Death Magnetic: The Day That Never Comes


Pyrrha was awake. She knew she was awake, but what she was seeing and hearing felt like a dream. She could feel a hospital bed underneath her. She had been moved. That meant someone had seen Blake. Now she could hear someone talking to her, but what they were saying was hard to understand. She hoped it wasn't anything important.

"I am so sorry, Pyrrha. This never should have happened to you. I understand what you are going through, and I so wish I could do something to stop it. You poor soul, tortured as you have been. How sad it makes me that there is no end I can see to this that is good for you. Forgive me, friend."

Pyrrha's eyes shot open. She glanced around herself for whoever had been speaking, but quickly realized that she had slipped out of consciousness again. Whoever they were, they had left. She couldn't remember seeing them, and their voice was unfamiliar. Now all that she saw was the caring faces of her team looking down at her, standing over her.

Jaune smiled, seeing she was awake. "There you are. I was starting to get worried."

Nora cheered from behind him. "Yeah! Team JNPR is back together!"

Ren rolled his eyes. "I don't think we ever really broke apart, Nora."

The excitable girl zipped over to the other side of the bed, poking Ren's cheek. "Of course we were. She was out of the room for a second. We had no idea if she'd ever be coming back to us."

Pyrrha groaned. "Ugh... what happened to Blake?"

Ren and Jaune exchanged glances. Jaune answered. "Pyrrha... Blake is dead."

Nora hopped around Ren, getting closer to Pyrrha's face. "And you were the closest to the scene of the crime when I found you. You know what that means."

Pyrrha closed her eyes, already knowing what was about to happen. She was found right beside Blake's lifeless body. She was the prime suspect, and as such was probably the prime suspect for the attack on Weiss as well. She figured it was going to catch up with her pretty quickly anyway.

And then Nora elaborated on her own. "That means you're our best witness! You and Blake were headed off to find the person who attacked Weiss, so we know that you must have found them! Then they, being an unscrupulous killer without any scruples, played on your better nature and attacked you and Blake, overpowering you and killing Blake! This monster is still free to roam the halls of Beacon, but perhaps they don't realize that we still have our best witness! Now, Pyrrha, who was it that attacked you?"

After so much obvious hard mental work, Pyrrha hated to disappoint Nora. She felt the girl deserved to know that only two people were involved. "Actually... I was attacked by Blake."

Jaune and Ren took a moment for this to sink in, but Nora continued to question her almost as if she had known that answer was coming. "And why would she do that? Perhaps the fact that she realized you were on to her? Weiss doesn't particularly like Faunus, and Blake happens to be just that, so no doubt that Weiss wasn't the nicest to Blake, right? Possibly a motive for Blake to attack Weiss? Maybe she thought you were on the verge of making that connection, so she decided to cover her tracks. Kill you and claim someone else, the pretend attacker, had done it when the two of you went to confront them?"

Pyrrha couldn't have thought of a better cover herself, so she just nodded. Before Nora could continue on her tirade, Pyrrha pushed herself up into a sitting position. "I'm feeling a lot better than... you know... before. I think I should go see Weiss now. I didn't get to before because I wanted to check on Jaune, but I at least need to see how she is."

Pulling herself up, she heard all of her teammates protest. They stopped as soon as they realized she was able to hold herself up. Jaune shook his head and sighed. Ren grunted and moved on. Nora just smiled brightly. Pyrrha walked past them and made her way to the door. She looked up, seeing a clock on the wall. It was getting really late.

"You guys should get back to the room. I won't be long."

She stepped out into the hallway, and the others followed her. Jaune and Ren just sighed and shrugged, and then moved off down the hall. Nora gleefully hopped after them. Pyrrha turned away and saw the silhouette of a man disappearing down at the other end of the hall. She looked back to her team questioningly, but all she got was a single worried look. Nora's face was one of worry in a way Pyrrha had never seen anyone before. Seeing it on Nora's face was enough to give her nightmares. If Nora was worried...

She shook it off. Nora was probably just showing some concern for her. She did just jump up out of a hospital bed, after all. She did wonder who the man was, but it didn't matter. He had gone, and now there was no one between her and the door to Weiss' room. She walked over to it slowly, reaching out for the doorknob.

The door opened, startling her. A woman that she didn't know, wearing a doctor's coat looked down at her. "Oh, are you a friend of Weiss?" Pyrrha nodded dumbly. The woman smiled kindly. "I'm so glad she has such caring friends. It is a bit late, but I'm sure it's alright if you go in to see her."

The doctor showed Pyrrha into the room. At the back was a door to another room, where Weiss was resting on a bed and surrounded by various machinery designed to keep her alive. The doctor opened the door for Pyrrha and then followed her in.

Laying motionless on the bed, Weiss' body was covered up to her shoulders by a large white sheet. A smaller sheet covered her neck and face. It was light enough material that it wouldn't suffocate her, but Pyrrha could see the shape of an oxygen mask under the sheet. The pale girl would live, no doubt, unless someone interfered with those machines.

