A/N (V1.0 March 21, 2020): OMG its taking me so much longer than I expected to get to the cool scenes… mannnn.

Next chapter will be much later, as its not prewritten yet.

Beta: Path of a Writer

~/\/\/\/\/\/\/\~

Weiss was completely composed as she walked.

Why did I do that?

Clint was in front of her, leading her towards a public bath inside the building.

All the trust I worked for. Gone. I was too rash. Imprudent.

After he showed her the room, she had gone inside and requested for new clothing and a towel. Someone else went to get them, while her guard stayed at the doorway to stop her from leaving.

It was just some child. I didn't even know him. Who knows, he could have been a mass murderer. Grown up to be like the King of Mantle.

She glared at the bucket of warm water and the sponge floating inside it as if they were her worst enemies. Then, she sighed, undressed and moved to wash herself. It wasn't like berating herself further would help.

I wonder why I helped him.

A woman, someone she didn't know, came in the room and hung up a new dress for her. She gave a smile and a wave.

Was it really just a sense of duty?

She did the motions to lather her skin, or rather, the aura layer on top. She hadn't turned it off for a second.

Was it the times of the past that I have lost?

She stared into the large mirror that covered a whole wall. Her blue eyes shone and her face had a smile plastered on it. Like normal.

Or was it understanding?

Her grip on the sponge tightened.

There's a moment of vulnerability, when faced with a catastrophe. When you expend all your effort and realize it just isn't enough. When all you need is just that little bit of help, and look for it in others, pray that someone - anyone - would come… and realize there's just no one there.

Weiss will not forget anytime soon how her mother descended (escaped) into alcoholism and how her beloved sister joined (ran away to) the army. And her father...

She dumped the rest of the bucket over her head, then went to the pump to get more water. Unlike the nice real shower in Mila's room, to get water here one needed physical strength. She attempted anyways. To her surprise, a quick application of aura allowed the handle to easily move. Her aura seemed a lot stronger. A few days ago it had been shattered by a hug. Now, she was able to use it to slightly enhance her strength, even if they were just back blows or pulling a handle. Good.

Weiss finished up her crude shower and dried herself with a towel. After dressing in a plain faded white dress, she exited the room and let her guard lead her to her new room. It was upstairs and neighbored the boy from before. Inside, the furniture was just as plain and old as the other rooms.

She sat down on the hard bed and sighed.

"You did not help him."

Weiss gasped, startled. She jumped to her feet and spun to face a man leaning by the wall, arms crossed. He wore the clothes of a factory worker. She recognized him as the blue skinned man who had confronted her after her actions with the musician boy. He wasn't there a second before.

His eyes met hers. "You are prolonging his death."

Weiss was not in the mood. "I couldn't just do nothing!" His echoing of her earlier personal sentiments irritated her.

"It was not smallpox - not the pure version at least. Stronger. Deadlier. Hyper-contagious. In three days, he will have total organ failure. He will die soon no matter what." He harshly continued on. "You put yourself at risk for no reason. Whatever the strain of the disease you were exposed to when you were younger will not guarantee immunity here."

"So, I should have let him die?" She resisted the urge to grit her teeth.

"Yes."

Weiss was taken back by how cold and surprisingly uncaring he was. "How could you say that?" She gasped.

"Sometimes the right thing isn't the good thing.""Dying now would be better than suffering for the next few days. Slowly, he'll find himself unable to play his instruments as well as before. A few missed notes here and there, until it deteriorates to complete motor dysfunction. As the breakdown of his body continues he'll be unable to take care of basic needs like relieving himself or eating. We have no HAZMAT suits. He will have to deal with it alone." He listed his reasons clinically. "Better to die with his dignity intact, than die like that."

"Then you give up on him? Just like that?"

He coldly looked at her. "You think we did not try everything? You were our last hope, girl."

"What?"

"Your freedom for his life."

Weiss stilled.

