A/N: I like summer, summer is nice. I don't like wisdom teeth, they are not nice. Those two sentences basically explain the timing of this chapter. Have a thing.
Chapter 9:
(Neptune)
Focusing a little less on the attractive amazonian and a little more on not falling to a painful death would be nice. The rest of his mind prodded while he was perched on the uncomfortably small ledge outside of Team Penumbra's window.
Sun had been badgering him for almost a week now about getting to meet his not-girlfriend, and he'd finally agreed to with some trepidation, if only to see what the fuss was about. He'd considered ignoring his partner altogether as last time he had agreed to doing something like this he had been the one on the receiving end of an open handed 'no thank you'. Had he known that Sun would insist on the window route he never even would have considered it.
"Okay, I can understand how Sun got up here, but how did you manage it?" The Mistralian girl said with a mixed look of confusion and curiosity.
"I have my ways," Neptune responded evenly. "And not to impose, but would it be alright for me to come in? We're... fairly high up at the moment."
A few short, relieving seconds later and Neptune had successfully amended one of life choices.
Sun had started a conversation, not even offering a hand to his tailless teammate. "So are we going after that Torchwi-"
"No," Pyrrha cut him off. "I am going to call in some favors from Mistral and Blake is going to spy on a White Fang rally to figure out what they're up to."
"Sorry Sun, but the fewer people involved in this the better," Blake said with a slight shrug.
"Psshhh, that's a bunch of baloney, you should always drag friends pointlessly into things. Take Neptune, I got him to climb up an entire building the hard way and he's still alive," the monkey said unrepentantly.
Neptune leaned towards his teammate. "That's not really helping your case," he said in a stage whisper.
Sun continued, pretending not to have heard. "Besides, won't it be safer if you guys have some backup? Like I could totally follow Blake into the rally and Neptune could help you gather information."
Blake looked like she was going to protest further, but Pyrrha put a hand on her shoulder. "Sun, you were at the docks, you know how bad this could get. Are you sure you want to help? And Neptune, I'm inclined to make you stay here regardless but I get the feeling you would just tail me whether I wanted you too or not."
"What?! Bu-" Sun slapped a hand over Neptune's mouth.
"Yeah you know him, what a creeper. So does that mean we're coming with?" The Faunus said cheekily, still holding his hand over his struggling teammate's mouth.
Blake looked back at her team leader, a silent message passing between them before she sighed and returned her gaze to the two boys in front of her. "Fine."
Sun gave a whoop of victory. Neptune wasn't sure if he'd just won or lost.
Creeper, as if. But if she's genuinely okay with me following, then who am I to disagree?
(Blake)
Guess it was too much to hope that no one would catch on. She thought with a muffled sigh to herself.
She and Pyrrha had agreed to keep Ruby and Nora out of it to the best of their abilities. While they both believed their teammates would be more than willing to help, information gathering usually warranted a more… delicate touch.
So it was with those thoughts that she went about searching the warehouse district with Sun to find the White Fang meeting place. It was a bit tricky; normally, a prospective member would be snatched up at one of the many Faunus centric hangouts around Vale if they looked promising and/or willing, but Blake's face was just well known enough after the Docks incident that she couldn't try that and risk someone recognizing her. So she searched the old fashioned way and kept an eye open for the claw marks the White Fang often used to mark their territory.
It was well into the evening before she hit paydirt.
She made a halting gesture to Sun before he wandered out from the corner where they were hiding. She pulled two White Fang grunt masks out of her carrying bag (that was absolutely not a combat purse) and passed one to Sun.
"Follow my lead, Don't. Say. Anything." Blake said as she affixed her own mask and removed her bow. Sun only gave an uncharacteristically grim nod as he donned his own mask.
She walked out from behind the corner and did a very convincing job of looking like the picture perfect nervous recruit. She approached the elderly bear Faunus standing next to the entrance and gestured questioningly to the door. She only got an appraising look and a nod in response. Blake walked in and Sun followed her, giving a nervous wave to the doorman that he didn't even have to fake.
