Author's Notes

Congrats to anonymous guest for seeing right through me in the reviews. Hole in one, my good sir or madam.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!

Chapter 37 – Chairman Schnee

In which Weiss Schnee loses something that can't be replaced.

So, Weiss emptily thought as she sat in the ruins of Mountain Glenn, I was right.

It really always did wrap around to her father. The death of her team, the ruining of her life…all his fault, and equally her own.

I let Torchwick…I bought his…I…

She was too tired to fight it. Bound as she was, and with her team dead, there was no reason to resist. She didn't even want to.

The dawn was just on the verge of breaking in Mountain Glenn, and Weiss was being held on the top of the Hunter Barracks she'd been keeping a lookout from just eight to ten hours ago. That felt like a world of difference now, as her life still had meaning back then.

Now, Blake was gone, and so were the Rose sisters, and Weiss' own father had been the one to tear her life apart at the seams. There was no reason to keep going. She'd lost, and it was time to stop playing. Game, set, and match. Checkmate.

Torchwick kept scanning the horizon, and Weiss gradually figured out why.

We're on the only building that's even remotely sturdy, after the reinforced movie set – it was to keep the Grimm out, I see that now – was destroyed. The roof is wide enough for an airship to land. Torchwick and his dragon contacted Father, and now he's on his way here.

Was he going to kill Weiss? Possibly. The way Torchwick had hinted at it certainly implied so. It wasn't as if someone would go through all this fuss and then explain their master plans to someone who they expected to live.

Weiss just didn't understand why he'd gone through all this trouble. He could have easily smothered her in her crib when she was a newborn, or dropped her by accident, or forgotten to hire a maid to feed her. Why even bother raising Weiss if he only expected her to perish by his own machinations at the end of it?

But it didn't matter. As she'd discovered with Torchwick, Weiss wasn't exactly some grand sleuth when it came to deducing the reasoning behind her enemy's motivations, and Father's reason wasn't going to change her fate. I̶t̶ ̶c̶e̶r̶t̶a̶i̶n̶l̶y̶ ̶w̶a̶s̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶g̶o̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶b̶r̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶B̶l̶a̶k̶e̶ ̶b̶a̶c̶k̶.̶

Torchwick's minion briefly attempted to goad her by poking and prodding when the night was still young, but she quickly realized that playing with a broken toy was no fun and lost interest. For hours on end, the three of them had merely waited in silence for the airship to arrive.

Weiss wanted to find some Valean fire of spirit within her hard coating of Atlesian ice, but there was nothing there. Intellectually, she knew that she should want Torchwick and the girl dead for what they took away from her, but the pleasure vengeance would bring could never be enough to fill the void that the loss of Blake had left inside of her.

I…I…

It felt shameful to admit, but Weiss had nothing left to lose. There was no low to which she could stoop that wasn't worse than where she already was.

I want to die. I want to be with Blake again, more than anything. It can be like coming to Beacon - coming to our new home together.

Perhaps Father truly was a good parent after all, for if he intended to kill his daughter, he would just be doing her a favor.

By the time the sun was halfway finished rising up past the horizon, there was another sight beyond the skyline.

First, it was a flickering speck, a tiny dot of black off in the distance that was gradually and steadily moving.

Then, as time passed, it grew larger and larger until it was a miniscule bug. This nuisance that had to be miles away appeared to Weiss as no bigger than a fly.

Finally, the object that Weiss had already recognized the moment she made it out as a Schnee family private airship came into full view. The familiar snowflake on the side was her own, or at least it was for the remaining few moments she had left on Remnant.

"Fuckin' finally, amitire..." Torchwick whispered under his breath. He glanced down at Weiss. "You might be a prick, but the boss is somethin' else entirely, ya know what I mean?"

"His punctuality does leave something to be desired," Weiss idly stated, staring off at the airship as it came closer. "But he's a busy man."

Torchwick clicked his lips. "Well, I guess we'd better receive him. Neo?"

The girl, Neo, lifted Weiss up by her cuffed hands and pulled her back. The three of them backed up to the edge of the building's rooftop, making room for the airship to make berth. Weiss' ponytail flipped about behind her in the breeze its heavy-duty engines generated even as they wound off.

