Chapter Text
“Well, that was the worst movie I’ve ever seen.”
“You said that about the last movie we watched.”
“That one was awful. This one was offensive.”
“Were they really that bad?”
“Of course they were!” Weiss exclaims. Blake casually glances sideways as they round the corner, and then smirks under her scarf at the sight of Weiss’s cheeks in the light of the shop they’re currently passing—red from the cold air of the late autumn evening around them and the indignation. “It was bad enough they all had modern hair and makeup, but those dresses? What time period were they even trying to go for? It certainly wasn’t the one the movie was supposed to be set in!”
“How off was it?” Blake supplies, more out of amusement for what she knows is coming than out of actual curiosity. And, yep, there go Weiss’s hands up in the air.
“Centuries! It was centuries off, Blake! How do you mess up that badly on a production with that much money?”
Blake shrugs, and then immediately regrets it as part of her stored supply of body heat gives way from within her jacket to the surrounding cold. Her cat ears flatten under her beanie at the momentary discomfort. “You act like this is the first time you’ve seen this happen.”
Weiss, apparently also regretting her movement, quickly stuffs her hands back in her coat pockets and squeezes her arms closer to herself. “It’s my duty as a future costume designer to call these things out, no matter how many times it happens.”
“Weiss Schnee, one woman army against the falling standards of the historical movie drama industry,” Blake deadpans. Weiss huffs.
“You’re the worst.”
“And yet you still hang out with me.”
“I’m your roommate. It’s part of our social contract.”
“Right.”
Weiss huffs again, but the silence that settles after is a comfortable one. The bar and lamp light lit sidewalk stretches out in front of them, offering time before they reach the bus stop, and so Blake’s mind wanders.
Black and white. A literal way to describe their respective wardrobe choices, and, from an outside perspective, each other. Two more different backgrounds couldn’t have wound up as freshman roommates months ago. White, an entitled princess of the Schnees, an affluent family known for its strategic investments of generational wealth. And black, someone more than familiar with the lucrative exploitations that wealth was built upon. Clearly different, and clearly divided—that was just fact.
Until it wasn’t. Little things from white started to blur the line: An increasing obsession with excelling at school. A stiffened posture at the mention of a call from home. A late night of work even when schoolwork was done. Curiosity begot snooping and revealed what the work was for: virtual reality avatar commissions. Very good, very expensive, and very time-consuming commissions. Of course, the snooping was eventually noticed and tensions flared in the expected way at the moment of discovery. But then…maybe it was the late hour, or maybe it was the consistent lack of sleep in general. Whatever the cause, the line faded enough to allow white to turn a shade of gray.
In that gray was a young woman who wanted to live her life without the stigmas and burdens of her past.
After that night, black and white found understanding, civility, and a new gray space in between them. A shared space where they could coexist. They found a literal shared space in an apartment near campus too, though someone insisted the sharing was mostly for the beneficial cost-of-living reduction to them both. Not wrong, but not all.
The black and white isn’t gone. There are still things kept unshared on each side. Even so, the gray space continues to gradually grow, and in the moment, Blake is content.
The bus stop is just coming into view when a color shift in the windowfront beside them pulls Blake’s attention. Her eyes turn to a TV screen shining out onto the street from inside a busy bar. A breaking news bulletin plays.
Blake freezes in her tracks.
“Blake?” comes Weiss’s confused voice, but it’s muffled by the pulse now thrumming in Blake’s ears. Her blood runs as cold as the air around them, colder even, as her eyes stare into a pair of familiar ones on the screen. The still picture they belong to is displayed between the silently talking news anchors, and below them is a headline in large, bold text:
White Fang Terrorist Adam Taurus Disappears From Prison
“Blake!” Weiss calls again, this time adding a shake to Blake’s shoulder that manages to pull her away from the screen. Whatever look is on Blake’s face makes Weiss’s brow furrow in concern. “What’s wrong?”
