Alright, so this one's a little different from my usual fair.
With Volume 6 coming out soon, I thought I might write up a little one-shot exploring a theory I've had for a long time about a possible character development for Yang. Especially since for some reason I cannot fathom, I seem to be the only one who's thought of this possibility.
Enjoy :)
"Take that, you piece of shit…" Yang managed to whisper.
Two years ago, she wouldn't have considered herself the type for swearing.
But considering all that she'd been through in those past two years, getting a bit of potty mouth seemed appropriate.
And given the current mess she was in, Yang figured some expletives were really fucking appropriate.
The warehouse in the Atlas Military Industrial plant, Laplace something or other, was a mess after one of the ex-White Fang goons they were fighting accidentally hit a dust crate and set off a chain reaction. Said goon and his buddies were mostly charred giblets now.
And That Man, Blake's former boss and world's biggest Asshole, was somewhere amongst the rubble. Hopefully dead. Or at least crippled after that last punch Yang had given him right before the dust cache exploded.
Of course, Yang wasn't doing too hot herself.
She'd lost her prosthetic at some point in the fight, though thankfully she still had her other three limbs. Even so, she could barely feel her left leg, which was refusing to move. Yang was pretty sure she was bleeding pretty bad down there.
Actually, Yang was pretty sure she was bleeding pretty bad in a lot of places.
Blake was kneeling next to her, trying to help her up. She looked a little bruised and banged up herself. Though not nearly as bad as Yang herself, thank the gods.
And she still looked beautiful…
Yang then noticed that even behind the soot and grime, Blake was starting to blush.
"Really, Yang?" Blake managed a small smile with a bit of mirth.
Oh. She'd said that last bit out loud, hadn't she?
Even though it made her chest sting and ache, Yang allowed herself to chuckle.
"I might have a concussion."
Both suddenly froze as they heard the sound of rubble being pushed aside, followed by familiar footsteps.
Yang looked up.
Son of a BITCH!
From the other side of the room, That Man was stalking towards them.
He wasn't looking too hot himself. Yang could take a bit of pride in that. His clothes were ripped and tattered, his left arm was bleeding quite a bit and he was definitely walking with a limp. There was also that rather ugly welt swelling on his face…
That at least brought a small smile to Yang's lips. When that bastard sliced the hand off of her prosthetic, he clearly wasn't expecting Yang to just yank the whole metal arm off and bash him in the face with it. Managed to break that stupid mask too.
Of course, he was actually on his feet and still had his weapon. That was all that mattered.
Damn it, MOVE! Yang tried to force her body to act, trying to focus what little aura she had left.
Yang could hear the man talk, rant more like, his voice clearly slurred.
Of course, Yang was also completely ignoring what that asshole was saying in favor of something infinitely more important.
"Blake… go." Yang managed to choke out. Funny, how she'd always been so hung up on people leaving her behind, only for all of her emotional baggage to be squashed when it came to keeping Blake safe.
But her partner didn't move.
Yang was about to choke out a question when Blake simply shook her head, giving Yang a saddened smile.
"I can't."
Then Yang noticed Blake's left foot, and the very unnatural angle it was twisted in.
Yang felt the cold pit fall into her stomach.
Neither of them was going anywhere…
That man was getting closer.
GODS. FUCKING. DAMNIT! Yang screamed in head.
This wasn't supposed to happen!
She was BETTER than this!
THEY were better than this!
Yang struggled to pull herself up, tried to will her legs to move. Or at least get herself between that bastard and Blake.
Dimly, Yang was aware that Blake was trying to do the same for her.
She was… Almost… there…
And then all thought stopped as Yang felt the splitting, screaming spike of pain.
Her eyes snapped open… and saw the sword that was now embedded in the center of her chest.
That Man was standing over them, an enraged sneer directed down at both of them.
"YANG!"
For an instant, Blake's choked, horrified scream cut through all else.
But then the hand holding the sword twisted it, and white-hot agony exploded through Yang's entire body.
Now her vision was starting to dim…
Almost like…
Damn it, not like this! Not to this SHITHEAD!
