"I don't like it."

"It's necessary."

"It's really not. We've been doing just fine ourselves. We don't need help. Especially not from people like him."

"We can at least hear him out."

"And if we don't like what he says, we kill him," Hashimoto suggested, breaking his silence.

Blake looked between him and Adam. "Fine. But I still don't like it."

"Neither do I," Adam replied, donning his mask. Hashimoto and Blake followed suit. "Shall we?" Without waiting for an answer, he pushed open the doors and entered the room, flanked on either side by Blake and Hashimoto.

A man in a strikingly white suit and ridiculous hat was lounging in one of the chairs, his feet up on the table while a pink-and-brown-haired girl sat on a desk behind him. As soon as they entered, the man leapt to his feet and crossed the room.

"You must be Adam," the man said, extending a hand. Adam crossed his arms.

"No?" The human shrugged, withdrawing his hand and resting it on his cane. "I was hoping to be civil."

"I've not known a human to be truly civil."

"Neither have I," he chuckled, "But we can do quite the job of pretending, at least."

"What do you want?"

"Ah! My manners, of course. I am Roman Torchwick." He gave a theatrical bow. "This is my assistant Neo," the girl gave an even more grandiose bow, complete with a twirling parasol before returning to her seat. "And I have a proposition for you. Now, I admit that humans can be rather terrible and you have no reason whatsoever to trust me. But, I come bearing gifts."

"What gifts?" Hashimoto spoke up.

Roman smiled, "Why, I just so happen to have certain contacts within the SDC and the Atlas military. With their assistance, I have secured some new toys for you to play with. Neo?"

The girl leapt lightly off of her seat and crossed the room, handing Blake a scroll with a disarming and slightly unsettling smile. Blake took the offered device and looked down at it. Her eyes widened and she passed it to Adam, who looked up at Roman. "You can make these?"

"Sadly, no. But, I can give you some. I can also inform you where the Schnee heiress will be vulnerable in, oh, a week's time, and give you some… interesting extra information. All for a very reasonable price."

"What price?"

Roman smirked. "Absolutely nothing. My employer heartily agrees with what you're doing, and wishes to make all this a donation." He stepped forward and offered his hand. "Do we have a deal?"

This time, Adam shook it.

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Pyrrha could hardly think. Everything was blurry, even inside her head. She needed to focus; what had happened?

An explosion. Then shapes, and something flying out. It had hit the edge of the shield on her back, reflecting off to leave a nasty gash in her lower back and side. She had hit her head on the wall and blacked out. She was losing blood.

All bad things. But before she got hit, there was something important…

Weiss. She needed to help Weiss.

With an effort, she managed to open her eyes. In front of her, she could make out three people facing off against someone in blue. Giant snowflakes hovered in the air, preventing them from getting to her, but it was only a matter of time. Pyrrha staggered to her feet, her pained grunt bringing the attention of the attacker on the right. As quickly as she could, she drew Miló and transformed him into javelin form before hurling him at the man, who turned in time to catch the javelin in his chest. He dropped easily, even as Pyrrha's back screamed at her and she dropped to a knee.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Weiss propelled herself at the second man, her sword piercing through him as she flipped herself back into a ready position facing her final opponent.

Pyrrha again struggled to her feet, reaching out to draw Miló back to her hand. The last attacker, a woman, had begun a furious assault that Weiss was only barely managing to fend off. Pyrrha lunged at the woman's back, causing her to flip back and away from them. Overriding her back's protests, Pyrrha spun to face her, thrusting Miló in front of her and, with a cry of triumph, managing to impale the woman's chest.

Her cry quickly turned to confusion as the woman disappeared from in front of her and reappeared next to her, bringing her twin blades down on Pyrrha's arm and side. Pyrrha screamed as she was thrown sideways from the source of the blow directly through the hole in the wall. As her vision darkened, she felt a strange sensation of cold, and then nothing.

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"It is so great to see Pyrrha again!" gushed Nora as the elevator took her and Ren down to the ground floor. "I mean, not that I don't want to see Weiss. It's great to see her, too! It's just that she's, you know, not as good for conversation. Not that you have to be good at conversation to be a good person. I mean, you're, like, the greatest person ever and you hardly talk at all. It's just that she's a little, you know, right?"

