Weiss had never considered herself much of a runner. Yoga was her primary form of exercise. She preferred ice skating, but with her current living situation, it wasn't feasible to do as often as she liked, helped in no part by her having spent the past month living in a secret bunker. Before her family had completely fallen apart, she'd occasionally done some ballet routines—her father had had her taking classes for most of her childhood. Even thinking about putting on a pair of ballet slippers now brought back too many memories of him harshly criticizing her recitals. "You are a Schnee! I will settle for no less than absolute perfection!" he'd once said. She'd been eight at the time. For similar reasons, she hadn't so much as sung in the shower in at least a year, despite all the other people throughout her life who'd told her how naturally gifted she was.

But she'd done a lot of running over the past two days, since her ankle's been well enough for her to do so. Her own personal holding cell was the entire underground level of a parking garage—the parts that weren't buried under rubble—so there was plenty of room for it. Other than the few jigsaw puzzles she'd found in the half-crushed RV she slept in, it was the only thing to do, really—trying to find some way of escape had grown tiresome and proven fruitless pretty quickly. Running helped distract her from the horrible circumstances. While concentrating on her breathing and putting one foot in front of another, the negative thoughts had a hard time forcing their way through. She felt sweaty and gross afterward, but her captor was oh so gracious enough to escort her up for a shower and change of clothes once a day.

Shortly after Neo had returned from wherever Torchwick had sent her, they'd ditched the old grocery store and began driving due west—all the way west. They didn't stop until they came upon the edge of the city that had been devastated by Salem's assault. Over the past two years, much work had gone into repairing the damage suffered, but entire blocks that had witnessed her great weapon first-hand were still left in ruins. In the center of one of them was Roman Torchwick's backup location for his base of operations. He'd sent his subordinates ahead to open a hidden path to the parking garage. It made the ideal place to hide out and store all your illegal contraband, and the sublevel—Weiss had to begrudgingly admit—was perfect for containing captives you didn't want escaping. How he'd gotten the electricity running again was a mystery.

For just over half a week, that partially damaged structure was the center for the largest city-wide mafia in Remnant, but not a day longer. For on the third night, Torchwick descended into the sublevel to deliver a message.

"Schnee!" he called out loud enough to carry over to her.

Weiss, who'd been in the middle of running another lap around the room, came to a stop before hesitantly walking over to him. This wasn't the first time he'd shown his face since locking her down here, and it was no more welcome than the last. She much preferred lonely solitude to his presence and the deafening silence to his smug voice.

"I just thought I'd let you know that we're heading out," Torchwick said. "As soon as we finish this job, we'll be back and then you'll do yours. So be ready."

"You planned a bank robbery in just four days?" Weiss said, trying not to sound impressed.

"I'm a professional, sweetheart, it's what I do. All it took was skipping a couple of the usual steps and accepting some additional minor risks. Be back soon." He tipped his bowler hat at her and then left while whistling an old-timey show tune.

She wasn't sure how she felt as she watched the large door slide shut again. She should be relieved. Torchwick would rob yet another bank, Weiss would heal Neo, and then the nightmare would be over. But the "additional minor risks" part had her worried. As strange as it sounded, she was actually rooting for his success here. If he got caught, then who would set her free? Of all the ways she didn't want to go, slowly starving to death was pretty high on the list. Although the idea of Roman Torchwick failing a bank robbery was borderline laughable, Weiss couldn't get it out of her head. Of all the heists to go wrong, it would just have to be the one her life was staked on.

She took off running again at a faster pace than before. The pain in her ankle had mostly alleviated by now. Trying to run on it at first hadn't been pleasant, but she'd pushed through and eventually grown numb to it. The peace of mind running provided had been worth it.

For about an hour and half, she had to stew in her own paranoia until her fears proved themselves unfounded. The door opened once more and Torchwick appeared, looking so casual he might as well have just done a mere shopping run.

"Let's go!" he yelled, impatiently tapping his cane against his shoe.

