Chapter Ten: The Longest Five Minutes

Washington D.C. Streets
Present Day

The White Fang had brought something else to the party, much to Ozpin's horror. It looked like a ram, and they were bringing right to Ella's side of the car. Clearly the intent was to smash the door down and snatch the occupants.

Though Ozpin doubted that they would stop at snatching. He had a feeling that the moment Ella and he were pulled out of the car, they'd receive bullets to the head.

However . . . they had made a big mistake going for Ella's side of the car first. "Ella, do you have any training in machine-guns?"

"What?" Ella shouted, just as the crew set up their ram outside.

"You heard me! Have you ever fired a machine-gun?"

"I spent ten years in the field, I've fired several of them! Why?"

"You're going to be firing one pretty shortly! I'll let you know when!"

Just then, the SUV shook violently as the ram smashed into the passenger-side door, nearly knocking it over on its side. Immediately, Ozpin heard a robotic voice say "Door integrity at sixty-five percent."

"Now?" Ella shouted.

"Not yet!" Ozpin said.

Ozpin heard glass cracking to his left. They were trying to shoot through his window now, to little success.

I should be glad these Faunus aren't using Dust weapons. Then we'd really be in trouble.

The car rocked again to the left, but there was just light enough to keep the SUV from flipping over. Ella was crying in both surprise and what sounded like pain.

"How about now?" Ella cried.

"Door integrity at thirty-four percent. Recommend defensive-"

"Negative on the defensive countermeasures! Ella, you're going to need to take one more hit! Can you do that?"

Ella looked over at Ozpin, looking quite nervous. "Y-Yes?"

"Well then you have to! Get ready!"

Just as Ozpin said that, the car rocked one more time, and barely settled back down when the computer said "Door integrity at two percent."

Close enough. "Deploy countermeasures now! Passenger side!"

Suddenly, much to Ella's surprise, a heavy machine-gun suddenly rose up in front of her seat.

"Cut them down!" Ozpin shouted.

Ella did. The sound of the SAW roaring to life was almost deafening, but he could still hear the cries of the surprised Faunus as they were getting mowed down. That meant that he could concentrate on-

Suddenly, the bulletproof glass shattered to his left. Ozpin turned to see a armor-piercing sniper rifle round laying in what was left of the glass for a split second before it fell away.

Sniper just tried to blow my head off. He couldn't waste anymore time.

Ozpin slammed the car into gear and rammed his way through the cars blocking him, and escaped onto the street.

"Out of ammo!" Ella shouted as the gun retracted.

"There's a pistol in the center console! Take it out!" Ozpin shouted.

He became aware of a wet, stinging sensation in his left arm. Ozpin looked around the elbow and saw some of the glass had embedded in his arm.

Damn it. The painkiller was enough that the pain wasn't distracting but it wasn't going to anything to stop the bleeding. He needed to find a place to hide and treat his wounds before this could continue.

He weaved through traffic. "I need someone, anyone, from BEACON right now! Patch me through!"

"Communications array has been damaged."

"We don't need satellite, just any radio can do! Do we have a radio?" Ella shouted.

"Backup communications has also been damaged."

"What's not damaged?" Ella growled in frustration.

"Air conditioning is at one-hundred percent."

Ella gave Ozpin the evil eye. Ozpin looked away. "I programmed my A.I.s this way. Sorry."

"No, it's that your air conditioning is bulletproof but nothing else is!"

"I'm going to have my technicians take a look at that. Clearly a design flaw."

Ella sighed and looked at her rearview mirror. "We got company coming behind us!"

Ozpin looked. He saw at least four or five police cars behind him, trying to weave through traffic just as he was. They were not going to give up that easily, that was for certain.

"We need to lose them and get off the grid," Ozpin said. "Or, if necessary, kill them all and then get out of this mess. Do you understand, Ella?"

"Yes!" Ella said. "Now try to lose them already!"

"I'm trying!" But it was easier said than done. D.C. traffic was already clogging the lanes, and that meant getting through would be harder and harder unless he tried to drive on the sidewalk.