Yang knew That Man was still talking, ranting, but Yang couldn't hear him. All she could hear was the blood pounding in her ears. And even that was soon drowned out.
Drowned out by the pain.
Pain was an old companion for Yang. Whenever there was a fight, Yang knew pain. The searing fire that shot through her nerves whenever she took a punch to the face, a kick to the gut, claws raking her arms or a wall slamming into her back. Dad used to say that pain might suck, but it was a good thing. Because it meant you could still feel. It meant you were still alive. Yang had long since embraced that sort of pain. Not that Yang enjoyed the pain, but she relished it all that same. For Yang, pain wasn't pleasure, it was power. Every punch, every kick, every slash, every throw. Yang could soak it all up, and give it right back. Every time something hurt Yang, they were just making her stronger!
But then… there were the other kinds of pain. The kinds that didn't make Yang stronger.
The pain of losing the mother she knew…
The pain of an arm that wasn't there.
The pain of being so afraid… and being powerless to do anything about it…
The pain of not knowing who her mother was or why she left Yang behind…
The pain of knowing exactly who her Mother was, and why she left Yang behind…
And Blake… living with her partner for all those months, all the laughs, all the adventures, never realizing just how hard she was falling for that beautiful, intelligent, driven girl. Never realizing until she lost her.
It hurt when Blake left her.
It hurt when Blake came back to her.
And it hurt when Yang realized that she just didn't care how much it hurt. Just so long as Blake was with her…
Loving Blake had hurt so much… and Yang knew she'd do it all again without a second thought.
And now… the pain of knowing it had all been for noth-
NO! Yang screamed in her own head, Oumdammit, NO!
No way was Yang going to let it end like this!
No way was she going to let this SHITHEAD win!
No way was she going to leave Blake behind…
Even as the outside world started to fade, Yang could still feel her aura, her light, her soul.
And the thing that rested at the center of it all.
It was a well, a vessel at her center. The place where Yang learned long ago to channel her pain. The place that simmered and burned like a furnace fueled by her pain.
And, oddly enough, a place that always twitched a little whenever her anger spiked and her eyes changed color.
But, funny about it… It was a well that had never been filled. Not completely anyway. It seemed like every time Yang fought, every time she fed the pain from all those punches, kicks, slashes and slammed-through-a-concrete-pillar-by-a-giant-robot, that well, that furnace, never seemed to even approach its full capacity.
Now though… Yang gave it more than just her physical pain…
She gave it everything.
All of the pain, the fear, the sadness this world had given her…
The rage towards the man in front of her…
And the love for the girl beside her…
And… somehow, the thought of her mother, flying off on black-feathered wings…
Yang forced all those things together into that one fixed point. Her center… the core of her very soul.
As she forced all of it in, Yang could feel the twitching, simmering heat of her semblance.
But then…
It's dark.
Dark like a cave deep in the earth.
The only light comes from the flames burning before her.
The flames come from the furnace before her.
It has grown. Grown larger than it ever has before. She knows it used to be the size of a stove. Now… now it's the size of a building. A BIG building. It's so big it fills her whole vision. The grate on the front that was once smaller than her head now looks like some massive cage, each bar larger than she is.
And the heat… She remembers the heat that once came from the furnace was warm, or so hot it might burn her, were she anyone other than herself.
Now though… just the heat coming off the opening is greater than anything else she has ever felt, hot enough to singe flesh right off the bone within minutes. She knows the flames within could reduce a man to ash in an instant.
But not her. This is HER fire after all. She can take it.
Though the furnace might not be able to…
She can hear the creaking and moaning of metal. The furnace has grown so much, and yet it seems like it can only just barely contain the fire within it. She can see the metal flex, warp and bulge in ugly, obtuse places. Somewhere, she hears a rivet pop out.
The whole thing looks like it's about to burst.
She wonders if that would be such a bad thing…
Then she sees it.
The shape moving behind the bars within the furnace. A great burning shadow, wreathed in flame.
She approaches the grate, curiosity now overriding all other thought. This… this is new.
