I seem to always come back to Bumblebee, don't I? Another down on the wire entry for Sapphic September so far but less on the wire than yesterday's, so little victories. Another future AU where Yang and Blake are grown up and kicking Grimm butt across the countryside as partner Huntresses.
RWBY and related characters © Rooster Teeth
story © RenaRoo
The Broken Wheel
"Remember," Blake called across the valley's distance toward Yang, as if there wasn't a rampaging Ursa roaring and stomping between them, "the mayor of the village wanted us to bring something back from the Ursa to prove that we took it down! You can't just shoot it into pieces and consider everything done!"
Yang landed hard on the ground as she jumped out of the path of a swinging Ursa claw, the heels of her boots digging into the earth. "I never do that," she said in response to the accusation from her partner before she reached up to her left arm and reloaded her gauntlets with Dust.
When Yang glanced up, she could see Blake's dulled eyes staring back at her from the tree branch she was balanced on. She was highly unimpressed.
"You always destroy the Grimm," Blake countered. "I wouldn't be reminding you not to if you didn't."
"O ye of little faith," Yang answered with a huff of laughter before clicking in the holsters of her gauntlets and racing out in front of the Ursa. "Hey, Ursa! I can't bear to fight you another second! So let's get this over with!"
She could practically feel the groan Blake gave the pun, but Yang didn't care. She smirked to herself as the Ursa turned its ghostly white face toward her, roaring and snarling, before giving chase.
While the Ursa closed the distance, Yang punched out with her fists, her scream a clattering of syllables as each punch shot out bursts of dust shells. They were almost all incendiary which caused a jerk back of the Ursa with each hit.
At first, the Ursa stopped in his tracks and shook from head to tail before leaning forward and bellowing loudly.
"Uh oh," Yang said as she realized that her bullets weren't having nearly the effect that she had hoped they would. "Sorry if you found that a touch unbearable!"
Once again, Blake released a groan that echoed through the clearing.
Yang didn't have nearly enough time to bask in the glory of the moment, however, as the Ursa began to full on charge toward her, teeth teared and cheeks wavering with its bellow.
"Uh oh," Yang got out before turning to run. Her boots clattered against the ground as she looked down in full sprint and adjusted her gauntlets for a different type of fire power.
The hot breath of the Ursa was closing in on her back when Yang confidently locked her gauntlets in place and then flung her arms back with a yell of excitement. The gauntlets fired, the kickback sending her propelling forward and away from the attacking Grimm.
When Yang hit the ground running again, she turned to see how much distance had been cleared. A distance that could have been easily summed up as not enough. "Oh, come on!" she groaned as the ground began quaking under the approaching weight. "Blake! You've made your point now!" Yang called to her partner.
Turning to look where Blake had been hiding before, however, Yang realized that the tree had been vacated and there was no sign of Blake. Instantly, her heart sank and she looked at the approaching Ursa not with fear but with a much more visceral, painful feeling. That abandonment and tired loneliness snuck it's way back into her chest and Yang was left blankly staring at what could have easily been her demise.
But it wasn't, there was a metallic CHNK in the air above both Yang and the Ursa which drew Yang's attention up to the skies immediately.
Blake was propelled up above them all, silhouetted by the clouds and the broken moon of Remnant, before she came swinging down with her sword, aimed directly for the thick neck of the Ursa.
As Blake swung, her sword carried the momentum and sliced through the Ursa's neck, beheading it just feet from Yang.
The golden haired Huntress stared, blinking in surprise, just as Blake made her landing on the collapsing shoulders of the Grimm. She flipped her sword at its handle before resting its broad end against her shoulder, then looked in Yang's direction, eyebrows raised. "You should have quit while… you were ahead."
Yang stood her ground for a few moments more before stepping forward. "Dude, did you just out pun me?" she asked.
"Impossible," Blake assured her, collapsing her weapon and sneaking it back into its sheath on her back, hidden by her long white coat.
"Better be," Yang said, reaching down with her robotic arm and pulling the Ursa's head up by its ears. "I've worked too long to earn my reputation as the most known Puntress around."
Blake rolled her eyes. "Okay, that's enough. We got the head. Let's get back to the village and get the gold for it."
Yang huffed, pulling the head of the Grimm under the crook of her arm. "You're awfully testy today. Am I not punny enough to keep your spirits up."
"Yang," Blake said glancing over her shoulder before stopping in her tracks and pointing a very direct finger toward the sky.
Yang followed and raised an eyebrow. "Okay. It's cloudy," she concluded.