The door opened, and out stepped Father, dressed to the T in his…

No. No, that wasn't the one. It wasn't Father.

"Whitley?" Weiss asked, suddenly finding some of that life returning to her as the last piece of the puzzle fell into place. "You hired Torchwick."

"I was tired of sitting around and waiting for you to fail, so I decided to speed along my own destiny," said Weiss' only brother, pride in his strut as he descended down the airship's boarding ramp. "It seems Mr. Torchwick's service fee was more than worth it, was it not, dear sister? You're looking at the future heir to the Schnee Dust Company, one Whitley Schnee."

Father was a cold, cruel man, and Weiss had been fully prepared to endure his disappointment or wrath, whichever had been on the airship. But Whitley? Weiss' doorstep of a brother, claiming credit for this tragedy? Suffice it to say, some of that fire managed to melt its way through Weiss' ice and break free.

"You murdered Blake!" Weiss thrust herself forward with so much force that Neo had to hold her back, though that didn't stop Whitley from flinching backwards in fear. "I'll tear you apart!"

When it was clear that Weiss didn't have the means to break free from Neo's grip, Whitley's apprehension disappeared and his confidence returned. "Oh so quick to violence, dear si–"

"Bastard! Fake Schnee! You nothing!"

Whitley backhanded Weiss, and the pain felt good. The emptiness was now gone, and vengeance was in its place, expanding in all directions to fill all available space. Whitley had grown up with Blake just as much as Weiss had, and Ruby and Yang had never done him wrong. If Weiss weren't restrained, she'd be strangling her brother with her own two hands.

"You…You don't get to call me that!" Whitley indignantly stuttered. "It's your fault, Weiss! You, not me! All of this is your fault!"

"Oh, please enlighten me then, how I murdered scores of innocents including my own best friends, Whitley, because I'M SO READY TO HEAR HOW!"

Neo yanked Weiss back, and Torchwick got between the quarreling Schnees.

"Chairman, you've got her done for. We should just finish this."

"No. She needs to understand. I have to make her understand."

Torchwick didn't seem pleased with that, but he refused to argue the point and stepped away. "You're the boss."

"Mr. Torchwick has proven himself an invaluable ally," Whitley explained. "When I take over as CEO, he'll be my Chief Security Advisor. An upstanding huntsman of fine moral caliber who knew my late sister? He's a shoe-in for the role."

And he would probably take a bit off the top in exchange for his silence, Weiss assumed. But Whitley would be the richest man in the world in that scenario, so a few missing millions or even billions wouldn't put a hair on his combed head out of place.

"What is it you need me to understand, Whitley?" Weiss spat angrily. "Just get this over with."

"You, Weiss. You need to understand why this is all your fault."

"Oh, this should be good. Got any popcorn, Torchwick?"

Roman raised his hands and turned away. "I ain't got no skin in this game. Sort yourselves out, Schnees."

"Father never loved me, Weiss," Whitley explained. "All I ever did was try to be a good son, try to impress him and be worthy of the title I wasn't born into, but I was screwed from the beginning. If you hadn't been mistakenly born a Faunus freak, I could have been a human. I could have been Father's real son, not some…some…some thing."

This, then. Whitley always found some way to twist the blame onto someone else.

Weiss laughed right in her brother's disgraceful face. "I'm proud to be a Faunus, and you should have been. I mean, you shouldn't be proud to be you in particular, but…"

"Always with the jokes and pranks." Whitley exhaled through his nose, fuming in anger. "Those fucking Belladonna mongrels are scum, and they ruined you."

Weiss would hear no word of slander against the family who'd shown her nothing but love all these years. "The Belladonnas are better people than you or I could ever be. And you're delusional if you think that Father cares about bastardy."

"Father?" Whitley asked incredulously. "Our father, Jacques? Seriously? I know he has good PR, but you can't actually believe he's some accepting, understanding bastion of love and warmth who'd welcome a bastard bird into his arms when a camera isn't filming."

"No, but I don't think he would be capable of showing real, unconditional love to a child even if they were genetically his. Honestly, I'm pretty sure he thinks I'm a bastard. Hell, I might even be a bastard."

"You…You still don't get it, then. He ignored me because of you."

"Then consider yourself lucky."