Weiss—who'd been taking a break—stood and took one step toward him before remembering her one possession. She hurried back toward the RV and grabbed Ruby's hoodie, pulling it over the t-shirt her captor had given her as she made her way toward the exit. The warmth was stifling after the physical exertion, but the flowery scent that still lingered on the fabric helped calm her nerves.

After crossing the threshold for the last time—be that due to either her freedom or her death—she followed a couple of paces back from the criminal. They walked in silence, ascending the incline to the outside and then through the floor level. The staircase was too damaged to be used, so they had to take the parking ramp. At the base of the slope, three of Torchwick's goons sat around a table playing a card game—Weiss recognized one as the man she and Ruby had tailed to Neo in the warehouse. Their boss ignored them and continued on his way.

The second story looked much less barren than the rest of the structure. Three vans were parked in a row beside Torchwick's car. Several large tents had been erected in a U shape and wooden crates were stacked in large piles around them. There were two more men up here—one was unloading duffel bags from one of the vehicles while the other was counting the money inside them and transferring it into boxes. They glanced at Weiss as she walked by but made no comment.

Torchwick entered one of the smaller tents, the only one that had a closed flap. Weiss hesitated for a few seconds before going in after him to find herself staring down the barrel of a pistol. As Weiss raised her hands in alarm, she noticed from the corner of her eye Neo asleep on a mattress on the floor, sandwiched between multiple layers of heavy blankets.

"I realize this might seem a tad unnecessary," said Torchwick, his voice lower than usual but no less arrogant, "but surely you know where I stand on risks and Neo by now. So just do your thing and nothing else, and we can pretend this is a pea shooter."

Weiss glared, then nodded that she understood. Torchwick stepped back, giving her plenty of room to slowly lower her hands and kneel by Neo's head. It was eerie how innocent the woman looked like this. She could have been a normal college student—that shy girl who sat at the back of the class and expressed herself by dyeing her hair a bright color because it was the only way she knew how. No one in their right mind would guess she was a trained killer.

Weiss's heart pounded as she reached out. Her arm looked like it was moving in slow motion, but she couldn't get it to extend any faster. This was it. If she couldn't do this, then there was no hope at all. She couldn't fail—not after everything she'd been through.

After what felt like an eternity, her fingers came to a light rest on Neo's temple. Weiss had to remind herself to breathe. It took longer than usual but, finally, she felt herself being lifted off into another world.

Like the last time she'd attempted this, there was no forest. Empty ashen wastelands sprawled out in every direction. She took that as a bad sign. Unlike last time, however, the weather was clear—no rain, no lightning. Nothing was threatening to destroy the weapon at her hip. She took that as a good sign.

Weiss slowly pivoted in a circle, trying to get her bearings. It seemed to be midday, but a heavy layer of fog still obstructed anything farther than a hundred feet away. She knew what she was looking for—the chained tower she'd only gotten a brief glimpse of right before having to watch her best friend get shot back in reality. But without any kind of physical landmarks to guide her, she had no idea how to get to it.

She tried not to let it worry her too much. Without a hand crushing her windpipe, she had all the time in the world. She would find it, given that she hadn't hallucinated it the first time; it was just a matter of patience.

Weiss drew her trusty weapon and looked up toward the sky, barely able to see a faint glob of yellow through the fog. She decided to walk toward it, as it made as much sense as any other arbitrary direction. As she made her way along, she dragged the tip of her rapier in the ash behind her, marking a path of where she'd been.

Weiss found the first memory after a couple of minutes. Through a window hovering in midair, she saw a first-person view of a much younger Neo. The girl was sitting on the floor of a room where every surface was covered in white tiles. Red light glowed from between the cracks in a grid pattern. Neo picked at the skin on her leg, persisting at one spot until it started to bleed before moving a couple of inches over to do it again. Then—upon hearing a robot voice announce the arrival of her masters—she hastened to roll her pant leg back down and stand with her back against the far wall, staring at the metal door as it opened.

