Yo!
I am currently getting ASS-BLASTED by my college classes atm. Just utterly eviscerated. I plan to write a chapter for next week, but if I can't, then you know why!
Start Chapter 35
Myrtenaster strikes against someone who's just emerged from out of the crowd, evidently an accomplice. She doesn't have the time for this, and she growls out under her breath, effortlessly takes ahold of the man's fist as he attempts to strike her, bends it at an unnatural angle until the bone within snaps, and then launches him out of her way with one leg.
She is being rather brutal, some part of her notes, but mercy isn't really a familiar term in her lexicon at the moment.
Another two people emerge from out of the crowd to attempt to stop her. These two are actually supposed to be there, at least. Atlesian Guards.
Weiss debates trying to talk to them for a solid second. She really does.
In the next, she leaps over them, entirely ignoring their shouts.
She can talk to them about what's going on once she has Trivia back with her. She'll explain the whole thing; hell, she'll pay for the damages she's caused so far.
But not a moment sooner.
The man who has Trivia has abandoned subtlety. He's picked her up and slung her over one shoulder, and is hauling the both of them towards one of the newly arrived airbuses. Judging by the fact that the doors are closing, preventing anyone from coming in, he's not going to be able to get it to leave normally.
He'd have to hijack it.
Unfortunately, before Weiss can get any closer to him, a voice rings out.
"Stay!"
Her entire body freezes, and she practically screeches out in rage. She recognizes the semblance, of course she does, but she hadn't expected to hear it here, of all places!
"I've got her!" A fresh-faced boy, no more than twelve or thirteen years old, runs towards her, his tail wagging behind him. "I've got her, officers!"
Marrow Armin. Damnit but Weiss has things she needs to be doing! She doesn't have time for some hero civilian to be getting in her way!
"Listen!" She shouts at him, even as she watches the man carrying Trivia board the airship. "My–" She hesitates just a moment. "My daughter's been kidnapped! The person who's taken her is in that shuttle!"
Marrow at least has the decency to look shocked. "Huh?"
"I SAID MY DAUGHTER'S BEEN KIDNAPPED!" This time, she does screech, mostly because she can hear the rumbling of the engine of the ship as it begins to start up. The pilot of it goes flying from out of the cockpit.
The kidnapper has hijacked it. Weiss has moments to act.
"LET ME GO!" She screams at Marrow, and the boy – not yet even a man – flinches backwards.
It's all she needs for his semblance to finally give, and she doesn't hesitate. She blitzes towards the airbus as fast as she possibly can, even as it begins to break away from the platform.
Somewhere, in Weiss' mind, some part of her acknowledges that what she's about to do will have consequences. It really does.
She just can't bring herself to give a shit.
She slams Myrtenaster into the concrete, and it sinks more than a few inches deep. Around her, the glyphs of her family's semblance spin into being. She hears a few people around her gasp, but ignores them. She sees a few other people bringing out scrolls to record. She ignores them, too.
They'll know. The world will know.
Let them.
The Queen Lancer she's summoned causes the crowd to scream and back away, but Weiss doesn't pay them any heed as she thrusts her hand forward, and orders it to latch its barbed stinger onto the aircraft.
It rockets forward, just barely outstripping the airship's speed, and manages to pierce into the metal of the ship before it can pull off of the platform. It gives a sickening lurch then, even as Weiss confirms that it's being held in place.
She doesn't hesitate for a moment longer after that.
She is like lighting; closing the distance between herself and the ship with one of her speed glyphs, and causing the air around her to crack, whipped about by her overwhelming swiftness. The crowds behind her are nearly thrown off their feet by the sonic boom.
She hits the side of the airbus's door, causing the metal to cave inwards. Her aura feels the impact, but she frankly couldn't give less of a shit. She wrenches the door open hard enough to break one of the metal hinges.
Another thing she'll gladly pay for once this is all over.
She observes the situation within the hull in nary a millisecond; her mind moving far faster than it ever has.