The Ex-White Fang member had to resist the cringe at what she saw, not that it would have mattered. There were a LOT of Faunus in the warehouse, at least a third of which were new recruits still dressed in their day clothes. A rough estimate gave almost two hundred Faunus present.
She and Sun moved to the back of the actively growing crowd of recruits. It was another few minutes of tense waiting before the speaker started.
"Thank you all for coming here tonight," he said in a rough, slightly accented voice from underneath a full-faced lieutenant mask. "For those of you who are new, some introductions are in order. Do not be alarmed - he is the key to our goals," he had to add as the crowd murmured with hostility when Roman Torchwick stepped forward.
Blake fought hard to keep her hand away from Gambol Shroud. As tempting as it was to put a bullet between his eyes from the back of a crowd, his Aura would save him if his reflexes didn't.
"We're working with humans?!" Someone asked angrily from near the front.
"Close, but no cigar, rambo," Torchwick said in an out-of-place comedic tone. "Allow me to explain. As you can plainly see, humans are just the worst. So it makes sense why you might want us, well, eradicated. But before you start shipping us all of to our own little Menagerie, I might be able to provide you with some... assistance, shall we say, in removing our common enemies. Just look at our cities, the government, the military, the shops, even the schools, what have they done for you other than push you down so they can climb higher? I doubt I need to tell you. After all, I doubt any of you came to hear about the oppression you been facing. Instead let me tell you a little more about this," he snapped his fingers and the curtain backing the stage fell away.
Holy shit.
A brand-new Atlesian Paladin-290 covered head to toe in Faunus war paint stood in all of it's glory at the end of the warehouse, larger than the doors it would have had to take to get in.
"How...?" Blake asked more to herself than anyone. She kept close tabs on any possible military hardware she might encounter in the field, but this particular model wasn't supposed to even be field-tested yet.
"This is the top-of-the-line defense system designed by Atlas to guard our borders against all the big bad monsters out there. Thanks to the connections that I can make available to all of you, I managed to snag a few before they started circulation so they might be used to get rid of the problems inside our borders first. So for those who want to join our brothers at Mountain Glenn so we can begin the revolution in earnest, this is what I can do for you. Any more questions?" He finished with an unsettling grin.
Deciding they had seen enough, the two crowd spies started drifting towards the nearest exit. Until the lieutenant from earlier called the recruits forward, and they had to start moving with the crowd. Damn, we have to get out of here, but we can't let Roman see us. Maybe we could-
"He sees us," Sun hissed out of the corner of his mouth. Blake looked at the stage and saw Roman throw his cigar down and glare at them before he moved to the nearest grunt.
Dammit! There goes the stealthy approach, er- wait a minute. Perfect. "Head for the window." Blake responded as she pulled out Gambol Shroud and sent several shots into the unguarded circuit breaker on the wall.
If the reactions of humans were anything to go by, Faunus really did have superb night-vision. In all honesty it was more like turning color off than genuinely reducing visibility. Blake only spared a half-moment to be grateful for her genetic boon after the lights went out before she bounded for the window.
She and Sun went crashing out and immediately started sprinting away from the rally sight as fast as they could before Torchwick could scramble anyone to pursue them. I doubt we have to worry about the mech either, it was too big to fit through the doors so it would have to-
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of shattering concrete as the warehouse wall exploded outwards and the Paladin gave chase. Son of a-
"Please tell me you have some kind of plan!" Sun yelled frantically as they bounded away from the remarkably agile armor.
"Working on it!" Was all she yelled back as she dialed Pyrrha. Please pick up.
(Pyrrha)
Neptune had thankfully proven fairly easy to herd. In a fit of paranoia, Pyrrha had decided to stake out in Vale proper, just in case Blake found herself in need of backup.
