Memory fragments.
Summary: Just snippets in time, of moments lost to history, remembered only by those in it.
Tag: Grimm War AU, related oneshots. Snippets I wrote but could never pierce together into a story.
Disclaimer: RWBY belongs to Rooster Teeth the blessed Monty Oum. This is a work of fanfiction, and while an unfinishable one I hope I can do him proud, or at least, amused in his rest.
[Memory fragment: Ruby-1.]
Despair. Panic. Hatred. Fear. Anger. General 'negative' emotions, overflowing from a falling city, like torchlight drawing in countless moths and other creatures of the night. But mostly the second.
And where can those be even more overflowing, than the Central Hospital, where the wounded and dead laid in stacks upon stacks; those who could not fled or fight for their own fate, stuck behind awaiting their ends to come. And the stubborn nurses and defenders of that place holding back the tide and paying the price to save just one more live, just one more person. Her... team was one of those. Or at least, the scattered group that was once the hopeful first years so long ago. Jaune. Ren. Garnet. Celeste. Neptune. Sage. Zhao. Russle. Clark. But at least, they were still alive, and fighting.
Yet not all of them were. Several other Huntsmen and women, casualties defending the fallen Firewall, now laid in stretchers unconscious, mangled limbs and bowels tied up in red-soaked bandages and wounds too great to heal with the meager supply they had left, those whom she never knew the name-
'No. That is a lie. Ros, Ciel, Andre, Gahad. She knows - Oh gods she knows their names.'
A painful pinch snapped herself out of the trance. Her lips bled, her white teeth biting through. Her breathing struggled to steady, almost too difficult to. Ruby clenched her teeth. With a sharp cry she disappeared in a storm of petals, lauching herself at the nearest Ursa, it's deceptively lumbering form sprinting with full speed at the blue-haired mechanic repairing the sentry turret. And struck. Crescent Rose sliced through its muscular neck, lobbing off the head. Seven hundred and twenty eight.
"Thanks for the save, Ruby." The man glanced up from his piles of wires and gears and grease, as she quickly dispatched three others. "No problem Neptune. Just get it working, quick."
He nodded, while she resumed a fighting stance. Long bursts of fire came from another ward of the hospital, the Western Ward. A battle were raging there, the Grimm drawn to the negative emotions of the casualties than this abandoned-building. But still it was a backdoor that needed defense.
Her team'd retreated here when the week-long retreat almost turned into a rout when the Firewall fell - not due to the Black Queen Virus this time, but to the sheer number and tenacity of the invading Grimm. The hospital was supposed to be the rendevouz point, yet when they arrived there was only a handful that managed to reach here on a busted APC; a few faces she recognized, a few on stretchers. Summing up to a hefty thirty four including a score of casualties too gravely wounded to evacuate and the nurses that stayed behind in refusal of leaving their wards. At least it was fortified well enough, and they'd tried to contact HQ for an extraction.
Another Grimm approached. Her eyes narrowed. A light press of her finger, Crescent Rose unfolded into a scythe.
None came, of course, as the safezone of the Main harbor too was undersiege, where was more than 20km away from here, countless Grimm in between them, and obviously the wounded couldn't march it.
It growled. Then lunged.
No. She'd never abandon the ones in need, the ones who could not defend themselves. Never.
Her eyes hardened. A sidestep, then Crescent Rose plunged through the Beowolf's left chest in a backhand-jab, the serrated metal tip sliding in between its ribs and pinned the Grimm onto the ground. It's sudden, yanking stop shattered the thing's ribcase and tore apart its heart. It spasmed once, then stopped moving entirely.
She'd find a way. Her friends would find a way. At any price.
*Ba-fzzt!* sparks fizzled from the sentry turret, sending Neptune coiling backward, yet a massive grin split his face when the automaton's lights lit up. With a soft whir, its pentuple-barrels turned and began spinning- "Duck!"
She ducked down. And streams of bullets flew over her head, cutting a swath into the horde of Grimm down the open road. Angry cries when their chance'd been denied, or painful ones when limbs or chunks of meat disappeared when the gatling-autocannon hit its marks.
"Sure took your sweet, sweet time." She grinned back, dashing to the gate when the turret halted in a short break of its firing. "Let's hope the party over there isn't over yet, you slow ass."
[Memory fragment: Ruby-2]
Her eye squinted, the black-furred beast's outline almost unmakeable out amidst the carpet of black fur and glowing red eyes illuminated only by a few flickering street lamps. But she'd spotted it.
In. And out. She held her breath, lining the shake of her hands with the rhythmic beat of her heart. Her finger squeezed. The rifle kicked back, pounding into her left shoulder from her kneeling position.
Her aim was perfect. The Alpha Ursa's ghastly red eyes winked out, its body falling backward like a puppet with its strings cut. Soon after loud shrieks and shrills filled the air. Eight hundred and seventy nine. She stood up and began sprinting just in time for both the metal frame and reinforced glass panel to be turned into so much as scrap when an Alpha Gryffon crashed through it, howling wind blasting through. As the Grimm clambered back onto its clawed feet, she cranked back the bolt of her rifle-scythe, her hand catching the empty casing flying out of it in a swift motion. It burnt in her gloved palm, before she quickly tucked it into a pouch of similarly-empty casings on her waist.