She looked back to the doctor, pointing at the machinery with a questioning face. The doctor sighed. "Ah, yes. Well, most of that is just monitoring her vitals. Just don't touch that small one at the back. It's pumping oxygen into her lungs. I'm afraid that's all that's keeping her alive." She frowned. "The cybernetic replacements are, uh... well, she won't be waking up until after those are operating properly."

Pyrrha looked back at Weiss. "When are they coming?"

"Oh, they already arrived. The Schnee family is very quick with getting things like that mobilized."

"Then... that man I saw leaving just now... did he deliver them?"

The doctor shook her head. "No, you must have seen her father. He did just leave. He came here as soon as he heard what happened, and I came with him. I work directly for their family and took care of Weiss her whole life. No one knows her medical history any better than I do."

Pyrrha sighed inwardly. It was starting to seem like she would have to get rid of this woman as well. She was innocent, but unless there was a way to make it look like Weiss simply wasn't able to hold on any longer... Pyrrha couldn't protect anyone from inside a prison.

"So when is the operation going to take place?"

The doctor smiled weakly. "Oh, well, that- er..." Her expression changed suddenly. "Uh... the operation. That's, uh... tomorrow. Yeah, tomorrow morning."

Pyrrha wasn't sure what she thought about the doctor's strange response, but she decided to ignore it. She walked over to Weiss' side. "Well... thanks for your help. I would like... some time alone with her... if you don't mind."

She nodded. "Yes, alright." And then she backed out, adding just as the door shut, "I'll be right out here if you need anything."

Now alone with Weiss, Pyrrha felt it was safe to talk to the sleeping girl. "I hope you can hear me, Weiss. I want you to know that I wouldn't do this if I knew I could trust you to stay quiet. Seeing how you were so adamant about telling people that I tried to put a stop to your abuse, you probably still won't hold back. So I'm going to have to end this the easiest way possible. It will be painless, though. You won't feel a thing."

She turned to the machinery, sorting out which one she had been told was pumping the oxygen into Weiss lungs. She found the power switch and flicked it. The machine sparked, causing her to jump in fright. She glanced around in a panic, know that sparks and pure oxygen made bad roommates. When nothing exploded, she determined that no oxygen had leaked into the rest of the room. Relieved, but still not able to calm herself down, she backed towards the door.

The doctor's voice called in from the other room. "Are you alright in there? I thought I heard something-"

Pyrrha called back through the door. "I didn't hear anything. No, nothing's wrong in here." Glancing back at the door, Pyrrha spotted exactly what she needed. Unfortunately, there was no way to get it without alerting the doctor that something was wrong. No way, that is, that wasn't loud.

She opened the door, stepping out of the quiet little room where Weiss rested. Closing the door behind her, she turned to face the doctor. The woman smiled softly, obviously tired and more than ready to go to sleep. If she did do that exactly, then they might both leave the room alive, but Pyrrha didn't feel too sure that that was going to happen.

"Listen... I'm really sorry about all this. I really am."

She shook her head. "No, dear, it's not your fault. It's not like you're the one who did this to her."

Pyrrha looked at the floor. She could feel her face heating up, and she was starting to sweat. "Are you... I should be heading off to bed now. Are you going to turn in as well?" It did not escape her notice that her own voice was shaking.

Standing up and stretching, the woman yawned. "Oh, I really should. I just need to make sure Miss Schnee is comfortable before I go."

Pyrrha sighed in defeat. Her hand hovered over the handle on the door behind her. She channeled her aura through her hand and enveloped the piece of metal with it. In a flash of movement, the door handle tore out of its place and shot across the room. It hit the woman square on the forehead, and a fraction of a second later embedded itself in the wall behind her. The top of her head now gone, she collapsed onto the floor.

Pyrrha slumped forward a little, feeling drained. She closed her eyes and turned away from the mess. "I really am sorry about this." She closed the door behind her as she went out into the hallway, leaving everything as it was for someone else to find in the morning.

Not long after Pyrrha left, someone did find it. No one Pyrrha could have predicted, for sure, but they found the dead woman lying on the ground, nearly half her head covering the wall. A red optic sensor scanned across the room, sliding along the length of a dark metallic visor. Their mouth creased into a scowl.

Looking down, they held their hand up in front of their face. Looking over the smooth metal surface, they felt a burning anger rising inside them. They reached up and touched the tips of their fingers to their throat. They felt nothing on either surface. They just felt heavy. Heavy and cold. They knew who was responsible.

Two metal fists clenched in rage. Their own voice surprised them; flat and robotic. "Pyrrha... damn you. Damn you to hell."


I don't want this to continue on like this. I know it's wrong, but I can't stop it now. Some sort of demon of my own creation is stalking me now, but I'm more afraid of myself. Please, someone, stop me before I go too far again!

Next: All Nightmare Long