He kneeled in front of her and matched her eye level. "White hair and blue eyes. Even the structure of the face. It reminds me of her. Reminds us of her. Your appearance is worth more gold than we could ever dream of."

She willed herself not to flinch away, no matter how unnerving his gaze felt. The proud Schnee wouldn't let him have the pleasure.

"What do I care about your personal wants? At least you will be alive. Unlike him, soon. Dirtying my hands would have been a small price to pay. A small price to pay for me, at least."

He stood back up, towering over her. And sighed. She could hear the frustration. "But it's too late. We won't be able to make a deal fast enough to get the funds to save him. The disease is progressing faster than we thought it could and the Wagners are as bad as they always were."

He paused.

"Why tell me this? Why visit me?" Weiss questioned.

The man took a few steps around her until he was directly behind.

"Curiosity," He finally said, "What should we do about you? Your monetary worth makes any man salivate." He clenched his fist. "But no amount of money can bring back the dead. What is the point of money if it doesn't save my son?"

Weiss didn't turn to face him. She kept her stance relaxed, unwilling to give an inch to her unease. "Nothing." She answered. "It's worth nothing."

She waited for a reply, but a few seconds passed with pure silence. Confused, she turned around to see that the man had disappeared.

A semblance?

She shook her head. What a strange conversation. Still, it did make her think.

Her father was willing to sacrifice his family.

This man was willing to sacrifice strangers to save his son.

What about her?

Once upon a time, she wanted to inherit the Schnee Dust Company and turn it towards a more pro-faunus position. As she grew up though, her dreams were pretty much trampled. Both by her father, but also by the realization that her supporters were much fewer than she expected.

This time, she wasn't talking about the major stockholders on the board of directors. No, them, she understood. She had allies among them of course, but in reality she had hoped to rely on the support of the common man. From the ones who owned a little controlling interest, to the ones buying the SDC products, she had hoped that they could be the ones to make up for the difference. Never a risk taker without substantial preparation, she went and actually talked with people.

What she found made her feel naive.

Was the common shareholder any different from the directors? No. All they cared for was their personal net worth. From their mouth they spouted justice and equality, but in their hearts all they wanted was to take others down and install themselves.

Was the common customer any different from the shareholders? No. All they cared for was their own tomorrow. If they could save some money buying cheap from the SDC, they would do so, all while declaring that the company's practice was slavery and evil. Hypocrites.

There were exceptions, of course. Nevertheless, they were too few.

When she found out about the above, she had been furious at both the ones who made the company into what it was today and the ones who enabled them. She knew it was useless, however, and her anger dissipated as fast as it came.

For things to change, she'll have to make some big changes. Changes that may just sacrifice the very legacy of the Schnee family. Five hundred years of history, ended by one young woman. Would she be willing to do so?

However, none of that mattered anymore.

Suddenly, her day to day life had been shattered. From her exile to Beacon, to the Grimm attack on the school, it was like she had been suddenly thrown out to sea. A little glacier, bobbing there and fro in the middle of an ocean ready to swallow her whole.

She forced herself to stop gritting her teeth.

Why?

At that moment, the single word echoed not just through her own, but also through the thoughts of thousands others who she would never meet.

Like the man whose beloved wife was dying of cancer over in Spain.

Like the dying boy who was hit by a random drunk driver in China.

Not to mention the thousands of millions caught in wars they could not even begin to understand.

Why?

While the question of sacrifice is important, when the situation that requires the sacrifice arises a different question comes into existence: the question of why they had to even make the sacrifice. Humans naturally do this in order to analyze the causes of the incident and attempt to avoid them next time. In practice, however, there are many personal tragedies that seem causeless. Then, the human mind, scrambling desperately for an explanation, clings to any suspicion no matter how inane and drags it down with it like a drowning swimmer.

Tired out by the day, Weiss collapsed by the wall. Through it, she could hear the easing melody next door and she listened quietly. She yearned for its promises of a better tomorrow, of hope. But, whenever there was a stutter, her illusion would come crashing down as she was reminded of one of the possible reasons the boy had missed a note.