At the moment, she was typing away on her scroll while they killed time in a public park. "Hey Helen. I'm sorry about this being so abrupt, but it looks like I'm going to need to call in that favor you owe me." After spending far too long trying to make the message sound serious, causal, important, friendly, and polite, she eventually gave up and sent it anyways.
Helen had been one of the few people she had been able to call 'friend' back in Mistral, even if she too had gone the way of 'not holding her back'. The favor being called in related to Helen almost getting caught snooping through her dad's computer; Pyrrha had taken the flak so her friend wouldn't get in trouble.
Neptune looked like he wanted to say something, but Pyrrha was more focused on her scroll in case Helen (or Blake) pinged her.
"So after you're done with what you're doing, why don-" he stopped as her scroll buzzed and she held up a hand.
"Sorry," she half apologized as she opened the message. "Hey Pyrrha, haven't heard from you in a while. What do you need?"
She typed her response as Neptune resumed people watching. "Sorry about the short notice, but I'm going to need this to stay somewhat quiet. Any chance you could send me the shipping logs for major shipments to Vale for the last few months?" She was counting on the fact that Helen had honed her talent as a snoop instead of abandoning it. There wasn't much information she could ask Helen to look for, but if the White Fang were importing anything, they would have to import it en mass. Any shipment of armaments or the like big enough to equip even a small fighting force would stick out like a sore thumb (or that was the plan at least).
It took just enough time for Pyrrha to start imagining all of the poor ways this could play out for her scroll to buzz again. "Shouldn't be too hard, dad's on a business trip and mom's shopping, I'll see what I can do."
The champion gave a small sigh of relief, "Thanks". Her old friend's dad was the CEO of Thousand Ships Transport, so it should be a relatively trivial matter for her to find what the shield user needed.
"Sorry Neptune, what were you saying?" She asked after having gotten the response.
"Wuh? Oh, I was just wondering if we were going to hang out here all day, it seems like a kinda public place for..." he trailed off, gesturing at the scroll in her hand.
She pursed her lips, he had something of a point. "We can head to the library if you like, we're going to have to look over what she sends us and I don't want to head back to Beacon until Blake sounds off."
He looked like he wanted to say something else, but once again her scroll buzzed and cut him off. That girl works fast.
"I think I'm starting to see why this caught your attention. There's a LOT of classified hardware finding its way into Vale from Atlas and Mistral's sending a worrying number of guns. The logs should be coming through now." The redhead was not kept waiting. It was a short moment before the device in her hand buzzed for several long seconds from the flood of data. A quick glance through one of the files corroborated Helen's message.
"Find anything?" Neptune asked, noticing her slightly worried expression.
"More than I had hoped, but it looks pretty bad." the spartan said while frowning and saving everything to her scroll.
"Well, at least it's something. Where to now?" Neptune asked.
Pyrrha pursed her lips. Blake said that we should just meet up back at school, but... "No, I'd rather be too paranoid than not enough. Let's wait in town until she's done."
"Alright, fair enough," Neptune acquiesced. There was a moment of silence. "So I heard there's this movie out that's supposed pretty good."
One of Pyrrha's eyebrows rose so high it would have vanished if her hair weren't in it usual ponytail.
"Okay okay, I'm sorry. I'll shut up now."
They wound up crashing at the pubic library anyways to get a headstart before Blake (hopefully) sounded the all clear. It was a few hours before Pyrrha's scroll started buzzing again.
"Blake's calling, could you pack up?" She asked as she picked up her scroll and moved for the door.
"Yeah, sure," he responded with a long stretch.
The team leader waited until she was outside to answer. "Hey Blake, did you find wha-"
"Pyrrha! They found us, we need -HEEEELLLLP!" The last part sounded like Sun shouting.
She was only stunned for a second before she caught up with the words. "Where are you?" She asked urgently.
"Downtown, follow the explosions! Hurr-" The line abruptly cut out and a split second later Pyrrha heard an explosion several blocks away. The ever inappropriate corner of her mind remarked how cliché that was as she pulled out her shield and magnetized it.
