest sister, planking over her back as he also announced: "I'm gay!"

Jacques pounded his fist on the table and squirmed in his booster seat. "God damnit!" he shouted. "Does anybody in this fucking house like women!"

Weiss chimed in, "I do!"

"This is nonsense!" he continued to whine, pointing an accusatory finger at his youngest daughter. Coin-shaped tears started flying out of his eyes. "You can't do this! I'm the most powerful man in the world, I'm made of money! I have the funds to ruin your lives, all of you, and I will!"

Ruby rose from her seat and slammed both hands on the table. She puffed out her chest and leveled Jacques with the righteous finger of justice, skewering him with the sharp-but-delicate chin of the law.

"Objection!" Ruby announced, her Aura flaring. She pulled a thick sheaf of paper from out-of-frame and threw it on the stand with a mighty thud. "It's over for you, villain!" Ruby declared, thumping the paper with a knuckle. "I've got it all right here!"

Willow gasped, clutching her pearls in the spectator stands.

"You've got nothing!" Jacques cried.

Ruby cackled like she'd top-decked a 3-cost Hydra. "I've got everything!"she declared, holding up sheets from the packet as she listed off his crimes: "Tax evasion, child abuse, domestic abuse, embezzlement, fraud, public intoxication! Everything!"

The papers she held up were colored pencil drawings of Jacques doing those things, all masterwork pieces clearly done by her hand— perfectly admissible in court. The Schnee patriarch started to bawl.

"I've got you dead to rights, criminal scum!" Ruby claimed, sending him to be hauled off by guards with a wave of her hand. The gavel fell, there was a chant of 'guilty!' and Ruby held up her arms in a heroic pose. She flexed, her three-piece suit ripping off her shredded form like it was nothing while Weiss watched with stars in her eyes.

If the heiress could stay asleep forever, she would have.

When Weiss awoke, it was to that same unfamiliar ceiling. Her bed absorbed her, every part of its boastful thread-count screamingthat it was time to get up, and the general feeling of nastiness in her mouth agreed. She needed to do something besidessleep— her body demanded it— but the lump of folded meat-memories in her skull desired otherwise. She wanted to lay there until Ruby came.

But Ruby wasn't coming.

Of course Ruby was coming. She wouldn't abandon her here, and she was barely starting her third day in this gods-forsaken palace. Ruby was probably training, shirking every moment of doctor-ordered rest in favor of honing herself in preparation for Weiss' rescue, just like her Ruby would.

She could see it now: the girl bursting through the door, Crescent Rose fully deployed, doing that cool pose (which Weiss would never admit was cool) where she held it across and behind her back. Her clothes would be torn from her victory against Adam, boasting her toned, beefy shoulders, her muscles slick with sweat and triumph. She'd pop Weiss a smirk and a wink before scooping her into those heavenly arms. They would frolic gayly (ha) into the sunset, until finding a place of safety where Weiss could finally give the girl some much-needed appreciation.

Except that was stupid, and it wouldn't happen. The scythe was gone, Weiss would probably freak if she saw it; Ruby wasn't that swole, she'd almost died the last time she fought Adam alone, and that wink would just be a blink now. Probably.

Weiss thrashed in the bed, frustrated. No! Ruby would come for her! She'd crush her enemies, see them driven before her, and be serenaded by the lamentations of their women!

Three days of isolation was apparently all Weiss needed to go feral. Now she was quoting those stupid movies that Ruby loved. She had told Ruby she hated those movies. But when they were on the Frontier, alone and bored in their tent; with the rainfly off, the stars glittering above, the shattered moon watching them. She remembered Ruby pulling up beside her, scooching in her sleeping bag like a Beacon Academy crest-patterned worm.

"No," she'd told Ruby, preempting whatever nonsense the girl was about to propose— that was, after all, a time where she was trying very hard to push her feelings away. "Whatever you're about to ask me to do, no. We're not going to braid each other's hair, we're not going to talk about boys, and I am not taking Zwei out because you forgot to and 'you're too sleepy'! He's your dog! Youdo it!"

Ruby had winced a little, but didn't stop her advance. She just pulled out her scroll and said, "Heheh uhh… no, that's not what I wanted," she had pointed across the tent, where Zwei was curled up like the perfect sweet baby that he was. "And he'd be doing his piss-jig if he needed to go."