Weiss realized she was watching a memory she'd already partially seen before, but from a different perspective. Roman Torchwick stood at the cell's entrance, looking much like he did in the present—same bowler hat, same cane, and same fashion sense. The only difference was that his orange hair was a bit shorter, and he looked like a giant from Neo's eyes.

"Wait outside," he ordered the two men behind him without taking his eyes off the young paragon.

"Boss?" one said nervously.

"You heard me."

The henchmen glanced at each other before obeying, turning around to walk in the opposite direction. Meanwhile, Torchwick took slow, measured strides into the cell. He leaned his cane against the wall by the door so he could spread his hands open to show he was unarmed, bearing a demeanor not unlike that of someone trying to pick up an agitated cat.

"It's Neo Politan, isn't it?" he asked with a gentle tone that sounded so unnatural coming from his mouth.

Neo, of course, said nothing.

He stopped a few feet shy of her. "My name is Roman. You probably don't hear this all that often, but I have a gift for you."

She made no reaction.

Torchwick stepped aside and gestured at the open door. "Come on. It's just out there."

Her gaze flicked between him and the outside of the semblance-inhibiting chamber multiple times. Her uncertainty was clear, but one thing did seem to register—she'd been given an instruction and had to follow it.

There was a slight frown on Torchwick's face as she started toward the exit, her movements stiff and robotic. The thought of slamming the door shut on him and making a bid for freedom didn't even cross her mind, though it was what Weiss would have done with a semblance like hers. Neo traversed through a short corridor ending in a steel door that had been left ajar. The sound of a second pair of footsteps indicated that Torchwick wasn't far behind. What she found in the room beyond, though, made her freeze.

Corpses. Blood, bullet casings, and about half a dozen fresh corpses.

"If it were me, I wouldn't have wanted them to go so quickly." Torchwick stepped up beside her to admire his underlings' handiwork. "Almost ten years they kept you, right? After that, I'd want them to die slowly . . . painfully. I'd have wanted to see them all fall myself. Quick deaths are the last thing they deserved. But it's a cruel world and we don't always get what we want. Lucky for you, I have a compromise."

Torchwick walked to the middle of the room and kicked one of the bodies, one that Weiss didn't realize until that moment was still moving. The man on the floor, unlike his comrades, hadn't been shot—merely tied up and gagged. Torchwick grabbed him by his collar and pulled him onto his knees so he could stare at Neo with terrified eyes.

"The gift I have for you, my dear, is vengeance—the sweetest thing in life. Freedom, on the other hand, is not something that can be given." Torchwick drew a knife and flipped it, catching it by the flat of the blade and extending the handle out toward her. "You've got to take it yourself."

Neo didn't move.

"Look around," Torchwick said after several seconds. "You stand tall—er, as tall as you can—while the men who tortured you, abused you, unmade you, lie dead at your feet. These are not your masters. These are your enemies. And this one?" He pointed to the one still breathing. "He's the top dog. I can only assume you hate him the most."

Neo managed to take one step forward and one step only. Her trepidation was palpable, but her eyes never left the bound man who could only kneel there helplessly. Weiss couldn't imagine what was running through her head.

"Just know that I'm not ordering you to do anything here. I'm offering you a choice. Take this knife if that's what you want to do. Either way, you get to leave this place and never look back. Act for yourself and no one else. That's the only way you can survive in this world."

Neo burst into motion. She rushed forward, took the weapon, and cut her enslaver's throat so quickly that Weiss didn't get the chance to avert her gaze before the young paragon was pinning Torchwick to the wall, leveling the blade under his chin—she had to fully extend her arm in order to reach. Everything had seemed to happen in real-time, but there was a strangeness in her movements and the way everything else remained perfectly rigid. She'd just used her semblance, Weiss realized, which had made time move more slowly for her.

Torchwick, who'd raised his hands in surrender, had the nerve to smirk. "You don't trust me. That's smart. I think we'd get along, you and I . . . if you can accept that there are people on this planet who don't want to hurt you."