She had been practicing shield surfing for two main reasons. The first was that it was faster than running with her Semblance and could serve as emergency transportation. The second was that it was really fun. All the same, she was glad that she had trained at all as she skated over the concrete and towards the sound as fast as she dared.
It took her a surprisingly short time to follow the cracked pavement and smashed walls leaving a trail through downtown. Another explosion reminded her of the time pressure she was facing and she was skating down the path of destruction once again, looking for her partner. Less than a minute later, she found her.
Sun and Blake were doing their level best to not get incinerated by the absurdly large robot that was throwing plasma around like free candy. The shopping center parking lot they had been fighting in was looking significantly worse for wear, boasting several smoking craters and smashed cars courtesy of being used as impromptu cover.
Not wanting to distract her partner and hoping to get the advantage of surprise, Pyrrha used her momentum and springboarded off of one of the smouldering cars so she could come down on top of the mech. Her plan looked like it would work until a small camera on the back pivoted to face her and focused. She had just enough time to bring her shield up before a two-ton backhand relocated her to the other side of the parking lot.
Of course it has blind spot cameras, it was designed in Atlas. I should still be able to deal with that as long as I can get close enough. She thought as she pried herself out of yet another smashed car. Looking up to evaluate the situation, she yanked her shield forward to deflect a bolt of plasma. Hearing another series of discharges from the robot, she didn't stick around and vaulted off of the car just in time to watch it fragment underneath her. Rule #13, Ranged Opponents. Don't let them draw a bead. She chastised herself for staying still. Closing as much distance as she safely could, she moved back towards Blake and Sun and started trying concoct a plan. I can't just sneak up on it and I'm not fast enough to approach otherwise, Sun can't use his Semblance or he'll get hit, and Blake can't really hurt it on her own. But I can hurt it, Sun can distract it, and Blake can get to it so... that might work. I'll need to tell them the plan first. That thought in mind she darted behind a heavy looking wreck and flooded it with her Semblance. After that was done she grabbed it by the bumper so as to look like she was brute lifting it and wound up for a hammer throw. The war machine had been occupied by Blake's peppering from Gambol Shroud, but turned to face the redhead just in time to take a pickup to the face.
While it was reeling from two tons of instant karma, Pyrrha dashed over to the other two. "Blake, I'm going to try to pry it open, see what you can do to what's underneath. Sun, can you get it to focus on you for a moment?" Getting a nod from both of them, she dashed away and crouched behind another car.
The metal giant finally stood back up, cameras scanning. Upon spotting the two glowing clones bounding for it, it fired on Sun, who was standing further back with his eyes closed in focus. The first clone leapt straight up and took the full brunt of the hit, the second followed through with a tackle and stumbled the Paladin. The moment its foot left the ground to re-balance, Pyrrha lept forward and stabbed Miló as far as she could into the camera on its back. Using her impromptu handhold, she tried to magnetize the metal, only to feel her Semblance running off like water on wax. EMP shielding? Great, guess I'm going to have to force this. Changing tacts and re-gripping the flailing machine, she locked down a small lever on her shield, causing dozens of small triangular blades to appear around the edge, giving Akoúọ a buzzsaw like profile, a gift from Jaune a few months ago after she'd started his tutoring. It was a bit unfortunate, she couldn't use it in spars and freshmen rarely went Grimm hunting so she almost never got to use it. Grateful all the sasm, she pumped some Aura into her shield and started rotating it as fast as she could before she applied it to the metal with a spray of sparks. Pyrrha was grateful for the gift all the same as she could feel the depth of the groove she was gouging deepening by the second. The Paladin renewed its flailing and very nearly threw the champion off, forcing her to stick to its back with her ferrous clothing. After several seconds of continued sawing, the robot gave up on shaking and very nearly crushed Pyrrha as it leapt upwards and drove its angular back several feet into the ground. She leapt away before it landed, but was knocked off balance by the impact.