Why do I have to deal with all this? Haven't I worked hard enough?

A Schnee was not born. She was made. Yes, her bloodline gave her semblance, but her intelligence, smarts, and skills were everything that she had worked for through days and days of mind numbing practice and study. It wasn't because of her money that she was so talented - no, it was because she had access to the best tutors and others didn't that she must be the most talented. More talented, more knowledgeable, more polite, more disciplined, than not just the average but even the other geniuses of the world. It was her duty. Her destiny. Her burden.

Weiss Schnee held no one to a higher standard than herself.

But sometimes, rarer than the moon turning red with blood, she would ponder and ask why it was her burden. When the pressure of the millions of eyes watching her every move threatened to crush her beneath its deathly grasp, she would bow in front of fate and plead for mercy. Then, the next day would come and she would force herself to forget about her weakness the day before.

Why?

What did I do to deserve this?

Has Weiss not done as life asked?

Where was her reward?

Weiss wiped her eyes, only to realize there were no tears. She stared at the dry back of her hand. A Schnee doesn't cry. Couldn't cry. For a Schnee was frozen and unyielding like the northern blizzards themselves.

"Your freedom for his life."

Was it not ironic that in her past life, she was merely the extension of her father, a tool in his arsenal, used like an object, and that in this life, she was just a step away from being a slave? Was this supposed to be funny?

What about the attack on Beacon? She had treasured her team. In fact, they were the first real friends she had since a long time. Then, fate, life, whatever you want to call it, came and destroyed it all again. Why? She didn't know. She knew nothing.

Even in the chaos of the attack it was not so bad… other than half of everyone she knew dying (it was bad). She had saved Blake by sending her to Vacuo. They grouped back up, ready to escape. She saved that Cinder woman too.

...then, the very same woman she had saved had stabbed her in the back.

Why?

She didn't know.

Weiss tried to stand up but worry for Ruby and Yang - Cinder, she was going to kill them too, wasn't she - caused her to trip and fall to her knees again. The music from the other room… Why was he playing something sad now? It didn't help her shaken thoughts.

Cinder had gone after them. They didn't know she was a murderer. Please… be safe. Images of the sisters' slaughtered corpses flashed before her eyes, mirages of her wild imagination. She felt like she was going to vomit.

Calm down. You can't do anything for them now. Trust in them. Meanwhile now, you need to move forward. Think of your successes. Blake, she must be still alive and well. Step by step. That was how she had lived till now. She can continue. She can do this.

I know I can do this.

She stood up, resolute.

Her hands hit something wet. Confused, she looked down and saw a few floating droplets of water suspended in mid air. Droplets that had dripped from her hair.

"Hi. I stopped time so we could talk. Since you hadn't called me on my phone. It's been a few days, you know?"

And suddenly, she was face to face with the Shadow. Weiss was still uncertain on what to call her. The floating wisps of darkness, enveloped in a cloak, were just as strange as the first time she had seen it. Wait, phone?!

"Um, how about - no, but maybe… darn, too cringey... that won't work either. You know, Shadow will work for now." The being answered her unvoiced question. "It sounds kind of edgy, as if I was some seven year old's brooding original character, but that's ok… I think. Oh wait, oh yeah, I forgot to tell you my number, didn't I? It's 1 000 000 000. Easy to remember!"

Weiss' eyes widened in surprise. It had read her mind!

"Yeah, I can do lots of things. Like, look at this!" The being suddenly dropped the cloak and the smoke that made its body made a ring. A tendril shot out, balled up the cloak, and tossed it into the smoky hoop as if it was basketball. "Score!" She cheered.

Unsurprisingly, Weiss wasn't impressed. She crossed her arms.

However, that did bring to question: what could the powerful being do? Did she have anything to do with her current circumstances? She had not forgotten how supposedly she had 'tripped' out of the afterlife and into this new world.