The massive shape approaches the bars.
Dimly, she's aware that the creaking and moaning is growing louder. That more and more rivets and bolts are popping loose. But she couldn't care less about that.
She stands before the massive grate, feeling the tremendous heat wash over her. She looks up at the great shape standing on the other side.
The shape looks down at her.
More rivets pop out…
Purple eyes meet Red eyes.
Suddenly she is looking out of the furnace, looking down at a girl on the other side of the bars.
Steel girders bend and buckle under the heat…
She looks Out at Herself and looks In at Herself.
She raises her hand up between the bars and lowers her head down to the bars.
The metal lets out one last screaming moan…
She feels soft skin touch hardened scales.
And the furnace explodes.
"I told you," Adam Taurus sneered, "I would destroy everything you lo-"
Then a hand seized the arm holding his sword.
Adam didn't even have time to register that before the unbearable pain shot up his arm, the hand so hot it burned through his sleeve and was searing its way into his flesh.
The blonde girl he had just stabbed… Adam could see the steam rising off of her… see the fumes escaping from her mouth… the hair that now floated up like raging, golden flames. Even the blade in her chest was starting to glow like metal in a forge.
Then Adam saw them. The bloody crimson eyes that were now locked onto him… with pupils that were lengthening into reptilian slits…
Then the world exploded into FIRE.
Blake knew there'd been an explosion. She'd felt the tremendous heat, heard the cacophonous blast that'd torn the warehouse apart and sent Adam flying like a multi-kilo bomb had gone off, could see Adam's sword fall to the ground, the blade reduced to a half-melted piece of slag.
Blake knew this tremendous heat should burn her, incinerate her. And yet, Blake felt no pain, no numbness. Only warmth. Like the warmth of the sun on a bright summer's day.
Then she noticed the shadow over her…
Blake looked up… and gasped.
"…Yang?" Blake managed to ask in a combination of shock, confusion and awe.
She stood tall on four clawed feet, sharpened claws the size of swords effortlessly gouging into the hardened stone beneath them.
Great, leathery wings larger than ships' sails stretched out, reaching out farther than the walls could have contained, had they still been standing.
A long, tooth-filled maw exhaled, the breath filled with fumes and embers.
A mane of raging yellow flames trailed over ten meters down her spine, from the top of her head all the way to her twitching, flaming tail. Their flickering light reflected off hardened scales that gleamed like the purest of gold.
And a pair of slitted eyes the color of fire and blood locked their gaze on the man who'd been thrown to the other side of the room, a gaze that burned with righteous fury.
Looming protectively over Blake, the great golden Dragon that was Yang Xiao Long opened her massive maw and ROARED.
AN: So, I'm honestly shocked that there aren't any 'Dragon!Yang' theory discussions going around outside of just AU concepts, especially considering that I feel like it has a very real chance of happening in the show.
For those who didn't catch the double-meanings I was dropping, the gist of this idea is that Yang inherited Raven's Animal-Shapeshifting ability that she got from Ozpin, and since that ability seems to vary depending on the person who has is (ie: Ozpin selected Qrow and Raven because they were most likely to become birds with it), instead of turning into a bird like her mother, Yang will be able to turn into a giant dragon. Also, I'm positing that Yang's semblance will serve as the power-source for this transformation.
Again, I'm really surprised that seemingly nobody else has brought up this idea, especially since there seems to have been a LOT of little hints to it throughout the show. The possibility of Yang having inherited Raven's shapeshifting, general flight-imagery popping up quite a bit in Yang's character songs ('Wings' and 'Armed and Ready' in particular), Tai flat out calling Yang a 'Sunny Little Dragon' in Vol. 4 and the fact that Yang has ALREADY displayed minor shapeshifting ability from the very start of the series with her shifting eye-colors.
Has anyone else thought of this? I'm very curious.
Also, yes, I lifted 'I might have a concussion' from the Adventure Time finale. Seemed pretty appropriate for Blake and Yang :)
Also also, this story was brought to you by the Gundam Unicorn OST. For some reason, it goes really well with writing RWBY fanfic.