Weiss was struck again, but she still managed to score another point against the gremlin boy who called itself her brother. Her aura was stronger than his hand, and he waved it around in pain from the sting to air it off.

"It's not about him, Weiss. It's about you. You have to die. Not only that; you have to understand that you have to die, Weiss. Killing you would mean nothing if you didn't."

"What's the matter, too stu–"

"Just fucking listen to me!" Whitley screamed, his face red and his arms flailing. The sight was reminiscent of several infants Weiss had seen in the past, throwing temper tantrums for attention. "For once in your life, just listen to your brother!"

Weiss glared at him, teeth grinding. "Alright. I'm here. And I'm listening."

He took a second to regain some of his composure, but he didn't seem to be able to find all of it before he continued. "It was your fault I was born wrong, but for some reason, you blame me for the circumstances of my birth. You've hated me ever since I could remember, and I never knew why. And by the time I was old enough to realize the reason Mother was so cold, I had already hated you back. And that's on you, Weiss."

"It's my fault that you hate –"

"Yes," Whitley resolutely declared. "It is, Weiss, because I was a toddler. I had no idea what I was doing, but you should have. And instead of being my sister, you chose to wage some war with me over something I could never have controlled. For all that you tell humans not to blame the Faunus for being something they had no choice, you did the same thing to me. You resented me because I existed, Weiss, and you never hesitated to let it show. Cruel pranks, harsh words, the cold shoulder…I didn't put up the distance between us. You did."

Weiss could only glare.

"And by the time we were teenagers, you kept getting worse. Always being daddy's little perfect girl, always coming home from studies with the best grades and the shiniest trophies and the whitest wings and…and…"

Weiss had to hold back her cruel laughter. Whitley was now tearing up like a little bitch.

"Does that bother you, brother? That I was always better? Well, I think you might want to look in the mirror when you ask who's at fault."

Surprisingly, he only nodded. "I know I'm...I'm less, Weiss. Less than you, less than a Schnee, less than anything that means. The world has never stopped hammering that home. You get all the love from Father and the newspapers and the huntsmen, and I'm left sitting at home without any friend or training or hope for the future."

"You can't cope with your own failures, so you want me to drag myself down. Pathetic."

"Yes!" Suddenly, Whitley's eyes widened, and he pointed at Weiss with vigor. "Yes, Weiss, you finally understand!"

"Really think we should kill her and be done with it, chairman," said Torchwick, but neither Schnee was even remotely aware of his presence by this point.

"You should have failed more, Weiss. You always should have failed more for me."

"It's not my fault you weren't as good as me, Whitley!"

"But it is your fault that you never once flunked a test for me!" Whitley screamed. Had they been elsewhere, this high volume heart-to-heart of their would have attracted a crowd the size of the Amity colosseum, but in Mountain Glenn, they could scream to their heart's content. "It's your fault that you never threw a spar with me and let me win when you had the chance, back when I was thinking about training as a huntsman! It's your fault that you never intentionally sang the wrong note at a concert, so that for once in my life, for once in my miserable meaningless existence, I wouldn't have to be the mucky loser who was always less than his shining star of a sister!"

Whitley slapped a hand against his chest as tears began to pour down his face.

"You were perfect, Weiss! You were perfect for everyone but me! You could have failed once and it would've cost you nothing but a moment of shame that would be forgotten by tomorrow, and yet you never did. It would've meant the world to me, just a single moment where I didn't have to be the worst Schnee – a thirdborn and a failure and a Faunus and a bastard. I wouldn't have been greedy; you would have been back to being the apple of Father's eye the very next day when you outperformed me in every way like usual. I was born as a stain on the Schnee family, and you knew before I did that I would have to fight twice as hard to carve my own place in the world, but you never once lent me a hand! Not one time, not one time. Not. One. Time."

The swan Faunus tried to swallow, but he ended up choking on his own spit and started coughing. Torchwick tilted his head pointedly, and Neo ran over to check on Whitley.

"I'm fine. Get off of me, I'm fine!"

Neo went back to holding Weiss while Whitley, who was clearly not fine, composed himself.