“I…I’m fine, I just—”
Blake’s phone buzzes in her jacket pocket. She slowly looks down toward it as the ice in her veins begins to burn from panic. She changed her number months ago. She even blocked his old number just to be safe. There was no way…right?
With a trembling hand, she reaches in and pulls out the phone to see the name of the person messaging her.
Ilia
~~~***~~~
Blake sits silently on a stool at the kitchen island, her forehead resting against her laced fingers, her eyes closed. One of her cat ears twitches at the soft buzz of the light above her. It reminds her of the buzzing neon outside that bar a few hours earlier. In all honesty, it wouldn’t take much to remind her of that moment anyway.
There were a number of concerned glances from Weiss on the bus ride and the walk back to the apartment, but mercifully she didn’t ask anything beyond if she was okay. The trembling hands that unlocked their front door were proof against statements that she was fine. Calm was hard to find even in the familiar space of their apartment, and Blake nearly jumped out of her skin when Weiss touched her shoulder ahead of offering her a cup of tea and a goodnight. Blake was then left to spend the next half hour sitting in this same spot staring at her reflection in the screen of her dark phone, bracing herself for a conversation she’d rather avoid.
It turned out to be a brief one. Ilia, and by extension the Faunus Coalition, were scrambling alongside the authorities to track Adam down. The operation was riddled with tension that predated this latest escape and was undoubtedly slowing progress. No one could seem to figure out how Adam managed to break out, or how long he’d actually been gone. He could be anywhere by now.
Which was why Ilia had called her first. Their shared history brought them to similar conclusions about at least one of Adam’s likely goals.
The scar above Blake’s left hip throbbed with the memory of pain long after the phone call ended.
“I’m guessing that call had something to do with Adam Taurus?”
Blake’s attention snaps behind her to the right. There she spots Weiss, standing in her pajamas with one hand on her bedroom doorframe, the other on her hip, and an expectant look on her face.
“…How much did you hear?” Blake asks, her body tense.
Weiss rolls her eyes. “Relax, I’ve been working with my headphones on this whole time. I wasn’t eavesdropping on you.” She pushes off the doorframe and enters the kitchen, passing the island in favor of the coffee machine on the opposite counter. “But I saw what was on that TV in the bar too. I do happen to know how to read.”
Blake doesn’t say anything. She listens to the clink of ceramics and the rustle of a box of coffee pods as she carefully chooses her next words. “Weiss…is there somewhere else you could stay for a while?”
Silence, save for the straining of the water through the coffee machine that turns to a slow drip, drip, drip, and eventually stops.
“You’re asking me to leave you here,” Weiss responds. “By yourself.”
“Just for a few weeks,” Blake clarifies quickly. “You mentioned your sister wasn’t too far from here, right? Maybe you could go stay with her. Pay her a sisterly visit for the holidays?” The last part is lame, but it’s the result of grasping for a convincing sounding excuse. There has to be some way to keep Weiss out of the crossfire of whatever Adam is planning.
Weiss finally turns, steaming coffee mug in hand, and strides around the kitchen island silently. She pulls out the stool next to Blake, sits down with ever impeccable posture, takes a sip of her drink, sets it on the counter, and then turns to stare right at her. “Out of the question.”
Blake blinks. “What?”
“I’m not leaving you here alone while there’s some crazy terrorist on the loose,” Weiss states matter-of-factly, and then uses the pause Blake’s baffled silence offers to take another sip of coffee before adding: “Especially when you’re acting like he’s coming after you specifically.”
Blake’s hands ball into fists where they rest on the counter. “Weiss, I know you’re stubborn, but—”
“This isn’t about me being stubborn,” Weiss interrupts, setting her coffee mug down hard. “This is about me looking out for my friend.”
Blake shuts her mouth in surprise. She’s only ever heard Weiss use that word once before out loud to describe her. Roommate, classmate, annoyance, those are all common, but friend is still a rarity. The last time she used it was during a mini-intervention when Blake started to lose sleep and forgot to eat ahead of an important exam. Back then the choice of word had surprised them both, but hearing it come up again now, Blake senses the beginnings of a pattern for when it came out.