There are two figures. One is in the cockpit, his head turned towards the Lancer that's dug its stinger into their craft. The other is a frightened-looking man, heavyset, holding a knife and wearing a sick mask – likely to mask his identity in a way that wouldn't attract suspicion.
And in the cockpit alongside the first man, tied up in the seat beside him, is Trivia.
The second man comes at her, his knife at the ready, but Weiss intercepts the blow with nary a thought. She allows his stab to miss to the right of her head as she leans left, and then she fires herself up and at him, Myrtenaster going straight through his shoulder. He yells out, either not having aura or not having reacted in time to get it up, and Weiss' eyes narrow as she wrenches the blade out.
He drops his own knife, and it scatters to the ground, bouncing around in the cockpit as the pilot desperately attempts to shake the craft out of the Lancer's grasp. It's not going to work, of course. Weiss had seen firsthand just how well these blasted things could hold onto a long-range bullhead, let alone an airbus, which is built with far less throttle.
She pushes herself forward shakily, trying to adjust to the movements of the craft as the pilot bobs them this way and that. Eventually, when it's clear that Weiss is going to be able to close the distance…
The pilot grimaces, places his hand on Trivia, and the two of them just… dissolve.
Weiss' eyes widen, even as a streak of goo shoots out from around the pilot's seat, and goes right through Weiss' legs. She swears, even as the flights controls begin to go haywire without anyone piloting it. The goop clears the edge just before gravity begins to weigh them down, and Weiss swears as she and the other bastard are thrown against the far wall.
He's too weak to be able to help himself, but Weiss is not so. She'd been briefly taken out of commission by that surprise maneuver, but she's still got strength enough to launch herself out, and land on the platform above.
The goo is racing off, ducking and dodging around people who are none the wiser about its presence. Weiss means to take off after it, but…
She turns, and realizes that man is still trapped within the craft. Her lancer is losing ground, unable to support itself and the aircraft at once.
She should abandon him. Let him die. For what he's done, it's what he deserves.
…Damn it!
She summons a second Queen Lancer, using some of the last fumes of her aura, and uses it to haul the craft up and onto the platform. The second it's been set down, she turns, and dashes towards where she'd last seen the goo disappear to.
This time, at least, the man's left an obvious trail. There's a trail of residue leading to him. It's an odd semblance; similar in scope to Ruby's own, in that this man can apparently transform himself and others around him into a mass that can travel around with ease.
"Stop!"
Weiss finds herself faced with a good twelve guards, all of them with weapons leveled towards Weiss. Not all of them are Atlesian, either. A good few of them are Huntsman and Huntresses here for the festival.
She understands that she's making things rather chaotic at the moment. Really, she does.
But she can't afford to stop. Not now.
"Out of my way!" She screams, and the Lancer's behind her fly over, bearing their fangs and stingers.
And then…
"Stay!"
All twelve of the guards freeze, and Weiss turns to see Marrow Armin, looking a bit bashful, pointing towards them with one hand.
"Go on, lady!" He calls to her. "Get your daughter back!"
She can't quite describe her gratitude in that moment, even if the boy is merely trying to make up for his previous mistake. She nods to Marrow, before dashing past the guards. As Marrow is now, she knows his semblance won't hold long.
She brakes so that she can turn the upcoming corner, and finds the trail. She could summon up an Ursa to follow it more accurately, but she needs to save at least some of her aura to be able to confirm the victory against the main kidnapper. She won't allow herself to be knocked unconscious by a sneak attack.
That's the only way she could possibly fail now. And she refuses to fail.
Trivia's counting on her.
The trail is growing more frenetic and frayed, now. Less and less controlled. It's clear the man is panicking. Good. Let him panic. Let him feel even a fraction of the fear he's putting Trivia through.
It leads further into the stadium, and Weiss sees where the trail goes cold, disappearing through a gap in the flooring. Weiss bites down on her lower lip, searching for the nearest stairwell. There's one off to her left, and she takes it down, jumping from wall to wall to get down more quickly, and to bypass the crowds.