Weiss could never forget those words: 'piss-jig'. An incredible combination of sounds that had been downright shockingto hear come out of Ruby's mouth. Extremely apt too, what Zwei did when it was that time was precisely a 'piss-jig'.

So when Ruby had struck her with that phrase, she'd been momentarily stunned. She hadn't been able to reel and berate the girl before Ruby scooted even closer and placed her scroll between them. She tapped around the screen, saying, "I was just thinking we could watch—" Ruby went a little red, her voice faltering. "I-I mean I was bored and you looked bored a-and, it's super cold s-so, like, maybe if we had a movie or something it'd take our minds off it. Y'know?"

Weiss had wanted to say no— really, saying no to that kind of thing was in her blood— but the way Ruby looked at her that night with her nigh-inhumanly large eyes, like a hundred begging puppies bearing down on her heart at once… she simply wasn't strong enough. Plus, it really hadn't sounded all that bad, and Weiss had to admit she had some kind of curiosity about what media Ruby frequented.

All she'd given the girl was the tiniest nod of her head, and that had set Ruby absolutely buzzing. She even wormed her bag closer and daringly joined it to Weiss' zipper— the gall! Weiss had almost gone comatose right there.

She had watched that garbage action flick fervently that night. She'd spent so much effort focusing on it, just to take her attention away from her partner, that half the scenes were branded into her grey-matter now. True cinema trash— thoroughly and objectively not good— but criminally fun to watch.

And then the credits rolled, and Weiss had found herself wanting more. It was as if Ruby had prepared for it too, and she just pulled another one up. More brainless action schlock, more hackneyed writing that was rapidly making her neural cells go apoptotic, more spiking anxiety every time Ruby shuffled or breathed too suddenly.

It was torture— true torture— the kind she'd give her other arm to go through again.

That night they'd guzzled down shitflick upon shitflick until Ruby's scroll died, plunging them into the darkness of the tent. The starlight filtering through the mesh ceiling had made Ruby look truly celestial. Weiss remembered how tired she was, how easy it would've been for her sleep-addled mind to let her lean forward and give in to her partner's lips. And Ruby had just looked at her and… and…

And Weiss did nothing. Just like she was doing now. Honestly, how Ruby put up with her for so long was an enigma— Weiss wasn't thatpretty. Ruby should've just gotten with Penny, but she was too busy being smitten with Weiss'… business knees? Was that the thing she said when Weiss tried to degrade herself?

Weiss turned over uncomfortably. She physically couldn't lay down any longer; her back was begging to be positioned any way but supine, and it wouldn't be ignored. With a groan, she forced herself up. Her bare fret slowly plodded across the room, her path dresser-bound.

They had clothes for her already. How they knew her size, she didn't want to know; it wasn't important. They fit her very well, and these freaks did have a good sense of comfort in their fashion. Her only real problem was that their color scheme was so villainous. Black, red, and violet were her sole options in terms of color, but everything from a three-piece suit to a goofy Grimm onesie lay before her, just asking to be festooned upon Weiss.

But… ugh, it was all so darkand broody. Black just was not Weiss' color, and the other two options weren't much better. Worse still, she had toput something on, because she was definitely going to catch some exotic disease if she kept these filthy clothes on any longer. Weiss' gaze crossed the room, landing on the standing mirror by the door.

It was her, one-armed and crusted over with Grimm ichor and blood— other people's and her own. Her clothes felt like cardboard. She felt like cardboard.

What if she was here forever? What if she died here? What if Ruby didn't make it to Atlas? What if her Manta had been taken down just after Weiss was kidnapped?

And what if she lived, but didn't care enough about Weiss to search? What if she'd fucked it up too bad; tarried and boondoggled too long for Ruby to be anything but bitter and eager to give her a taste of her own lonely medicine?

Weiss stared into the mirror, as if her gaze would grant it the sentience to answer her voiceless questions. Would she ever stop thinking of Ruby?

Weiss' hand dove into the drawer, yanking out a red button-down with a pair of slate slacks. Worryingly enough, they also had underwear in her size, but she grabbed everything she needed and scampered to the bathroom. When she got lost, one of the black-monohorned servants pointed her the right way.

Her shower was long and painful, filled with discoveries of baked-in crust patches, painfully hard scrubbing, and all new kinds of fluid combinations Weiss didn't know could stain. When she felt clean, she didn't exit the shower. Weiss decided that, if these people had kidnapped her just to leave her alone, she'd use that time wisely by taking a nice, relaxing bath. Very wise. On top of that, she'd probably drained all the hot water in the palace, so anyone looking for a steaming shower would have to suffer.