“I don’t want you in danger because of me,” Blake tries in a final, honest effort.
An invisible weight settles on Weiss’s shoulders and her hands wrap tightly around her coffee mug. “I’ve been in danger my whole life because of my last name. This isn’t exactly new for me.”
Well. Blake can’t argue with that.
“So,” Weiss continues, straightening her posture once more, “why don’t you start by filling me in so I can help keep us both out of whatever trouble is coming.”
Blake stares at Weiss, at the shine of determination in her eyes. There was no telling how long it would last once Blake gave her the missing pieces of the puzzle, but in this moment, it brings the first semblance of comfort Blake has felt that night, and she’s grateful for it.
“Alright.”
~~~***~~~
One forty-five-minute lecture about the history of the Faunus Rights movement and another two cups of coffee and tea later, respectively, and the refrigerator is covered in sheets of paper with handwritten notes and flowcharts. The resultant organized chaos makes sense given that two voracious note-takers live under the same roof.
Now, Weiss is up and pacing in the space between the refrigerator and the side of the kitchen island. Her brow is furrowed as she processes all the information from this new perspective, which she is far more open to considering than Blake expected. One of Weiss’s arms is raised, its hand gesticulating as she reviews everything aloud, while the other arm remains across her chest.
“So, after you left the White Fang,” Weiss says, coming to the more recent events, “you helped found the Faunus Coalition and start the dissolve of the White Fang alongside your parents, but behind the scenes to not draw attention to yourself because…”
“I wanted to start a new chapter,” Blake finishes from her new perch on the kitchen counter. She currently has one knee held to her chest, and if Weiss were paying her any mind, she would have been yelled at for having a bare foot on the counter.
Weiss nods, distracted and thankfully none the wiser. “Right. But Adam still came after you because you two were key players in the White Fang for so long and he felt betrayed.”
Blake hugs her knee a little tighter, her scar throbbing again beneath her shirt. “Yes,” she answers flatly. What she told Weiss isn’t a lie; it just isn’t the full picture. Her past relationship with Adam isn’t an area she’s comfortable sharing the truth about, not yet. Weiss doesn’t need that context to get the general flow of events anyway. However, what it doesn’t give her is the understanding of the depths of Adam’s drive toward her, and Blake is now grappling with the possibility of that omission coming back to haunt them both later.
“Adam gets thrown in prison,” Weiss continues, oblivious to the moral struggle Blake is handling at the moment, “you move to attend school in a new country, get all new contact information, and disappear from social media, which brings us to where we were earlier this evening.” Weiss stops and looks up at the clock on the microwave. “Yesterday,” she corrects with a sigh.
“Do I want to know?” Blake asks, unable to see the clock herself and glad for the deviation from her internal thoughts.
“No,” Weiss replies, resuming her efforts to wear a path into the linoleum flooring. “Anyway, now we come to Ilia’s call. Did she tell you anything useful?”
Blake takes her time mentally reviewing her conversation with Ilia, again filtering out the pieces where her personal history with Adam comes up. “She said an official investigation is on-going, but she’s not optimistic about how helpful it will be. It’s not exactly the first time we—” Blake cuts herself off, her gaze darting to the still pacing Weiss briefly before correcting herself, “—he has avoided the authorities.” Blake’s eyes drop to the floor. Her brow furrows in thought. “Then she said something about them looking in the wrong place?”
“Like the wrong city?”
Blake shakes her head. “No. It was something like…the Vale sector?”
Weiss’s footfalls abruptly stop, and Blake looks up to meet a pair of wide blue eyes staring at her in recognition. “As in the Vale Sector of The World of Remnant?”
“Maybe?” Blake answers, unsure. The name Remnant is familiar to her, but the rest isn’t. “I’ve never heard of it before.”
