Chapter 23

Exactly as You Asked

It was distinctly weird how well laid out the ship was.

It wasn't just a "general area arrow sign" pointing at a crossroads. They were nailed up at every corner, clarifiers for intersections as needed, labeling up to three turns ahead.

It was utterly perplexing, but not terribly inconvenient considering those same signs led William from the engine room all the way across the ship to navigation without any lost time. Better yet, he managed to keep up the sergeant appearance the whole way, without too much of an issue.

Roman had drilled him through the ranks and insignia for most military's, and even though the information was a bit fuzzy in his head, it came back quickly once exposed. Captains, Lieutenants, who to salute and who not to, it was all a mask William slid on quite easily.

His scroll buzzed, and he paused outside the navigation room, finding a single word text. "In."

Neo had hacked into the system.

A moment later the lights flicked red and a harsh alarm blared through the air, bouncing off the metal hallways and already threatening to give William a headache.

"Subtle." He texted her back, waiting just long enough for her to send her back a middle finger emoji. He pursed his lip at that one before sliding his scroll back into his pocket and throwing open the doors to the communication's room.

Scientists and officers were already milling about the room, collecting papers and hurriedly stuffing files into bags. Ten in total, and William had no reason to barge in or interrupt them. Instead he headed deeper into the room, surveying it quickly, strides taking him to one of the men hurriedly stuffing papers into his bag.

William dropped a hand on his shoulder, bucking his head and making the man pause. "Leave the papers, head to the hanger."

"Protocol-" The man started to answer.

"Protocol doesn't account for this and a Grimm attack." William shot back. "And Grimm can't read, so go." He hissed. "Grab the others." He advised, nodding toward the others in the area.

It was with that same approach that William ushered the next three men out of the room, either shoving a final stack of papers into their arms and shoving them off, or insisting it didn't matter and that Grimm couldn't read, and wouldn't care how much research they were ruining.

Only one of those men stopped at the door, giving William a curious look. Whatever the reason for that expression, he hurried off, clutching papers to his chest as he hurried down the hallway.

William's scroll buzzed again, but something behind him whined and he didn't bother answered as Moonlight Sonata slid free of its holster.

Two androids stood to meet him. Both seemed like newer models, approaching him in a neat order side by side. A rifle was slung over one's shoulder, and a pair of short swords strapped to the others' hips.

"I take it something about my ID buzzed." William muttered, thoughtfully fingering his badge.

The response was for both androids to unsling their weapons. Rifle dropped down to one knee, the lights on it's faceplate buzzing a soft blue as it sighted William in while Swords lept forward, either trying to end him immediately, or trap him in place for it's partner.

William really hoped they hadn't programmed them to be that compatible.

The first rifle shot nearly took off William's leg, and proved him wrong however, since the shot when between Sword's legs, and left him off balance enough for a blade to slice across his arm, his Aura flaring to deflect the blow.

"Damn it." William muttered, adjusting before lashing out with a kick that bought him enough distance to somersault backwards, stringing Moonlight Sonata in bow form and loosing two arrows at Rifle.

Swords blocked both, and as William landed, another bullet clipped his coat closest to his arm. Debilitating, but not straight out murder. William's lip quirked, wondering if Ironwood had asked for that, or if someone else decided that little programming choice.

Either way, it leaves William with no easy way out, given that Swords is protecting Rifle, and Rifle is covering swords.

"Vi-"He paused, dodged to the side as Rifle sights in on him again, Swords advancing. He weaved through the consoles, ducking and rolling to keep the bead on him as hard as possible to maintain, but Rifle was moving to compensate, and Swords' wasn't exactly helping the matter.

Victoria.

He'd almost just blurted out her name.

Asked for support.

He whistled, diving forward at Swords once he reached a console, taking cover from Rifle and putting himself in a terrible position. Swords capitalized on it, cleaving down with both blades, but whomever built their code, didn't account for steel heels.

It was a narrow thing, but William managed to twist, get his heels in line with the blades just before they severed his head, and in the next moment, he's grabbed Sword's ankles and thrown them off the floor.

