Cinder was angry.
Angry wasn't the right word. Boiling with rage would be a more apt description.
She had invested months of planning, a small fortune's worth of dust and military equipment. Now it was all worthless because these idiots had let a thermos wielding Huntsmen, 4 children and a corgi ruin her plans. Barely more than a dozen civilians had been killed and all the damage to the city had been fixed with an annoyed wave of the hand from that bitch Glynda.
"Hopefully the city council decides this is severe enough to hand the tournament over to Ironwood." Cinder thought to herself. If Ironwood isn't put in charge of the Vytal festival, that means she would have to organize another whole operation with Adam and his goons before the tournament, this time without Roman to do the grunt work.
Those morons didn't even manage to kill a single student. She had really been counting on at least one of Ozpin's students dying. That would've been the nail in the coffin. As she scanned the recently repaired courtyard she spied an opportunity to change fix that. Two of the students that had arrived to clean up standing by the smoking ruins of a paladin, which, conveniently for Cinder, ran on fire dust. It would be so tragic if the that dust canister caught fire. Combined with the blast from her own explosion, it should create a fireball big enough to engulf the entire courtyard.
Cinder smiled. "Maybe I'll still manage to get a couple few after all." she thought as she raised her hand.
"I've never seen one of these in person. They look so cool!" Nora exclaimed as she stared at the smoking carcass of a paladin.
"How did they even get these?" Ren wondered "Atlas military isn't even using these in the field yet. They are still in the prototype stage."
"I wish they hadn't all been broken by the time we got here." Nora complained, mildly dejected. "I would've loved to fight one. Can you believe team RWBY fought one without us?" Ren simply shrugged, unenthused by the idea of fighting a paladin "I'm just glad they didn't do any damage to the city." Ren said.
Suddenly there was a very faint high pitched whistle, like the noise a tea kettle makes when it boils, and the metal canister containing all of the paladin's dust began to glow a dull red. Nora, having always been a quick thinker, realized what was about to happen and wrapped Ren in a bear hug in an effort to get the two of them to the ground, out of the blast radius.
Unfortunately she was just a bit too slow.
Just as Nora collided with Ren, the paladin erupted and sent the two of them spinning through the air and smashing through the window of a nearby convince store. The two of them slammed against the back wall and collapsed into a heap.
Ren groaned and clutched the back of his head. Wincing from the pain, he slowly opened his eyes, just barely able to recognize the blurry blue-eyed redhead on top of him. "Thanks for the save Nora." He muttered, still dazed from the impact.
Nora smiled, then coughed weakly and toppled over, collapsing on the ground.
"Nora?" Ren asked, panicked as sat up.
As his vision refocused, he realized just how badly Nora had been hurt. Large chunks of metal shrapnel from the explosion had impaled her left thigh, abdomen and right shoulder while the rest of her body was filled with smaller metal fragments. Her head and throat were filled glass shards, leacing her face disfigured. White shards of bone stuck out of her right leg, which had snapped like a twig. Her left arm and upper back had been charred black by the explosion. Blood leaked out of the corner of her mouth.
Ren pulled himself towards Nora and grabbed her by the shoulders. "No no no no. C'mon Nora!" Ren pleaded "Stay with me. I can't lose you too."
Ren's pleas were suddenly interrupted by loud coughing as Jaune stepped into the wrecked shop "Ren! Nora!" Jaune called out "Where are you…" Jaune stopped in his tracks when he saw Nora "Oh fuck." He whispered. He whipped his head around and called out "GLYNDA! I FOUND THEM! NORA'S HURT REAL BAD!"
Suddenly pieces of the wall began to fly away, opening to make way for Glynda as she quickly strolled through the new opening. With a wave of her wand, Ren was pushed back as the floor beneath Nora lifted upwards, forming a makeshift stretcher to carry Nora out of the building. "I GOT INJURED HERE! I need medical evac, STAT!" Glynda called out as Nora floated behind her out of the building.
Ren tried to push himself up, but before he even managed to stand a sudden lightheadedness overcame him and he was forced to sit down. "Why does this bullshit always happen to me?" Ren asked to himself as he entered a staring match with the floor.
Jaune stumbled back through the wall towards Ren. He got down on one knee and grabbed Ren "Ren! We should get out of here. Are you injured? Can you walk?" he asked.
If Ren heard Jaune, he gave no indication of it "It's my fucking fault. It always is." Ren grumbled in a rare instance of profanity.
Jaune grabbed Ren's head and forced him to look into his eyes "Ren! Are you hurt?"
Ren sighed and looked down at his at his bloodstained chest "I'm covered in shards of glass and metal, I think I have a concussion and I've lost a fair amount of blood. So no."
Jaune scooped Ren off the ground "Alright buddy, I'll get you out of here and we can wait for a bullhead to take you to the hospital." he said as he slowly walked outside with Ren.
"Don't bother, I'll probably just get you killed too." Ren muttered bitterly under his breath.
The harsh sunlight caused Ren to flinch as Jaune carried him out of the wrecked shop. As his eyes readjusted to the light, Ren could just barely make out a group of people across the courtyard standing around a bullhead as it took off.
"Oh god, Ren!" Pyrrha shouted from across the courtyard. The cluster of people who had been standing by the bullhead noticed a limp Ren being carried in Jaune's arms.
"He's fine!" Jaune shouted across the courtyard in an attempt to ease their fears "Or at least I hope." he added as he set Ren down against the wall.
Ren slid down the wall until his head was inbetween his knees. Ren looked up, "Don't worry about me, how's Nora doing?" he asked as Pyrrha, RWBY Glynda and several other students gathered around him.
There was a moment of silence as everyone looked around, waiting for someone else to say something.
"I'm not going to lie to you." Glynda admitted "Nora's injuries are incredibly severe, she's lucky to be alive. I doubt she'll ever fully recover."
"But she'll be able to stay on our team right?" Ren asked with a hint of desperation in his voice.
Glynda sighed "As of right now I would say it looks unlikely. There have been several cases where a student has been injured so badly that they would always be a liability on the battlefield, even with prosthetics. None of them were injured as badly as Nora is. We'll provide the best medical treatment we can, but if Nora can't continue at Beacon we will take care of her housing situation until she can find a new, less demanding job."
Ren closed his eyes and tilted his head back "Fuck." Ren thought to himself. Becoming a Huntress had been Nora's dream since she was 8. The thought of having to tell Nora that she couldn't stay at Beacon...
No. Ren couldn't let that happen. He wasn't going to let Nora be denied her dream because he had been sloppy. He would find a way for her to continue doing what she loved.
No matter what he had to do to make it happen.
Notes: Thank you for reading my second ever fic. As someone who loves odd couples Ren and Nora are easily my favorite RWBY characters and I have decided to fix the lack of slowburn Renora in the world. While this first chapter is super dark, I promise it will get lighter as I have some adorable Renora moments in mind. I'll be trying to add one more chapter a week.
Leave any tips or recommendations in the comments, I'm a new writer so any feedback is welcome. Especially feedback on what you think I could do better.
Cross posted from AO3.