It took her a while, but Neo finally stepped back and lowered the blade. She looked around at all the death that surrounded her, and it must have finally started to sink in—everyone who'd made her entire life a living nightmare was dead. Weiss had no way of seeing the girl's lips, but she could somehow tell there was a smile taking form on them.

"Come on." Torchwick brushed off his sleek white coat and knelt to pick up the cane he'd dropped. "Let's get you some shoes, a change of clothes, and a good meal. I could really go for a nice steak right now. You ever had steak?"

Neo shook her head. A moment later, he looked shocked and enraged—Weiss guessed she'd just shown him what her mouth lacked.

"You know, sometimes I wish I believed in hell. It'd give me some manner of comfort, picturing them down there." He cleared his throat. "Well, I'm sure we can find something you'll enjoy."

The rest of the memory was rather uneventful, but Weiss couldn't bring herself to look away. Torchwick and Neo climbed a staircase, progressing past more dead bodies. They made a pit stop along the way where the slavers had kept Neo's limited wardrobe. The exit came into view where about twenty men and women stood waiting. Heavy rain was pouring down outside, beating down on the several SUVs that were still running.

"Get to work!" Torchwick yelled, bringing their attention to him.

Several of the goons picked up the gas canisters they had sitting by their feet and began emptying them all over the facility. Torchwick and Neo reached the large door and he held out his arm to stop her from stepping through it, first ordering one of his henchmen to bring him an umbrella. He opened it and offered it to Neo, and she stared at it for a few long seconds before delicately accepting it like it was the most valuable thing she'd ever held.

After that, the window disappeared.

By the time Weiss finally found the dark tower, she had absolutely no idea how this woman could still harbor even an ounce of sanity. Several more windows had appeared, none as wholesome as the first (and that was saying something). The things Neo had endured throughout her childhood and teenage years were completely abhorrent. The second memory had been the day her tongue had been cut out. The third and fourth . . . Those were too vile to put into words. The few seconds she'd seen of each had Weiss feeling like she'd be physically ill. It gave her a newfound appreciation for what she'd seen in the first, as much as she hated herself for it.

After that, she decided to adamantly avoid so much as glancing at any other windows that crossed her path. Yet, all the while, not a single Grimm attacked her. It didn't make any sense. The notion that—save for her stolen free will—Neo had no mental instability whatsoever was absurd, but there was little evidence to the contrary. Were her mental illnesses just so ingrained as to be incurable? That'd be unprecedented, but so were so many other things about this woman's mind.

The tower was so large that even after Weiss could finally see its looming shadow through the mist, it still took her a few more minutes to reach its base. Up close, it was even more perplexing. The building was cylindrical in shape, but unevenly so. It was black, jagged, and crooked, looking like an unrefined wood carving. At first, she thought it was built out of some type of dark stone—perhaps basalt. But as she got closer, she saw that the material had a glossy sheen to it. Upon touching it, she learned it was glass—not even obsidian, but a dark, opaque glass.

Weiss circled around the tower until she found the cave-like opening that was its entrance—it took her so long she began to fear that she was meant to climb the chains to the top. That would mean she'd have to find them somewhere out in the fog. Fortunately, that wasn't the case. And upon stepping inside, her other fear also addressed itself.

Sitting in the center of the ground floor, illuminated only by cracks and holes in the walls, was a Death Stalker. This one was different from the last she'd faced. It was smaller, more slender, and its colors were inverse—a white exoskeleton with dark armor plates instead of the other way around. The last time she'd fought a Death Stalker, her patient had been a diagnosed psychopath. This time, she suspected sociopathy.

Technically, psychopathy and sociopathy are both unofficial terms that fall under the clinically recognized antisocial personality disorder. Many professionals would claim that there's no clear distinction between the two and both terms can be used interchangeably, but Weiss always disagreed; it appeared her semblance did, too.

The beast charged, its golden stinger coiled back and ready to strike. Weiss held her rapier at the ready and prepared to evade.

She'd killed the last one through use of the environment. There were no trees to drop on the creature this time, but it turned out that didn't matter. The white Death Stalker had a lot more chinks to exploit than its black counterpart. With patience, agility, and precision, she landed many small strikes until it slowed down enough for her to finish it off the same way she'd done before—stabbing it through the eye.