"You lost Mother because I was born. But you were older, and you should have known it wasn't my choice. And – newsflash, sister – I didn't take her away, because that would imply I got to have her! I never had a mother, Weiss, or a father, or a Blake, or a Kali, or a Ghira, or a…a…a sist…Father ignored me and focused on you, so they all did too." Whitley pressed a palm to his cheek and roughly wiped a broad stream of tears from his face. "You go on and on about how Winter abandoned you, Weiss, but you didn't abandon me. You were never there for me in the first place."

Weiss let out the breath she'd been holding. So, that was what it was all about. All of this death because of a child thrown a temper tantrum for his father and sister's attention.

And yet, once again, Weiss couldn't help but admit that so much of it was her own fault. Not the death – she could never have foreseen that, and she refused to see Blake's blood on her hands no matter how much Whitley ranted – but the neglect.

Weiss had always hated Whitley. When he was a baby, he was the uncomfortable reminder of Mother's distance and descent into alcoholism. As a child, he was an annoyance to be looked at with disdain, too young to truly entertain his sister in any meaningful capacity. And when he'd finally grown old enough to develop into his own person, Weiss found that she didn't care much for the grimy, disrespectful, downright horrid person he'd shaped into.

Never once had she wondered why he'd grown up so vile.

She had antagonized him as a child, and he'd fought back, but how could a then thirteen-year-old truly lay the blame at the feet of a then eight-year-old for not being mature enough to turn the other cheek? At the time, it had felt justified, a mutually agreed upon war with weapons of humiliation and discomfort that went back and forth, but with the benefit of hindsight, Weiss was just as much the instigator as she was the victim.

I recalled his pranks and met them with my own, so I saw myself as the victim acting in self-defense or retaliation. But so did he, and he was too young to know how to let it go.

The words about Winter had also hit Weiss hard. She blinked her eyes and discovered that Whitley wasn't the only person who was crying.

"You understand, now?" His voice was soft now, sweet even. All traces of the anger and passion from before were gone.

"I do," Weiss cooed. "But Whitley, you've…you've gone too far. People have died."

"You have a chance, Weiss, a chance to finally be my big sister." Whitley stepped forward and pressed his forehead to Weiss', closing his eyes as he did. "Please."

"Whitley, th-this has to stop."

"I promise I'll be a good Schnee, Weiss, in your memory. I'll make our company the most profitable in the world. You just have to do this one thing for me." His arms wrapped around her, pulling Weiss into a hug. "You only have to be my big sister one time, and I'll forgive you for everything."

"Whitley, I can't!" Weiss pleaded through her tears.

"Weiss, you have to," Whitley pleaded back, holding her tightly and shaking. "You have to understand why you need to die. I'm begging you. Please, Weiss, just once."

"Whitley…"

Torchwick cleared his throat. "Hate to be the unhappy camper interrupting a tender family murder, but you've got to be back in Atlas before anyone wonders where you've been, chairman. The airship autopilot's on a timer. We need to do this now."

"No," Whitley said firmly, looking at Torchwick from Weiss' shoulder. "She may have failed me, but I won't fail her. We don't kill her until she agrees that it's necessary."

"Oh, Whitley," Weiss whimpered. "Oh, Whitley. I'm so sorry for what I've done to you, but I just can't. If it were just me…but too many others have perished. I'm so sorry."

Whether it was for failing him for his childhood or for refusing to die here and now as per her sibling's warped wishes, Weiss knew not, but she was entirely genuine in her sorrow. She had broken her brother, and it was up to her to fix it.

"You should have listened to Torchwick," Weiss said, stepping out of the hug with her brother. "And killed me the second you arrived."

Weiss threw herself backwards right into Neo, and both of them went tumbling off the side of the three-story building.

It was a testament to progress that in this day and age, humans could look at a Faunus like Weiss who never hid her trait and have their eyes pass right over it, and it also worked extremely well to her advantage. People like Torchwick got so inured to Weiss having wings that they stopped seeing them and thought that taking her up to the rooftops as a prisoner wasn't a tactical fuck-up of epic proportions.

Neo sank like a rock and kicked up a massive cloud of dust on the dirt street below, but Weiss, still bound at the wrists and unable to freely move her arms, remained airborne. She had nowhere to go, but it all worked out okay because Weiss had no intention of fleeing.

This isn't going to end until Torchwick and Neo are stopped and Whitley is in my custody. I'm going to have to fight.

