"Ruby, we need to—" Weiss began to say as she poked her head through her best friend's doorway.

"Ugh!" Ruby cried out in frustration. She threw what appeared to be a simple scroll across the room, then teleported and caught it before it could collide with the wall. "I don't get it!"

Weiss, attempting not to seem impressed, crossed her arms and waited for the girl to vent.

"I've been at it for hours and I still don't understand how it works!" Ruby said. "If Roman Torchwick can figure this thing out, then why can't I?"

"Say whatever you want about that man," Weiss said, "but you have to admit that he's rather intelligent—he must've been, to pull off everything he did."

"But we're smart, too. We managed to track him down, didn't we?"

"You were shot and I spent several days in captivity due to our imprudent decision-making. 'Smart' is the last thing I'd call us."

The Skeleton Key—that was the name of the mysterious device Torchwick had given them the day before. And that was all they'd managed to learn about it, thanks to the device displaying its name on-screen upon startup like a normal scroll does. Everything else about it, however, was an enigma. Ruby—who was far more tech-savvy than Weiss—had been poring over it since they left the jazz club, but she wasn't having much luck in discovering how it worked or what exactly it did.

They knew that it wasn't a scroll, however much it might look like one. It did not make calls, take photos, store applications, or even have a proper user-friendly interface. All it had was a keyboard and a command prompt that returned "Invalid search" to everything they typed into it. Nothing they tried made any difference. It was a locked vault that refused to give up the secrets contained within.

Once downstairs, Ruby hugged her father goodbye while Weiss knelt to pet Zwei—Taiyang's adorable little mutt that Weiss had instantly fallen in love with—one last time. She'd always wanted a dog as a kid, but her father wouldn't hear of it. "I pay too much to keep this place spotless to have some filthy mongrel tracking mud on my floors," he'd said. No amount of assurances that she'd wipe its paws before bringing it inside would change his mind.

"You be good and keep your nose clean," Taiyang told his daughter. "Atlas is a lot less tolerant of ideas of heroism, and you won't have your uncle there to protect you."

"I know, Dad," said Ruby. "I'm not going to do anything dumb. I'm just going to stay for a few days, explore the city, and come back in time for the festival. Easy-peasy."

He didn't seem entirely convinced. "Well, alright. Just stay safe. And Weiss?"

Weiss ceased her shameless baby-voicing and looked up at him.

"Look after her, won't you?" he said.

"I'll do my best, sir," Weiss assured him.

They left the house with their luggage in tow and made toward the rental van where Winter was waiting for them. When Weiss had asked why they weren't taking a cab again, Winter just said it had something to do with the task she'd been assigned while in Vale. Any further attempts to extract more information out of her had been met with, "It's classified."

"What kind of command prompt doesn't have a 'help' command?" Ruby was back to fiddling with the Skeleton Key using her one good hand as they walked, having evidently chosen not to hear Weiss when she told her to forget about it. "That's like the most important thing you program into it! How else are people supposed to know what the—you know—commands are?"

Weiss sighed. "I don't know, Ruby."

"We know this thing can unlock stuff," she prattled on, not even noticing as Weiss took her suitcase from her and placed it into the trunk. "You saw him use it to open your shackle. And we knew he'd been using something to get through banks' security measures. Why else would he only target places that use Schnee tech in its systems? You said it yourself—he's using Schnee technology to bypass Schnee technology. He must've found the Key in that warehouse somewhere."

"First of all, you've said all this before," said Weiss. They were now buckled into the back of the vehicle with Winter in the driver's seat. "Secondly, this device isn't my family's technology. It bears none of the STC trademarks nor even a passing resemblance to anything we've ever manufactured, and I found nothing relating to it in the files Whitley gave to me. Besides—it doesn't make any sense that that thing could specifically overpower Schnee tech and nothing else. That severe of a vulnerability never would have made it to the production line of a single product, let alone everything we produced."

"Well, it has to do something along those lines. He said it was the 'key to his success'. And then he gave it to you—a Schnee. Why would he do that if it didn't have some sort of relation to you?"

