Familiar (RWBY)
After the Battle of Beacon
Qrow cursed his luck. It was something he'd gotten used to doing.
When he'd gotten to the top of Beacon Tower, he thought he was expecting the worst. He was wrong. It was much, much worse than he could possibly have imagined.
His niece, Ruby, was sprawled out on the ground, unconscious but thankfully unharmed. The same couldn't be said for Ozpin's office, which had been decimated beyond any possible repair. With its destruction, the CCT-Remnant's only form of global communication-was kaput. To make matters worse, there was no sign of that Pyrrha girl or the mysterious woman who had instigated the entire mess-all that remained was the gold crown that Pyrrha wore. One look at the situation told him everything he needed to know about what had happened.
"Damn it…." He growled. "How the hell did things end up like this?"
Well, there was no point in brooding over it. He picked up Ruby and the crown, and made his way back down to the surface as fast as he could.
"Ruby!" Weiss screamed when she saw her friend's unconscious body. "Is she-"
"She's fine, don't worry." Qrow assured her. "She'll be out for…quite a while, but she's in no danger."
"What about Pyrrha?" Weiss asked, her eyes lighting up with hope. "Jaune said she'd be up on the tower, did she make it?"
Qrow cringed. He was all too familiar with this situation. He took a deep breath and, wordlessly, handed Weiss Pyrrha's crown.
Weiss' eyes widened in horror. "N-no…it can't be."
"This was all I could find of her." Qrow muttered. "I…I'm-"
He stopped himself. Saying "I'm sorry" would be the absolute worst thing to do in this situation. All it did was cause more grief and didn't change anything. Sometimes you just had to leave the person be for a while and let them pull themselves together.
…But of course, sometimes that wouldn't work either.
Instinctively, he remembered that day, when he'd had to break the news of Summer's death to Taiyang. He wasn't sure if his old friend would cry, go into denial, or in his grief blame Qrow for not being able to save her. What actually happened was worse than any of those. He simply stood there for a while, silently, his eyes slowly clouding over. Losing another lover had completely shattered his spirit.
Qrow had cursed himself for not being able to help, and he was doing the same now. What was worse was that he didn't really know HOW he could have helped-but he felt that he SHOULD have been able to do something. How was it that he had a Semblance perfectly suited for surveillance and keeping tabs on important people, yet he couldn't do anything when it mattered most?
Sure, it had helped that one time when he'd saved the lives of young Ruby and Yang from a horde of Grimm, but he knew that that time had been a fluke. If he hadn't been in just the right place at the right time, well…he didn't want to think about what would've happened.
He'd thought the day Summer died was the worst, most crushing day of his life, and nothing could ever be worse. But now the CCT was down, Ozpin was missing, many people had died and the people who had caused all of it were still at large. He was starting to reconsider that list.
A week later
"Hey kiddo."
No answer.
"Hey, hey, answer me. I know you've been through a lot, but you can't just give up like this, you know?"
No answer. Yang was as unresponsive as ever.
Qrow could understand how she felt. It wasn't easy to see that idealistic, exciting view of the world you'd always maintained crushed to powder right in front of your eyes. Yang had wanted excitement in her life. Well, she'd gotten it, but the price was the deaths of two dear friends, the destruction of Beacon, and her best friend abandoning her without a word. Not a successful gamble in Qrow's book.
Damn you, Raven, he said to himself. Yang's mother, and Qrow's twin sister. She'd always been a peculiar girl, and not always in the good way. Most definitely in a bad way as far as the current situation went.
Humanity is weak and foolish. Their worth must be tested. If someone can't fight for themselves, then they don't deserve to be saved. Even if that person is my own flesh and blood.
Raven had said something like that. Sure, Qrow could see where she was coming from, but wasn't that a bit harsh? Was she really so cold as to ignore her own daughter when she was suffering so much?
Qrow sighed, and tried again. "Look, your little sis didn't give up, so why should you?"
That got her attention. Her head perked up just a little bit. Feeling a bit more hopeful, Qrow continued.
