Hello again, sorry for the delays on this chapter and the one-shot. I'm still working on the one-shot but last week have been working a lot on my studies. Good news; That went really freaking well and I basically programmed working multiplayer for the game we're developing. Yay, go me. Aside from that I might have also gotten an intership at a pretty cool company. So that might also be a thing.

Anyway, personal bullshit aside ( I wonder if any of you actual read it because it's random rants anyway. Wouldn't fault you at any rate for not bothering to read it :P) here's chapter 11: Extraction.


Chapter 11: Extraction

Jaune's head throbbed as he gathered his bearings. The first thing he noticed was the distinct lack of heat in the area. Mentally, he chuckled to himself. Good. Cinder's dealt with. Jaune mused in his own thoughts. As his eyes unblurred and the headache subsided, he could see the passed out Weiss slumped at his feet. Motioning to move in order to check her, he found he was unable to. A large concrete beam, Jaune supposed had fallen, on top of him was blocking his way. Using his aura to strengthen himself, he slowly pushed the rubble off and aside. His armor had taken a heavy hit from the impact of the wall.

Jaune looked over at Weiss again and could see she was still breathing and wasn't wounded severely. Instantly he looked up towards where Cinder had been, in the middle of the area. The ground was charred black from the flames, a testament to the Fall Maiden's powers. However Jaune got quite confused as he saw Weiss standing behind a sitting Ruby. Jaune's eyes widened as he realized the danger Ruby was in. He motioned out towards her to warn her, but the flash of steel told him he was too late. His heart froze as he saw Ruby slump over and Neo's disguise disappear.

Jaune didn't know whether it was grief, anger or hate that urged him next. He used the full extent of his aura to power him, grabbing his new sword and charging at Neo. "Get away from her!" Jaune yelled out as he slashed at the surprised woman. Neo attempted to parry the sword, but the sheer strength of Jaune's slash sent her flying. Using her acrobatics she landed on her feet, skidding along the ground making the dust and debris of the fallen concrete and destroyed containers fill the air.

Jaune glanced at Ruby quickly as he kept his sword leveled at Neo. Slowly, he could see the back of her cape stain a darker scarlet. Gritting his teeth, he knew he'd have to get both Ruby and Weiss out, and quick. Neo's sadistic smile however already predicted it was going to be difficult. The flash of steel was shown to him again before it had her disappear, an illusion of light shrouding her. In an instant Neo was close to Jaune. She stabbed at him, her eyes switching colors as if to taunt him.

Instinctively Jaune activated his semblance, the blade bouncing off of him without much effort. Neo gasped a little before Jaune brought his sword around and slashed it upwards at her. Unable to defend from this close, she braced for the hit only to find his strength to not even have diminished a little. With a heavy hit she was thrown to the ceiling of the base, imprinting the shape of her body painfully in it and causing more rubble to rain down. Attempting to keep up the offensive, Jaune transformed the sword to its Gauss Rifle position. The handle popped out of the hilt and the hilt itself extended to form a small stock. The 'shorter' side of his sword folded down and he slid his hand in the opening on the larger side to hold it better.

Jaune fed his Gauss Rifle his aura and shot several large bullets at Neo. Every shot kicked up dust from the heavy recoil, but his balance and rigorous training in using it at the base over the past year kept him going on using his aura to balance it out. Neo had barely time to react as she fell. Using her semblance, she used her copies to hide behind. Every now and then she'd be hit by the explosion of a bullet, but she landed on the ground again and seemed to size Jaune up. The sadistic smile was gone, replaced by a look of fury as she seemingly analyzed him.

Shifting the sword back to its normal form as a sword, Jaune glanced at Ruby again. The stain had gotten larger, but wasn't growing as much as before. It still meant that he would need to get her out sooner rather than later. Jaune took up a stance as he noticed Neo advance on him again. She slashed at him, causing him to bring up the sword only for her to feint and stab at an exposed position on his chest. Jaune activated his semblance again, deflecting her stab. Neo kicked at him as she landed which he deflected again causing her to whirl around. However he was surprised by her acrobatics as she brought her other foot around towards his head causing him to stagger.