Left feeling a bit worn down but unharmed, Weiss searched the now empty room. It spanned the entire width of the tower and apparently existed solely to accommodate the Death Stalker, as there was nothing else in there at all. After a minute, she found a staircase hidden in one of the darker recesses going up the wall. It had tall, thin steps and no railing, which made it more nerve-wracking to climb than fighting the giant scorpion.

Each floor contained a new foe—a new mental illness. Some were more challenging than others, but it was nothing she couldn't handle. Apart from the fact that they were all contained within this strange tower, there was nothing unusual about any of them. Besides the Death Stalker variant, she'd seen all the Grimm before—which included a very minor case of narcissism, strangely enough—but nothing that could represent mind control. Whatever she was looking for—whatever she needed to face—had to be waiting for her at the top.

She cured six afflictions in total before the floors stopped having occupants, the most she'd ever done in one mental incursion. After that, all the floors she climbed were vacant. It was around a dozen of these that she stopped keeping count. And then, finally, she saw outside light shining down on the final set of stairs.

One step at a time, both her heart and mind racing, Weiss ascended to the last floor. And then she was at the top. What awaited her there was not another Grimm, larger and more powerful than all those that came before it. It was Neo.

It was an avatar, similar to what Weiss had fought when delving into Torchwick's mind. It looked like Neo did in the present, just without a face. But her hair was undyed, she wore the same clothes as she had the day Torchwick rescued her, and she wasn't attacking. Instead, she was on her knees, hunched over with her head bowed, unmoving. Most notably of all, her arms were stretched out on either side of her, pulled taut by chains that disappeared over the side of the roof, each link bigger than the last.

Weiss knew what she had to do.

After taking a few moments to ensure nothing was about to get the drop on her, she approached the inert avatar. Her blade struck true, and the right chain severed. Instantly, it was tugged away by gravity and vanished, plummeting down the side of the tower toward the ground. What Weiss hadn't expected, stupidly, was that the other one did the same. Neo's avatar was yanked to the other side and Weiss had to dive to catch her, just barely getting a grip on her recently liberated hand.

While this was happening, a woman's shriek rent the sky. It was not a scream of pain, but a scream of fury. The voice also wasn't Neo's—or what her voice might have sounded like. It was someone else's entirely. Weiss wasn't sure why she was so certain of this, but she was too distracted to give it much thought.

Also assaulting her ears was the stomach-curling screech of her heels digging into the glass as she held onto the avatar with all her might. They were getting nearer to the edge with no signs of stopping. Weiss's muscles felt like they were on fire. She had seconds before she was forced to either let go or fall with it.

Then the avatar, previously limp, moved on its own. Its hand suddenly grasped onto one of Weiss's wrists and began to struggle against the pull as well. It was fighting, just as Torchwick's had done, but this time not against Weiss.

They were slowing down now, but still steadily sliding toward their doom. Weiss released one of her grips to move it further up the avatar's arm, then did it again with her other hand. Slowly, excruciatingly, she pulled herself closer until she was able to wrap one arm around its waist. The chain was now in reach, but her sword wasn't—she'd had to drop it.

Weiss's heart pounded in her chest, and she thought of nothing except cutting the chain. She repositioned herself and stretched one arm out as far as she could. She was just barely able to touch the tip of the blade. Pinching it between her index and middle fingers, she was able to scoot it a couple inches closer. Then another couple inches. Little by little, gathering many cuts throughout the process, she brought the handle nearer and nearer until it was finally in her grasp. Not waiting a second longer, she swung it through the air and straight through the chain links. All tension ceased and Weiss collapsed onto her back, exhausted.

She had only ten seconds to rest and recuperate, because then everything began to shake. Cracks erupted along the surface of the glass. The tower shuddered beneath her. She scrambled back onto her feet, only just beginning to wonder how to solve this umpteenth crisis when it seemed to solve itself. Neo's avatar, far faster than her semblance allowed her to move in real life, zipped away without a moment's hesitation, leaving Weiss alone atop the unstable structure.