"It's going to rain, and I'd like to be in an inn with a pocket full of well earned gold before that happens."
"Why? What's wrong with a little rain?" Yang asked while her partner put her hood up. Then Yang put two and two together. "Oh my god, is this because cats don't like water—"
"What? No. That's a stereotype," Blake replied, taking the lead. "I don't like water. It has nothing to do with cats."
"Yeah, and Zwei eats poop but it has nothing to do with dogs," Yang laughed, keeping in step.
"Drop it, Yang," Blake warned.
Yang smirked and looked down to the Grimm's head as she lifted it up to meet her own eye line. "I think someone's a scaredy cat," Yang told the head. She then jerked it up and down by its ears to make the jaws flap open and closed while making a voice, "Ho ho ho, you're so funny, Yang."
"Don't make me take the decapitated bear head from you," Blake warned.
"You could try," Yang replied, lifting the head over her own head as she walked in step behind her partner.
It seemed like the beginning of a beautiful night.
Just as Blake could have predicted from the moment they took up the bounty for the rampaging Ursa, they had started off on a simply horrible night.
They were still about a twenty minute's walk from the village when the bottom of the sky fell out and a sheet of rain came tumbling their way.
Despite herself, Blake froze up, eyes widened in horror at the approaching rain before she dove from the well trodden dirt road into the cover of the forest, pressing her back up against the largest tree trunk around and watching as the rain met Yang head on in a wet bluster.
The rain only increased as Blake pressed herself more against the tree and shrunk down, ears pinned back against her head. Her eyes looking up warily to the branches and leaves above her as if to dare them to let the rain through.
Which, surely enough, drop by drop it did.
"Aw, come on," Yang whined, said, looking up to the sky as the rain continued to pelt her on the trail. "Who thought this was funny?" She then looked down to the Ursa's head still in her robotic arm's grasp and puppeted it again, deepening her voice to match it. "Looks to me that you didn't bring an umbrella when you started traveling with the bear necessities!"
Blake squinted at her partner. "Are you honestly going to keep this up all night?" she asked.
Yang turned just enough to shine her brilliant smile at Blake, then puppeted the Ursa head again. "Depends. Do you find it…unBEARable?"
"Someday you're going to learn you're not as funny as you think you are, and I'm going to be there to laugh at you," Blake said simply. A large droplet broke through the canopy again and splashed on her nose, causing Blake to press back even further into the tree bark.
"Aw, c'mon, Blake, don't be a flake," Yang joked, taking a step toward the treeline but still very much in the direct path of buckets and buckets of rain. "We're so close to the village! We'll dry off when we get in that nice inn like you wanted."
"We're twenty minutes from town," Blake corrected her friend. "And this isn't just rain…. it's… it's a downpour!"
"Aw, c'mon, kitten, don't be a scaredy cat!" Yang joked.
"I'm not… ugh, never mind," Blake sighed, reaching up to pull her hood further over her face. "I don't like what rain does to my hair."
"Yeah, okay, sure," Yang laughed back.
Looking back up at her partner, Blake raised a cautious eyebrow. "Shouldn't you be worried about the rain more? I mean… what if your arm gets too much water?"
"Which one?" Yang asked sarcastically, lifting up her regular arm. "This one?"
"You know which one, Yang, it's a genuine concern," Blake answered just as Yang lifted up her mechanical arm. "I would hate for it to get damaged and force you to have to get it fixed up. Again."
"Water won't damage it," Yang shrugged off easily enough. "It's rust proof. And as tight as I've got it wound up? Nah, we're fine. We're more than fine, honestly. I could probably walk on my hands all the way to the village. It's only ten minutes away!"
"Twenty," Blake corrected again. "You're doing that on purpose now.
Yang only grinned back.
After a few moments of them staring each other down — Huntress to Huntress — Yang lifted up the Ursa head again and once more moved its jaw. "C'mon, Blake! The water feels fine!"
"You're unbea—" Blake caught herself, mostly because of the wide, joyous expression growing on Yang's face, and quickly stopped, changed gears, and tried again. "You're insufferable!"
"Aw," Yang replied. "Well, at least I'm not the one who is keeping us from moving forward because of a little rain."
The words had no sooner left Yang's mouth than the sky lit up with an electric streak overhead. Yang's eyes grew to the size of saucers and her mouth hung open, catching falling rain. When the thunderous clap broke around them, feeling as though it could shake the earth as much as the Ursa before it, Yang was already standing beside Blake underneath the large tree, back pressed firmly into the bark with her arms hugging the decapitated Grimm head against her chest. Her heavy breathing was audible to Blake even over the storm.