That…

Weiss suddenly realized just how stupid that was.

"You sent me here." She stated. There was a weird undertone in her voice. Something angry.

The floating being turned back to normal - if one would consider it's prior form such. "Weiss… you just figured that out?" She sounded disappointed.

"Is this some kind of sick joke?" She almost snarled. Barely, she kept her anger under control out of habit. Her aura, however, flared.

"Not really." A tendril poked at an imaginary chin under the hood of the cloak, imitating a person in thought. "Your life is not really funny… except those scenes with Mila. I liked those. Why are you so mad? I saved your life. Not many get a second chance after death, you know?"

Weiss felt her irrational fury drain away. That was a good point. She should be thankful for that at least. "I do not disagree that I feel a certain… appreciation for your gift of life, but was there no way for it to have been more pleasant, if not a return to my old world?"

There was a moment of silence.

"...no."

Weiss tilted her head.

"No! Pffft, no! No way. You're crazy, Weiss. Crazy!"

The white haired girl couldn't place a sudden weird feeling of familiarity as the cloaked ethereal entity continued stammering out denials. She pushed the thought aside.

'Shadow' continued. "I told you, no way! Plus, it's not like I didn't already give you advantages I normally don't give. Don't you think it's weird that you can speak ancient Atlesian so well? I also left you with your memories intact, unlike the majority of others who died."

Weiss nodded along. That did explain her sudden fluency with the language. She had taken classes, but a language was learned through practice. "Wait a second… 'others'?"

"Eeep!" Tendrils wrapped themselves around where the entity's mouth should have been. "Wy shaid shoo much!" The being poofed out of existence.

I don't even know what to think anymore… What even is a phone?

With a sigh, Weiss flopped backwards onto her bed, uncaring of how her wet hair slapped onto the dry bedding. She closed her eyes. It'll all make more sense tomorrow, I'm sure.

"Greetings."

She twitched. She tried to fake being asleep.

"I know you are awake." It was a woman's voice, one she hadn't heard before.

Weiss sighed. "Is this national disturb Weiss day? Three times! This is horrible and inhumane. I would like to speak to your…" she cracked one eye open. "...mana… manager..." And then she screamed.

"I'm not a ghost," said the ghostly bald woman who looked exactly like the statue she had seen in the storage room beside the checkers board. She was semi-transparent and floated above the ground.

"It's a ghost!" She cried.

"Nice to meet you too." The ghost replied with exasperation.

"Clint!" She called desperately.

"Wait," the ghost tried to stop her. "I would just like to talk to you. I'm called the Ancient One, and…"

The door flung open. "Weiss! What's going on?" Her guard panted from exertion. "Are you safe?"

She clutched the sheets so hard her hands turned white. "There's a creepy bald stranger who sneaked into my room!"

"I'm not a - ah… it could seem that way." The creepy bald ghost who had sneaked into a little girl's room sighed. "How inconvenient."

~/\/\/\/\/\/\/\~

Afghanistan, 2004

A lot of sand fell from the sky.

That was an understatement.

Torrents of sand dropped from humongous portals that opened up above Tony and Yinsen. Tons of fine ground rock threatened to crush them underneath, forcing Tony to weave in between columns of death. It made quite the impossible sight.

"It is actually surprisingly pretty how the sun's rays glint off - " Yinsen cut himself off as a close shave almost cut his head off.

"Great, go book your vacation to crazyland later, dodge now!" They had to flip sideways to evade as someone took a potshot through the sand. "There are others too?!"

"Try flying higher!"

Tony tried, but suddenly had to change course as a portal opened directly in his path. He barely avoided the new flood of sand.

"Below? It'll take more time for the sand attacks to hit."

"Don't call them sand attacks."

Tony still listened, and tried flying lower. However, the portals ended up just appearing closer to the ground. Seeing his chance, he suddenly flew directly upwards causing him to break through the layer of portals and gain a temporary moment of reprieve. In the distance, he spied the person casting the portals. Around the little boy, runic characters floated as he chanted like some kind of magician.