Weiss relaxed into the bath, sinking until her nose was just above the waterline. Absently, she massaged her stump, working all its built-up soreness into surrounding waters. At least her Aura would prevent most of the atrophy; her cybernetic was supposed to handle the rest of that, but now she didn't know if she'd ever get her arm replaced.

Maybe Ruby—

Weiss grunted, interrupting her train of thought. No Ruby right now. Bath too nice.

Of course, keeping her thoughts off her girlfriend was virtually impossible, especially when Weiss realized Atlas would probably be 'offering' (read: begging) the superior Beacon students to join, and not taking no for an answer.

Ruby would be in Atlas. With all the… other Atlesians. Prettier ones, with none of the social compunctions the Valish people had. Bold, to-the-point, dangerously skilled at underhanded flattery, and not the type of people to drag your heart through the mud.

And Penny.

Weiss sank further, blowing frustrated bubbles from her nose. She knew— everybody knew— and that stupid robot was going to Jody the shit out of her woman! How fucking dare! She should've been a little stronger when she yanked Ruby out of Penny's doting arms, maybe given that dolt a grand, passionate dip-kiss, something to really show that bucket 'o bolts who's boss. Or maybe a big hickey, one that would last…

Okay, that was a little too far. As tantalizing of a concept it was, the scant hours they spent together-together was a bit short to be marking one another… probably. Maybe. Weiss didn't know anymore. The depth of her depravity was growing more abyssal with every hour of deprivation she suffered, so she couldn't really be held accountable for what became of Ruby when she saw her again— insanity plea, full acquittal.

Eventually, like a swamp-hag rising from the choking miasma of the foggy mire, Weiss pulled herself out of the tub. She exuded determination and confidence, sheer resolve, strength and stoicism in the face of adversity. Ruby would wait for her. She knew. She was sure. And Weiss would remain valiant for her lo—

Her first step out of the tub nearly killed her. The second had her slipping along the tile like a drunken, one-legged figure-skating chicken, and her third sent her head crashing straight for the toilet. Her right arm flailed, phantom fingers catching nothing, but Weiss' left arm went to work on pure, perfect instinct. She drained her own Aura directly into her Semblance, spreading a glyph from the center of her palm.

Just before her hair could be re-washed in toilet water, Weiss' body was jerked up and steadied, her right bicep wrapped in the gauntleted fingers of her glyph-knight's arm, which shot from an airborne glyph and suspended its summoner. Weiss stared at it.

Oh. She did actually mean to do that, but that didn't mean she thought it would work. She'd just popped a glyph without any catalyzing implement such as Myrtenaster, since somebody had confiscated it. To save her from falling into a toilet, of all things.

Weiss stared at her hand in awe. She'd have to tell Winter, though she wasn't even sure her sister could do that without her sabers. She probably could, but Weiss had never seen it.

Regardless, that would have to take place after she got some clothes on. Weiss pulled herself upright with the glyph-arm's help, then set about dressing up for… whatever she was supposed to do as a prisoner. At least she'd look good for it.

Well, she ended up looking… okay. The red shirt was obnoxiously red on Weiss, and the slacks weren't the same shade as the black flats she'd been provided. She didn't look terrible, per se, but it definitely wasn't something she'd pick out if she had other options. She tied off her empty sleeve, then rolled up the other one with the practiced help of her teeth. Since she didn't want to look like she cared too much, she only tucked her shirt in the front— the Mantle classic.

Now that everything was together, Weiss supposed it wasn't too bad, a bit newsboy-ish, but that was something Weiss could live with. And die in, depending on how all of this goes.

Weiss stepped out of the bathroom and sighed. Unfortunately, since she did not expect Adam to be directly outside, her sigh was forcefully shoved back down her throat.

He just stared, those black-white swirls boring through Weiss completely. "Yes?" she asked, after a long while of silence.

Adam seemed to jolt out of whatever state he'd been in. "Nothing."

Weiss cocked her head. "What?"

"Nothing," he repeated, his face a perfect representation of the word. "Ignore me."

Weiss looked up at his horns. "You're, what, seven feet tall? That'll be quite difficult."

Adam's expression remained impassive. "I am just here to watch."

"Watch… what?"

He gave her a limp point of his finger. "You, in case you leave your room. You didn't yesterday."

Weiss pursed her lips. "I had no reason to."