"Cold?" Ren offered. Nora beamed.

"Exactly! I mean, I know that she's a cool person—ha! Cool.—and she's doing all this stuff to help people, so I'm sure she's got a lot on her mind, so I guess that's probably why she hasn't talked to us in so long, and it's kind of sad that the first time she does is because she wants us to fight for her. I don't mind, but it would've been nice to just talk for a bit. Oh! Maybe we can trap her when we're done! Force her to talk to us. We need to make a strategy. Ren, you're smart! How can we trap her?"

"Nora, I don't think we'll need to trap her. I'm sure she'd be willing to talk."

"Aww, but that's boring."

Ren sighed. "We'll have to get Pyrrha's help. She can take her out somewhere to eat, and we'll be waiting when she gets there."

"Perfect!" The elevator door opened and the pair started across the lobby. "But we'll need some sort of signal so we'll know when she's coming. Do you think Pyrrha can imitate a sloth?"

The building suddenly shook as an explosion sounded above them. Ren and Nora glanced at each other before sprinting out the front door. In front of them, SDC security was dashing around and shouting as another explosion ripped up the ground of the courtyard.

"Ren, look! There's a giant robot!"

"I think it's a mech, actually," he replied coolly, drawing Stormflower. "I also think it's attacking us."

Nora's eyes were wide with delight. "We get to fight a giant robot!"

"Yes, Nora." She was already gone, launching herself forward on Magnhild with an excited shout. She smashed into the mech's side and blasted herself skyward with a blast from her hammer, laughing excitedly as she arced up and brought it back down on the mech's head.

Below her, Ren was darting around the thing's legs, severing the hydraulic lines. One of the knees exploded outward, buckling under the mech's weight.

Nora flipped backwards, dodging one of the mech's flailing arms as it fell, and transformed Magnhild into its grenade launcher form before firing a pair of grenades at the mech. They latched into the cockpit and exploded, splitting the mech wide open.

She giggled as she landed. "That was so much fun!"

Ren was less than enthusiastic, his eyes fixed on some spot behind her. "Nora! Weiss!"

She whirled around and saw the hole blown open in the wall of the building—right where they had met with Weiss. As she started forward, someone was thrown out of the hole in the wall. Someone with red hair. "Pyrrha!" The bodyguard landed hard on one of Weiss' glyphs, but the glyph quickly faltered and vanished.

Ren had already darted past Nora. "I'll get her. You help Weiss!"

Nora raced to the wall and leapt, switching Magnhild back to a hammer and propelling herself upward as she did so, scaling nearly two stories. As she drew level with the second floor, she brought Magnhild down through the window to impact the floor, blasting her up another two stories. As she reached the hole in the wall, she grabbed onto the edge of the floor and heaved herself up and into the hallway.

Weiss was backed against the wall, blood flowing from a nasty gash in her left arm, her right one shaking as it held up her sword. Before her was a black-and-white clad woman wearing a White Fang grimm mask wielding some weird two swords thing.

Nora leapt forward with a shout. As the assassin turned, Nora struck her chest with a satisfying crunch, sending her flying down the hall and tumbling into a heap by the elevator doors.

Weiss gasped up at her for a moment before pushing past and staggering to the hole in the wall and sinking to her knees next to it.

"Whoa! Weiss!" Nora cried, pulling her away from the edge.

"Pyrrha…" Weiss gasped.

"It's alright. Ren went to catch her." Nora peered over the edge of the floor. Below her on the ground, she could make out Ren leaning over Pyrrha's… not body. Just Pyrrha. "He's got her. He's taking care of her."

Weiss nodded, closed her eyes and sagged back against the wall.

The door at the end of the corridor burst open, causing Nora to ready Magnhild, but it was only three SDC security officers.

"Miss Schnee!" They ran up to her, the one in front crouching down and reaching to check her arm. "You're injured!"

Weiss stood, wobbling slightly, and waved them off. "It's nothing. We need to return Pyrrha to the city for medical attention." She turned to Nora. "Are you or Ren hurt?"

"No, we're good."

"Alright. Then you two proceed as planned. We may have less time than we thought."