When she found her way back to her feet and saw that the bulky suit was doing a surprisingly funny turtle impression, having effectively speared itself in place. Shunting the humor away and focusing, the Mistralian took a chance and leapt forward again, planting her feet on what appeared to be the cockpit. Thankfully, her guess proved accurate in that the firing angle on the main guns was too narrow to remove her. Unfortunately, she was almost crushed by a large, mechanical hand that mecha shifted from one of the cannons; Blake's well timed tackle was all that got her out of the way fast enough.
"Dust, Pyrrha, be careful!" Blake said with an antagonized expression.
Her leader shot her an apologetic look, before she glanced back at the persistent robot as if finally pried itself off of the ground. Well that plan didn't work, now what? There was a fairly deep groove in the rearmost part of the armor, but that was the only significant mark anyone had left on it. Pyrrha had another idea that was almost perfect, other than violating Rule #3 (never assume your opponent is stupid). Roman had proven a good duelist, but less so as a tactician, so she ran with it anyways.
"Sun, do that again! Blake, guard him!" Was all she could say before she had to dodge a renewed onslaught. Thankfully, despite their dubious expressions, they obeyed. Sun spawned another two clones and Blake moved to cover him. The construct responded with a burst of Stinger Missiles. One well placed explosive clone and two Carrying Strikes reduced the swarm to smoke. Pyrrha tackled the Paladin in the same moment the other clone did, taking advantage of the same blind spot she'd made earlier and changing her timing to avoid another forced relocation.
Then Torchwick did exactly what she hoped he would do, and made the prototype fall backwards, driving a javelin-form Miló through the marr she had made earlier all the way up to the butt of the spear when it hit the ground. There was a painfully loud grinding, the sound of shearing metal, and the unmistakable drone of a generator powering down as the war machine finally went still. They all held their ground for a few seconds, not wanting to risk an auxiliary fuel cell or the like.
After a few tense moments, a thought occurred to Pyrrha and she tapped the nearest, largest car wreck after prying her somewhat damages weapon loose. A pulse of her Semblance and she levitated the the former vehicle onto the downed robot. She continued the work with several other vehicles while the Faunus gave her odd looks.
"They have an illusionist working for them and I don't want him crawling out or pulling an escape pod, so I'm making sure he stays put until the police arrive. Speaking of, Blake could you-"
There was no warning, just gunfire, engines, and the sound of tinkling glass.
The Bullhead broke out from behind the illusion that had been hiding it with a vengeance, chain guns tearing into the group. Pyrrha was lucky enough to still have her shield in hand on the side of the threat, deflecting a few bullets away from her relatively vulnerable side, though she still suffered a grazing hit to her calf and arm and took a hit that ricocheted off of her circlet, stunning her. Sun reacted quickly and tried to deflect what he couldn't dodge, but took several hits to his chest before he stumbled behind a car where he collapsed with a muffled cry. Blake took it worst. She had her back to where the ship appeared and only turned around just fast enough to take the brunt of the machine gun. Pyrrha had curled behind her shield with unsettling familiarity against the vehicle mounted weapon, but in her abruptly concussed state she didn't think to cover her teammate until she saw Blake's head snap backward and her body crumple like a puppet with cut strings.
"Blake!" She screamed as she dashed to her partner's prone form to cover her as best she was able. As the hail of lead bore down on Akoúọ, Pyrrha shook her daze off and started to realize what she had just seen. The part of Pyrrha that didn't shut down in cold horror started seeing red.
No one. Hurts. My. Team.
She started putting together a plan of action after reluctantly acknowledging that a front charge would just get her and Blake killed.
Guns like that don't need to reload, but they do need to cool down. If the pilot, probably the illusionist or the grunt who ferries her around, doesn't let up soon then the mechanisms will stop him automatically. Until then, I need to get ready to act when I get an opportunity.
