This story takes place roughly a month after the events of the volume 3 Fall of Beacon, but with a few differences from canon.
- As Blake was attempting to run away, Weiss was able to intervene and convince her to stay and be there for her friends, and most importantly, for Yang through her recovery.
- Weiss rebelled against her father much sooner and refused to return back to Atlas with him, though she's still the heiress to the Schnee Dust Company.
- Cinder's voice recovered enough in a month to where she can actually somewhat use it (also, she's a huge perv).
(May contain some disturbing scenes in later chapters... also futa!)
That's it, enjoy!
They were exhausted.
Hands on her knees and hunched over, Weiss was struggling to keep up. "How is she... still going?" she breathed out in gasps.
"Yang..." Ruby whined with a weak exhale. "Don't you think we should've started heading back to the rendezvous point by now? It's getting dark and our auras can't take much more!"
"Just a couple more, Rubes!" The blonde hollered back over her shoulder just before her brand new prosthesis would crash into another Ursa, crumpling it into dust. "I've got a bone to pick..." she muttered with a smirk.
"That girl... I swear!" Weiss finished.
"You might as well give it up, Weiss." A hand on her shoulder from behind prompted a glance. Blake was looking down at her, a warm smile on her face. "She's got too much pent-up aggression from the last month to get it all out in one day... I'm just happy we're Team RWBY again."
Weiss may have been irritated, but she couldn't agree more. For the first time since the fall of Beacon a month ago, the team was back together.
After the attack that had taken so much from them, they were split apart from each other. Ruby and Weiss, along with the remaining members of Team JNPR, stuck around to help clear out the grimm that still inhabited Beacon, while Blake stayed with Yang at the Xiao Long residence in an effort to help facilitate her recovery. Ruby had lent Blake her room for the time being.
Though the wounds and the loss from that day still weighed heavily on their hearts, finally being one cohesive unit again filled Weiss with gratification.
Except for right now...
"Damn it, Yang, let's go already!" She demanded.
"Okay, relax, I'm coming!" The blonde acquiesced, brushing her filthy hands off against each other and proceeded to join her teammates as they started walking back.
Weiss turned her head to face the taller girl. "Yang, I understand your eagerness to get a shot back at these monsters that destroyed our home, I really do, but, you're being reckless," she lectured her. "We were supposed to meet with Jaune and the others ten minutes ago, and we're still all the way out here in Emerald Forest."
"Okay, whose bright idea was it to split up when there are bad guys around anyways?" Yang playfully argued. "I mean, have you ever even seen a horror movie before? And why are we even all the way out here?"
"I already told you. We can't all just stick to one spot, and while you and Blake were gone, we cleared out most of the grimm from the academy grounds..." Weiss countered. "But I suppose you weren't listening because you've been so preoccupied with your revenge that you haven't even noticed you're putting your entire team at the risk of- "
"Professor Ozpin?" Ruby cut in with an uncertain tone.
Weiss and her team turned to face their team leader who'd been lagging behind. "What? No, that's not what I was going to say at all, you dolt." But her gaze was somewhere else off into the woods.
"Professor Ozpin!" She worriedly called out as she zoomed off in a cloud of rose petals.
Yang, being the protective sister that she was, was the first to give chase. "Ruby, wait!" The other pair was not far behind.
Having already worked herself void of any energy, the heiress had little patience for jumping over bushes and dodging low-hanging branches like this. "Ruby Rose, you stop right this instant!" As if actually adhering to her partner's command, the red blur came to an abrupt halt and stared at the ground in front of her.
They had stopped at a small, suspiciously bare clearing of the forest. The grass looked different than the rest of the land. It was a less vibrant color, almost as if it had died recently all at the same time.
The look on their leader's face was a little disconcerting.
"Ruby," Blake started. "What's wrong? Why are we stopping here?"
"I... I don't understand..." She confessed. "He was lying here just a second ago." The rest of the team looked at each other to wordlessly confirm whether or not anyone else had seen the former headmaster there... They had not.
Blake's ears twitched beneath her bow. "Below us!"
The feeling of weightlessness abruptly took hold of Weiss for a brief moment as the ground beneath them suddenly seemed to fall away, just before her stream of consciousness was interrupted.
Weiss dreamt.
She dreamt she was in the forest that she had spent the entire day in fighting grimm with her friends. Except now, it was peaceful. Remembering only minor details, she and her team held an afternoon picnic accompanied by all of Team JNPR, including Pyrrha. Weiss's staff had set up an abnormally large dining table for the picnic and served the finest of Atlesian foods. Blake would drink tea, Ruby would drink milk, and Weiss and the others would drink some wine that she had brought. It was incredibly tranquil.
This dream that felt like hours she would later come to find out took place over a matter of only seconds.
Weiss awoke. Dazed, head hurting, she struggled to focus on her surroundings as part of her vision was clouded in a thick, red liquid dripping from her brow. Blinking, she wiped it away and looked down, discerning nothing but her dangling legs floating over a mass of empty darkness. To her sides, all she could see was that she was far in between, what looked like, metal walls. Glancing upwards, she was finally able to grasp the awareness of her suspension in mid-air, and the severity of her situation.
'A trapped door...?'
With one hand, Blake was desperately clinging to the edge at the top of the giant hole they were all in while, with the other hand, grasping the ribbon wrapped around her wrist. Much further down into the bottomless pit, Yang was holding on to the hilt of the faunus's weapon connected to the other end of that ribbon and apparently had also been simultaneously clutching Weiss's collar while the heiress was unconscious, preventing her from plummeting into the darkness below...
"Yang...! Do you have them?" Blake shouted down with a shaky voice, the question echoing, bouncing from wall to wall endlessly down the crater.
"I have Weiss!" She answered loudly. "I think she hit her head; she's not answering me... Ruby- ...Ruby fell..." Her breath caught in her throat.
A thick silence filled the air. The thought of her team leader plunging into the abyss filled Weiss with terror. If she lived, she would wake up in the pitch-black all alone, looking for her team. This fear gripped her tightly.
Labored grunts emanated from the girl at the top. "...Yang, I- ..I can't pull you up!" She feebly yelled out.
But Yang didn't answer, possibly realizing and coming to terms with the sole option being presented to her.
Weiss hung there helplessly, her weapon missing, unable to use her semblance with a depleted aura. She had no answers.
Blake would try again, but the act was far too strenuous after an interminable day of relentless combat against the grimm. They didn't budge at all. "I-I-...I can't! ...What can we do!?" She was panicking now.
Yang's response was surprisingly calm. "It's okay... Just find help."
The faunus looked down with wide eyes, not willing to accept the implication. "What!? ...No, I can't- ...I won't let anything else happen to you... Not again!" Drips of tears lightly fell down onto her teammate's face.
"It's okay, Blake... This is my fault, and I'm sure as hell not taking you down with me... And I've gotta go get Ruby anyways, so... be safe."
"YANG, NO!"
But she had already let go.
Weiss wouldn't be able to recall how long they were falling for.
To be continued.