"Magic is real?" He shot his repulsors towards the magic boy, causing the enemy to stop casting in order to dodge.

"I'm sure it's explainable."

Tony gestured at all the avalanche of falling sand below them. "This is explainable?!"

"I didn't say explainable using conventional science," amended Yinsen.

"Right. Now, where's the stray cat?"

"The stray - I mean, Blake, is on your left."

Tony bent his legs and blasted off towards his ally. She was off a good distance away, fighting against another hostile.

~/\/\/\/\/\/\/\~

Blake and the other figure separated, each having deflected a blow from the other.

"You have a metal arm." She remarked. "An arm that's also a gun."

"You have hammers. Hammers that can shoot energy waves." The man did the same. "Ain't that funny. Funnier than Stark having a cosplay bodyguard. Is that a schoolgirl uniform underneath the cloth?"

"It's not cosplay!"

"Not judging. Maybe a bit. You do seem a bit young for him, girly. Is this legal?"

Blake narrowed her eyes in annoyance and charged forward. She wouldn't be the one to make him take back his words, however, as a suit of armor flew in and planted both its feet into the man's helmet covered face. The man was sent flying.

Yinsen stumbled off the Iron Man suit's back. "I almost had a heart attack from that maneuver. I thought we were going to crash." He had a hand over his chest, trying to calm down his racing heartbeat.

"Life ain't pretty without a little excitement." Came Tony's voice from the suit. "Hey, asshole, go talk to some other girl. This one's a bit dark and broody."

"Who's dark and broody?!"

The man they were fighting shook the sand off himself. His helmet's faceplate had cracked, obstructing his view with a web of fractures. He tore it off.

"Klaue?" Stark recognized in surprise, pointing his repulsors towards the man. "Haven't heard from you in decades since the black market vibranium trade collapsed and you ran with your tail between your legs."

The older man cracked his neck. "What can I say, Stark, it doesn't pay to be dead. Enough about me, how are you? Still destabilizing smaller countries and running proxy wars?"

"Good try, but spending time with models on my private beach is much more attractive."

Blake was about to slap a hand onto her face before she remembered she was holding a pair of hammers. Were they seriously having pre-battle banter? What did Yang call this again? A dick-measuring contest?

The man named 'Klaue' cackled. "You are a smart man, Stark. Why not both? Can't say I haven't had a good time with girls in my arms and enemies at my feet."

"How 'bout cause I'm not a murderous assassin?" Tony retorted.

The other man grinned, his smile full of malice. "Some beg to differ. I've settled down a bit, while you've grown your..." He looked for a word. "Business."

Tony patted some sand off his suit. "Right. And I've been meeting squirrel people." He glanced at Blake. "...there aren't squirrel people, right?" He ignored the returned flat glare.

She was cut off from answering when her ears twitched in response to the faint whistling. She spun deftly on her feet to face behind her.

In the air and shimmering like crystals, thousands of small shards rained down towards them. They blanketed the sky like a wave of crystalline death. Their movement was quiet as a whisper and she wouldn't have heard them if she didn't have two pairs of ears. "Tony! Behind us."

To his credit, Tony reacted rapidly. He blasted a shot towards Klaue, forcing the assassin to disengage and lie down on the flip side of a sand dune to use it as cover, before covering Yinsen's body with his armor. It was too late to try and fly away.

Blake readied herself and tried to gauge where each one will hit. She deflected the first seven with practiced ease - it reminded her of the shower of feather blades that Nethermores would fling - but as the number increased, she found herself losing more and more ground. If she missed a deflection with her weapons, she would nimbly dodge out of the way. The sand beneath her feet made it a bit harder, but aura once again came to the rescue by slowing the sand's give.

A blade to the left. One near her knee.

The crystal shower seemed endless. The desert sand around her became a field of glassy sharp grass.

One at her head. One by her ear.

