The Heart of Winter

I - Release the Panic

Jaune Arc

They'd been walking for what felt like days but it been only a handful of hours and Jaune was beyond the point of panicking. The sun had set not too long ago and with each passing second it was become harder to see where he was going; he didn't dare suggest to Ruby that they stop and take a break. Just what the hell were we even thinking? The blonde asked himself for the hundredth time as he followed Ruby's footsteps as best he could. They'd gotten themselves into a gigantic mess thinking they could somehow take on Cinder and make her pay for what she'd done to Pyrrha but they were way out of their depth.

As it turned out though the rogue turned Fall Maiden was only another piece in some larger game that Team RNJR had unknowingly barged right into the middle of. Hell, if it wasn't for the incident with the scorpion guy they'd probably still be running around thinking Cinder was their biggest concern. They'd been lucky to walk away from that one, Jaune thought before he looked to the man on the stretcher between himself and Ruby. Well, not all of them had been so lucky.

The only real ray of hope they'd had in the past hour or so was that Qrow had quietened as his feverish murmurs finally passed and his temperature dropped to a healthier level. Even that hope was short lived. What was once a fever was now a deathly cold that had caused his skin to go clammy and a nasty shade of green as his teeth chattered. The cold night air wasn't helping matters even if Ruby had removed her cloak to use as a makeshift blanket.

Yet for all of the miles they must've walked by now, there was no sign of Kuroyuri. No sign of hope.

At the rate things were going Qrow would be lucky to see the morning.

No, Jaune thought as he shook his head, that kind of thinking wouldn't help anyone. Wouldn't help Ruby. The diminutive Huntress hadn't said a word to him since they had parted ways with Ren and Nora however many hours ago. Her focus was pin-point and her expression stone-cold as the only thing she cared about was finding some way, any way to help her uncle.

Shaking his head, the blonde rolled his shoulders as best he could, ignoring the desperate cries of his body to stop and rest. The village couldn't be much further, he kept telling himself. Yet he was honestly beginning to doubt there was even a village left at this point, but Jaune had to try and keep some measure of hope alive if for no other reason than Ruby's sake.

'Ten more minutes, if you keep this pace.' Jaune blinked. Looking over his shoulder and for a moment the blonde had to wonder if exhaustion was beginning to set in. Or maybe it was hunger. He could have just sworn he heard a voice in his head. And not the internal voice that provided him with a boatload of sarcasm either. No, the crazy kind of voice in his head. 'I'm not exhaustion. Nor are you crazy, child. You don't need to worry about that.'

Jaune actually stopped in his tracks, causing Ruby to start as she stepped forward only for the stretcher to jerk behind her. She looked at him, over her shoulder with those wide silver eyes, a note of panic in her voice: "Jaune?" so she knew they were short on time too, huh? Shaking his head, he feigned a look over his own shoulder for a second before forcing a light chuckle.

"Thought I heard something, sorry!" he apologised, speaking for the first time in hours. Ruby didn't look very convinced by his explanation but she was clearly more concerned about her uncle's life than pressing the matter. The boy just nodded and they started back up again like nothing had happened.

'My, the tension between you two is really something isn't it?' the voice asked in the back of his head again and Jaune could feel a sense of renewed panic gripping at his heart. Of all the times to go insane, Jaune thought as he swallowed the sudden lump in his throat. Well, he thought as he tried to calm himself, even if he was hearing a voice in his head at least it was a feminine, and velvety smooth like sweet honey. Oddly comforting, he agreed with himself.

The voice just chuckled.

The howl of a wolf dragged him away from thoughts of the voice in his head, turning his head Jaune looked up to see a rather ragged looking timber wolf looking down on them from a nearby hill. The blonde Huntsman could feel himself gulp slightly as the beast stared at him intently with silvery, dead eyes; almost as though the beast knew him. Ruby looked back at him again, her desire to avoid the wolf obvious. Jaune nodded, picking up his pace. Of all the times, he scowled but narrowed his eyes as he did his best match Ruby's speed whilst not fumbling the stretcher and sending Qrow to the dirt. One lone wolf could hardly be much of a threat to the pair of them, but it was best not to find out if there was more of them hanging around nearby.