She magnetized her gear as strongly as she dared, just in time for the Bullhead's guns to clank to a halt as the red hot metal hissed and cooled. She didn't hesitate. Erupting forward fast enough to rival Ruby, she hurled the still bladed Akoúọ forward as hard as she could muster at the junction between the left engine and wing, severing it completely. She had angled her own trajectory to put her above the body of the aircraft, where she impaled it with Miló so she could slow down and plant her feet on the falling aircraft.
This machine didn't have EMP shielding, so she dumped most of the rest of her available Aura into it and brought it to the ground as fast she was able. The impact could be heard all the way back at Beacon at the asphalt gave out completely and the earth underneath parted. It felt like the collision took far longer to halt than it should have as the crumpling metal finally stopped.
The bleeding Mistralian stood from her spot on top of the twisted wreck and jumped out of the crater, dimly realizing how difficult that was from her lack of energy and the sheer depth of the pit.
I used too much force, that was wasteful. Anyways, the threat's gone, now I need to go make sure Blake is okay and call an ambula- wait. Her eyes caught a small trail of red dots, starting a little bit away from the crash and leading... to an empty parking space? No they go a little further, to... wait...
She could tell her brain was slowing down from shock and acute Aura exhaustion, but even she could connect these little red dots. Without wasting another moment, she hefted Miló and threw it at the end of the line the specks were drawing. The now satisfying sound of breaking glass met her ears as a short girl with brown and pink hair stumbled out of the way just fast enough to avoid getting completely impaled, though still got a gash on her arm to add to the large one on her leg. The look she sent back at Pyrrha was almost as dark as the one Pyrrha was giving her. The spartan caught a glimpse of two fully pink irises before a ripple of light hid the illusionist from view once more.
Pyrrha tried to call her blade back, but found that her strength, both physical and spiritual, were failing. With one final heave of will, she pulled out her scroll and started dialing emergency services, trying and failing to keep her fingers from shaking. On the fourth try, her ears picked up the sound of approaching sirens. Her barely functioning mind considered that good enough; she was unconscious before she hit the ground.
(Neptune)
"Dammit Sun, pick up your scroll. I keep hearing explosions and I swear if you pissed off the cops and got the girls involved our headmaster will hear about it," he muttered irritably as he re-dialed yet again.
(Ruby)
Today had been a good day overall. Classes had been easy, homework even more so, and she even managed to beat Yang twice in a row in Four Kingdoms. She had been going for gold and had her sister and Nora on the ropes for a third game running when the grumpy old librarian had ruined her fun and closed the library.
"I swear to all that is mighty in this world I will never summon another Nevermore," the blonde muttered petulantly. Then her eyes lit up and Ruby braced herself, "Never more Nevermore!" Her half sister punned far too enthusiastically.
"That's what you get for playing Mistraaaaaal," Ruby sing-songed to her sibling, rubbing her smugness in just a little further. Yang looked like she was about to retort when Ruby's scroll started chirping. She fished it out of her belt. Who's calling at this hour? She wondered as she oriented the screen. She nearly dropped the device when she recognized Ozpin's face on the ID.
"Hello?" She said as she answered the call.
"Ms. Rose, is Ms. Valkyrie with you?" He said in a surprisingly serious tone.
"Uh, yes. She's right here actually. Do you need to talk to her?" She affirmed, still not sure what was going on.
"No, both of you meet me at the air docks ASAP, I'll have your gear air-dropped. A situation has come up regarding your teammates. I'll explain the rest on the way." With that, the call ended and the screen went dark.
The prodigy stood in absolute surprise for only a moment before her combat honed reflexes took hold. "We need to get to the air docks, now. Yang, you should come too."
Ruby took a quiet moment to be grateful she knew their locker codes as she punched in their coordinates and called in a locker drop. They reached the idling dustplane just as their gear landed. A quick moment later and all three girls were armed to the teeth. One of the crewmen ushered them on board where they found Ozpin talking into his scroll with a rapid, serious tone.