“Never heard of…are you serious?” Blake shrinks back from the force of Weiss’s incredulous accusation. “It’s only a major part of the most popular virtual reality platform on the planet! How have you never heard of—” Weiss suddenly stops, something apparently clicking in her mind, and she slumps forward, muttering: “Right. No social media. You really do live under a rock, or a pile of books in your case.”
“Rude.”
“But not wrong,” Weiss shoots back. “So, she’s saying Adam is in Remnant?”
“That’s what it sounds like Ilia was suggesting,” Blake muses. “She said that after I left, he started working on something big in that sector. He was even working with people outside the White Fang, with humans, which is unheard of for him. Whatever that project was, he must have really wanted to see it completed.”
Weiss stays in a deep silence as she processes the new information. Blake waits for her to say something or to ask another question, but nothing comes as Weiss continues to stare down at the kitchen floor. Blake has just enough of an angle to see her eyes darting back and forth, like she was scanning the pages of a notebook for a line she’d misplaced. Blake is just on the verge of breaking the silence when Weiss suddenly turns and starts walking back toward her bedroom door.
“W-Weiss?” Blake calls, startled by the abrupt exit. She quickly jumps down from the counter to follow her roommate, who is apparently using her woman-on-a-mission walk. Blake rounds the kitchen island just in time to see the last of Weiss’s white ponytail disappear into her room, and by the time Blake reaches Weiss’s door she is already on the opposite side. Blake cautiously steps inside the bedroom, lit only by the light blue glow of two computer monitors, just as Weiss pulls something off the thin bookshelf in the corner next to her work space.
“Weiss?” Blake tries again. Weiss raises a hand without turning, a silent sign to wait. Blake sighs, but obliges. Weiss steps to her desk and places down what Blake can now see is an old journal of some kind as she continues to concentrate in silence. The placement jostles the mouse sitting on the desk and brings the monitors out of their resting state, changing the light in the room from blue to white. Blake recognizes a familiar-looking modeling software currently on the screens. As she stares at it, a thought strikes her.
“Wait…” Blake starts, eyes locked on the unfinished 3D avatar slowly rotating in place, “those commissions you do…are they for Remnant?”
The question finally breaks Weiss’s focus. She glances up at the monitors, and then over at Blake. In the stark light, it’s hard to tell if the notable pause before Weiss answers is from the fog of concentration clearing in her mind, or from something else.
“Yes.”
The tightness in her tone tells Blake it’s the latter.
“How much do you know about it?” Blake asks, glancing down to the open journal. Weiss notices. Without breaking eye contact she quickly shuts it.
“I design avatars for people. I have to know enough to do my job,” Weiss answers quickly. Too quickly, and with too much sass even for her.
Blake studies Weiss. At this point in her life, Blake knows to trust her intuition about people—it’s a lesson she’s learned the hard way. Right now, it tells her that Weiss knows more about Remnant, but is guarded with her knowledge for reasons she doesn’t yet understand. If any of that knowledge can help them now though, it needs to be shared.
Hypocrite, a voice in the back of her mind whispers. Blake ignores it. She isn’t going to push for information without giving a little more of her own first.
“Weiss,” she begins, carefully, “when I was in the White Fang, with Adam, I saw what he was like when he got fixated on an idea. He’d stop at nothing to get what he wanted, even if it meant hurting people.” Blake pauses, her eyes drifting away momentarily as darker memories surface. “Innocent people.” She looks back to Weiss to stare her directly in the eyes. “I’m not telling you this to guilt trip you into saying things you don’t want to say. I don’t need to know everything. But if something, anything you know about Remnant can help stop him, it could literally help save lives.”
Weiss holds Blake’s gaze for a long, quiet moment of contemplation. Blake hopes she’s managed to balance the weight of her words well enough, but as the silence stretches on, she begins to question herself. Has she gone too heavy too fast?
“Schnee Industries owns Remnant,” Weiss says suddenly, breaking the silence. Blake’s eyes go wide, and Weiss rolls her own in response. “That’s not the shocking revelation Blake. Everyone knows that already.”