'You do know, that if it comes down to a choice between you and him who she'd choose in a heartbeat. Right?' The voice said, giving a throaty laugh as he did his best to ignore it. 'Come now, Jaune – let's not delude ourselves – compared to the old man you might as well be an expendable piece of live bait.'

No. Ruby didn't think like that. She was the kind of person that if presented with that kind of scenario she'd find whatever she needed to defy the odds and get everyone out alive.

'Oh please Jaune, ignore me all you want but don't ignore the truth.'

Shut up already, he thought, scowling as the path took a sudden sharp turn as it began to rise up a small hill. The voice just laughed back at him.

'So you can acknowledge me,' the voice said, treating him like a five-year-old with a simpering tone: he could fully picture some little kid's fat aunt condescending to them. 'Fat? Excuse me, but did you mother teach you no manners? You never call a woman fat. It's rude.'

Get out of my head, damn it. Jaune hissed under his breath.

'Well, if you insist but just remember you're expendable compared to him. Until next time, my sweet.' The voice taunted him as it faded away with throaty laughter.

"I said shut up, damn it!" Jaune yelled allowed, eyes going wide the second he finished talking as he realised what he'd done. Ruby instantly stopping, looking at him with wide – questioning – eyes as their progress came to a standstill once more atop that small hill.

Jaune could feel the heat rise up the back of his neck, how the hell was he going to explain this one? A voice in his head didn't seem like the right answer even if it was the truth. But as his mind went into overtime with an excuse to pull him out of this hole he found himself in, the blonde Huntsman was shaved by a hacking cough from Qrow.

"Uncle Qrow!" Ruby shouted and she made to lower the stretcher, Jaune slowly following her lead. Thankfully the coughing fit didn't last long, but when Ruby placed a hand on his forehead gently, she looked at him with a worried expression. "His fever is back and it's worse this time."

Crap, Jaune swore, throwing his hands into his hair as he tried to think.

"S-Summer –" Qrow said weakly, eyes flickering open for a brief second and looking to Ruby with a glassy, far off expression on his face. "Summer. Shit, Summer, I screwed up. I s-screwed up so bad. Please, I – I only did what was… what was…"

"Uncle Qrow!" Ruby cried again as she gripped the front of his shirt. Jaune could only look around helplessly, squinting in the dark as he searched for any sign of life. And whether by history's greatest stroke of luck or divine intervention, Jaune knew not nor cared, he spotted the faint outline of a ruined town just down the slope of the hill they stood on.

"Ruby, look!" Jaune shouted, narrowing his eyes for a moment before he looked at the girl at her uncle's side. Ruby's head turned so quickly at his exclamation that Jaune thought for a second she might give herself whiplash. She turned back to him, eyes wide and pleading but also for the first time since Qrow's injury, full of hope.

Jaune nodded quickly and the boy scrambled to gather up the stretcher and the pair took off into a run as best they could. At long last, they had found Kuroyuri.

Ruby Rose

Ruby burst through another door at breakneck speed, throwing the rotten wooden entrance of yet another abandoned building to the floor in a desperate search for something that might have once been a doctor's or a place that would've sold medicine. Her breath was ragged and her body felt about ready to give up on her but the rush of adrenaline was keeping her on her feet. She couldn't lose Uncle Qrow. She couldn't. She wouldn't.

There was medicine around here somewhere. Something that could help him. There had to be. They'd come too far to find nothing.

But when she looked around, realising this would have once been a butcher's shop she turned on her heel and dashed back out the doorway. Why did the town have to be so large? There were too many possibilities and not nearly enough time to search them all. Running across the street, Ruby prayed that the next building would prove more fruitful but a thundering stomp seemed to shake the very earth beneath her feet – almost throwing her off balance - as she ran.

What was that? Ruby thought, throwing her arms up to catch herself. Down the street she could hear Jaune shout out from where he stood guard next to Uncle Qrow: "You okay, Ruby? What was that!?"

"I don't know!" She shouted back as loud as she dared, she didn't want to alert any squatters to their presence. "Let's just hope we don't find out!" turning back to the building before her, she resumed her brisk sprint before the thundering boom of the stomp shook the earth again, and then again and again before the front of the building Ruby had been running towards exploded in a shower of broken metal, glass and splintered wood and something heavy and sharp caught her in the mid-section. A deafening roar cut the silent night air like gunfire.