"I understand you haven't surveyed the whole scene yet, officer. I am asking you if my students are stable." Something apologetic responded from the slate and Ozpin looked for a brief moment like he wanted to defenestrate the device. "Then please figure out with all due haste," he glanced up and saw the students. "Call me back as soon as you have a report," he ended the call before approached the three and started explaining the situation.
Pyrrha and Blake had been found in critical condition in a commercial district parking lot, along with a severely injured Sun Wukong, a disabled Paladin-290 containing an irate (and contained) Roman Torchwick, a White Fang Bullhead that looked like it had fallen out of low orbit, and enough property damage to make even the headmaster cringe.
The three freshmen stood there in stunned silence as Ozpin re-dialed the officers at the scene to 'politely' ask them what was taking so long. They hardly dared to move until the ship dropped them off a few blocks away from the scene, and even then Ruby couldn't quite put together everything she'd been told together until she saw the war zone that had been made.
"Holy..." her elder sibling trailed off at the sight of the path of destruction. Even her own rampages had never cause more than a third as much damage.
"That is a big robot," Nora added, having been uncharacteristically quiet. Ruby nodded in agreement. The cannons alone were larger than most trucks.
Noticing Ozpin was no longer present, the brown haired girl looked around and spotted the headmaster conversing with someone important looking and realized that she hadn't actually seen either of her teammates. Passingly wondering why her mind was moving so slowly, she approached the spectacled man and waited for an opportunity to ask.
"Are they being taken care of?" Ozpin sounded like he was enunciating a little more carefully than he normally would.
"Yes. Blake Belladonna and Pyrrha Nikos have been moved to Crown Hospital and Sun Wukong is being given all available treatment on-site so we can get a statement," the man who looked like the sheriff responded concisely.
Well that answers that. Ruby moved back to the other two who were still staring slack-jawed at the smoking parking lot. "Uh, Sun's still here, but Blake and Pyrrha have been moved to Crown Hospital. Should we..."
"I'll stay with Sun. You two go take care of your team," Yang responded, making the command decision Ruby had been hoping for.
Ruby shot her a thankful look. "Nora, want to piggyback?" It would be faster and Nora always enjoyed high speed human chariot racing. One Nora-grade glomp later and the two were off.
Ruby was silently grateful that her full running speed made too much wind noise for them to talk, it gave her a chance to actually put her head together. Is this what they've been doing all day? Why didn't they tell us? They brought Sun... Or maybe Sun just followed them? He might do something like that. I hope they're okay. Getting fewer thoughts organized than she had hoped, she slowed to a stop in front of Vale's biggest hospital and deposited her partner before walking in.
"Excuse me, could we get the room numbers for Blake Belladonna and Pyrrha Nikos?" She asked the receptionist.
"I'm afraid we haven't admitted anyone by those names Miss..." The desk worker trailed off.
Ruby paused for a moment before she pulled out her Beacon ID. "Ruby Rose, Huntress in training, level 2 security clearance, and Beacon Academy team member."
The short woman behind the terminal looked surprised for a second before tapping a few key and looking away from her screen. "Marie, can you cover for me for a minute?" A response of, 'Sure.' and she stood up. "Right this way."
Ruby tried not to note the fact that they had passed a sign labeled 'ICU'.
After finally stopping outside one of the many doors, their escort eyed the papers outside and peered in. She gestured to someone in the room and a moment later a man with tired eyes and greying hair exited. "Hunter team partners, they have clearance," was all she said before she headed back to her desk.
The man sighed before he looked at the two girls. "Since I can already guess why both of you are here, let me say that both of your teammates are alive and prognoses are positive. I expect them both to recover fully in time."
Ruby let out a breath she wasn't aware she had been holding, out of the corner of her eye she saw Nora do the same.