Without Myrtenaster, which Torchwick still possessed, Weiss would be at a disadvantage, but Neo had already sustained a solid hit by being dropped off of the top of a three-floor building, and Weiss' aura was full after having regenerated all night.

"Get her!" Whitley screamed, his face growing red. "Kill her!"

"Oh, so nooooow you want to –"

Whitley didn't even let Roman finish his jest. "Just do it already!"

"Well, chairman…" The title of respect didn't seem to be spoken with the same degree of respect this time. "…I ain't the one with wings."

Weiss continued to remain at a safe distance, just far away enough that Torchwick wouldn't be able to swat her out of the sky with his cane or the cannon within. Eyeing her enemies warily, she waited for them to make the first move.

"I…I don't know how to fly!"

"Sure you do, champ!" Torchwick slapped him on the back and ushered him to the edge of the building. "Flap up and down – simple as a pimple."

"N-No, I mean, I know how, but I can't! I've never practiced!"

Weiss could see the disbelief on her former professor's face as he realized just how much of a disappointment Whitley could be. One of the few rare swan Faunus in the world, and he'd never practiced how to use his wings out of self-loathing, or perhaps denial.

No! Stop thinking like that!

Damn it, even knowing that my disdain was what drove him to this, I still can't help myself from frowning at the mere sight of him.

Whitley needed help; that much for was sure if he thought the only way his life could have meaning was if he convinced his sister to end her own. But he probably wasn't the only Schnee who was damaged.

I want to hate him. I should hate him. He was the one who…who killed…

But it would be like hating a dog for biting me or others after I kicked it again and again and again. I can scarce recall showing him a single moment of kindness in his entire life, and even if I had, there's an ocean of abuse to wash over it. He's lost.

Weiss just hoped he wasn't too far lost. Whitley would need to face accountability for his actions, but he at least deserved basic Faunus decency after everything he'd been put through.

"You can't fly, Neo's shitmixed…" The criminal mastermind stretched out his arms as they popped within his sockets. "…gods damn it, I guess that means it's up to me."

Torchwick hopped off the edge of the building as casually as one would skip a step on a staircase. Unlike his ill-fated subordinate, though, he halted his momentum with a blast from his cane at the last second, stopping him from crashing to the ground in a heap. It also kicked up the existing cloud of dust from the rubble-filled city's ground even further, obscuring him from view.

If last night was any indication, he's the sole owner of shadows during combat. I'll die if I touch the ground.

Weiss flapped her wings and rose even higher. Perhaps the ground was death, but Weiss took solace in the sky, the warmth of the sun making her feathers fan out. If Torchwick wanted to play ball, he'd have to rise up to Weiss' court, not the other way around.

"You cast a big shadow for a such a small girl," said Torchwick from the plume below. Weiss thought his voice was coming from close to the road, but she didn't want to rely on her sense of hearing after the railroad echo chamber.

If I can get my hands on a blade, I can use my semblance and defeat him. There's no other way.

…but can I, though? He knows my Glyphs. I explained them to him in intricate detail when Ruby insisted I give him a chance as my Special Tactics teacher. He must've been doing it to prepare for any resistance, had I not fallen so easily last night. All of my strategies have been laid bare.

Well, perhaps not all of them.

Out of a random spot in the cloud of dust shot an explosive blast from the cane, which Weiss only just barely managed to dodge. Another came from a different location almost a split second afterwards, and Weiss felt the heat when it exploded to her right.

He's trying to shoot me out of the sky!

There was no sure victory here. Weiss' only chance of surviving to carry on her broken family's broken legacy in this broken world was to risk everything and pray that the Brother Gods favored her on this day.

When the next blast tore a hole in the cover of Torchwick's obscuring shade, Weiss raised her aura and let it connect, but screamed in pain anyways. Tucking in her wings, she allowed herself to drop out of the sky as though she were truly in free fall.

"Like shooting seagulls in a barrel!"

Smug prick…for all that he chided Whitley, he got cocky in the face of victory just the same. Unlike the cavern where echoes had thrown off Weiss' senses, she'd discovered that sound and location did match up today, and his voice had given him away.

At the last second before she entered the pervasive cloud, Weiss spread out her wings and veered off straight into the direction from which she'd heard Torchwick speaking. It wasn't enough to take him by surprise, but Weiss hadn't been expecting to.