She took a few careful steps in the same direction and risked a glance over the edge of the roof. The fog had dissipated, allowing her to see a faint blur running off into the distance through the rapidly growing saplings that had sprouted all over the now green and brown terrain. The ash had disappeared, and it began to snow. That was all the confirmation Weiss needed that her job was done. She knelt, closed her eyes, and left right as the floor gave way beneath her.

Neo woke with a gasp and shot up into a sitting position, having returned to the material realm along with Weiss. She looked shell-shocked, staring straight through the side of the tent with her mismatched eyes. Weiss stood and managed to take one step back before Torchwick shoved her aside to take a knee in front of the person he viewed as a daughter. Having seen the proof herself, she now knew it was no pretense.

"Neo," he said. She made no sign of having heard him, so he repeated himself in a more urgent tone. "Neo."

Neo didn't even look at him. Weiss was reminded of how the psychopathic prisoner she'd cured had looked after she'd left his mind. But this would have to be way worse, as it was six mental ailments that had suddenly vanished from her head instead of two, plus whatever damage may have been left over from the manipulation Torchwick's boss had done.

Torchwick rounded on Weiss with a cold look of fury. "What's wrong with her? What did you do?"

"I cured her." Weiss, having regained her balance, retreated a bit farther. "But her mind's going to need some time to adjust. It's not an instant process."

"You 'cured' her? You were supposed to free her."

"I did!" Weiss still felt anxious, even though he'd left the gun behind with his cane on a foldable table. "I broke the hold your boss had on her. She's free."

"Then what the hell is this about 'curing' her? There was nothing wrong with her."

Weiss had to consider her next words very carefully. While it was a simple fact that there had indeed been several things wrong with her, saying that to the enraged crime lord wouldn't be the wisest idea.

"She's been through a lot," she cautioned. "The kind of impact a childhood like hers had isn't something that just goes away on its own."

Whatever Torchwick had to say in response to that died in his throat, as Neo chose that moment to put her hand on his arm. He looked back at her, but she was still staring off into space. After a few seconds, he said her name again and she was finally able to train a disoriented gaze on him.

Weiss heard rapid footsteps echoing outside the tent followed by a shout.

"Boss!" came a troubled voice.

"He's in there," another replied.

Torchwick stood alert just as a man appeared at the flap. It was the one Weiss had recognized from the warehouse—Duke, his name was.

"Boss," he said. "It's them."

"What?" said Torchwick.

"It's them," Duke said again. "They're here."

"Son of a bitch!" Torchwick muttered, looking worried. He lifted his hat and ran a hand through his hair, what almost looked like worry in his eye.

Two more sets of footsteps could be heard approaching at a casual pace. Torchwick glanced at Neo, who'd gone back to staring at the canvas wall, then pulled Weiss's hood over her head before stepping outside. His henchman was right behind him, as was Weiss, who was too curious to stay behind.

This mysterious "them" didn't give off the threatening presence she'd expected after Torchwick's reaction. They both looked around Weiss's age. One was a dark-skinned woman with green hair and red eyes, fashionably dressed in attire that left her arms, cleavage, and midriff exposed. She seemed the head cheerleader type who could go from a bright and sunny attitude to a cruel and toxic one at the drop of a dime.

Her associate was a man with messy gray hair and an eye color to match, dressed in a black suit vest over a white dress shirt and gray pants. His sleeves were rolled halfway up his arms and the collar was folded up, unbuttoned, as if to intentionally detract from the professionalism his outfit would otherwise suggest. He walked with his fingers folded behind his head and the mien of a teenage delinquent, looking bored and indifferent to everything around him, but with just enough smugness to suggest that he believed everyone to be beneath himself.

"Oh great," Torchwick said. "So, the freaks managed to track us down after all."

"Did you really think we wouldn't?" said the green-haired woman.

The other two henchmen had stopped what they were doing to watch the newcomers, on edge but not daring to move.