Ozpin dismissed the idea of driving on the sidewalk. He'd just hit innocent civilians that way. He couldn't do that. That would mean murdering people who had nothing to do with this. What made it right to kill those who had no stake in this, that their only fault was that they were in the way?

Suddenly, one of the police cars veered right into the sidewalk, charging right through the pedestrians.

They have no conscience at all! Damn them! "Ella, they're going to be coming up on your right! Get ready!"

He stepped on it, forcing his way through two cars. He needed just a few minutes, probably five, to find a way out of here and get off the grid. Problem is, could they hold out that long?

If we don't, we're both dead.

Ozpin hit the gas.

Jaune Arc sighed. He felt directionless, driving through D.C. this time of day. It did not help at all that there was apparently some crazy car chase going on in the downtown, causing massive traffic jams and forcing him to take this long detour around, trying to at least stay somewhat close to his original route. But considering the chaos he was hearing on the radio, there was no telling how far he was going to have to go out of his way.

He wondered how he was going to explain to his parents that he had no idea what to do when he finally finished college, too. They hadn't wanted him to become a soldier, and after the hell he had went through in Afghanistan, their worries about him turned out to be justified. So what was he going to do with his life now, after he was done with class? Just drive around wondering what to do?

Or . . .

Hey, who's that?

Jaune looked to his right, and saw a highly familiar woman running down the sidewalk. In fact, she looked almost exactly like . . .

Is that Ruby Rose?

Immediately, Jaune swerved to the right and pulled over, ordering his passenger side window to roll down while he did that.

Just as he finished, he saw her. Yeah, that was Ruby, running like the devil himself was after her. Especially judging by the expression on her face.

"Hey, Ruby!" he shouted.

Ruby nearly charged right past the car, but instead slid to a stop right after passing the passenger door. She stepped back and peered in, and her wide eyes changed from worry to surprise upon seeing Jaune. "Jaune?"

That is her! But Jaune could see that there was no joy in seeing Ruby again. She looked frightened, scared, in a way he had never seen her before. Ruby had seemed almost unflappable last week, after that run. This was not that Ruby. In fact, Ruby almost looked like a young girl with the fear and worry etched all over her face.

"Yeah, it's Jaune. Ruby, what's-"

Before he could finish, Ruby ran right to the door. "Please, I'm so, so sorry to ask this of you, but . . . but you need to take me to the hospital, right now!"

"What?" Jaune asked.

"Jaune, I need to get to the hospital right now! I just got back here from the airport, and I can't run down a taxi to save my life! Please, you need to help me!"

She just got back from the airport? But I'm like a zillion . . .

It hit him that there should be a lot of other things he should be worrying about right now. Anyway, this was Ruby Rose. The super-soldier. Of course she could sprint to the other side of the city from the airport. She was modified to be that way.

He unlocked the door. "Come in, hurry. I'll get you there."

"Thank you!" Ruby opened the door and flopped inside, and shut the door behind her. "Drive! Drive right now, Jaune!"

The urgency in her voice brought back memories of his sergeant yelling at him in basic training. "Y-Yes, ma'am!"

Jaune put the car in drive and pulled out onto the street. "U-Uh, where are we going, again? What's going on?"

"Walter Reed! Please, Jaune, just . . . just drive! I have to make it there! I have to!"

Someone's dying. The thought passed through Jaune's head for a moment, and then everything clicked.

Must be someone Ruby knows from the war! If one thing was sure, he was not going to be late getting Ruby to this person, whoever he was.

"I'll get you there! Just hang on!" Jaune hit the accelerator and began weaving through traffic.

I just hope those cops are too busy chasing that perp to catch me speeding.

Ozpin was far busier than he had ever imagined himself being on what was supposed to be a fairly sleepy afternoon. He was currently struggling for his life with a Faunus trying to grab him and pull him out of the car, or at least disrupt his driving enough to cause an accident. Making matters worse, his left arm was growing numb, likely from the bloodloss.

This had become the longest five minutes of his life. He had thought he had lived through those moments before, but no. This was the one.

