"The Tourniquet"
Ruby sat on Weiss's bed, staring at the rest of her team. She had just finished telling them about her conversation with Mannequin at the hospital. She left out the part where she considered the fact that she was weak.
"Did you tell security?" Weiss asked.
"I wasn't in a position to tell them." Ruby replied; not wanting to explain why.
"He didn't hurt you did he?" Yang asked.
"No, Yang, in fact the only thing he did was give me my cloak back; and he gave me a place to find him." she replied.
Yang, and Weiss continued their assault of questions while Blake was sitting patiently. When a lull in the questions came, she took her chance.
"Ruby, why does he appear to be so sentimental towards you?" Blake asked.
"He apparently looked up to my mother."
"That still doesn't explain why he told you where to find him."
"Even if it doesn't make sense at least its a start." Ruby said.
"So let me guess you want to track down the Mannequin using this?" Weiss asked; her face showing signs of agitation.
"Well, yeah."
"Absolutely not." Yang cut in.
"But I can't just ignore this, Yang."
"I don't care, Ruby, this is not a discussion; and if you try to go alone I will tie you to your bed." Yang said; a stern look on her face. Before the conversation could escalate, Blake, cut in again.
"Wait, Yang, let's think about this for a moment."
"You're not seriously helping her are you?" Yang asked; her eyes turning red.
"No, but he let Ruby go for a reason; and he didn't specifically say that she had to come alone." Blake said.
"Yeah, but it still could be a trap for us all."
"Why would he want to trap us all; he could just come here. Even, Weiss, can't argue with why that would be a waste of time." Everybody in the room looked at Weiss. She bit her lip.
"Blake, has a point. We're just sitting here with our thumbs up our asses. If the Mannequin wanted to come get us he could." Weiss said.
"It's kind of funny hearing you curse for a change, Weiss." Ruby mentioned.
"Well I am a lady, so I will curse like a lady." Weiss said; with dignified stance.
All three of them looked at Ruby.
"So what's the plan?" Yang asked; finally giving in. Ruby jumped up from her bed; and went over to the desk. She pulled out a map of Vale.
"Here is the area." she said; pointing at the Vale docks.
"So here's the plan." Ruby started telling the details of her plan to everyone to the very last detail. It took a day to get the plan in motion. The city was still under martial law; but it was oddly devoid of anything resembling the Mannequin's forces. Most considered this a good thing, however, Team RWBY was more frustrated by this than anything.
"He makes a big speech; and then doesn't say anything afterwards. Its kind of pissing me off." Yang said; between bites of her lunch.
"Maybe they're right in saying he left the city." Weiss responded.
"That doesn't make any sense though. Why would you kidnap an entire city and ransack it, without taking anything."
"Maybe he found what he was looking for." Ruby cut in.
"Weiss, what could he have gotten into last night?" Ruby asked.
"With the mainframe down he could have accessed anything. From our scrolls to the Police department data base; everything was open last night." she replied.
"Great and we can't even find him." Yang said, whilst putting her head on the table.
"That doesn't scare me, what scares me is the fact that he or someone else knows how to control a whole city without barely putting any troops on the ground." Blake said, suddenly taking interest in the conversation.
"You do have a point there." Weiss said, nervously rubbing the back of her neck. The rest of the lunch went on quietly. Ruby, however, left early because she wanted to stretch out her now casteless leg. She was a little stiff at first; but made her way to the dorm with relative ease. She started rummaging through her closet, looking for anything she could use as a weapon.
She finally found a black combat knife; and slipped it into the belt on her skirt. She then sat down and proceeded to daydream. Her thoughts went from back home, to her friends, and then to their mission they were about to take on. She got a disgruntled look on her face.
"You look like you're about to kill something." came a voice on her left. Weiss had come in; and started walking towards her.
"Yeah, well I'm just tired of having questions that can't be answered." Ruby said, meekly.
"I think we all are. I mean after this is all over I am going to need a very stiff drink." Weiss said. Ruby got a surprised expression on her face. "I didn't know you drank that heavily.