Momentum lost and code hopefully stalled, William has just enough time to get to his feet before-

Another bullet lanced through the air, pinging off William's shoulder, his Aura flashing once against as the bullet punches a hole through the room wall the size of a tennis ball.

Damn it.

William dives away, back behind the console as he remaps the room in his head. Three consoles between him and Rifle. Swords recovering. Fired two seconds ago. There's another bullet in the chamber, but he's got to sight and aim, delay for code lag…

William wheeled out one way, then the other, before springing forward and jumping off the console in front of him. Rifle compensated for both feints, rifle swinging back in place as William goes over the top, but that half-second is what William needed.

One arrow loosed from the string, crossing the distance and sending the barrel out of alignment just as the android squeezes the trigger. The bullet hit the ceiling somewhere off to William's left.

Swords.

The blade sliced into his left arm, and William snarled as a robot boot came up, kicking him across the room and into the unforgiving metal of the wall.

William's head slammed back against it, and if the alarm from before hadn't given him a headache, that just did. He groaned, arm feeling hot as blood spilled out of the cut. He took just a moment to assess it, deep, but not terribly long. Stitches would be a definite.

Didn't have time to do it now though.

He sat up, grasping for Moonlight Sonata, but not finding it. He groaned, cracking his neck as he stared at Swords and Rifle. Rifle already had a bead on him, patiently waiting as Swords stalked towards him. Moonlight Sonata lay discarded on the floor behind them, likely having flown out of his hands on the kick.

"Serious then." William decided, his wires springing to life around him. A dozen different wires leap away from him, pursuing different targets.

It took Rifle a moment to register, visor flashing before it fired. William had already planned for it, and three sets of wires snapped tight, jerking Swords sideways and into the path of the bullet. William ducked just in case, and that proved to be useful as a bullet punched through the console by his chest. He glanced back up, and found Swords sparking and lifeless on the floor.

Rifle didn't seem phased, readjusting his aim.

William surged forward, Aura Blades falling into his eager hands from their concealed holsters. One shifted, the device greedily sucking in Aura until the blade shifted, gaining weight and thickness as it morphed from a dagger into a heater shield.

Luckily it did it fast, and the first bullet fired deflected off the face of the shield, smashing into it and sending William skidding back from the force. He gritted his teeth and flexed his arm, grimacing at the numbness already spreading through it.

He summoned up his semblance again, simultaneously lengthening the Aura Blade in his other hand. Rifle shuffled backwards, firing once more before it threw the rifle at William.

He ducked it, letting the gun clatter to the ground behind him, but hesitated as Rifle ran- not to the door, but straight to Moonlight Sonata, picking up the silver sword and facing him with a basic stance.

William's expression soured, wires springing to life and whirling around his wrist as a mixture of emotions dropped into his gut.

"You better put that down right now you tin can." William snarled, the shield in his hand vibrating before the Aura collapsed, unable to maintain its shape without his focus on it.

The droid took that as consent to attack, charging forward and sweeping up in a sharp slice to William's ribs.

William caught it with an Aura gloved hand.

The droid surged, servos whining as mechanical strength fought a loosing battle against human rage and cold determination. William gritted his teeth, shoving Moonlight Sonata out and away as he put himself chest to chest with the machine.

A set of wires the machine's neck, wires snapping tight as William lashed them to his free hand.

"You should have listened."

He shoved his knee up, left hand holding tight as he planted his foot in the robot's chest and heaved back. Metal strained before relenting, and William felt more than saw the rip before his wires snapped through it's neck. He stepped away, lungs aching for air for a reason he couldn't quite pinpoint.

His fingers ached though.

He glanced, and found them bleeding, dripping blood onto the floor from where his wires had been coiled. He shook it off, reaching down and claiming Moonlight Sonata as his once again. He dropped it into its holster and shoved the Aura Blades back into their spring-lock holsters before heading to the center console. The controls were undamaged, but a series of errors had already sprouted on the screen, along with the red screen and queen icon from Roman's hack.