I have to hold on until they're all dead or we escape. I don't have any choice!

Desperately, he reached for his coffee cup, and then splashed the hot coffee on the enemy's face. Although he cried out, he wasn't letting go, so Ozpin took his cup and activated its weapon mode.

The cup extended like it had turned into a lance or pole, right through the enemy's chest. He gagged, coughing blood on Ozpin's weapon and on Ozpin's clothes. However, the Faunus immediately seized both of his hands on the weapon, and Ozpin was no longer strong enough to outmuscle the Faunus for the weapon.

So Ozpin let go and the Faunus fell out of the car, taking the lance/coffee cup hybrid with him.

I was proud of that thing. My personal invention for Oobleck and I never got to give it to him. Damn.

His left arm was growing slack. His right arm had to do everything now. He forced himself to continue driving through the traffic, but his motion sensors showed he was going to get caught by another 'officer' trying to pursue him on foot, with another assault rifle to boot!

"Last mag!" Ella shouted from his right.

"Save it! Don't waste it taking any more shots!" Ozpin yelled. "Wait until you have a confirmed kill shot!"

"Got it!" Ella said.

Ozpin finally got himself free of the traffic just as the closest 'officer' managed to run up to his car. Ozpin briefly let go of the wheel to punch the man, but it was only enough to disrupt the man's attack, not let go entirely.

The male Faunus' bloody, almost reptilian face looked up at Ozpin, and then he looked past Ozpin, in absolute horror. "Oh shit."

Out of the corner of Ozpin's right eye, he saw Ella aiming her pistol right at the Faunus' head.

She fired and the Faunus' head jerked back and he fell out of the view, presumably slamming onto the road.

"Like that?" Ella asked.

"Yeah," Ozpin hissed. Damn, his left arm was killing him now. "Like that."

Ella's steely face transformed into a worried, almost afraid one. "You're wounded!"

"That doesn't matter! I need a course plotted to get us off the grid! We can't afford to be caught by anyone else!"

"Plotting trajectory," the computer replied.

"Want me to drive?" Ella asked.

Ozpin knew Ella's heat-of-the-moment empathy was overruling her common sense. This is what happened when you had people dating in combat together. They didn't think entirely straight.

"No time to change drivers. I can hold on until we get out to safety. Once we do, you're going to need to be a medic, understand?" Ozpin said.

"Yes," Ella said.

"Bogey in the center of the road," the computer suddenly said.

"What?" Ozpin looked back out into the center of the road, and all of a sudden, he saw a lone figure standing in the middle of it, a mask covering his, or her, face and eyes.

Short blonde hair. A left arm that looked almost metallic. Dark clothing . . .

Suddenly, Ozpin's mind flashed back to several briefings he had had over the years, ever since he had joined BEACON in the first place. He had heard of this person before. Was supposed to be a legend, a myth, a story of hearsay that could never be validated but somehow had been responsible for more deaths than anyone could count.

And the profile of that rumored person was standing in the middle of the road, directly in front of him and his speeding SUV.

His eyes widened as they got closer.

Oh my God. Is that . . .?

Jaune had barely parked the car before Ruby charged her way out, running right towards the hospital as fast as she could, which was enough for people to scatter out of her way like dandelion seeds.

Jaune locked his car and got out and took off after her, but other than the crowd having parted like the proverbial sea, there was no sign of Ruby.

Only thing I can do is follow the trail she plowed for me.

Ruby hadn't said a word to him the entire trip here, other than yelling at him to step on it and to keep driving. She was lost in her own world, lost in the past, lost somewhere that wasn't entirely on this plane of existence. Jaune could only wonder what was going through her head, and who was in such grave danger that Ruby would put him ahead of every other thought she could possibly have.

He made it to the desk just to see Ruby suddenly take off from it, charging off in some random direction. Jaune thought about chasing Ruby, but he knew he would just lose her and become lost himself, never able to track her down.

So he walked up to the receptionist himself. "Excuse me, but what room is she heading to? I need to be there too."