“I didn’t.”
Weiss sighs. “Anyway. What that means is that I’ve had…more direct exposure to how the backend of Remnant works than most.” Blake’s head tilts in curiosity, so Weiss continues past that vague point. “Every account is linked directly to a person’s biometrics. For the sake of privacy, however, everyone’s biometrics are kept in a secure database while a placeholder is used for everyday identification purposes. It’s a feature my father has hated for years but has never found a way to fully crack.”
Blake knows enough about Jacques Schnee through his ruthless business reputation alone to understand why that would frustrate him. “Probably for the best.”
“Agreed,” Weiss replies with a short nod before turning back to the closed notebook on her desk, “but I do remember overhearing my father mention something about an exception. I just can’t seem to find or remember exactly…”
Weiss trails off as she places a hand on the notebook’s cover. Blake doesn’t need to see what’s inside of it to understand where Weiss is going.
“You think we could use it to find Adam in Remnant?” Blake asks, stepping closer to the desk.
“It’s a long shot, but it’s the best way I can think of to track him down in there.” Weiss breathes out in frustration. “The problem is figuring out what this exception even is. We’d need access to tools only owners have, or convince someone with owner privileges to help us, and I don’t see that happening anytime soon without some real credibility.”
“Can’t you use your family connection?” Blake asks. The air between them immediately grows heavy. Blake pivots. “Or maybe we could file a report?”
Weiss tsks and looks up at her. “If you think the reporting system for the real-world authorities is bad, it’s got nothing on the virtual world. It won’t help.”
Blake sighs, mirroring Weiss’s frustrations, and crosses her arms over her chest tightly. There has to be something they can do. Adam was out there doing who knew what, and the longer he was left unfound, the more of a threat he became and not just to her. Blake’s eyes land on the monitors again, where that same unfinished avatar continued to slowly spin.
“…Then I’ll find him myself.”
Weiss’s head snaps in her direction. “What?”
“I’ll go into Remnant and track him down,” Blake explains. “Once I find him, I can let Ilia know and she can work with the Faunus Coalition and the authorities to convince the people behind Remnant to help find him.”
“Blake, you were literally telling me to leave the city less than two hours ago because Adam is so dangerous, and now you want to go hunting after him?”
Blake gestures to the computer screen. “You said we’d need credibility to be taken seriously. This is our best way to get that. Besides, I know Adam well enough to know how to find him.”
“Sure, by using yourself as bait maybe.”
Blake doesn’t say anything. It isn’t what she has in mind, but if that’s ultimately what it took…
Weiss throws her hands up in the air. “Seriously Blake?!”
“What other choice do we have?”
Weiss glares at Blake, and Blake glares right back at her. They’re at an impasse unless someone concedes, and Blake is determined to not let it be her.
“Fine,” Weiss eventually says, placing her hands on her hips, “but I’m going in with you.”
“Weiss—”
Weiss holds up a finger. “Don’t you ‘Weiss’ me with that tone, Blake Belladonna. I’m not letting you throw yourself in harm’s way when I can help keep you safer than you would be on your own.”
Blake sighs. Another impasse. Only this is one she’ll have to concede to get past, and she doesn’t like it.
“If he hurts you, I won’t be able to live with myself,” she admits quietly. Weiss’s eyes soften and she steps closer to place a hand on Blake’s shoulder.
“Then that makes two of us.”
Blake is afraid. She’s afraid for herself, but she’s even more afraid for Weiss. The White Fang targeted Schnee Industries for years under Adam’s leadership. Weiss would only make the target on her back that much easier to hit by helping her now. So, if Weiss was going to do everything she could to keep her safe as they tracked down Adam, then Blake would do the same in return.
“Okay,” Blake says after a tense moment. Weiss smiles and nods.
“Okay.”
Weiss’s smile suddenly turns mischievous and the grip on her shoulder tightens, and Blake realizes that there are other ways she could end up regretting this choice.
“First things first: I need to design you an avatar.”