"Unfortunately, Ms. Belladonna is undergoing treatment for a hairline skull fracture as well as several other moderate and mild injuries, mostly including burns, deep tissue bruising, and bullet wounds. Ms. Nikos is doing a little better with only Aura shielded bullet trauma, a minor concussion, and critical Aura exhaustion," he said, listing off injuries that made Ruby pull the air right back in between her teeth. "For most people, injuries like that would prompt me to leave them in the ER, but since both of them have active and trained Auras, I would be surprised if we need to keep them here for more than a few days. At the moment, both of them are unconscious and we can't let you see Ms. Belladonna besides, but Ms. Nikos should be waking up soon after Healer Everens is done," his piece said, the doctor reentered the room, muttered something to the glowing man by the bed, and went back to do his doctor thing elsewhere.
N and R of Penumbra walked into the hospital room and approached the bed where their team leader lay.
"Should only be another minute or so," the glowing man by the bed said, drawing their attention.
"Oh, thank you Mr..." Ruby responded, unable to make a name tag out through the strange golden ripples the man was giving off.
"Everens, resident Healer of Crown Hospital," he responded. "I should also tell you, to maximize the number of patients I can heal, I will only be treating Ms. Nikos until she's awake. Her Aura should handle things from there, but she'll be tender for a few days yet."
Ruby just nodded in response, starting to get a little frustrated with how slow her mind was moving. Though even with her thoughts muddled by the events of that night, two questions kept looping back through her head like a broken record. Why didn't they tell us? We're a team right?
The record stopped for a moment at the sound of a quiet 'ow' coming from the hospital bed and the rippling light slowly dissipating. Mr. Everens quietly excused himself while mentioning something about visiting hours.
Pyrrha brought a hand up to her head and winced when she touched the bandages that covered it. She rubbed gently before her eyes snapped open and she tried to sit up, failing miserably and cringing hard enough to almost fall off the bed. "Blake! Where...?"
"Whoa, slow down Pyrrha, Blake's okay," Ruby said, trying to get her leader to lie back down. She was no medic, but even Ruby knew head injuries and rapid movement didn't mix.
"Ruby? What... Nora?" She asked, not fully awake yet.
"It's only been an hour or so since the cops found you guys in a parking lot and you're at Crown Hospital right now. Roman's been apprehended too," she added.
The disoriented girl lay there for a second. "Oh, that's good," she looked like she was about to go back to sleep before a look of realization slowly imposed itself on her face. "Oh, oh Dust, Ruby, Nora, I'm so sorr-" Nora chose that moment to start sobbing. Loudly.
The orange haired grenadier hugged Ruby and Pyrrha with more force than strictly necessary, bringing all of them into a pile onto/next to the bed. "Ozpin was so scary" -sniffle- "I thought that the bad men got you" -sniffle- "I don't want my fearless leader to be a dead leader too!" She dissolved into mostly incomprehensible sobs after that.
The two red themed girls tried to soothe their teammate with mixed results. Eventually, Nora calmed down enough to continue.
"That was mean, Pyr! why'd you go off to fight the bad guys without us?" The Valkyrie asked imploringly, puppy eyes going full-blast. Ruby wasn't quite sure what Nora was getting to, if anything, but she threw her own puppy eyes into the mix as well for good measure.
"I- I didn't- we-" the champion was having a hard time forming words under the crushing force of adorable her subordinates had trained on her.
"Do you promise?" The Reds looked at Nora with mild confusion. "Do you promise you'll bring us with you next time?"
Ah, that's what she was getting to. Ruby thought, hiding her smile beneath her puppy eyes.
Pyrrha looked torn for a long moment, before she finally broke eye contact and sighed. "I promise."
A/N: My wisdom teeth delayed this chapter by a week, and it being summer now delayed it for another week. So basically, the next chapter should be out sooner as long as my job doesn't start soaking up more time. As far as the plot for this chapter, the entire second half was the result of a 2 AM idea that looked good at the time and I haven't made up my mind whether I agree or not yet, so take that as you will. I'm a little leery about changing more than I already have as I still have no idea what's gonna happen in Volume 3, but that ship may well have sailed already. Anyways, follow/favorite/name your firstborn after me/curse my name and all I stand for/all of the above/peace out/whatever/etc.