The receptionist told him. And then Jaune ran off through the hospital too, trying to use the room numbers as a guide while he tried to navigate this place.

I have to get there too. I need to know what's going on. And if the worst is happening . . . I have to be there for Ruby too. I can't just leave her on her own.

It was such a silly thought, being worried for the super-soldier. But Jaune couldn't help it. In his mind, he was reliving the deaths of his friends, friends he couldn't make it to in time, friends who he never got to reach until they had already passed on, their eyes cold, dead, and unseeing.

If there was one person he could not afford to be too late for, it was Ruby Rose. And that was something the whole country would agree with. Who would not move heaven and earth for the sake of Miss America?

He navigated the staircases and hallways until he saw Ruby. She was standing at the end of one hallway near the right corner of the building, speaking to the nurse. Every bit of Ruby's body language seemed to scream 'Just let me in there already', but despite her nervous twitching and fidgeting, she stayed there, letting the nurse finish.

Seeing as he finally caught up, Jaune began to walk down the hallway towards them. It occurred to him that his chest was on fire. He must have ran or sprinted the entire way here himself. One thing was for sure . . . he was not Ruby, and he couldn't keep running like that without feeling the effects. He wasn't sure if Ruby wasn't feeling them either. She had been running for so long that he was amazed she hadn't collapsed . . . or maybe she was just so focused that nothing would be enough to make her fall.

He walked down the hallway, feeling the beads of sweat form on his forehead, gasping softly for air. Just when he thought he was going to make it, Ruby ran past the nurse into the room.

Jaune made it to the entrance in time for his arm to be grabbed by the nurse. "You with her?"

"I . . . uh, I drove her here," Jaune managed through his deep breaths.

"It's best you give her some space. That's the last person she knows from the war on that bed over there."

"You're kidding." Jaune peered into the room, to see Ruby slowly, carefully, walk around the bed towards the bed's right-hand side, clearly looking for a hand to hold.

Her eyes weren't anywhere but on the elderly man with a breathing mask on in the center of the bed. The entire world could blow up around her and she would never notice.

"There's not many of them left, I'm afraid," the nurse said. "And he didn't exactly turn out to be an ideal family man. His ex-wife and extended family have been notified, but none of them have shown . . . yet."

"No way." This time Jaune kept his voice done to a hush. So this guy was going to die alone unless Ruby got here? No wonder she was trying so hard!

In her silver eyes, Jaune saw something he had only seen a few times in his life, and it was never directed at him. It was a softness, a tenderness, a sense that Ruby would give up her own life for the sake of the person she was staring at.

Eyes of complete, unconditional love.

He had remembered thinking in Afghanistan that if he was gonna go, he didn't want to do it alone on the sands. He needed to be surrounded by his fellow soldiers. Dying alone was unfathomable. That was the worst fate imaginable, beyond getting captured by the enemy. The thought of dying somewhere unfamiliar, where no one was around to be there to even hold your hand or say some final words to you before you were gone . . .

There was no outside world to Ruby right now. Even if he yelled at her, Ruby would not look towards him. Jaune could see that, just by the way she seemed lost in her own world, the world that she and the elderly, dying man seemed to be in at this moment. Jaune could sense, just by watching, that this was a world that he had no place in, and it was a world that soon would be inhabited only by Ruby herself. She was going to be the last surviving World War II veteran by default.

"Alright," he said softly. "Alright, I'll stay right here."

"Thank you," the nurse said, and then she departed.

This is probably . . . probably the only way someone will be able to kill Ruby anyway. I have to stay here in case someone tries something . . . or what.

However, he could not help but watch as Ruby leaned over and took the old man's hand in her own, and brought his shriveled, bony hand so it could feel her face.

Her lips forced out quiet words, words that somehow traveled all the way to where Jaune was standing. And then he knew why she was here.

"Hi, James. How are you? I'm here."

Her lips trembled. Tears were already spilling from her eyes as she forced a smile on her face, tears streaming down to her hands and the old man's.

"I'm here."

I will always torment your darlings.

Next chapter is dedicated to Monty Oum himself.