Chapter Text

Floating in the sky had always been a weird but somewhat pleasant feeling for Crimson. Well, it was, when he wasn’t forcefully thrown out of a plane at over 6 km in the air, without any warning. Weiss had warned him that she didn’t want to go to Vacuo, but he never thought that she would do all this, just to be able to do what she wanted.

“Hey captain?” said a neutral, somewhat bored voice

“Yes Coral?”

“What now?”

Crimson looked around at his subordinates and sighed. On his right, Fawn looked scared as he kept shooting glances at his parachute, his massive stature making him doubtful of the ability of his parachute to hold him correctly in the air. On his left, Carmen was as red as her name implied, anger and hatred oozing from her whole being, her hands shaking in fists as she desperately wanted to punch something, or someone, in the face. Behind him, Coral was floating slowly, looking as bored as always and was looking at him with complete disinterest. Finally, Cerul was a bit lower under all of them, hidden from their view by his parachute. Garnet Crimson just shrugged, before spotting something a few kilometers away on the ground.

“Well, there seems to be something that way, and it looks like an SDC mine. We should probably try to get there and see how things turn out after we brief HQ of what just happened.”

The rest of the descent was silent as the soldiers just kept thinking about what just happen to them, while the captain, however, just kept his gaze on the jet, quickly getting smaller in the sky.

“Well, miss Schnee” the officer thought “I hope you’ll achieve what you want to do, after all, we all deserve to do as we wish at least once in our life.”

In the plane, the situation was completely different however. Penny was speechless, still trying to process what had just happened, Weiss was conflicted, happy that her plan had succeeded, but also sad that she had to go to such drastic measures to ensure that no one could interfere with her desires, especially not her father and his goons. But something else, or rather someone else was showing its excitement. A feminine voice was shouting from the speakers in an endless stream of hyperactivity that would have made Nora and Ruby look like sleeping sloths on morphine.

“Oh my god, that was awesome! You sounded like an action movie star going ‘Hasta la vista, baby’ on them or something like-“

Suddenly the only thing that could be heard through the speakers was muffled sound of a voice as well as some hits being given, before a male voice, smooth and calm, began to speak.

“That was impressive of you Schnee, but are you sure you made the right choice? Because that just made you a fug- OK NEON, STOP LICKING MY HAND!”

“Never!” Yelled the feminine voice back, before the sound of a fight was heard all around the plane. Weiss sighed but smiled at the way the two members of team FNKI that had accepted to help her were acting, reminding her of herself and Ruby in their first times together. However, her smile didn’t last long, she quickly regained her serious expression as she muted the speakers of the plane with her scroll. She took out her modified pistol and left it on the table next to her, before unfolding the picture she had. She took a moment to look at it, smiling softly and slowly placed it on her knees, taking the pistol back at the same time with her free hand and showing it to Penny.

“This pistol is designed to shoot a jammer in exoskeletons, which blocks any signal coming in and out of the robots, so they are forcefully disconnected from the SDC or Atlasian network, thus nullifying any sort of hacking of the main grid. Reminds you of anyone not able to connect to the network?” said the heiress as she smiled slightly but quickly frowned as she saw the look of confusion on the android. Weiss sighed and explained everything that she knew of what happened at beacon. How Torchwick managed to take control of one of their battleship and how a virus was broadcasted to every Knights and paladins, as well as everything else she knew.

Penny’s face only shown absolute terror. She knew of the events that happened in Vale, but nobody had told her just how bad everything was. But this wasn’t all… this didn’t explain what Weiss was doing or why she had to be disconnected from the network or why she had Flynt and Neon to fly her jet or…

“Weiss… what are you doing? Or rather, why are you doing all of this?”

Weiss looked down at her picture and she fumbled with it as she slowly showed it to Penny. Why? Why, was a question she kept asking herself everyday for the past months. She had a million reasons to do so. She wanted to see her friends, she wanted to flee from an hostile home, from her father, from Whitley, she wanted to be free, to be herself. She gulped slowly and handed the picture to Penny with fear, not wanting to lose one of her best memory.

