Chapter 191: Charlatan Part 2

"White Fang!?" Weiss whispered a scream and quickly skirted from her seat and away from the ledge. Her father doing much the similar while also grasping his scroll to call in his security force. Though when he pulled it open his eyes narrowed as he discovered the connection to the CCT was blocked.

"Hmph, the animals are more prepared than I thought." he grumbled sliding onto a new screen on his scroll, one that would let out a constant battering of signals to test every frequency the scroll could in the hopes of one getting through to his guards. Though unnecessary considering they were likely to already be preparing themselves for an assault to extract him.

Weiss too shot to her scroll and found much the same, leaving her utterly incapable of calling in her locker from Beacon to bring with it her weapon. meaning she was stuck weaponless and by proxy, helpless.

"Well?" she heard the boys voice from below, urging the Maitre d' for an answer.

"I-I'm sorry sir, W-we do not currently have any of the S-Schnee family booked for today," he responded, voice trembling like a deer in the headlights watching as its life flickered away. As much as the White Fang operative before him scared him, he feared Jacques Schnee more. The destruction that man would rend would leave him out on the streets with little but his boots to his name.

The boy dug his sword deeper into the Maitre d's neck, cutting a small line and let a trickling of red crease his shirt. "Don't lie to me. I know both Jacques Schnee and that Weiss one are here. I watched them both come here. Now, where are they?"

The Maitre d' unconsciously looked to the upper floor but was quick to peel his gaze away. Too late though as the boy's head followed his eyes. "Second floor, you three go." he glanced to his side where a fox tailed boy was stood with a deer faunus and a lizard skinned girl, nodding them towards the staircase.

The three nodded in turn and began a hastened jog while plucking their weapons from their bodies. A rifle, an axe, and a pair of dual pistols. All three prepared to face resistance in some form or another.

Up on the second floor, Weiss' eyes were skirting about every which way seeking out an escape. As confident she was in her combat abilities, she could not challenge a miniature army of weaponized fauni. Many of whom she was expecting to have had their aura unlocked and potentially having semblances as well.

"Well? Do something, or was all this nonsense for waste?" Her father huffed derisively.

Her cheek twitched but she grit her teeth and kept still. She couldn't refute him, she felt useless in the moment. As her gaze danced about it soon came to pause upon the bread table where she could see the serrated silver edge of a bread knife and a varnished mahogany handle right besides a loaf of a baguette that was being cut by the floors servers.

"Better than nothing," she murmured, gulping nervously as she could hear the thumping of three sets of legs rushing up the staircase. Letting a cold breath hiss out, Weiss began her crouched sprint to the table, passing by panicking civilian after panicking civilian and soon arrived by the bread table, her hand snaked up, gripped the blade and pulled it away. She pinched the tip and with as much strength as she could muster flexed it finding it was persistent in its wants to remain straight. It was a poor weapon, one that was likely to shatter the moment it collided with anything hard meaning she would need to make any attacks hit.

The stomping grew closer and Weiss spun around just in time to see the three masks peak over the edge. Her breath stilled and she swept the bread knife across the air, summoning out an intricate snowflake glyph just on the landing with the intention of removing friction from the area. It wasn't as powerful as her dust enhanced friction glyph but it was sure to be enough to at least hinder their movement for long enough for her to hopefully incapacitate on of them.

Arriving first was the fox faunus, his boot unwittingly stepped onto the glyph and attempted to raise himself up the step only for the grip on his boots to secede from existence. His foot glided forwards, his back arched backwards and his arms flailed around in an attempt to halt his falling down the stairs. But it was much too little much too late as by the time his comrades had noticed his falling and reached out to steady him, the sole and heel of a crystalline shoe came flying to his face, the heel itself ramming into his mouth, chipping one of his teeth and sending him rolling down the stairs, nearly dragging along his teammates with him.

Having used the mans face as a springboard, Weiss kicked off into a backflip, her legs kept together until she found herself skidding along the floor knocking away a few chairs in her path as she twisted her body, held a hand behind her back and clenched the handle of the bread knife. Holding it like she usually would a weapon. Its point slightly tilted down ready for a swift jab.