"Don't try to comprehend the mind of a criminal, Ruby. I've been inside his and I still don't. Why are you so obsessed with that thing, anyway? I'd have figured you'd be more focused on finding out who Cinder Fall is."

As grateful as they initially were to have finally received the name they'd been through so much to learn, they'd been met with crushing disappointment upon discovering how much value the name was actually worth. Whether it meant anything to Qrow when Ruby told him, he refused to say. It wasn't a particularly common name by any means, and neither were the two individual names alone. At least, that's what they'd thought. For when typing "Cinder Fall" into a simple search engine, it yielded an unexpected surfeit of results. Even when narrowing it down to just the Cinder Falls within Vale or the surrounding area, there were still quite a few to investigate.

There was a single mother who posted frequent pictures of her kids to social media; a veterinarian in Mistral; a "social influencer" with less than a thousand followers; a dead former city government employee; a first-year grad student; and many others. All of them were named Cinder Fall, yet none had a plausible connection to the murder of Ruby's mother. For all the good it did, Torchwick may as well have just told them the killer's name was Susan.

"I can focus on two things," said Ruby. "It's called multitasking. And we've kind of hit a dead end on that front, anyway, haven't we? This we can still figure out. I just. Need. To. Find. Out. How!"

"Do not throw that out the window," Weiss warned.

"I wasn't going to!"

Sometime later, they came to a stop outside the main entrance to city hall. The statue of the Protector of Vale was gleaming ever-brightly in the morning sun. Two people were waiting at the base of it with their backs turned to them—someone in a wheelchair accompanied by a woman with long hair the same color as Torchwick's. As Weiss stared at the armored figure that struck her with a painful reminder of Jaune, Winter stopped the engine and left the vehicle.

"What are we—?" Weiss began to ask but didn't get a chance to finish. The people at the statue seemed to have been alerted by the sound of the door closing and had turned to face them, which prompted a sudden gasp from Ruby. Now with a better view of them, Weiss could see that the woman was a pale, freckled girl who looked about as young as Ruby, and the figure in the wheelchair was a dark-skinned old man who wore small spectacles and an old-fashioned suit with a bowtie.

"That's Dr. Polendina!" said Ruby, awestruck.

"Polendina?" Weiss said. The name sounded vaguely familiar to her, but she couldn't immediately place it.

"Dr. Pietro Polendina! He's one of the most brilliant engineers, scientists, and inventors alive! Dad contracted him to make Yang's arm, it cost a fortune. What's he doing here?"

The man lifted his golf cap in greeting to Winter, momentarily revealing his balding scalp.

"I'm going to get his autograph!" Ruby decided. And without giving Weiss time to say anything else, she bounded out of the car and ran to catch up. Weiss, rather bewildered, followed after her at a much more casual pace.

"Special Operative Winter Schnee," Winter was saying to the pair. "I will be the one escorting you to Atlas."

"Ah, a pleasure!" said Pietro. "May I introduce my daughter, Penny."

"Salutations!" said the orange-haired girl with a bright smile and a salute.

Ruby skidded to a halt beside Winter, looking from her to the pair. "They're coming with us? You're coming with us?"

Pietro was too bemused to respond right away. After a couple of seconds, he opened his mouth, but all that came out was a brief coughing fit.

Winter shot Ruby a scathing look before resuming her usual professional demeanor. "Dr. Polendina, this is Ruby Rose, an associate of my younger sister's, both of whom will also be accompanying us on the flight to Atlas."

Weiss finally caught up and introduced herself. "Weiss Schnee. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"I'm a huge fan!" Ruby gushed. "I've been following your work since I was in middle school. You single-handedly designed the semblance-inhibiting chamber used in maximum-security prisons around the world!"

"Oh, well that's only partially true, my dear," said Pietro. "While it's true I developed my design alone, I owe more than just a share of the credit to those who worked on the technology before me, as I couldn't have gotten far without their groundwork."

"Wow," Ruby breathed as if he'd just explained the cure to cancer.

"There were exactly six previous iterations of the semblance inhibiting chamber that became widely used, all made within a few years of each other between 1960 and 1977," said Penny. "My father's was finalized eight years later in 1985 and has remained the most advanced model in circulation ever since, having received only one relatively minor revision that was rolled out in 2011."

