Supernova; Prologue

There had been intense heat, scalding the air and causing the plants surrounding it to catch fire. There had been such ferocity,anger, pain, a singularity of passion. There had been light, blinding white and sharp. There had been life, a soul and a body. There had been Yang.

Weiss, Blake and Ruby were so still they took the appearance of statues. What had once been there friend, sister, lover was now nothing more than a few embers suspended in mid air. Black char covered the ground, and the blood of a thousand Grimm was misted in the air, cloying it with it's odor and weight. Flames were spreading around them, their heat and intensity ferocious and frightening.

Ruby was kneeling behind the space her sister used to occupy. The shock was slowly fading, and the reality of what she had just witnessed began to creep through her mind, invading every thought with black tendrils of horror, suffocating her mind. Blood was pouring out of a gouge in her arm. The wound was deep, muscle and bone, red as the cape she wore across her back, shredded and gored. Red like the flames that had once been her sister.

Blake was the first to move. She stumbled forwards, her left foot dragging, broken at the ankle. She collapsed down next to Ruby, kneeling in a puddle of Ruby's blood. Her knees hitting the ground brought a sickening crunch and an anguished cry from her lips, shards of her kneecap protruding from her skin. She clutched helplessly at the ground, wailing in the tongue of the dead. Calling Yang back to her. Her cries rang through the sky, towards the cold black of the sky, answered only by echoes of her own misery, and a tears of blood raining down.

Weiss could do nothing now. She had exhausted all she had in the fight and now could do nothing but watch as those she loved mourn. She could still control herself, she had to control herself, else they will all die. She stumbles forwards, her left arm dangling at her side from an internal amputation. Using Myrtennaster as a cane she made her way towards the remainder of her team. Blakes anguish was alerting the remaining Grimm, and they began to howl. A cold, dead, emotionless caterwauling, but to Weiss it sounded like a bell. The bell that had rung the first time a family member had died to the white fang, and now the bell tolls for her and her team as well. When the bell stops ringing, she will be dead.

Weiss knelt down next to Ruby, and began to tie her sash around the gash on her arm, the red immediately staining the white cloth a deep red. After tying the makeshift bandage, she turned to Blake, but there was nothing she could do to ease her pain. Blake had loved Yang the most, as more than a friend, more than a sister, as a piece of her own being. As cold as it was, she could not allow time for mourning, she needed to act fast or all three of them would share Yang's fate. She would allow herself time to cry, to curse the world, but now was not the time. She grabbed Ruby's shoulder and helped her to her feet. Ruby rose quietly, having stopped her cries while Weiss was tying the bandage. She was now sobbing, fluid pouring from her face, her eyes and nose streaming. She stumbled forwards into the space Yang used to be, looking at the embers suspended in the air.\

"This is where her heart would have been" She whispered. She did not check to see if Weiss or Blake heard what she said. She had to speak her thoughts out loud; there was no room for anything but Yang in her mind. She reached out a hand to touch them, the skin on her hand blackening as it approached. She cried in pain as her tears evaporated from her face and her skin boiled, but she could not stop moving forwards. These embers where all that was left of her family, and she would hold them one last time. All of her fingernails had peeled back and the bone of her index finger had begun to show by the time Weiss managed to pull her away. Ruby balled up her burned had and hit Weiss across the face, leaving a skid of molten skin on her cheek, burning Weiss from her jaw to the side of her mouth, The skin on Weiss' face began to bubble, but she kept hold of Ruby.

"Weiss" Ruby struggled to get free "Weiss, let me go" she held up her fist again, her burnt hand had solidified, locking her hand into a fist. Weiss tightened her grip but didn't speak a word. She didn't trust herself to be able to speak. "Weiss, let me go now, drag you with me" Tears began to fall from her eyes again, but Weiss could not allow herself to lose another team member. She shook her head.

Ruby attempted to drag Weiss with her but was barely strong enough to stand. After a few moments of weak struggling, she fell back into Weiss and rest her head on Weiss' chest. Weiss held Ruby in her arm, Ruby's tears streaking the soot and blood that stained Weiss' clothing, and together they stood listening to the howling of Blake and the Grimm, harmonizing in some dark melody of suffering.

"There isn't a body Weiss." Ruby began to murmur up to Weiss "If there isn't body how are we supposed to bury her? What do we do Weiss? What do we do when there isn't a body?"

Weiss pressed Ruby's head into her chest before pulling Ruby out and looking her in the eyes "We have to go Ruby. We have to leave and we have to leave now"

Ruby was still crying "But how can we leave when there's no body? We can't go back to Beacon without a body. The won't bury her if there isn't a body" Ruby began to struggle in Weiss' grip "We need to find the body!" She was screaming now. Frantic. "We have to find the body before we go, so they can bury her at Beacon. Weiss! Hurry! I'm the captain, and the captain says we need to find Yang's body! We need to find" She stopped her yelling and began to sniffle "Find my sisters body." She stood silently for a few moments.

"Weiss, there won't be a body will there?" Weiss could do nothing but shake her head. If she opened her mouth she knew she would scream, and if she screamed then her sadness would take her and she would die.

"We have to leave now right? Or else we all die." Ruby shivered "Weiss. I don't want to die" She looked into Weiss' eyes, her own glistening with a fresh wetness.

"What do we do then Weiss?" Weiss looked up from Ruby and at her surroundings. The scorched earth; the bloody rain, still falling; the black perimeter of Grimm; then finally at Blake, with her shattered kneecaps and broken ankle, still pounding the ground and rasping out guttural cries. Weiss didn't know what to do, they were out of options, but there had to be a solution. A chance for survival, someway or somehow they would live. Weiss would make sure of it, she would save them. She would not allow another person to die, not if she could save them.

Suddenly Blake stop yelling and lifted her head. She looked over at Weiss and Ruby, her eyes red and bloodshot, grime and flesh streaking her face. Then Ruby paused and stood still, before looking at Weiss, fear frozen on her face. Now Weiss realized their fear, all the sudden she could hear it, the silence, the horrible, sickening silence. The Grimm had ceased their yowling and had turned their focus back to the three girls in the midst of the flames. Weiss heard it, the final toll of the bell, it's clear, cold sound ringing in her ears. Then silence. Death.