Slowly, Blake turned her head enough to look Yang's way, genuinely surprised by the reaction. "Uh, Yang?" she asked worriedly.
"Whoo, that was close, haha," Yang said, voice on the side of fretting. She used her mechanical arm to rub at the back of her soaking wet head.
"What was that about me holding us up for a little rain?" Blake asked sarcastically.
Yang rolled her head against the tree's trunk just enough to look dully at Blake. "It's not rain, I don't care about getting a little wet. It's… y'know—" She froze up again as another bit of rolling thunder passed overhead.
"You're scared of thunder?" Blake asked, brows knitted together.
"No! Don't be ridiculous!" Yang scoffed. After a beat, she cleared her throat and lifted up the Ursa head. "But just because an arm's waterproof doesn't mean it's not a lightning rod for attention!"
Blake blinked. "So you came and took my hiding spot so that we can both get struck by lightning?" she asked.
"Hey! We're partners!" Yang reminded her. "My hiding spot's your hiding spot, and your hiding spot's my hiding spot. You know. That kinda stuff." She fell quiet, looking out into the road as the rains grew thicker. "Yikes," she said.
"Can say that again," Blake muttered, sliding down against the bark. "Guess we're both stuck here until it breaks. Or, at least, you're stuck here until it stops lightning."
Yang slid down beside her, sitting close enough to touch shoulders. "I wouldn't leave you behind."
Blake grew quiet, pulling her knees up to her chest, hugging them tightly. "I know," she answered softly.
They sat together, against the tree for a while, letting the darkness of the storm set in around them, shifting from time to time.
It was quiet save for the sounds of the storm, something that was more like their longer trips walking side by side. Like the pair of Huntresses that they were — grown into a role for a world that was too dangerous without them in it. Fighting the natural dangers of Remnant one step at a time. They could go hours just in each other's company without sound.
Much like right then and there.
In a way, Blake had really come to bask in the company of silence, her eyes sliding shut as she leaned back against the tree. In the moment, the rain didn't feel like a hinderance so much as a reason to meditate on their situation. She might not have liked the water, but the smell of water, the way grass felt against her palms as she pressed her hands into the ground.
Those were things she could love in the moment. Even if there was a shiver or a shudder as the droplets from the tree grew progressively more.
"Hey," Yang said, pulling Blake from her thoughts. "You're shivering a bit, do you need to get warm?"
"I'm alright," Blake answered. "I'm not the one soaked to the—"
Without warning, Yang reached her arm over and pulled Blake up against her side. She smiled cockily as Blake struggled a bit against the soaking wet Huntress.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" Blake groaned before succumbing to the fact that her partner was stronger than her and going limp against Yang's side. "You know what, Yang?"
"What, Blake?" Yang smiled slyly down at her.
Blake reached around Yang as if she was going for a hug then snatched the Ursa's head so that she could take a turn using it like a puppet. "I take it back. You are unBEARable."
Yang laughed, deep and genuinely as Blake set the head aside and gave in to the fact that she was cuddled up beside a soaking wet Yang. Instead she rested her hooded head against the crook of Yang's arm and leaned against her, hands folded on Blake's lap.
In return, Yang leaned in around Blake more, resting her head on Blake's hood and reaching with her mechanical hand over to Blake's lap. She hesitated, the metallic fingers apprehensive about disturbing Blake's, as if after these years Yang was still getting surprised by them.
But when Blake noticed, she quietly reached up and put both her hands around Yang's and bringing them back down to rest in Blake's lap.
They didn't need to call attention to the gesture out loud, only come a little closer together as a result of it.
"Sorry I got us stuck in the rain by screwing around," Yang opted instead.
"Sorry I was too scared to keep moving before the thunder and lightning came in," Blake answered. She opened her eyes and looked up just enough to see that Yang was looking down at her too. "Guess we'll just have to wait it out together now, won't we?"
"Guess we will," Yang replied. "It won't be too bad… if I'm with you."
Blake's smile softened. "Same."
She tilted her head up as Yang tilted down, a brief peck of each other's lips, but it was all they needed for right then and there.
They got back into position, curled protectively around each other, the Ursa they took down together nearby, the village that served as their next stop only twenty minutes further. But even in the rain and the storms, after years of becoming the Huntresses they were always meant to be, they had learned that they had each other.
And that was enough comfort to gently rock both of them into a deep and restful sleep. One that would carry them into the morning, when the sun was cleared up and the newest adventure was only facing forward.