"There are plenty of reasons to leave," he reasoned. "To plot your escape, to mingle among your cohabitors, to eat, to see your sibling."

Her eye twitched. She hated talking to this guy. "Cohabitors?" she asked, picking one thing at random from his list. "I didn't know there were other people here."

He gave her a look, one that told her she was blind and stupid. "I am here."

"I said people."

Adam did actually emote a little at that, though it was through the barest twitch of a sneer. "Your sister is here, my queen is here. My mistress, along with all the servants, are here. The court is here. There are even a couple of prisoners you could bother."

Weiss wanted to stay as far from his 'queen' as possible, but the last notion did interest her. "Prisoners?"

"You heard me perfectly well, otherwise you wouldn't have been able to repeat. Do you want to see them? Do you want to know about them? What am I supposed to tell you from just 'prisoners'?"

And just like that, Weiss discovered her level of contempt for someone could get even deeper. "Tell me anything you like," she hissed through her teeth, trying to keep up with his supreme levels of bullheaded annoyance.

"I would not like to tell you anything," he rebutted. "I would like to throw you up and down the halls until you are a pulp, but I am not driven by like."

"Oh," Weiss seethed, her hand hovering over where Myrtenaster should be. "I would love to see you try."

"We were talking about like, not love, but I think you're being sarcastic," he dully mused.

She was going to rip her hair out and stuff it down his throat. With a defeated sigh, she tried again. "Where are these prisoners?"

Adam looked up the hallway, then turned back to her. "I will show you. Follow."

"Just tell me where they are and I can find them myself," Weiss growled.

"You got lost on your way to the bathroom, which was a single right turn from your room. You are clearly stupid, and it's my job to spy on you anyways."

"Spy on me?"

Adam sighed— a real sigh, so plainly annoyed that it scraped against Weiss' festering anger. "I just said that. What, are you shocked?"

Weiss briefly became a whirl of thrashing movements, which she stopped with a stomp of her foot and a barely-restrained cry. "Shutthefuckup!" she yelled impetuously. "Stop being obtuse and just show me the fucking prisoners! I cannot stand you!"

"You are standing."

Smoke was coming out of her ears, surely. Weiss' entire brain was aflame, lit by the giant asshole who she was forced to follow. Every time she tried to speak to him like a normal fucking person, he turned it on her. Easily. Annoyingly. Weiss did not like speaking to brick walls, especially when they couldactually talk back, because it made her want to die. Every word, every sound, every intonation of her voice, Adam turned it on her. Turning and turning, Weiss was like… like a fucking… thing. A thing that turned a lot. A microwave— no, the— the fucking plate inside the microwave, how it turns, like she's turning, or like…

If Adam was a brick wall, Weiss wanted to slam herself into it. Until she was mush. Just bang bang bang bang.

No, wait, not like that.

God-fucking-dammit.

"Are you just going to stand there and fume?" Adam broke her reverie of rage. "You've been sulking for about three minutes, silently angering yourself. It's… amusing."

Weiss screwed her eyes shut, breathed deep, and channeled every stupid self-focusing tip Professor Zaiden had crammed down her throat. "No, no I am not," she hissed. "I am going to open my eyes, and when I do, I will not see you. Because if I do, I'm going to jump out of a window."

She heard him shuffling— Dust she hoped she wouldn't see him. "Suicide is never the answer," he said, his stupid, deadpan voice like a drill in Weiss' ears. "But it'd be funny if you tried; there aren't any windows here. In the dungeon. Where we are. Because you wanted to come here."

Weiss opened her eyes. He was there. Weiss looked to the nearest window. There weren't any. Instead, there were just stones and cells. Bars lined both walls of the long hallway, most of them empty, save for a couple at the end of the room. Desperate to escape Adam, she fast-walked towards them.

She didn't know who to expect in the cells, but seeing Roman Torchwick of all people nearly gave her an aneurysm. "You!" she shouted, unable to articulate anything from the myriad questions hammering into her mind.

Roman stirred from the cot he'd been sleeping in, apparently waking up a little too suddenly, as he rolled face-first into the stone floor. "Meeeee," he groaned.

"What in the—" Weiss' face contorted ten different ways, one for each of the things she wanted to ask. "What're you doing here!"

"Basket-weaving, smoking a fine cigar, sipping margaritas from the cleavages of my concubines," he snarked, slowly pulling himself into a sitting position. When his eyes met hers, not a shred of recognition flashed. "Can'tcha tell?"