In the adrenaline she failed to hear the shouts of the white fang assaulters and those around her. Instead, her eyes sharpened, her vision cleared, and she watched the two, the deer and the lizard raise their weapons. The deer, clenched his axe and rushed in on a bull-headed charge, sending it cutting across in a vertical slash, something easily dodged by Weiss with a simple lowering of her posture, narrowly avoiding the blade. Added with a sudden upwards thrust of her bread knife towards the man's throat, she felt her blade hit the solid shield of an aura. A weak aura as it already showed signs of cracking, but an aura, nonetheless.

The man was sent flying into the air, but in the void stood the reptile faunus, perched on one knee holding her pistols akimbo and a volley of heated red lasers shot towards her. Behind her were not just her father, but others as well whether they had aura or not was up in the air. She couldn't let any of those dust bullets get through.

Her aura lurched, summoning before her the a spinning black glyph. between the wings of the snowflake a barrier formed and the harsh slams of the bullets crashing against it echoed noisily. Her teeth grit, the assault unending when one of the womans guns ran out of ammo she swiftly and onehandedly reloaded while still firing with the other. The individual shots themselves weren't strong but that wasn't the issue. The issue was the things she could hear beneath the bangs and the clanks.

It was the thumps and the 'Go!' of the boy shouting to the others to rush the stairs and provide assistance to the faunus girl. Weiss spun her head around to the half a dozen persons and met the cold eyes of her father. As calm as ever as he expected to be perfectly safe no matter what.

Arrogant. He was cruel and arrogant. Weiss thought gritting her teeth. But she couldn't let him get hurt. He'd use that as a means to guilt trip her. To call her weak to call her a failure. She couldn't give him that ammo.

Looking back to the faunus girl, Weiss saw her move to reload one of her pistols but as the clip fell and she reached for another she was surprised to find her belt empty. All of them strewn around her alongside several dozens of emptied casings.

"Now!" Weiss hissed, her foot diging into the floor while a glyph form behind her to act as a boost to send her launching towards the girl just as the last bullet faded from her weapon. Had the girl's eyes been visible, Weiss was sure they were to be panicking. Her arm shot forth, the tip of the knife ready to thrust into the faunus girl's chest at a speed more than she could comprehend.

But just as the blade came but an inch from piercing into the faunus' aura, a voice echoed from behind her.

"Weiss!" her fathers. Her blade halted and the faunus let out a sigh of relief. Weiss spun around and there, stood atop the railings with a blood red blade drawn and pressed against her father's neck was the bull horned faunus boy. His lips curled into a frown as he watched Weiss through the slits of his mask.

"Father!" Weiss exclaimed.

The boy pressed the sword deeper into her fathers neck and he growled irately. His guards were taking their time. He was going to fire them all after this day was finished.

"I'd say you need to put down the knife, Schnee. Your out matched." The heavy stomps behind her leading her to see near a dozen men and women clad in grey suits and grimm like masks glaring up at her.

Her teeth grit tightly. She couldn't face them. Not this number. Not on her own. Not without her weapon. Not without dust. Her eyes narrowed shut, her breathing trembled and she threw the bread knife to the side. It clattered in the silence that had formed in the Charlatan. Her hands lifting to reveal themselves empty.

The boy nodded and he spoke to his compatriots, "cuff her!"

No sooner did the largest of the faunus, a bear she was guessing arrive behind her and roughly grabbed her wrists, forcing them behind her back while a chameleon tied them together with zipties. Tight enough that she could feel the circulation cutting off to her fingers.

He nodded approvingly, "I've been waiting a long time for this Schnee. A very long time." his voice a growl as he addressed Jacques Schnee.

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Alright, I'm developing a superhero story and I need character ideas to fill out the world. Can also just be interesting powers you'd think would be interesting to work with. Preferably send me something on discord for ideas. I've been really off of reading comments for a while now.