Chapter 2:
Push
Yang felt tired. Completely and utterly exhausted. Even after leaving the stadium and getting out of the eye of a frightened and judging public, she still couldn't shake the past few hours out of her head. The fight. The assault. The revelation.
The body.
The last Yang saw of Mercury, his body had been covered with a sheet and carried off on a stretcher by the paramedics. Then she had been led away by Atlas soldiers at gunpoint. Like a criminal. Like a murderer.
Maybe I am one…
They took her back to the dorms at Beacon and let her have a shower, under tight security. The blood came off her body easily enough. It hadn't even dried yet. But they'd confiscated her bloodstained clothes as evidence. They took Ember Celica as well. She was in pajamas the soldiers had retrieved from her team's room. Clean, recently washed, and bearing no bloodstains.
But the stain on her mind, on her heart, wouldn't wash away.
She felt naked. Exposed. Nothing left to cover her.
After the shower, Yang was taken back to her room. They pulled the curtains so no one could see in or out. They stripped the room of anything that could be used as a weapon or contact the outside world. They posted two Knights in the room, with more robots and soldiers outside in the hallway. Yang sat on the bed, waiting for someone to come along and tell her she was going to jail. She felt like she was already in prison.
And she was. In her heart.
Eventually, after what felt like a lifetime, her teammates walked into the room. None of them looked her in the eye as they sat on the makeshift bunk beds. Ruby sat down next to her sister, without a word, dead silent. Weiss and Blake sat together on the bed opposite. They were followed in by General Ironwood, the Atlas academy headmaster and military commander in charge of security for the Vytal Festival.
"Leave us." He said to the Knights. Obediently, the drones withdrew from the room.
The General stood in front of Yang, gazing intently upon the young student. As if he were searching for something. Something that would prove she wasn't hallucinating and had every right to retaliate against her assailant. That would prove she was telling the truth.
She guessed he didn't find it. She was all out of hope that anyone would believe her.
"I'm sorry," Ironwood said aloud. "But you've left us with no choice."
"But he attacked me!" Yang exclaimed, her weak-willed anger finally boiling to the surface.
"Video footage and millions of viewers," He replied as he paced the center of the room. "Say otherwise."
Yang's brief flash of rage quickly evaporated. She put her hear in her hands. Not because she was faced with the truth of her actions. Not because Ironwood, a stranger if not an authority figure, didn't believe her. But because none of her teammates, her friends, her sisters, stood up to say, "But Yang would never do that!"
Ironwood sighed and turned back to the three girls and the accused murderer.
"You all seem like good students." He began. "And the staff here at Beacon are fully aware that you would never lash out the way you did. Under normal circumstances. But I believe, and hope this to be, nothing more than the result of stress and adrenaline. When you're out on the battlefield, your judgement can become clouded in an instant. Sometimes you see things that simply aren't there. Even after the fight has passed."
Yang guess he would know, being a soldier and all. But that didn't change how she felt. Or what she saw, or thought she saw.
"But I wasn't-!" Yang tried in vain to protest.
"That's enough!" Ironwood firmly interjected, cutting her off with a voice of authority.
After the General regained his composure, he continued.
"The sad truth is, whether it was an accident, or a murder, it doesn't matter. The world saw you attack and kill an innocent student. They've already drawn their own conclusions. And it's my job to inform you that…"
This is it. Here it comes.
"You're disqualified, and you're being expelled from Beacon Academy."
Yang had no words. She didn't know what to say. She didn't know what to do. She didn't even know what to think. But she had no choice but to accept the consequences of her actions. Intentional or otherwise.
"No charges will be pressed." Ironwood said back to her as he began to leave the room. "But you are to leave the school grounds before midnight tonight. Pack your belongings. You're going home."
And with that, General Ironwood stepped out of the room. Yang could hear him quietly order his men and machines out of the hallway.
Is that it? No arrest? No prison? I just get to go home to Patch and live the rest of my life like this?
Yang looked around at the other members of team RWBY. Still not one of them would return her pleading, sorrowful gaze.
"You guys believe me…"
She started to ask the question. But she already knew the answer.
"Right?"
Silence.
No one said a word. None of the girls Yang had grown so attached and close to spoke up with kind or comforting words to say. No "Duh!" or "Of course!" passed their lips. Not even a cautious "I want to believe you."
Not a word.
"So that's it then?" Yang said with the last gram of anger she could drag up. "None of you? Nothing?"
She didn't even wait for a response. Yang got off the bed, leaving her little sister to breath shallowly and think in silence. She walked passed Weiss and Blake, who just sat there looking withdrawn and uncommitted to saying anything that indicated how they truly felt. She into the closet, changing into regular clothes, intent to get out of that room full of people who had already given up on her as a human being.
When Yang stepped back into the room, Ruby was laying up on her top bunk, facing toward the wall and away from her sister. Weiss and Blake hadn't even moved. And as she walked to the door to leave, no one said anything or even pretended to stop her from leaving.
"I'm going for a walk." Yang said, not looking back over her shoulder. "Come find me when you're ready to give a damn."
She stepped out into the hall, closing the door behind her. Leaving the friends, the family, she once had behind her.
As Yang turned to walk down the hall, she found the four members of team JNPR facing her. Pyrrha still looked like she had something on her mind, which was now coupled with Yang's apparent sociopathy. Ren and Nora looked genuinely concerned, but like everyone else, they kept their distance. And Jaune couldn't even bring his blond head up to face her.