Seeing Roman Torchwick in this state left Weiss speechless for a long few seconds. His face was well-purpled with bruises, one eye was severely bloodshot, and his ostentatious regalia was all gone— no coat, no bowler hat, no cane, just a black shirt with torn, dark pants. No shoes, either, only dingy white socks.

"Hey," Roman called, snapping his fingers. "This show ain't free. If you're gonna keep staring, ya gotta pay up."

"How did you get here?" Weiss asked, ignoring whatever he just said.

Roman shrugged. "Oh, y'know, just tried to get high with my ex. How else?"

Weiss blinked, then looked in the cell across the hall, from which Roman's partner-in-crime idly watched. Weiss pointed to her, then back to Roman. "But I thought… you two…"

Roman audiblygagged. "How— ugh, no! Fuck no! She's like my kid!"

Weiss sputtered. "She's your—"

"And, like, sixteen! What the fuck is wrong with you!"he shouted. "Sicko."

Weiss looked back to the other prisoner, though she didn't offer any actual words. She just looked very angry, and moved her hands in what Weiss assumed to be sign language.

Roman rolled his eyes, though Weiss caught the slightest twitch of a smirk on his mouth. "Oh c'mon," he drawled to his partner, "it's at least a little funny."

The two kept talking— talking from Roman, some kind of teasing that went over Weiss' head while the other girl signed emphatically, rapidly moving her hands and arms into words Weiss couldn't understand. Roman seemed perfectly fluent, though, and never had to take a second to process what his partner was saying.

Weiss was lost. When she turned to Adam— as if he would help— she found herself alone in this miasma of conversation. She missed having friends. And her girlfriend. This sucked.

"How about you?"

Weiss blinked. Somehow, she forgot she was a willing participant in… whatever this was. "Huh?"

Roman let out an annoyed puff. "How'dja get here, dumbass."

"I, uh…" Weiss' eyes drifted over to Adam. He just watched, uncaring, perhaps mildly amused. "Kidnapped?"

Adam quirked one hairless brow at her. "You don't need to be unsure; I did kidnap you."

Weiss scowled. Roman spoke. "Hey, wait a sec, do I knowyou?"

She turned back to the ginger and smirked. "You should; we foiled your—"

"Oh, yeah!" he loudly interrupted with a snap. Multiple snaps, as if he could coax his memory like a dog. "You're that, uh, the… the… from the train!"

Weiss scowled, but that was replaced by curiosity at the way Adam audibly stiffened from behind.

"Yeah, y'know," Roman continued. "Not the best plan, but it wasn't really my idea— I just got the stuff to do it. Execution was a little, uh… raw, for a gentleman such as myself."

"Are you trying to justify yourself?" Weiss asked, heavy doubt creasing her brow. "Businesses were destroyed, people were hurt!"

Roman cocked his head and raised an unimpressed brow. He shrugged. "I mean, yeah. In case you hadn't noticed, I don't really care."

Weiss bit her cheeks hard, repressing the urge to rip the cell door off and beat him half to death. "Evil bastard."

To her pleasure, that seemed to genuinely miff the man. "Hey!" he barked, "I am not evil, okay! Criminal badass, absolutely, but evil? Nah. No way." Weiss watched him sweep a hand out towards Adam, then to their general surroundings. "These freaks are evil. Pure evil. I'm more of a…"

She watched his hands float in the air, as if he couldn't decide which words to pluck. "Puckish rogue?" she sarcastically supplied.

Roman tipped his head and pursed his lips. "Mmm, not quite, I'm a, uh…"

"Honorable thief?"

"Eh, that's still kinda stupid…"

"Chaotic neutral?"

Roman snapped his fingers, but remained pensive to the point of constipation. "Ooooh, that's real close, maybe a bit more of a—"

"Magnificent bastard?"

He rocked back, triumphantly clapping both of his hands together as a dumb grin alighted his face. "Magnificent bastard!" he announced. "Knew I'd come up with it eventually."

Weiss tutted, more than a little ticked. "I don't know, I think my partner called you a, er…" oh, she had to reach deep for this one; it was long before the train incident. "A 'swashbuckling scumbag', I think."

"Ooooo, with the alliteration and everything?"

Weiss nodded, unable to stop the tiny, prideful smirk.

"Nice, they seem fun," Roman idly commented. "Anyone I know?"