William cracked his fingers, ignoring the blood as he sat down on the stool and got to work. While he had the time, he set his semblance to stitching together the cut on his arm.

Roman had asked that the engines remained full, the escape pods remain active, and all security protocol disabled and given to him.

He mentioned nothing regarding the stabilizers, life support, navigation, or any other system. William got to work rerouting power from life support to the engines, then forcing navigation to fault out and reboot and fail. Stabilizers were tricky, it was a subsystem of the engines, and while the console had the power to access them, it didn't have the clearance to disable them. So William did the next best thing, he routed in a unbalance course, ensuring that every minute or so, the ship would over correct one way or the other, shifting it and making a straight course damn near impossible.

"What else what else." William muttered softly, drumming his fingers on the keys.

Ah. Of course.

Anti-collision auto-maneuvers. Roman won't be needing those.

William hummed, finishing up the job before he stood up, ripping open the cabinet under the console and tearing out handfuls of wires at a time.

Hopefully his programming would stick. And if it didn't William truly didn't mind.

His scroll buzzed in his pocket, and William finished ripping out the last chunk of wires from the machine before he answered it. A call this time.

He swiped, putting the phone to his ear.

"Wolfie! Oh my favorite little slave!" Roman's cheerful voice rang through the mic. "How I missed bossing you around. Having fun?"

William glanced to the ruined console, the screen flashing a series of warnings before loosing power. "Marginal." He replied. "Navigation's is secure. Engines are locked. Anything else on the job list?"

"Come up to the bridge. I'll give you Sandra's code."

William grunted, hesitating as he listened to Roman breathing on the other end of the line. Finally, he asked. "What are the chances that all of this goes south?"

"By Cinder's calculations or mine?"

"Humor me and tell me both while I'm walking." William replied, tucking the scroll between his shoulder and ear before making his way out of the comms room. He shook his hands again, carelessly flicking blood all over the steel walkway. The turrets in the hall casually swiveled to track him.

Hm. Interesting. Neo was following him in the systems now.

He wondered if she'd seen his little rewire in navigations or not. Maybe, maybe not. She'd let him know shortly. A chill ran through William's veins at the thought, but he kept his voice even as Roman mulled his question over.

"Well I suppose." Roman whined, and it was whining. There was no other word to be used for the whimsical tone the crime lord used. "By Cinder and her crew's calculation, Beacon will fall, communications networks will crash, and something in Mount Glenn will open up quite shortly. Cinder thinks she can control it, and I think I don't want to be here when it does.

"Hence the ship." William supplied as he took a corner towards the bridge.

"Hence the ship. My calculations agree with her's up to a point. I think she'll get communications down, but after that, I think the Grimm will eat her, Ozpin will rally, and unless my calculations are really off, he'll win the fight. Cinder's good, but she's not old-man-mystic good."

William could agree with that. Ozpin just exuded a pressure, like you were staring into a man that had more years and lives than just one, who knew every trick and technique and more than enough muscle and speed to use it.

"So Cinder's out, her cronies will follow, and you'll be down one city, with mostly free rein in the area, all from a nice cushy warship. Courtesy of General Ironwood." William said. The bridge was coming up, he could see the doors, but he was less than willing to walk through them at the moment.

It was easy to stall Roman on the phone. It was harder when the man was in front of him. IT was much harder when the man might be carrying that. William still wouldn't be able to handle another dose of that.

The doors opened just a little too soon, and Roman's expression was just a little too smug for William to be comfortable with that. The phone call ended with a click, and Roman turned his attention from the monitor directly to him.

William could feel the dark green eyes flicking over him, noting the cut on his arm and the criss-crossing nicks on his fingers. Roman whistled softly, holding out one hand to the side.

Neo filled it with a cigar, looking pleased with herself as she produced a lighter for him as well. Roman took both, lighting it and taking a long appreciative puff on it. He exhaled, smoke drifting from his mouth lazily as he took a seat in the Captain's chair.

"So, everything went smoothly?" Roman asked, eyes drifting down to William's fingers.