"Ruby!" She barely managed to catch Jaune's panicked cry as she was thrown into the air like a rag doll. Ruby could only catch a glimpse of her surroundings as everything blurred together as she spun wildly and then as suddenly as she'd left it she crashed into the dirt path, her face hit the ground and it stung like one of Yang 's right hooks and her Aura shattered.

In a single swing, something had rendered her completely helpless.

"Ruby…!" she heard Jaune's cry of despair as he called out again as she hit the dirt, a sudden screaming pain in her left leg. It took everything she had left not to burst into tears, as she struggled onto her elbows looking down to see a piece of a jagged rusted pipe had gone right through her thigh. It looked like it had missed the bone but it still hurt worse than anything else she'd ever experienced.

Unable to hold herself up Ruby let herself drop to her stomach, desperately crawling to Jaune as he ran to her as fast as he could. This really couldn't be it, could it? They'd finally found Kuroyuri and it was all for nothing?

Ruby's vision seemed to go as she gasped for breath, the pain in her leg sharp and burning. Jaune dropped down next to her rolling her onto her back to look her in the eyes. After a moment her vision came back, if a little blurry, and her gaze wandered from Jaune's panicked blue eyes to the shape now standing where a building once had. It was larger than most Grimm she'd ever seen – Jaune would be lucky to reach its waist – and built with the power and strength of dozens, maybe hundreds, of its kind. Its skeletal white mask was marked red and conformed perfectly to its bullish face, large rigid white horns aimed skyward, skin a slick black with strangely hairy legs and bone like protrusion rising out of the Grimm's chest and shoulders, as well as its back. And in it boulder-sized hands the Grimm gripped a towering bone-like axe that must've been as large as its wielder. Cloven hoofs scraped against the ground, trampling what little was left of the building Ruby had been running to.

How had neither of them see that thing coming?

"A Minotaur…!" Jaune said in a strangled voice and Ruby felt her blood run cold. Professor Port had only ever spoken of Minotaur's briefly in their year at Beacon: all he had said of the monolithic Grimm was that they were so few in number that most people thought they were myths but they supposedly possessed combat skill unmatched by other Grimm and a feral cunning that made them one of the most dangerous species of Grimm in existence - almost comparable to a Wraith or even a Lesh. Even as a full team this was something Ruby was sure RNJR could not have defeated: at least not without casualties. This was something that a full team of four full qualified Hunters would struggle to defeat.

This thing would make the Geist from some weeks back look like a bad joke.

"I'm so sorry Jaune," Ruby said as she almost choked on a sob. They were both going to die and it was all her fault. Her panic over Uncle Qrow was so great it must've been what attracted the Minotaur in the first place. She'd been terrified and ready to give into despair and her desire to save her uncle was going to kill them both.

"Don't say anything," Jaune shook his head, looking serious and resolute. He wrapped one arm around her and gave her an awkward hug as he tried to draw his sword at the same time. "Run to your uncle, get him out of here and find someone who can help. I'll buy you some time and meet up with you when I lose this thing."

"Jaune, no!"

"Ruby," he said back firmly, looking down at her as the Minotaur finally stepped out of the wreckage of the fallen building, brushing what was left of the ruins aside with the butt of its giant bone-axe, every one of its step shaking the group as dirt cracked and sunk below its heavy hoofs creating miniature craters. "Save your uncle."

Ruby didn't get the chance to argue as Jaune released her before he scrambled into a haphazard sprint, screaming at the Minotaur so it would follow him and not her. The legendary Grimm gave the blonde one disinterested look before it turned back to the wounded Huntress and charged with a bellowing roar. Despite the thing's bulk and sheer size, it moved with a sudden burst of speed that would outpace many other Grimm.

Ruby was faster. Or at least she would've been if there wasn't a rusted halfpipe jutting out of her left thigh.

Scrambling upright as best she could she tried to run for all she was worth but only managed a dozen yards or so before her legs gave out under her. Ruby went face first into the dirt before she was nearly deafened but a suddenly thundering crash as the entire world seemed to shake and broken rock and rubble went flying overhead as dust flew into the air like a giant smokescreen.

The Minotaur had hit something, but whatever it had hit wasn't her.

It didn't matter, though, as by the time the cloud cleared, Ruby's eyes had flickered closed and the world had gone dark.

Song: Release the Panic as performed by Red