"No, but a man can hope, can't he?" Torchwick said.

"The boss wants to know why you lied," said the gray-haired man. The pair stopped about fifteen feet away.

"You're going to have to be a bit more specific than that," said Torchwick. "I've told a lot of lies in my time—more than there are stars in the sky."

"Don't toy with us, Roman," Green warned. "You were allowed complete autonomy so long as you met your quotas and returned the favor with full transparency. But now you're trying to hide outside our radar and just ran a job that wasn't on the schedule Neo delivered just a few days ago."

"So what gives?" said Gray.

Torchwick shrugged. "It was a spur of the moment thing. An opportunity arose, so I took it. Sorry if I didn't have the time to run it up the flagpole first. Didn't think you'd complain about me bringing in a bit more income than usual."

"Lying really does come as naturally as breathing to you, doesn't it?"

"What do you mean? I'm as honest as they come."

"Are you really going to make us say it?" said Green.

"Say what?" Torchwick said innocently.

A silence followed that grew more and more tense the longer it endured. Then, quicker than anyone could react, Gray drew a pistol from a back holster and fired it once. Duke collapsed to the ground, dead. Weiss let out an involuntary scream, short and stifled as she clamped her hands over her mouth and stumbled two steps back. Green drew out a pair of knives that then flew through the air of their own volition, piercing the hearts of the other two henchmen right as they'd gotten their own weapons raised. Torchwick clenched his fists.

"If anyone else feels like reaching for a gun," said Gray, "I'd reconsider."

Green drew two more knives and they rose out of her hands to hover above her head—they already had blood on them that hadn't been fully wiped off. "This is your second offense, Roman. Tell us what you're hiding from Neo and your punishment might be light."

"If it's only my second offense, then surely I still get at least one more," Torchwick said.

"This isn't baseball," said Gray. "One warning's all you get. Now start talking."

Torchwick sighed. "Well, I guess the cat's out of the bag. You can consider this my formal resignation."

"Quitting isn't an option."

"I'm afraid that's not up to you. You see, freedom isn't something that can be given—you've got to take it yourself."

At that moment, something came rushing out of the tent behind them. Neo made it all the way to the sinister duo in a second. Then a strange, unpleasant energy pulsed through the room, emanating from Gray. The knives fell out of the air, Neo abruptly slowed to a normal speed, and Weiss felt like a large hand was gripping some metaphysical part of her. Her instincts told her that if she tried to enter someone's mind at that moment, it wouldn't work.

Neo didn't miss a single beat. Gray's gun went skittering across the floor and she proceeded to engage both him and Green in hand-to-hand combat at once. They almost didn't even have enough time to look shocked. Together, they could only just barely keep up with her. Gray did most of the work, employing a kick-heavy fighting style to great effect while his partner helped as best she could. It was a sight to behold. Neo dodged, blocked, and hit with such masterful skill you'd think she still had a superhuman advantage going for her. It was far beyond any of the choreographed fight scenes in those silly action movies Ruby had made Weiss watch with her during their isolation from society.

Torchwick used the distraction to duck back into the tent. This shook Weiss out of her daze, and she tore her eyes away from the brawl. It'd only been several seconds, but who knew how much longer it would last? It could only go on for so long before a winner was decided.

The criminal's words rang in her mind. You've got to take it yourself.

Before she knew it, her feet were moving before her brain could catch up. She ran toward the line of vans and dropped down beside one of the unmoving men, doing her best to ignore the blood pooling around him and the knife sticking out of his chest.

They're just asleep, she told herself, refusing to look at the hollow expression on his face.

After a few moments of rummaging in his pockets that felt like a lifetime, fortune rewarded her with a set of keys. She stood and hastened toward the nearest vehicle. The key didn't fit the ignition, so she tried the next van. That one started. She put it into drive, stepped on the gas pedal, and didn't look back.

A/N: Credit to my beta readers: Bardothren, I Write Big, and 0neWhoWanders. They're great writers who are a huge help with making this story as good as it can be.