Everyone but Pietro stared at her in a stunned silence.

"Uhh," said Ruby, "are you a robot?"

"Ruby!" Weiss hissed, smacking her arm.

"No, silly!" Penny didn't seem at all offended by her comment. "I simply have an exceptional memory!"

Winter cleared her throat. "If we aim to touch down while the day is still young, we should depart now."

"Right you are." Pietro turned his chair slightly so he could give one last forlorn look up at the statue, then gave a nod to Winter to lead the way, who took their bags for them.

"I've got it, Dad." Penny took hold of his wheelchair's handles and pushed him before he could do it himself. Ruby opened her mouth, but he seemed to know what she was going to say.

"I have an electric one back home," Dr. Polendina said. "My own design, of course—but I couldn't get it through customs, so I'm making do with this."

Weiss didn't follow them right away. Instead, she took a moment to gaze at the monument herself. A silver plaque was set into the pedestal on which the armored figure stood.

In honor of Pyrrha Nikos, a woman who sacrificed her own life so that millions of others could live on.

"It is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all, infinite in distance and unbound by death."

With all that had happened, Weiss had forgotten about her plans to eventually see it up close. As she looked into the beautiful, sculpted face, she felt a sense of loss, which was strange. She'd never known Pyrrha Nikos. She'd never even heard her name before until she died. But Weiss had spent a month living in her secret hideout, formed a bond with a man she had cared deeply about. There was an alternate universe out there where Weiss and Pyrrha had been friends, and she regretted that she didn't get to live in it.

"Weiss!" Ruby called. Everyone else was inside the van now and waiting on her. Weiss lingered a second longer before hurrying over and joining them, taking the passenger seat while Ruby sat in the back with the Polendinas, talking animatedly to Pietro. It was kind of endearing how star-struck she was by him.

"Why didn't you tell me some world-class scientist was going to be joining us?" Weiss asked.

"It was classified," said Winter, checking the mirrors before pulling out onto the road.

"But it's not like I wasn't going to find out anyway."

"That's irrelevant. I have no business discussing military matters with you."

"I'm your sister."

"You are a civilian, regardless of whether you have been acting as such."

Weiss might have said more, but the note of finality in her sister's tone made her think better of it.

They arrived at the airport in a timely manner, Winter taking them straight onto the airfield rather than parking and going through the building itself. It appeared that she had arranged for a private jet for them to take, which Weiss couldn't be more grateful for. She'd flown coach exactly once in her life when moving from Atlas to Vale, and it had been an absolutely horrid experience. Not only had it been crowded and uncomfortable, having been seated in between two strangers, but they'd also lost the bag containing her favorite towels and bathrobe.

They parked at the hangar and Winter left the keys in the van, Qrow having supposedly promised to come and return it for her. Weiss really didn't understand the nature of that relationship at all. Here he is doing favors for Winter and driving her to the police station when Weiss had escaped from Torchwick, but at the same time, she has the facial expression of having smelled something foul every time his name is brought up. It was a mystery destined to be left unsolved, if Winter continued in her pattern of dodging the subject whenever Weiss dared to raise it.

The pilots were already waiting for them at the base of the plane with the ramp lowered for Pietro. He and Penny boarded first. Weiss chose to take the seat beside Ruby across from them while Winter sat alone in a separate room closer to the cockpit. She felt a bit guilty, but buried it by promising herself she'd change seats after take-off. Right now, she was curious to learn more about this scientist. During the drive, she'd finally recalled where she'd heard his name before—her father had complained about him a couple of times over dinner, calling him a "competitor".

"Do you not have your own private jet, Dr. Polendina?" Ruby asked as the pilots finished loading the last of their luggage on board.

"Oh I don't fly enough to need one," he said. "Penny and I only just came to Remnant for the Vytal Festival, as a matter of fact."

"It's been three years, seven months, and one day since last we traveled far enough away from home to warrant the use of a plane," Penny said.

"If you came to Vale for the festival, then why are you going to Atlas?" Weiss said.

