With the news that her father's message hadn't even made it halfway to Mistral, Blake had been certain she, Sun, her parents and the rest would arrive to find Haven Academy unprotected from the White Fang's attack.
However, as she walks through the destroyed door into the main hall of the school it is obvious that she'd been wrong. The room is weathered with signs of recent battle- scattered debris, settling dust and torn clothes and exhaustion of the fighters still present paints a picture of a desperate, gritty fight.
But that isn't what surprises her most.
Whatever Blake might have expected when she followed the tendril of white aura skewering the large angry man back into the Academy, never in her wildest dreams does would she have hoped for this.
In the middle of the room, swirling with signature elegance and a wispy, bright light (topped off with what looked like a semblance ghost of a Queen Lancer) stands Weiss Schnee.
Blake feels her mouth drop open.
It had been months since that horrible day of the Vytal Festival, the Fall of Beacon and the last time she'd seen her- and yet, solid, real and certainly not a hallucination, Weiss stands before her in a new dress and the same old hairstyle. A red stain across her stomach gives Blake a heartbeat of icy fear, but her former teammate shows no sign of injury as she settles into a graceful finishing pose.
Weiss looks to her, and gasps.
They hold eye contact for a second, but Blake has to tear her gaze away to survey the rest of the room. Her surprise, and confusion, is only further intensified when she realises Weiss isn't the only fighter there she knows.
To the right, Lie Ren, Jaune Arc, Ruby's Uncle Qrow and a young boy she's not familiar are all hunched over behind Nora Valkyrie, whose stance and extended Hammer stand protectively between them and danger. Blake half expects to see Pyrrha standing among them, and has to quickly banish that thought.
Even Emerald and Mercury, the students from the Vytal festival who'd worked with Cinder Fall to bring down Beacon were there. Blake realises, with a spike of anger, that both of Mercury's legs seem to be working fine. Had that day in the tournament been a lie too? The day Yang-
And finally, finally, Blake's eyes land on the last two people in the room. Their backs are to Blake at first, but could have recognised those silhouettes and colour schemes even before they turned to her- one with a tattered red cape, the other an unmistakable mass of almost glowing yellow hair.
They're all here, all of them. Why are they all here?
Everyone looks to her, like searchlights finding their target.
How did they get here? What's happening?
Her eyes are magnetically drawn to Yang. She feels an irresistible pull, stemming from the image of Yang, unconscious on the seat of an airship, and Blake begging team JNPR to look after her. That night she'd run off into Vale, clutching the sword wound in her stomach and letting tears roll down her face instead of looking back.
"Yang?" Blake says, much too yearningly, staring directly into those familiar soft purple eyes. Something close to her heart aches.
Yang is wearing something black, yellow and armoured where her right arm used to be, and a lot more leather than Blake remembers. Her expression, wide and layered with betrayal and pure, unadulterated shock says a lot in and of itself.
It's just so sudden and overwhelming- this wasn't how Blake would have wanted to reunite with her friends, as much as she'd hoped it would come sooner rather than later. She has nothing prepared, no explanations or apologies or comfort. She's come to protect Haven from the White Fang, not confront yet another part of her life she'd run away from.
But before Blake can talk or cry or so much as blink, Ruby yells, "Yang, go!"
It happens in mere seconds- Yang tears across the room; Emerald cries out; Mercury grabs for her, but Yang detaches her robotic arm without hesitation; and then she jumps out of sight into an open hole beneath a balcony across the way. A moment later, Weiss twists her sword and casts a wall of ice between the two pursuers and the strange hole, stopping them from leaping down after her.
Blake's confusion is at an all-time high. She shakes her head to try to shoo at least some of it away. It had all been so sudden, like she'd been doused with a bucket of water or relived the surprising, overwhelming power of her semblance activating for the first time. There is too much context and tension in the hall that is going right over her head- Emerald and Mercury's infuriated expressions are proof enough of that.
What have I missed? Blake thinks, bewildered.
Then Ruby twists around, smiles, and nods to her, and all at once it feels like she never left Beacon, or the connected synergy of Team RWBY. No words need to be exchanged for Blake to understand.
Go finish your fight, we'll finish ours.
Behind her, the White Fang is still resisting, despite the odds stacked against them. Her family and friends need her help, and she has to make sure that Adam didn't find some way to hurt more people in his all-consuming spite. It's a fight she knows all about, and despite her pounding heart wishing to dive to join her friends' cause, her first responsibility is to the fight outside.
And so Blake buries her confusion and hardens her jaw, before nodding back. She casts one final look around the room- at Emerald, Mercury and the large man with dust crystals in his arms, all of whom looked geared to resume fighting. She smiles a little as Nora shoots her a cheeky goodbye salute, before turning and running outside.
When the dust al settles and the night is over, Blake is sure they'll all have interesting stories to tell each other. No doubt catching up will be confusing, painful, and have no guarantee that Yang would ever forgive her, but she hopes dearly that by dawn they'll be a team again.
Whatever the outcome, there is no way in all of Remnant that she's running away from it. If the last few months in Menagerie had taught her one thing, it was that she was done with running away. For good.
I'm so glad... my girls are back together... :')