Three people passed by her and entered their room across the hall from the one that had once been hers. First Pyrrha, followed by Nora, and finally Ren. More friends, pieces of her life, drifted away from her like dust in the wind.
Only Jaune remained standing with Yang in the hall.
"Are you going to be okay?" Jaune asked, now looking her straight in the eye as best her could, with a face that said he was trying to reach out and lend a hand to his friend.
"Yeah." Yang replied softly. "I just… need to figure some things out."
She couldn't understand it. How come, out of all the friends she was closest to, why was Jaune Arc of all people the only one who could manage to even say something to her? She had picked on him, made fun of him, and even generally avoided him throughout the school year. She had never seriously tried to hurt him, but she felt responsible all the same. Jaune must have been a greatly empathetic person to care where so many others just walked away.
But even that kind of empathy only went so far.
Yang walked past him, leaving quite possibly the only friend she had left behind her as well.
"Hey Jaune?" Yang said, stopping to look back past her long blond hair. "Something's bothering Pyrrha. I think you should talk to her. But not as a friend. She needs you. She wants you. She's been waiting for a long time now."
Jaune looked stunned for a moment, before more sadness overrode his surprise. He turned to his door for a wistful moment, realization finally dawning on him as months of clues began to piece themselves together in his head. After a few seconds, he looked away and back down the hall.
But Yang was already gone.
Yang aimlessly strolled around the Beacon grounds, trying to walk on her thoughts. Hoping to run into someone who cared enough to try and comfort her. Hoping that someone, anyone, would come find her and take her away from all the pain and sadness building up on the campus.
But no one ever came.
Is this why she left?
Yang's thoughts drifted to her mother. Her biological mother. Not Ruby's mom, Summer Rose, who was gone now too. Raven Branwen. Uncle Qrow's sister. Her father Taiyang's first love. She had left him and their daughter when Yang was very young. Yang didn't have memories of what she looked or sounded like. She'd only seen her mother in person once. When she'd saved her daughter from one of Roman Torchwick's henchmen a few months ago.
Is that why Mom left me? Did she see that in me?
Did she know I'd become a killer?
It never even occurred to Yang that she may have murderous tendencies. She was a fighter, a warrior, and she had one hell of a temper. Her Semblance was based on her rage, her fury giving Yang an advantage on the battlefield. The angrier she got, the harder she fought, the more powerful she became in combat.
And she didn't become a Huntress because she wanted to be a hero. Yang had told her team at Mt. Glenn that she was just a thrill seeker. That she was in it for the adventure, the adrenaline rush.
What if I just enjoy fighting? What if I'm just bloodthirsty? What if I got into this just so I could…
Kill.
Looking back, Yang tried to think if she had ever killed anyone by accident. She had killed plenty of Grimm before, but she tried to remember if she had ever unintentionally taken another human life before. She had beat up goons in Junior's night club. She had fought White Fang soldiers working for Torchwick. She'd punched and blasted her way through dozens of people. Sometimes to the point where they couldn't have survived.
But I never went back to see if any of them died.
What if I just don't care?
Yang walked alone, mired in her downward spiral of self-recrimination. At some point in her wandering, she had entered the massive plaza that surrounded the Vale Cross Continental Transit tower, which also doubled as Headmaster Ozpin's offices in Beacon Tower. Not many people were about, with the sun going down and a murderer let loose on the streets. Yang had been wondering if anyone would try to come and get revenge for Mercury at some point.
Deep down, she wanted them to. She didn't want to live with the pain and the regret as she watched her entire life fall apart around her.
I've been abandoned. Again. But this time, it's not just my mother. It's everyone I know.
Yang wondered what her father was doing right now. If he was trying to call her. She'd left her Scroll back in her room. He hadn't tried to call earlier. Maybe he was on a mission somewhere. Maybe he didn't even know what happened yet.
Yang would likely never know.
She debated with herself on what to do. She couldn't stay at the school anymore, with or without the expulsion. She could go home, to their family house on the island of Patch. But eventually, she'd have to see Ruby again. Yang couldn't bear to live with a sister that thought of her as one of the monsters they used to fight together.
What if I just… ran away? I'm pretty much a criminal now. I've got street smarts. Maybe I can go somewhere, start a new life. Somewhere else. Anywhere else.
But she knew the nightmares would never go away.
Or what if I just end it?
Yang looked down that dark road, considered it for a more than a moment, but somehow managed to turn back.
No. I can't go just yet. I can start over. Be someone else. I can dye my hair. I can go to another city, another kingdom. I can get a job bartending or something. I can make a life. Not a better one. Maybe not even a good one. But a life.
She stopped under one of the trees that was scattered across the park at the base of the tower. She didn't want to run anywhere. And she didn't have anywhere to run to.
I don't know what to do.
Out of the corner of her eye, Yang saw Jaune and Pyrrha strolling around. They were holding each other's hands, looking like a completely normal couple who didn't have a combat-junkie friend who just killed someone. Pyrrha was smiling, unburdened and happy to finally be with the guy she'd been patiently waiting for. And Jaune seemed to be filling the role of comforting boyfriend just fine.
Well, that was fast. The loser and the champion. Look at you Xiao Long. Making the impossible possible.
Yang smiled for the first time in hours, happy that she had at least brought someone a little sunshine before she left for… wherever she was going.
At least they have a future together.
And then a second sun appeared on the horizon.