She couldn't turn her attention to how Tony was doing, so focused was she on her own survival. Nor could she hear anything through the symphony of shattering glass.

Was the rain petering out?

One near her elbow. One at-

She missed. A glass blade came inside her guard. She reflexively activated her semblance, and leapt backwards.

It proved to be a mistake.

Semblances were special abilities that aura-wielders had. They varied from illusions to resistance to pain and even varied in their complexity. Certain people had specific semblances that activated under certain conditions, like increased damage resistance while being submerged with water, or had more creative ones like manipulation of ferro-magnets. One thing they all had in common, however, was that they were always small in scale. If a person had the power to clone themselves, they couldn't make an army due to either limitations built into their semblance or the lack of a big enough aura reserve.

Blake's semblance was the summoning of shadow clones. That is, being able to leave a clone to finish her last movement while she was free to do a different action. The clones did not last long and lasted for only one hit unless you added dust.

The moment she activated her semblance here, however, it didn't do what she thought it would do. Rather than a clone appearing to take the hit, she had instead made three. Did she misjudge the power? She could chain make them before, but she couldn't recall ever making more than one at a time. The first clone attempted to finish a swipe at a nearby blade that she was going to knock away. The extras appeared after a few hundred milliseconds of delay, forcing them to follow her leap instead. They crashed into her - which wasn't supposed to be possible, they were supposed to be only half-corporal - and she stumbled into the path of three glass blades. She braced herself for pain. While aura protected the body, it did not dull sensation.

The first of the three stabbed straight into her arm. She wince, but easily powered through it to attempt to parry away the second. She barely missed it as it embedded itself in her chest, earning a grunt from her. The third hit her leg, making her almost trip. Each glass blade was the size of a butter knife.

She fell to one knee. Why didn't aura help? She thought in incomprehension. No… wait. Aura did help. The blades that supposedly pierced through her fell to the ground, revealing her completely unwounded self. In reality, the part of the blade that touched her aura had actually spontaneously disappeared, giving the illusion of being hurt. As if her aura somehow cancelled it out of existence.

Blake looked back up. Thankfully there were at least no more falling projectiles. Just a fist.

A fist?

Blake was sent tumbling through the air. She struggled to correct herself and managed to barely land on her feet in the burning sand. Her arm was wrapped around her midsection, which throbbed with imaginary pain. There wasn't any actual damage since it was all blocked by aura.

"Blake!" "Kid!"

"I'm good!" She yelled back at Tony and Yinsen. Her eyes focused on a now third man in front of her. This one was taller than the other two who had attacked her. "Are you two ok?" She carefully kept her eyes on her new enemy, but glanced over momentarily to see her friends' states. She gasped.

"Could be better." Tony sounded like he was shrugging. The crystalline blades had a much more prominent effect on Tony's Iron Man armor. They pierced through him like he was a pincushion. Yinsen was trying to pull some out, to no avail.

"It's strange. They don't hurt, but they are disrupting the electrical systems." Tony thought out loud. He was clearly moving more sluggishly than before. "Thank Yang I added redundancy."

Her eye twitched at the name.

Their enemies moved again, pulling her attention to back to them. She readied her makeshift weapons once again, wishing that she had Gambol Shroud with her. Her hammers were made for the Beacon repairmen to hammer in nails, not for deflecting missiles! There was, however, a more pressing thought in mind.

"Why are you doing this?" She called out to the men in black.

The response was a low, strange sound. It took her a moment to realize it was laughter. The tallest one of the three stepped forward.

He spread his arms out, welcoming his audience. "Why? Why? Why would anyone want to kill the virtuous, kind-hearted Stark?" He mocked. "Listen, Stark, for today you shall pay for your crimes! My name is Kaecilius, leader of the Masters of the Mystic Arts, and I shall be the one to kill you!" His voice echoed in the desert unnaturally, amplified by whatever strange technology he was using.