"Oh believe me, I don't. So what are you going to do about a weapon?" Weiss asked.
"I already got that covered!" Ruby said, revealing her knife. Weiss looked at the knife with a questioning look on her face.
" A-Ah, what's wrong." Ruby asked.
"It's kind of underwhelming compared to Crescent Rose." Weiss said.
"What I know it's not that big, but at least its something!" Ruby yelled. Weiss put her hand over her mouth trying to keep herself from laughing.
"Why are you laughing?" Ruby asked. Weiss put her hand over Ruby's mouth.
"Ruby, your innocence is showing." Weiss said; removing her hand. Ruby gave her a questioning look, and then her eyes went wide.
"Oh my God, that's not what I meant!" Ruby said; removing Weiss's hand from her mouth. Her cheeks steadily grew more red with each passing second.
"Don't worry I know." Weiss said.
The room fell silent as Ruby,and Weiss got lost in thought. Suddenly Ruby started undoing the clasps of her cloak.
"Hey Weiss, will you hold onto this for me." Ruby asked. Weiss was at a loss for words as the neatly folded red fabric was placed into her hands. The same cloak that was with Ruby when they met; was now in her hands away from its owner.
"Ruby, I-I don't understand."
"I already lost it once, and I've seen your closet. I know that it will never get lost there." Ruby brought Weiss into a gentle hug.
"I'm trusting you to not lose it." Weiss returned the hug.
"Don't worry I won't." Ruby smiled at this.
"However, if you do lose it I will burn all your close; and I will cut your hair." Ruby said. She could feel Weiss tense up.
"But, I just bought a new red dress." Weiss said. Ruby raised an eyebrow.
"Really, your dress is more important than your hair." her face deadpanning.
"Well I will admit that my hair is majestic, but it's really hard to take care of."
"You need to get your priorities straight."
The conversation ended with Weiss putting Ruby's cloak in the bottom recesses of her closet. After that Blake, and Yang returned and they prepared for their next class.
Later that night Team RWBY, snuck into the city. It appeared to be deserted it was so quiet, however, upon closer look one could see the heavy presence of the Atlysian military; and their androids. They sneaked through the back alleys in order to avoid the military, since there was a mandatory curfew.
"How far are we from the docks?" Yang asked.
"It's just a little further." Blake said.
All four of them exited the alley way; and came out on the street just outside of the docks.
"Well it's now or never." Ruby said
"Everyone still remember the plan?" Weiss asked.
"Yep." they responded. They entered the docks and went over to a crane on the farthest side of the harbor. Yang started climbing the crane, and Weiss and Blake went on either side of Ruby. They both had weapons that could stab effectively so they were on guard duty. Yang was in an ambush position on top of the crane, waiting to pounce.
What was very weird about the area was that there were no lights. The only illumination was the moon, and its minimal light. Ruby stepped under the crane; and waited for something to happen. Nothing happened however.
"Maybe he is gone." Blake said.
"No he is not." Ruby said.
"He's been here this whole time."
They all started to look around. Ruby took another step forward; and said, "Mannequin?" Suddenly the wind picked up and what appeared to be black smoke flew its way over to Ruby. It landed right in front of her and then materialized into the form of Mannequin.
"Nice to see you again, Ruby. Oh and I see you brought your team too." he said; gesturing to Blake and Weiss.
"Yeah I decided to bring them just in case." Ruby said.
"It is nice to see that you don't trust me."
"You did almost kill me."
"True."
Mannequin looked over Blake, and Weiss he made note of Blake's weapon, and then looked at Weiss's. His eyes got smaller the minute he noticed the type of weapon it was.
"Well ladies you won't be needing those." he said; whilst typing on the keypad on his arm. A loud hissing sound went through the air; and Blake and Weiss's weapon's deactivated. Gambol Shroud folded up and jammed; and the Dust inside Myrtenaster was drained of its energy.
Seeing this, Weiss, started running at Mannequin with Myrtenaster poised to stab him. He moved out of the way, using Dust and kicked her in the stomach. A large amount of saliva came out of her mouth as she fell to the ground. Mannequin picked up Myrtenaster and started poking his fingers with it. He then kicked Weiss back over to Ruby.