“Because I want, or rather, I need to be happy. I wasn’t allowed to be who I want, I was not allowed to make my own choices, I wasn’t allowed to live, so… so now I WANT to live with the only people that made me feel alive and happy. Penny, do you recognise any of the other girls on the picture?”

Penny knew that she was supposed to recognise them, to know who they were. She also knew, deep down, that she was closer to the girl in red, than any other person in the world. But she couldn’t do it, she couldn’t even say the name of any of the girls, or any other information she may had. She looked quite sad as she gave back the picture to Weiss, slowly shaking her head from left to right. Weiss looked just as sad as the android, but she smiled softly as she took a deep breath.

“Well Penny, since we have a few hours until we get to patch, let me tell you the story of team RWBY, the greatest team of Beacon, ever. Of all time”

A black bird cawed in the forest as the figure ran as fast as it could. Someone in town had told him that a woman had asked about… her. And nobody that wanted to find her, especially someone who didn’t know her well enough to know where she lived, was not someone he could let near her.

Taiyang punched through a fallen tree, breaking it away from is path, making animals run away from him, but he didn’t care. He jumped over a rock, taking his scroll out to try and het to talk to Yang as soon as possible, to warn her. He called and called, but she never answered, which only made the man worry more than ever.

He swore under his breath as he finally got to the clearing surrounding their house and he activated his two gauntlets, engaging his submachine gun and flamethrower, as he slowly moved towards the house. He quickly saw Yang through a window, yelling at someone he couldn’t see from his position, tears in her eyes. He began to run once more when he could see red eyes and flickering waves of energy in her hair.

“Yang no!” he yelled as he got to the front door, a blast of energy from his daughter, shattering glass, windows and other breakable objects inside the house.

He blasted the door open with a left punch, finally able to see inside the house. He saw Yang fall to her knees, crying from sadness and rage at the mysterious individual. Taiyang dashed to his daughter, surrounding her with his arms, softly rubbing her back as he looked at the intruder, a small girl wearing pink, white and brown clothes, her hairs pink and brown. His gaze stopped on her fully white eyes, filled with fear and sadness. When she saw that he was staring at her, she lowered her gaze and slowly presented a familiar gauntlet to him, one that he thought he would never see again. He took it with his free hand, sighing softly as his eyes travelled from the woman in front of him to his daughter.

“Thank you, who ever you are, but I think you should go.”

Nodding slowly, Neo backed away, heading out of the house while making sure not to step in shattered glass. She sat down on the porch, looking up at the sky. She only wanted to make someone happy, she only wanted to give something back to the strongest woman she knew, and after that, she only wanted to go with her to find Cinder and make her pay… as well as maybe kill the red pest that caused the death of her Roman. She wanted revenge, was it too much to ask? She got up as a white jet passed above her head, probably heading to the airport. She sighed and scribbled an address on a piece of paper that she left on the porch, under a rock, before heading back to the hotel she was staying for a few days. Maybe after she had calmed down, Yang or her father would like to know what this was all about.

After almost two hours of listening to Weiss retelling her story, Penny kept silent, thinking about everything that she just learned. Making her forget things didn’t bother her. However, making her forget her friends, her relationships, was something she didn’t accept. She wanted, no, she HAD to have a talk with her father, as well as General Ironwood. She stood up and began to walk back and forth in the plane, lost in her thoughts. Weiss just looked at her, worried about the robotic girl.

“Hum… Weiss?”

Weiss and Penny both turned around and looked at Neon, fidgeting in place, looking uncomfortable and stressful. Weiss sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose.

“Yes Neon?”

“Do you happen to know how to… how to land a plane?”

“Of course I d… Wait…” Weiss slowly looked at Penny, before looking outside, seeing the ground getting closer and closer by the second. “WHAT?” Penny and Weiss yelled at the same time, horror in their faces as the stared at the Faunus.

“So… Is that a no?”