When the cane smashed her across the shoulder, Weiss, eyes closed to avoid being blinded by the dust, threw both arms around the weapon, wrapping it up in a bear hug.

"Gonna try your luck?" the scoundrel mouthed off.

It didn't matter that the cane was an unusual shape to which Weiss was not accustomed or that Torchwick had an equal grip on it; it was a long rod through which Weiss could focus her Glyphs, and as long as she was in contact with it, it would work.

The Glyph appeared directly at the end of the cane and launched a blast of fire out in all directions, utilizing Torchwick's own stored Fire Dust at the base of it. Again, the thief seemed to see it coming (he did know exactly how her semblance worked) and sheltered his vitals by blocking the attack with both arms, but all Weiss had truly wanted was to clear the air so she could see.

If he can't limit my sight, he loses half of his power over me.

Opening her eyes, Weiss found herself on the receiving end of Torchwick's fist. The gloved punch knocked her back, but she still had a single hand on the cane over which they were struggling, and that was enough to generate a Summoning Glyph.

"The hell is –"

A ghastly half-Boarbatusk let out a screech as it exited the oddly patterned Glyph and threw its partially-formed body into Torchwick's face. The unexpected assault was finally enough to loosen his grip on the cane, and Weiss tore it free. Armed as she was, things were now looking up for her.

"Kill her!" raged Whitley from the rooftops above. "I take back what I said! Kill her now, before she kills you!"

Torchwick did not sound pleased by the backseat-fighting advice from his boss. "M'TRYIN' HERE!"

He spat out some blood, analyzed Weiss and his own cane for a second, and frowned.

"Think fast."

Quick as a falcon, Torchwick's hand went for his belt, and suddenly a glinting metal object was thrown at her. Weiss recognized it mid-flight and instinctively let go of the unfamiliar weapon in exchange for her more familiar rapier.

"Fair trade," Torchwick huffed as he somersaulted forward and caught his own fallen cane that had rolled away from Weiss in her desperation to discard it and catch Myrtenaster. "I think I trust myself with my weapon more than I fear you with yours. I'm the teacher to your student, after all."

His eyes flicking past her one single time was the only warning Weiss got before Neo's own blade nearly pierced the back of her throat. Weiss' aura caught the initial strike, and a hasty barrier Glyph kept Neo at bay while Weiss backtracked and put distance between them.

…only for Neo to hook the curved end of her weapon over the Glyph, thrust herself over it in a flip, and kick Weiss directly in the face.

"We know all your tricks, snow pea," said her master. "The game ended yesterday, and you're trying to play without any chips. That's against the rules."

"Well, fuck the rules," Weiss said, generating a far more aesthetically pleasing Summoning Glyph than the last.

"Watch out for bacon, Neo," Torchwick said sarcastically.

…only for an armored fist to appear and grab hold of the small huntress' umbrella. The other bodyless hand of Weiss' Arma Gigas that came out of the Glyph like a portal was holding a sword forged of pure light that went straight into Neo's leg and came out the other end.

"Shit!" Torchwick cried as his menace of a partner fell down to one knee, clutching her bleeding leg and shaking back and forth in silent pain. "Neo! No!"

A pebble of a rock bounced harmlessly against Weiss' side, thrown from above by Whitley. It was enough to get her attention and make her glance up at him. "Stop fooling around and kill her! I'm paying you to kill her!"

Weiss saw Torchwick's attack coming, but that didn't mean she could do anything more than minimize the damage as his cane nearly splintered against Myrtenaster's blade. The heiress found herself stumbling back many more steps than she'd been expecting from the heavy attack as Torchwick circled around her to move close to his companion.

"You good?" he asked the tiny thing.

She tried to stand up, but her leg gave out, and she collapse down again to one knee in pain. Shaking her head, she looked up at her boss with worry.

"Don't worry, kid. I'll sort it all out." Torchwick turned back to Weiss, his cane raised. "You see, Schnee, I really can't go back after, heh, torchin' my old life. Get it? But, yeah. I burnt too many bridges in the underground by flashing my name and flaunting these good looks on live TV. It's win, lose, or die for us, and sadly…it's gonna have to be option three. The truth doesn't matter, Weiss, only the narrative."