William shrugged, ignoring the unasked question as well as Roman's gaze. "Nothing too difficult. Had the luck of Neo hacking the systems before I got to navigation, so I didn't have to spill anything other than oil on the consoles."

"You did this job clean?" Roman cocked an eyebrow at him. "I'm surprised."

William shrugged, looking over at his bloodied hand. "Well. I didn't say that." He held Roman's gaze for only an instance. "Now did I?"

Roman smiled, but the expression was anything but happy. It was a twisted sort of pride, like a dog that had finally turned into a murder machine.

"Good." Roman turned his gaze back to the monitor. "I'm thinking for your next job-"

"Sandra's code." William cut him off.

Roman paused, furrowing his brow. "What?"

"Sandra. Code." William took a few steps forward, putting him in front of Roman, still a pace away, still enough distance to dodge if Roman had iton him.

The two held gazes for a long moment, eyes burning into one another. Finally Roman gave, shrugging his shoulders and huffing to himself. "Fine." He muttered. "Neo. Give the mutt what he wants."

That reaction must have been expected, because Neo didn't even spare William a glance as she threw a USB at him. He caught it, stuffing it securely in his pants pocket before turning back to Roman.

"I'm not doing anymore jobs for you." William added, "You said this was it for my father's debt. And this is it for me. I'm not your slave any longer Torchwick."

Roman's dark green eyes took on a dangerous glint, something menacing sparking to life as the crime lord sat up in his chair. He pursed his lips, fingers coming together as if he was thinking. "Last job? I'm done with you when I say I'm done with you mutt."

"You're done with me when my debt is paid. I didn't get you Ruby Rose's head, but I got you everything else. I kept your tabs on Cinder, I kept your plan. I fooled Ozpin. And I got you your ship." William hissed. "So at this point, I think I'll leave while I'm ahead, because this isn't what I signed up for."

"This is what I bought you for though." Roman snarled, launching himself up from the seat. "And I plan on keeping you."

An Aura Blade sprang into William's grip, buzzing to life as he shoved the blade up against Roman's throat. "I am not a mutt. I am not a monster." William whispered. "And if you think I'll be yours, you're dead wrong." He took a step away, finding himself just barely able to meet Roman's gaze as he stepped away.

Roman's eyes were narrow, fist clenched, teeth gritted. There was a narrow line that William was milliseconds away from crossing. The expression cooled rapidly, breaths stabilizing, fingers relaxing as Roman's lips curled into a sinister smile.

"I'll make you my monster whenever I want." He waved, all play and cheer. "Don't you forget little wolf. I made you." His cheeky little grin returned, "And I got exactly what I wanted."

William glared, unsure what he could say to that. He cleared his throat, then spat in his direction, knowing he'd aimed short, and know that the only reason he had was because he was still terrified Roman had a syringe of it.

He shoved the doors open, letting them slam shut behind him as he made his way to the hanger.

He knew Cinder's plan.

He knew Roman's plan. From here on out Roman had no intentions of doing anything but letting Cinder and Adam's troops populate airspace.

That gave William's free rein of the ground.

And maybe if he was lucky he could turn this around.

Maybe he could just about prove he wasn't the monster Roman said he was.

The monster he feared he was.

AN: Oh lord. I love writing William/Roman interactions because it's all just spite. William lashing out with controlled rage and defiance, Roman biting back with threats and fear. Uhhhh.

I hope it came out well.

Once again, this has not been run through an editor, so if there's any major typo, mention it to me in a PM or a comment.

I truly do enjoy writing this series, and admittedly enough to write chapters at work (hehehehehehehe. Let's hope Corporate doesn't care what's in the dozens of Word Docs on my computer.) Don't plan on regular updates, my statement from before has not changed.

ETF is something that I work on when I'm stumped on another story I'm working on. I planning on publishing that story, but I'm getting some hang ups in plot, and I turn to ETF to work though my thoughts. It helps.

I hope you enjoyed the Chapter. Give me some feedback on how William handled this, and the changes if you remember them from the old version to now.