"Weiss, are you okay!" Ruby yelled.
"I've been better but I'll live." Weiss said; standing up.
"So you've been trained like I have, huh." Weiss said.
"You are very observant, Ms. Schnee. Now I have a question."
"How did know this would get through my armor?" He asked.
"General Ironwood, speculated that it would work." Ruby said.
"That man really needs to learn when not to give away information, it could really bite him in the ass one day." Mannequin said; putting Myrtenaster in his belt.
A loud metal clang came from above. He looked up and saw what appeared to be a yellow blob coming for him.
"You're going down you bastard!" Yang yelled as she readied her fist. However as she got closer to him she was tackled out of the air by an unknown assailant. She hit one of the steel supports of the crane and landed on the ground. The hooded man landed next to, Yang. He was wearing a black robe with red embroidery all over it. The cloak only went to about his knees, which revealed that he was barefoot.
He flexed his forearm and his reflex armor responded by producing a long blade. He held it to Yang's neck; and pulled his hood off. His head was wrapped up bandages; and the only parts that weren't covered were his yellow eyes; and his spiky white hair.
"No way." Blake said; backing off a little.
The man looked up at Blake; and immediately recognized her. He growled with a strange gurgling sound.
Mannequin looked at Blake.
"Apparently you two know each other. So would you please tell everyone else who this is?" Mannequin asked. Blake looked at her teammates; and then back to Mannequin.
"We called him Tourniquet." Blake stated.
The rest of Team RWBY looked at the man who was pointing the wrist blade at Yang. Tourniquet activated the wrist blade on his other arm and pointed it at Blake. He made another gurgling sound that ended in a roar.
"Apparently, you were supposed to die that night Blake. He let you live if you would remember." Mannequin translated.
Ruby looked at Blake, "What is he talking about?"
Blake looked at her teammates; and then closed her eyes, giving in.
"When the White Fang first started its attacks against the Schnee Dust Company, we operated out of remote bases in the Forever Fall forest." she started.
"We eventually started hearing of our outposts being massacred. At first we thought the government trying to exterminate us. However, all the clues we found suggested only one person did this; which was unheard of." She continued.
"They assembled a strike team to hunt down whoever this was. Luckily one of the security cameras we installed captured a picture of the attackers face. That was when we started calling him 'Tourniquet'." Blake paused for a moment to catch her breath.
"They assembled a strike team, consisting of me and six others. We were tasked to hunt down Tourniquet." Blake paused again. "Two days later it was just me left; and then he found me. I didn't fight him I didn't have the strength. 'I-I just dropped my weapon; and waited for what would come." Blake said; wiping her eyes.
"Then what happened." Ruby asked.
"He retracted his blades; and typed a sentence on his scroll that he had. It said, 'Thank you.' After that we never saw the Tourniquet again." Blake finished.
Suddenly they heard the sound of the blades retract; and turned toward Tourniquet. He helped Yang to her feet; and produced the same yellow scroll that Blake saw that day. He typed a sentence on it. "You were sent to attack, but you didn't. I didn't need to kill you." It read.
"The Tourniquet was sent by me to see if any of you were worth saving. You were the one who proved you were worthy of it." Mannequin said.
Yang moved back over to the rest of Team RWBY.
"So now that that's over why are you four doing here?" Mannequin asked.
"We needed to ask you some questions." Ruby said.
However, before the conversation continued a shot rang out. Tourniquet activated his blades; and destroyed the bullet that was flying towards Mannequin.
"Take cover now!" Ruby yelled out.
They all hid behind a barrier and waited to see what would happen.
"Is is the military?" Weiss asked.
"No it's the White Fang." Mannequin said; giving her back Myrtenaster.
"Team RWBY you either fight with us or against us. Now is the time to decide." Mannequin said.
A/N: So what will they choose, hmm? Thank you guys for reading this chapter, love you all. So I was thinking of moving this message to the top of the chapter from now on; because I would like to get the formalities out of the way. Well, I will see you in the next chapter FNDM!