Blake focused on the first sentence. She narrowed her eyes. "What crimes do you believe he has committed?" She had not forgotten the snippets of conversations between Yinsen and Tony a day before. Even the older Tony had seemed like he had his misgivings about his younger self. This did not put her at ease at all.

~/\/\/\/\/\/\/\~

"Objäg Schnee." Her squad leader's voice came over their comms. Weiss acknowledged his call. "Distract his cosplay bodyguard. She seems to be a recent acquaintance of his and not yet firmly in his camp. Turn her if you can. Her abilities would strengthen our position greatly."

Cosplay - what? "Of course, sir. We do not have much time, however. A NAU weapons platform has been attracted by this disturbance and was seen on its way here. Aren't we not following proto - "

"ETA?"

"Ten minutes." She replied easily, uncaring of his interruption.

"Send a few men to distract them. My orders for you do not change."

She professionally relayed it to her subordinates. Then, she cast the same spell Kaecillius had used to amplify his voice on herself.

Weiss took a breath to calm herself, before she opened her mouth. She carefully made sure to switch back to Union English from the German she had been speaking. "There was a german man named Johann. He was a family man with a wife and a son. On weekdays, he worked at a soap factory, and on weekends he spent time playing soccer with his son."

She couldn't see her audience's attention from this distance. However, she could imagine their confusion.

"One day, he was coming home from work. It was his wedding anniversary, so he was a bit more rushed than normal. Understandable. Neighbors had said that his wife had meant the stars to him. Luckily for the obsessed man, his wife was also just as deeply in love. In fact, many women would seethe in jealousy whenever the couple went out."

Weiss breathed out unevenly.

"That day, on the very day he and his wife were supposed to celebrate their happy union, however, he never came back." She paused, giving herself a moment to calm her own surprising emotions. "His wife found him three blocks away, in an alley, a bullet in his skull. Along with seven other men and women."

"Poor Hadraniel weeped for seven days and seven nights. The neighborhood echoed with her screams and cries. She could not comprehend the sudden loss. However, she recovered a few days later to stay strong for their son. She had hoped to see him grow." Someone's breath hitched on her comms. Weiss knew who it was and tried to ignore it. She really did. "Hadraniel died within the month when a stray shell heading towards a nearby factory wiped her house off the map."

"The son was left alone, in a world that seemed to forsake him."

Weiss forced the shaking out of her own voice. "Let me ask you, would any of them care about the secret police's plight in the alleys of the city, aiming to stop the Soviet insurgents aiming to tear down the democracy? All they wanted was their own little happiness. Was it too much to ask?"

Yes it was.

"For them, the actions of those above them were the rumble of distant lightning, like the mandate of gods. Does it matter to them who receives the taxes they pay? Does it matter to them whose picture is stamped on the posters around every corner? No, but it does when the weapons that Stark oh-so generously loaned to both sides murder them in cold blood."

"Anthony Stark," she bellowed. Her voice was loud enough to be heard for miles, but quickly dissipated outside the spell's effective range. "Merchant of Death." She spat out the title as if it tasted like ash. "Son of the Great Betrayer. Profiteer and perpetuator of others' suffering and pain. What else can I call you, as you stand high up in your ivory tower as you cruely play with the little mud dolls beneath you, feasting on conflict, but a greedy god?"

Weiss took a deep breath.

"But at the end, you aren't a god, are you? You are mortal. And when a creation meets the man who had tormented him for his whole life, what else can he do… but wish to kill a god?"

~/\/\/\/\/\/\/\~

Review Response:

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Review Response:

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MageTGM chapter 11 . Mar 14

I meant oof as in

Nice fight scenes.

Jjpdn: Ah, I see!

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djmegamouth chapter 11 . Mar 14

Oh I never noticed that Weiss had been made physically younger. That would explain why she never just escaped ok.

Jjpdn: I'll see what I can do to reinforce that earlier on.

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the mysterious Mr.E chapter 11 . Mar 14

Can't wait to see how ruby is doing.

Jjpdn: Very eh~