"Your general contacted me some two or three days ago and asked to meet with me," said Pietro. "He didn't give many details, but claimed it was—" He was interrupted by another fit of coughs. Penny put her hand on his shoulder and it soon alleviated, allowing him to finish his sentence. "—urgent."

"Are you okay?" Ruby said.

The co-pilot arrived at that moment and handed him a water bottle. "Please buckle yourselves in. We'll be taking off in one minute."

Pietro thanked him and then was too busy taking a drink to answer Ruby's question, so Penny did it instead. "My father is suffering from a number of physical ailments, but he'll always be fine so long as I'm with him. I'm going into medical school, see?"

"And there's no cure?" said Ruby.

"Unfortunately not," said Pietro. "I was doing temperamental research about a decade past, now. It called for risky experiments—very risky—and I was the only one I was willing to perform them on. I came out of it less whole than I went in."

"You experimented on yourself?" Weiss said, aghast. "Why would you do that?"

He shifted his gaze and seemed to ponder his next words rather carefully. "I required a breakthrough, and I wouldn't have been able to live with myself had I not achieved it."

He declined to say any more on the matter, and Penny looked just as eager for a change of subject. Although she was clearly dying to know what that breakthrough was, Ruby had to admit defeat. She chose instead to tell him about how she was studying at Beacon to become an engineer and asked whether he'd be willing to look at some of her designs. He was more than delighted to do so.

The girl waited until it was safe to remove her seatbelt and then retrieved her bag from the overhead compartment and returned to her seat. She ruffled around inside it for a second—Weiss could see how sloppily it had been packed—and in her attempt to find whatever it was she was looking for, accidentally knocked something else out that fell to the ground and rolled several feet away . . . something small and metal.

Pietro sat forward and looked at it, then at Ruby with a strange look on his face—something a lot less casual than what they'd seen thus far. "Where did you get that?"

Whoosh. Ruby Blinked and quickly scooped it up. "Oh, this?" She waved her closed fist, not showing what was inside it. "It's just a pin. I found it at a thrift shop."

Weiss knew for a certainty that that had not been a pin and, judging by the look on his face, Pietro wasn't convinced, either. But, thankfully, he decided not to press the matter, and yelling at Ruby now would only make him even more suspicious, so Weiss would have to do it later. Neither of the Polendinas commented on Ruby's sudden reveal of her semblance, but Penny was now watching her with a renewed interest.

Ruby pocketed the object and went back to her bag, this time successfully extracting some folded-up pieces of paper that she unfurled and handed to the old inventor. He accepted them, but Weiss couldn't help notice that his demeanor was a touch less jolly than before.

It was about forty minutes into the flight when Weiss finally lowered herself into the seat opposite her sister, who was in the middle of typing something on a tablet.

"Any updates?" she asked.

"We've nearly arrived," Winter said without looking up.

Weiss hadn't expected that. It'd taken her over three hours to fly from Atlas to Vale, but that had been a connecting flight. They didn't have to deal with multiple layovers on a private jet.

"Oh," said Weiss. "But that's not what I was referring to. I meant, are there any updates on Father?"

Winter's face remained perfectly passive, though there was a certain rigidity to the way she answered. "He is still stable. I've yet to be informed whether there will be lasting damage."

"And the culprit?"

"The investigation is ongoing."

Winter continued whatever it was she was working on. Weiss frowned. Was she mad at her? Or was the attempt on their father's life affecting her more than she let on?

"Winter . . . You know you can talk to me, right?"

"That's what we've been doing."

"If that's what you want to call this."

She finally stopped what she was doing and looked up at her. "What do you wish to discuss?"

She really had to make this difficult, didn't she? Weiss took a few moments and came up with a new tactic.

"Do you remember that one time when we were kids? Father was away on a business trip and Mother was upstairs with Whitley. It was snowing outside, so I dragged you out to the courtyard and made you help me build a snowman."

"We'd barely finished decorating the head when you mistakenly decapitated it," Winter said with a faint smile. "You were devastated."

"It didn't occur to me that we could just make the head again. I thought I'd actually killed the friend we'd built together and all that work we'd done was wasted. Worst of all, I was scared you were going to be angry with me. But you weren't. You comforted me, assured me we'd be able to fix him and that he'd be alright. You were still just a kid then, too—"

"I was twice your age."