Adam was suddenly right behind Weiss, bending partially over so his mangled ears could capture every sound. "N-no," Weiss answered. "Nobody."

Roman smirked at her. "Oh, that sounds like a lie."

Weiss affixed him with a glare, but the look on his face told her he was joking. He raised his hands disarmingly.

"Hey, look, I'll be cool," the criminal promised. "These guys locked me up too, so we're on the same side, or something like that. Just don't tell my wife, she'd have a conniption."

Adam and Weiss both whipped their heads towards him. "You have a wife?" asked the latter.

Roman huffed out a single laugh. "No, dumbass. You think Icould hold a stable… well, anything?"

Weiss glared, but her frustration sloughed away when she realized Roman was diverting away from something Adam was clearly very interested in. When the towering man-thing started creakily backing away with disinterest, Weiss gave the magnificent bastard a hidden, grateful look. "Well, I don't know," she said as nonchalantly as possible, each word giving them another hoofstep of space from Adam. "Maybe with a shower and a suit, you could catch some eyes."

He gave her a cheeky smirk. "Is that a flirt?"

All the manufactured neutrality on Weiss' face twisted into furrows of deep, genuine disgust. "Eugh, no!" she shooed at him, as if she were pushing a foul scent from the air. "Not in your dreams."

Roman looked to the ceiling and puffed out a couple laughs. When hair fell over his face, he blew it away. "So… kidnapped, huh?"

Weiss nodded, sneaking a cautious glance to Adam. He hadn't started stalking back over to them.

"Any clue why?"

Her answer was a shrug.

"Hm. Doesn't that, uh… worry you?"

Was he trying to have a real conversation with her? She supposed it made sense; his threads were ragged enough for him to have been her for a while, and his partner didn't seem like much of a conversationalist— muteness notwithstanding, of course. Weiss scoffed. "Not particularly; I'll find a way out of here."

Roman's eyes briefly sparked, but he schooled it well. "Escape, huh? I tried it."

"Hardly," Adam added from behind, making Weiss jump. The man made as much noise as the bricks in this dungeon, so his presence was easy to forget. "You talked about escape, and you were promptly captured. You didn't even make a step outside the grounds."

Roman sneered bitterly. "Yeah, well… I could've made it."

"That is why we captured you," Adam stated.

Weiss turned to him, a little indignance rising in her voice. "W-well why don't you capture me! I could make it!"

Roman laughed. Adam stared at her, perfectly deadpan. Yeah, she didn't believe it either. At least not at the moment.

"Ugh, whatever," she turned her attention back to the crime lord. "So what were these people using a guy like you for?"

"I have plenty of uses," Roman responded with a childish pout.

Weiss crossed her arms. "Like crime?"

"Theft, yes."

"What of?"

Roman stared at her, his expression of pride slowly darkening before he turned away with a hint of guilt. "Dust," he mumbled somberly. "Lots of Dust."

Weiss raised both brows high. "How much?"

"So much," he shivered, almost imperceptibly. "All of it. Enough to shift the market forever, or… worse."

"Worse? What could you possibly use that much… Dust…" her voice trailed off into the musty dungeon air, which suddenly felt thin beneath the crushing realization that caved Weiss' mind. "That… that was you?" she asked, the unnecessary question ghosting past her lips.

Roman suddenly surged to the bars, his hands slamming around them so heavily that it made the locked door rattle in its frame. Weiss jumped.

"What happened?" he begged, fervent and desperate. "Tell me."

Weiss backed away from the cell, teeth bared in a vindictive snarl. "You know what you did."

"I don't!" Roman refuted. All of his swagger shed away, revealing a pathetic man with guilt in his bones. "I swear, they didn't tell me what it was for— I thought they wanted to corner the economy, but they never told me! I'm a finance guy, it was the logical thing to do!"

Weiss relaxed a little— a little— but still wanted to strangle him, so she turned away. "Don't try to make yourself blameless," she spat over her shoulder.

"I'm not! I—"

"They bombed it."

Roman audibly jostled but Weiss couldn't look at him, she didn't trust herself to. "T-they bombed the city—"

"Vale, Beacon," her voice was hollow and thin, like the quiet rasp of a knife being drawn before you get stabbed in a dark alley. "Everything. Just rubble, smoke, and corpses now."

Roman didn't say anything, didn't make a sound, didn't move a muscle. If she hadn't known better, Weiss would think she was alone in this room.

"I hope the money was worth it." she hissed, turning to leave the way she came.