They shout out in surprise, and a few children in wonder, as Weiss makes it down in but a few leaps. She arrives on the floor below to see that the trail continues into a back area, one reserved for Atlas personnel only.
Fortunately, there's no one actually guarding it. Weiss looks official enough, anyways. She walks towards it, places her hand on the handle, and it rattles.
Locked.
Weiss just hisses, before bringing her leg up and rather inelegantly unlocking it.
Within…
Within, she sees the trail stop.
Evidently, the man with the semblance in question had changed back into a human. There are a few skid marks on the ground, probably from a shoe catching at an odd angle in the man's panic.
Weiss follows. It's a straight tunnel, and without any winding paths.
She hears sounds. There's a shout, and a scream. Weiss' eyes widen. It's not Trivia's, obviously, but if that man had managed to get to someone else, and attack them…
Weiss doubles her efforts, pours more aura into going as quickly as possible. She has Myrtenaster at the ready, and though her Lancers have gone, she's prepared to bring out her Arma Gigas if she needs to.
She rounds another corner, and the sounds of shouting, pained screaming, grow louder. Her face is pale, her skin clammy. It's not growing farther away. Whoever's making those noises is close, and not moving.
Suddenly, they come to a stop entirely.
Weiss is close, so very close.
She rounds a corner, and sees a flash of pink, and brown.
"Trivia, you–!"
And then Weiss' breath catches.
The scene before her is a grisly one. There's blood on the floors, on the walls, and all around them. There are pieces of human anatomy around as well, and Weiss has to hold down the contents of her stomach to prevent them from erupting out of her as the smell hits as well.
Gods, but it's disgusting to see.
What's worse is that she knows who's caused this, too.
She's not yet stopped.
In the center of the room, sat atop the man who'd tried to steal her away, Trivia has a blade in hand, and is bringing it up and down, over and over, on his corpse. Weiss hadn't seen him die, but she's very confident that he's dead.
Mostly because the only thing left of his face is a bloody puddle of gore and viscera.
Weiss forces herself to speak. She has to.
"Trivia?"
The stabbing stops. The girl whirls around, panic and death in her eyes.
It's not Trivia.
The girl staring at her, with blood pooling at her feet, with a knife clutched like a lifeline in her hands, isn't Trivia.
It's Neopolitan.
Her eyes are wide, and white. The same eyes she'd had when she'd snuggled against Weiss in bed that night. The same eyes she'd had when she'd shown that deep down, despite everything, she'd just been a little girl never allowed to truly feel.
"Trivia?" She tries again, and she receives a jolt from the girl in return. She snarls at her, and the knife – bloodied, covered with viscera – is pointed at her. She realizes what's happening, now. Realizes what this is. An incredibly rare thing. Something so very few people have to learn to live with, but, "…Or… is it Neo?"
The girl's eyes widen to an impossible degree, like she can't quite comprehend what Weiss has just said. That… makes sense. She might be the first person to have ever met this split personality. And yet, she somehow knows her name.
Her expression is so terribly guarded. Her breaths are quick, yet heavy. She looks a second away from a panic attack. Weiss feels so horrible in that moment, staring across at her. She's only ten or eleven.
She's just killed a man.
Weiss… she can't blame her. Not truly. She'd been kidnapped, after all, and had every right to think that it might be her life or his own. She had chosen hers, and Weiss would not have wanted her to make another choice.
Her stomach churns. Bile threatens to spill from her lips, but she cannot let it. Will not let it.
Instead, with all the strength in her breast, she plasters a smile onto her face, and takes a step forward.
Neo snarls, brandishing the knife in a threatening gesture. She shows her teeth, and they're impossibly sharp.
An illusion, likely. Trying to frighten her. But… she must be so low on aura to only be able to conjure that up.