Five rounds left, four in this clip, one in the chamber.
A Nevermore dove close to the window on her left. A great burst of speed surged through her tired limbs, as dozens of razor sharp quill riveted onto the walls and floor, chasing after her. Her eyes narrowed. A flash of light, and the Nevermore fell out of the sky, tumbling down with its wing clipped, while she took advantage of the recoil to dove into an intersecting corridor. A blood-curling shriek sounded as the Alpha Gryffon skidded to a halt at the turn and lunged inside - and then twin knives from the shadow drove into its heart, liliac irises blazing in anger, and another flash of silvery cold steel ended its existance before it could even act.
Eight hundred and eighty.
The purple-eyed hunter ripped Stormflowers out the now-headless body, letting it slump down on to the cold tiled floor, rapidly vaporizing. Ruby remained standing, leaning onto Crescent Rose for support. But she so very wanted to do the same. Ren closed the twin metal doors and locked them shut, as to prevent anymore Grimm from entering this wing.
"Good kill, Ren." She said weakly, trying to catch a breath. The huntsman barely gave her an acknowledging nod before he moved back to the shadowed corner opposite to her in complete silent. Their eyes met, and she hastily snapped her head away.
Muffled gunfire, floors below, reached her ears. The battle raged on, but with the preemptive extermination of two of their pack leaders, hopefully the Grimm was bloodied enough to cease their attack. Just as per the plan, which'd been working quite well so far. There hadn't been any new casualties in two days so that must be a good sign, so despite her unwillingness to stay out of the battle directly, she was willing to defer to Jaune on this one.
She took the radio piece on her ear down, pressing onto 'call.'
"Objective complete, Jaune. We got the Alphas." Her voice was a bit wheezy despite her best effort.
"Great job you two-" there was a short pause. Several weapon discharges could be heard in the background. "You guys go take a break. Me and Garnet can take care of the rest of this wave quickly."
"...What about you?"
"I'll later." he tried to wave off her question again, but she didn't allow it.
"Jaune, this is your 10th 'later'. Go rest."
"I'll be fine Ruby." He said coldly.
"Damn it Jaune! You haven't a single wink for 3 days already!" She spat angrily, even when she could barely summon the strength to raise her voice anymore.
"Have you?" He shot back.
Ruby's throat tensed up. She stared at the earpiece, her finger clenching around it, wanting to give him a piece of her mind. But she couldn't. In the end, her shoulder sagged down...
She looked up and flinched backward in surprise as Ren was standing right in front of her, his face unreadable.
"Ren?" Her eyes widened when he wordlessly took the device from her hand.
He pressed on the 'call' button.
Jaune replied immediately, agitated "Ruby, I said I'll be fine-"
"Stop it, Jaune." Ren ordered sharply. Ruby closed her eyes, not daring to open them and lock with Ren's. "Go rest. Don't overpush yourself like this."
A few seconds passed with no words exchanged on either ends. Then Jaune started.
"Ren, I..." the huntsman's voice was weak when he tried to protest. "I have to-"
"You and Ruby are all the family I've left. I wouldn't lose either of you to such a stupid reason like this." She drew in a choked breath, her eyelids snapping open to stare at the black-haired hunter.
'He... he does? Af-after what happened to Nora because of her?'
Her fingers trembled, clenching tightly around the hilt of Crescent Rose. His voice took on a soft tone, the tone he used to calm and comfort Nora when she needed rest. Once. "Please, Jaune. Go to sleep."
"...Fine. I... I will take a break, after this wave is over." The line cut off, and complete silence settled over her end.
Ren closed his eyes. For a brief second, the blank expression on his face cracked, revealing a pained look that made her eyes divert to the floor in shame and guilt. She needn't look up to know under his blank mask of indifference, his liliac eyes were burning with memories and grief.
He shoved the radio piece back into her palm. Then he turned to walk away.
"Ren..." she whispered weakly, her eyes glued to the floor. Her heart twisted in her chest.
He stopped.
"Go get some rest too, Ruby."
[Memory fragment: Ruby-3]
Her hand no longer shook. Her bright silver eyes scanned through the streets and buildings below. Nothing.
An uneasy clawed at her gut. Her sniper nest, perched under the Central hospital's Bullhead landing pad, allowed her a good two hundred and eighty degree vision down at the East side of the city below (and a relative safety from aeriel attacks) yet since early this morning she had yet to see a single Grimm. Not one sight of a Nevermore circling in the sky, not a single Beowolf.
"Jaune... you got me?" She nervously clicked on her earbud.
"Yeah, copy. Anything up there?" The reply came immediately. Jaune's voice was clear and composed, but he also seemed to be anxious about something.