The cane turned.

The cane fired.

Neo fell, a hole in her chest where the chest was supposed to be.

"Brutality!" Torchwick cried out, overdramatically shaking a fist through the air. "Such violence, and against my own students! Who would have thought that a rogue huntress, the very type of criminal I seek to destroy, would use her dark semblance to trick me while she slaughtered my students, my dearest friends? But at least I, Professor Roman Torchwick of Beacon, could slay her and ensure she never hurt again."

"Torchwick!" cried Whitley. "This isn't what we talked about!"

"Deal's off, skipper." The cane tilted upwards. "It's just business; I'm sure a Schnee can understand."

Her brother was in danger. All other thoughts – the heel-faced turn of Torchwick, her own past failures, even the fact that Whitley had schemed to take Weiss' life away from her – fell by the wayside, and she rushed forward to save him. Sword pointed at Torchwick, Weiss ran. If she could just –

BANG!

The wave of sound reverberated through the air before Weiss could reach him.

But it wasn't from Torchwick's cane.

Neo, her own weapon raised in one hand and a wobbly middle finger raised in the other, spat out a mouthful of blood all over her own chest. Then, as her eyes rolled back in her head, Torchwick crumpled right down on top of her.

He…she…they…Whitley!

With both of her enemies dead, Weiss' brother was the only remaining actor on the field left. Her eyes left the corpses of the fallen and flicked up to his perch on the rooftop. Two pairs of blue Schnee pupils met, and Whitley turned and ran.

A huntsman, however, he was not, and he lacked the speed and stamina to make escape Weiss as she flew up to the roof to join him. His inability to flee was also compounded by the fact that his airship had departed when the fighting was at its most intense, meaning there was nowhere for him to run unless he wanted to jump off the edge of the rooftop.

Weiss flew past him and blocked his path, and Whitley turned around and futilely ran the other way.

"Don't hurt me! Don't you dare hurt me! I'm the future chairman of the SDC! Y-You can't hurt me, or I'll…I'll…"

His back was now to the edge of the building. There was nowhere for him to run.

Weiss stepped forward and threw her arms around her baby brother.

"I'm sorry, Whitley. I'm so sorry for what I did to you. But I promise, I won't leave you behind ever again. I'm going to get you help. You'll get the help you need."

"You're going to kill me, aren't you?" Whitley's teenaged voice cracked. "Help - what farce. Just do it, Weiss. Don't toy with me."

"You said you wanted me to be your sister." Weiss broke their second hug of the day and looked Whitley in the eyes, her arms holding him by the shoulders. "You're my brother, Whitley. I –"

BANG!

Something hit Weiss in the forehead, causing her to falter a step backwards and release Whitley. It didn't have that much weight to it, whatever it was, but it was fast, sharp, and painful. The attack didn't pierce her skull, but her low aura dropped by half or perhaps even a portion more almost instantly, and the unexpected impact to her brain dazed her momentarily. Her eyes felt sticky for a second, and when she wiped them, there was blood on her hands.

But it wasn't her own.

"W-Whitley?"

Weiss looked up in time to see her baby brother reach a hand to his throat and touch the blood coming out of it. Then, he fell forward.

"How macabre," said the voice of the dead. "That your own brother, in a desperate bid for power, hired a murderous assassin to kill you. My friend Weiss."

"Whitley," Weiss croaked, clutching him in her arms.

"And what's even more horrid is that she chose to turn on her own employer in her rampant bloodlust, wounding me when I took the bullet meant for you – alas, the only child I could save in this grim affair. The assassin's chaotic, swirling energies were truly an abhorrent sight to witness."

"Whitley, Whitley, Whitley, please, Whitley, please."

But no matter how many times she said his name, he didn't stir. The bullet from Neo's weapon had gone straight through his neck, and he barely knew enough about his own aura to raise it, let alone protect himself with it.

Whitley was dead.

And his blood was on Weiss' hands, literally.

But there was one other person, one blackhearted man who took and took and took from the world without ever giving back, that was at fault for this. And Weiss vowed to herself that before her brother's body grew cold, Professor Torchwick would never hurt another living soul again.

"You'll die for this," Weiss said, even though Torchwick was too far to hear.