"Yeah, Ruby. I talked to her a few hours ago. She's been through a lot, just like you, but you know what she said? That she wanted to do something to help. See, that's what I'm talkin' about. You can't let this get you down. Remember what I told you? You gotta move on."
Yang was quiet for a few seconds. Then:
"So you talked to her first, huh? Before me."
Oh. Oh crap. Qrow thought. That was NOT the right thing to say.
"I get it…" she muttered. "It's OK though. I failed. I couldn't even help Blake when she needed me…no wonder she left…."
No, no, no, no, no. This was getting really bad. And too familiar, as well.
The days after Summer's death, Taiyang had just sat in his room, wasting away. He barely talked, and when he did it was mostly self-loathing crap about how he should've done something to save her. Some days he was too depressed to even eat. At first Qrow decided to leave him be, but eventually he couldn't take it anymore. He reminded Tai that he still had two young daughters who needed him. Mercifully, it worked, and for a long time that was the only thing that had kept him going.
However, this time the scenario was different. He wasn't sure what, but something told him that Yang would have to heal on her own, without his help. No matter how she felt at the moment, she was strong. She would get over it with time. The only problem was whether it would be too late by the time she recovered.
A month later.
It was a cold day. Fall had come and gone, and now winter had arrived. The trees had lost their leaves, and the ground everywhere was covered in snow. Qrow stood on the hilltop, pondering all the things that had happened.
The weeks after Beacon's fall had been, to put it in the lightest terms possible, a total mess. He'd gone from place to place, trying to defuse the chaos the best he could. But even with his Semblance it still wasn't enough. Everyone was terrified. Atlas was being made the scapegoat for all that had occurred. The old patriarch and the Ice Queen were driving themselves crazy trying to quell the riots, the arguments, and the protestors. The Haven and Shade students who had witnessed the events firsthand were forbidden from saying a word-not that it stopped them. There were even a few rumors that Ozpin and his "cohorts" had planned the whole thing as some sick publicity stunts. The fact that those stories had any amount of support among the people almost convinced him that Raven had been right about humanity.
But at the moment, it didn't matter. He watched as Ruby, along with Pyrrha's former teammates-Jaune, Nora and Ren-set out on their journey. Team "RNJR". It had a nice ring to it. They were going to Haven, the last known point of activity of their enemy. The only lead they had.
Though he couldn't see their faces from where he stood, he knew that Ruby, at least, was feeling the one thing no one else he'd encountered in the past few weeks could comprehend. Hope.
Though he'd never tell anyone, deep down he'd always liked Ruby a little more than Yang. Maybe Ruby's energy and optimism reminded him of her mother? Or maybe Yang's arrogance had always reminded him a bit too much of his sister.
Four youths, walking towards an uncertain destiny, continuing onward despite all the risk. How poetic. It almost brought a wave of nostalgia to Qrow's middle-aged heart, but he forced it down. Reminiscing on the past was worthless. Now, of all times, he would have to look to the future.
He looked down at Ozpin's staff, which he'd retrieved from the wreckage of the school. The headmaster had disappeared without a trace. And though Qrow had found no trace of him whatsoever, he knew he wasn't dead. He was out there, hopefully planning his next move against the enemy. But until he returned, the dusty old crow would have to finish what he started.
They were losing, that was for sure. The first move and they'd already lost several important fighters-and they'd lose more. Summer, Penny, Amber, and Pyrrha-they wouldn't be the last to go. And that was NOT fine by any means. But that was how it went. That was how you played chess. Even if you lose your Queens, your Rooks, your Bishops, you still have your Pawns and your Knights…and your King. As long as there was still something to protect, you had to keep fighting. You had to keep moving forward.
Or at least, that's probably how it went. Qrow never liked chess anyway.
Team RNJR's journey would be dangerous. They'd face many, many more hardships on the way. That he was certain of. But he was even more certain that they would never, ever give up. They would keep going, no matter how hard it got.
And he'd be with them every step of the way.
To Be Continued (In RWBY Volume 4)