She must've fought him, then. Tried to break herself out of his hold. The knife she has… Weiss recognizes it. It had belonged to that other man back in the airbus, who Weiss had disarmed. His knife had, after all, gone bouncing around the interior as the kidnappers tried to escape her Lancer's grasp. Trivia – or Neo – had gotten their hands on it.
"It's okay." Weiss smiles as gently as she can, even as she takes another step forward. "It's all going to be okay, sweetie. I promise."
Neo's chest heaves, her lip quivers, but she still holds the knife out. Expecting hate, expecting rejection, expecting an attack.
"It's okay." Weiss kneels down. The blood starts to stain her outfit immediately. It starts to seep into the dark blue of her dress, just as Mercury's had done the better part of a year ago. It feels similar, in a way. Perhaps that is why she has been able to keep her stomach, despite the fact that the blood on her dress is still warm. "You're okay. No one's going to hurt you."
Neo doesn't believe her. She can't afford to. She shakes her head back and forth, even as the knife shakes in her grasp; her grip faltering.
"I'll protect you." Weiss assures her, holding out her arms at her sides, giving Neo all the room she needs to act. "I promise."
She won't force her, but she can offer a place of refuge, of safety.
It's up to her to take the leap.
And then, without any fanfare or ceremony, in a moment that seems no different from the last, Neo throws away the knife, and launches herself into Weiss' arms.
The impact is almost enough to send Weiss falling to the bloodied ground, but she manages to keep her balance as she wraps her arms around the now sobbing child's back. Her tiny body quakes in Weiss' hold. Weiss holds onto her just a little more tightly.
"It's okay. It's all going to be okay."
She will not loosen that hold. She will not grow lax.
This…
This is her daughter.
And as long as she's alive, she won't let anything happen to her again.
She swears it.
/
A well-dressed man in his late fifties enters into a dark, quiet room. He bows upon doing so, before standing up and stepping towards the person he'd come to see. They don't look up at his entrance.
Then again, few things can draw her eyes these days.
"Madame." The man speaks.
"Edward." She hums. "To what do I owe the displeasure of having my time interrupted?"
The man – Edward – grasps as his collar and adjusts it briefly. The madame of the house has become ever so frosty in recent years. Such is only ever worse when she has been drinking, like she most certainly has this day. The myriad bottles in front of her betray that truth as surely as her breath, which stinks of alcohol.
"A report just came from Amity Coliseum. Apparently, several events took place. Most were below your notice, but one in particular–"
"Out with it."
"Please take a look at this, Madame."
He steps forward, holding a small tablet in his hand. A prototype from the Atlesian High Sector.
The woman stares down at it for a brief moment, before reaching forward and pressing the play button in the center of the screen. The video is a shaky, poorly recorded mess, but she understands that, at the very least, the primary focus of it is on a white-haired woman in the center. She's arguing with a young faunus boy about something or another, and seemingly succeeds in scaring him off.
And then, she stabs her blade – an ornate thing, it almost looks to have been made by the same group that had created her eldest's weapon – into the ground.
And her eyes widen.
Because…
In the next moment, a semblance swirls to life beneath her. A semblance that is more recognizable than any other on Remnant.
A semblance that belongs to her family.
Willow Schnee sets her near-empty wine glass aside; lucid for the first time in what feels like months. She stands from out of her seat, runs a hand down her face, and then turns towards her personal butler, Edward.
"You did well to bring this to me. Keep this from Jacques as long as possible. I've no illusions he can be kept entirely in the dark, but as much as I can, I wish to handle this myself."
"I see… and if you don't mind my asking, how will you be handling things, Madame?"
"Well…" Willow smiles. "We've a gala coming up in just a few days, do we not?"
"I plan to extend her an invitation."
End Chapter 35
Alright, some hints on what's coming up for Weiss, alongside, of course, her reunion/first meeting with Trivia/Neo. We'll go more into Trivia's/Neo's condition in future chapters. For now, hope you guys enjoyed!
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