"Benefit of being an adult with years of practice under the belt is that I know how to tank a hit when I see it coming, and believe you me, I knew Neo was gonna try something. It's more believable if I'm bleeding too, and now, my only battle wound is consistent with Hush's bullets. As is Whitley's." Torchwick threw the umbrella to the ground. "Plus, Neo has a Cudgel shaped hole where her lungs are supposed to be, courtesy of the hero huntsman of Beacon. As it's been since the very beginning, Weiss, I've been the one in control.

"Now it seems we've got a choice, Weiss, and by we, I mean you. Live or die. My story'll be better if you're there to corroborate it. I get my cushy job at Beacon, you get…to keep breathing, I guess?" He snorted loudly. "I mean, you're kinda hanging on to life by a straw here…a warm breeze and you might melt, ice prin…p-princess…"

Torchwick's voice faltered for a moment, and Weiss tore her eyes off of Whitley and placed them on her enemy. However, he wasn't looking at her.

Following, his gaze, she could only watch in awe as a small fleet, at least ten bullheads of Beacon and Vale, flew above Mountain Glenn with searchlights aimed at the city and huntsmen and huntresses leaning out the sides.

"Hot damn." Torchwick whistled and lowered his cane onto the ground, shaking his head at her with a smile one last time before his expression dropped into one of fake sorrow. "Saved by the bell, seagull."

Next Chapter: He Said, She Said

In which Weiss Schnee levies atrocious accusations against the upstanding hero of Vale without any proof.

Author's Notes

On Whitley: several folks have called me out for writing Weiss, the intrepid protagonist, with oh so many flaws, and chief among them was her treatment of Whitley. He was always described as ratlike and slimy, but at no point did I try to hide that he was basically abused by his entire family and only kept alive for the optics of two Faunus children. Weiss is in the wrong, here, and so is her brother.

She hasn't forgiven him for killing...for...for killing...okay, it's tough to even pretend. Weiss didn't forgive Whitley for 'killing' Blake and the rest of the team, but he is a thirteen year old who doesn't fully understand what he's doing. The line "I promise I'll be a good Schnee, Weiss, in your memory. I'll make our company the most profitable in the world." is supposed to be a giveaway on how skewed his priorities are from prolonged exposure to Jacques, to the point that reality was inherently twisted for him - he thought that would be a fair trade. He was broken before he died, and Weiss wanted to get him treatment or psychological help.

That's the major character death, by the way. All other death will be 'villains' and such ('villains' because it's tough to not categorize Whitley into that pool as well).

I really did like the Torchwick-Whitley dynamic while it lasted. Torchwick trying to be the cool uncle to his teenaged boss, and Whitley not even noticing. Too bad it was gone before we fully got to see it. Whitley and Neo are dead, BTW, for real. I sometimes do fakeouts (Blakeouts), but if I tell you in the author's notes, that's guaranteed true. I remember people doubting me on Cinder's death all the way to the end of Murderess.

On something that you sorta need to know to understand but won't explicitly be stated int he body of the fic: why did Torchwick kill Neo?

The original plan was always to blame it on her and have her 'escape,' but when she got too hurt to fight, he realized he wasn't going to be able to have her kill Weiss. He was the only capable fighter left, and if he killed Weiss by his cane, then a) it could be traced back to him, and b) she might inflict recognizable wounds on him using her rapier during a protracted fight.

Torchwick thus decided it would be better to scrap the whole operation, kill everyone, and force Weiss to back him up. This way, he had a villain to blame Team RWBY's deaths on (Neo) and no loose ends who actually knew enough about him to prove his guilt (Whitley).

He was in a stalemate with her at the end, there. With her aura lowered, he could probably kill her, but he would need to use his own weapon (he isn't as good with Hush as he is with Melodic Cudgel). For Weiss' part, she wouldn't be able to beat him if she fought him, but she would be able to incriminate him if they ever found her corpse. Fortunately, all nuance and intrigue was lost in exchange for a crappy Deus Ex Machina. Wow, I'm such a good author.

Well, not all intrigue. Weiss is alive, but can she prove his guilt? Can she prove her own innocence? Can she prove anything at all? Find out next week – same Rat time, same Rat channel.

Happy rats, and don't do crime!