"Nothing. It's too quiet. Apart from the Goliaths still circling around Beacon, there was nothing else. Not even a Nevermore."
A few seconds passed before the Huntsman replied again, this time his voice much quieter.
"Yeah, I hear. FOB is also reporting the same... nothing..." he whispered into the radio, swallowing dryly. "Not a single attack. The majority of the Grimm seemed to have vanished overnight... It was as if they retreated."
"...Do you really think so?" She asked, one part hopeful, another perplexed... and every other worried.
"No... no, never... they could have done so since 3 years ago, and they just decided to retreat now? When we are at our weakest, when we have given up?"
She nodded bitterly. The Evacuation of Sanus had been going on for six months now, after the massive ramp of Grimm numbers and hostility after the Mistral Raid. And now the Council were officially abandoning Vale, evacuating to the island of Patch. A city of 8 millions, and another 3 from the outskirt towns and cities evaced... The desperation for such a thing to even be considered, much less followed through...
Ruby tightened her grip on Crescent Rose. The streets should be swarming with Grimm from every corner of Sanus, as it did yesterday... But where weren't they now? And more importantly, why?
"It seemed as if they are planning something..." Jaune said, confirming her unasked suspicions, his voice wavering for the first time.
The Grimm. Have a plan. The mere thought had sent a chill down her spine the first time she came to face with that reality, and now there was only this squirming feeling she felt in her chest. It felt like Mistral all-over again.
"...We have to prepare for extraction as soon as possible." Her voice steeled. No. She must show no fear. They musn't lose hope at such a time.
Jaune breathed in deeply on the other end, reminding himself of the same thing. It must be so much harder for him, given there was no way for him to know how both his mother and Jeanne were doing right now. They were seperated in the chaos after the Firewall fell, along with Oscar and Cardin.
Yang and Weiss too.
"They will be fine Ruby." His voice confidently spoke up. She blinked, realizing she'd accidentally spoken her thought aloud.
"Probably." She said, a bit shakily.
"Maybe? Nah... Hell, maybe they'd extracted the location of the second fragment of Destruction and back at FOB already. My mom's with them, remember?" She could almost see him grinning right now as he spoke.
Minerva Arc, maiden name Minerva Magenoavia. Mother of eight, retired Huntsmen Captain of the VDF. A woman with a fiery temper and a laser handcannon to go with it, which she was not afraid to use. At all. 'Well, she says it's a magic staff of light, but there must be some principles behind it.' She mused. Ruby'd only met her briefly when their team had come back to Vale just before this mess started, the woman had came out of retirement immediately after the order to defend Vale was sounded... Needless to say, neither Jaune nor Jeanne was very keen of the reunion with their mother - especially when they both had, by all means, ran away from home to become huntsmen and women. To add in Yang and Weiss into the mix... She let out a soft laugh, something she hadn't done in days. "I'd pity any Grimm that try to get into their way."
"Me too. My ass is aching from the spanking for running away from home. My buttcheeks are still red a whole week after." A shudder was visible even through the radio. Then he snickered. "Well, at least I got off easy... for Jeanne to run away AFTER I did..."
Ruby bursted out chuckling.
And then froze when Garnet's polite cough came through the radio. "...You guys done with your little chatter yet?"
She heard Jaune choke, and she felt a deep heat crept up her cheeks. They were on an open channel?! "Right," she heaved out an embarassed cough. "We're done!"
"Why? We're only starting to get entertained over here!" Neptune chimed in a peeved tone, before bursting into a snicker. Just how many were listening in?
A chorus of opinions chimed in one by one, confirming that, yes, everyone was listening in. Jaune must have fainted by now given the silence on his end -or so ashamed he couldn't find his tongue - while Ruby was just cracking in schadenfreude.
Then a voice none were expecting to hear quietly coughed into a radio.
"I believe we've had our turn bullying our team strategist already," Ren said, pausing everybody. "Doesn't you have something to report, Neptune."
"Err... Right!" It was Neptune's turn to nervously cough. She could feel the instant awkward quiet over the radio as soon as the team's resident joker had stopped cracking his stupid puns. "The bus on the highway 2km north-east of the hospital. "It's good, Jaune. Full gas, just leaking a bit from the coolant, but no biggy. Just give us 15 minutes, me and Zhao can get this baby up and runnin' and we can high-tail our way back to the rendevouz!"
A relieved smile came to her face as Ruby heard the report.
First piece of good news in days.
Finally, they could get out of here-
Then the radio crackled with bad news.
A/N: Okay, so welcome to Memory Fragment! I know, it may seems like I'm lazy for not piercing this into a story - but well... I still can't, after one whole year from writing this up and it stagnating at the bottom of my archive. Stumbles upon it yesterday by accident, suddenly resparked interest in, well, maybe just polishing it one more time and such. Decided that maybe I should just upload them here to, partly to not lose them again, and partly so that I can... well... hopefully with your reviews and feedback I can finally see what's wrong and what's right with these works, so that I can improve my writing.
Thank you for reading! And hope that you review soon.
Cheerios! -P