"—but even then you were more of a parental figure for me than Father ever was. You've always put up this facade for my sake so I can see you as this strong person who never shows weakness and always has all the answers. But I'm not a kid anymore. You don't need to do that now."

"You don't need me anymore," Winter said, sounding as if it was something she had to force herself to come to terms with.

"Of course I do! The point I'm trying to make is that we're both adults now. It's okay for you to need me as well."

Winter stared at her. She was difficult to read, but her silence made it clear enough that Weiss had caught her off guard. After contemplating, she said, "I understand."

"Do you?" Weiss said.

"Yes, I do. And I appreciate the sentiment."

Weiss wasn't entirely satisfied with that response. Winter noticed as much and added, "There will be time to converse further in Atlas. Right now I have an email I need to finish. We'll talk more when I'm off duty—I promise."

Content to hold her to that promise, Weiss left her to her work and chose to spend the rest of the flight in Ruby's company—she had a bone to pick with her, anyway. She found the girl sitting in a seat with its back facing the Polendinas, once again attempting to unlock the mysteries of the Skeleton Key. Pietro looked to be having a nap while Penny bobbed her head in tune to whatever music she was listening to through her headphones.

Weiss sat across from Ruby and said with a low but stern voice, "What are you playing at?"

Ruby looked up, bemused though not altogether surprised at the abrupt scolding. "Uhhh . . ."

"Why did you bring that thing?"

The girl frowned as she held up the Skeleton Key.

Weiss sighed. "The inhibitor, Ruby."

"Oh!" Comprehension finally clicked on behind those silver eyes. "Well, why wouldn't I bring a couple? There could be an emergency or something."

"A couple? Jaune said there's only so many of those left!"

"And they're no good just sitting around in a drawer. Look, it's not like I'm planning to use them. But if something happens where we really need to, you'll be glad I brought them."

"Fine. Assume you don't use them. Winter's not coming back with us to Vale—how are you expecting to get those through customs?"

Ruby opened her mouth, but she didn't have a clever answer for that one. After a few moments of thinking, she just decided to dodge the question entirely. "Well, I'm sure I'll think of something. I mean, it was never going to be easy to get past the metal detector anyway, was it? Not with this bullet in my shoulder."

Weiss felt a twinge of guilt, and then was offended that Ruby would even think to pull that card. She couldn't say anything, of course. To think that one tiny lump of lead was all it took to end an argument now.

Conceding defeat, Weiss crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat.

"You know," Ruby said after a couple of minutes of silence. "Your sister's about exactly what I expected."

"What do you mean by that?" Weiss said.

"Well, with what you told me about her, I've been picturing an older, scarier version of you. It looks like I was right."

Weiss was flattered. "You really think we're that much alike?"

"I mean, not totally. You, you sometimes have this icy exterior, but I know you're secretly a big ol' softie. You're nice, you're caring, and occasionally affectionate." Ruby wouldn't look at her as she said this, and her cheeks looked as pink as Weiss's felt. "But Winter seems a lot more closed off."

Tell me about it, Weiss thought.

"She comes off like a really strict teacher, kind of, but I can tell she really cares about you a lot."

"We have that in common, you and I. Me with Winter and you with Yang, I mean."

A shadow passed over Ruby's face. "Yeah," she said.

Weiss had known Yang wouldn't be happy after learning about all the antics Ruby had been getting up to and lying to her about, but Ruby had told Weiss things were alright between them. That reaction didn't sound to her like things were alright. Weiss didn't get a chance to comment on it, though, because as she was considering what to say, the plane gave a sudden lurch.

"What was that?" Ruby said.

It had felt like their trajectory had been very sharply changed and then immediately corrected. Pietro woke with a start and Penny lowered her headphones with a look of simple curiosity.

Then came two muffled explosions outside the plane, one right after the other. There was an abrupt drop. Worry quickly grew into panic. Across the aisle, Pietro opened the shutter on his window to reveal empty sky where the left wing should have been. Weiss didn't even have to open her own to know that the right one was missing, too.

They were going down.

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.