Neo's speed outmatched Jaune's significantly and Jaune felt that the liberal use of his semblance and the incoming hits was causing his aura to run out. If he needed to end this soon, he'd need to do something quickly. Lowering his sword as her next stab came, he let it go through and grabbed her arm. Both of the results confused and surprised Neo before with a heavy throw she was sent into the air before Jaune infused himself again and slammed her down onto ground.

Neo attempted to mitigate the blow with the sword she used, causing it only to break under the heavy hit. All air in her body left her lungs as she hit the floor with such power that it broke the concrete under her. A flash of pink signalled Jaune that she didn't have enough aura to fight anymore. Heavy pants left Neo as slowly she succumbed to the darkness of unconsciousness.

Instantly, Jaune slammed his sword into ground and quickly made his way to Ruby. He rolled her around to her back and held her gently. He inspected her a little more closely now. The wound had caused her to already lose a lot of blood. Jaune knew he needed to act quickly in order to stop the bleeding. Opening one of the packs on his belt, he pulled out a large bandage and got to work on her wound.


Yang looked further into the base as Blake held Adam. She had felt the shuddering of the building multiple times. In all honesty, she was worried about Ruby and Yang knew that the White Fang was probably already regrouping to counterattack them at the base again.

"Blake.." Yang started, her voice low but enough for Blake to hear. "We need to find the rest and get out of here." She finished. Her heart felt torn. She didn't want to deny Blake this closure, especially on something she had done herself. But they needed to move. Ruby, Weiss and Jaune needed them.

Slowly Blake's sobbing lessened. With the most gentle movements she placed body down. "I know." Blake said and turned to look at Yang. Yang choked up at the pain she could see in Blake's eyes. "But we're bringing Adam's body back to Vale. I won't leave without him." Blake said as she stood up and held Gambol Shroud. Yang nodded at her before turning and running further into the base.


Yang's breathing stopped as she and Blake came up on the completely destroyed area. Her eyes shifted to Neo first, finding her imbedded into the floor. Then to Weiss, finding her to chest rising and falling slowly. She felt a painful tinge in her heart however as she saw Jaune holding Ruby as he was quickly working on a bandage. Her exposed stomach was stained red with blood and it filled the air with the smell of copper. "Ruby!" Yang yelled out, her voice panicked as she made her way quickly over to Ruby.

Jaune was preoccupied with his current task. Finishing up the bandage, he hoped it would be enough to atleast get her to some medical attention. Knowing that by now there was nothing else he could do, he regarded Yang and saw Blake close by. He pulled out his scroll and motioned it towards Blake. "Please, make a call for extraction. We'll need a medic onboard." Jaune said. When Blake nodded, he threw his scroll to her.

Yang sat wide-eyed as she stared at her little sister's the bandage growing crimson again from the wound. Jaune's words fell upon deaf ears before his fingers snapping got her back to reality. "Yang! I need you to check on Weiss and that other girl to see if they're okay. I've got Ruby." Jaune said, sounding exhausted.

Yang slowly nodded as she tried to break her gaze from Ruby. Painfully Yang shut her eyes as tears started flowing. She forced herself to turn and made her way over to Weiss. Yang shook Weiss roughly, attempting to wake her up. When there was no response, she opted to pick up Weiss and her weapon instead and made her way over to Neo repeating the process. When she too failed to wake up, she opted to sling both of the women over her shoulders and hooked Myrtenaster onto her hip.

Blake turned to Jaune again and threw back his scroll when she had finished the call. "It's incoming. Ten minutes out. We need to be outside soon so we can extract quickly." Blake said, her calmness having returned. She made her way over to the corpse of Cinder and flipped up her own scroll. Taking a picture, she quickly sent it to Qrow before putting it away again. "We have an extra we need to take along with us though." Blake finished, sighing heavily.

"Then let's go." Jaune said as he picked up his shield and put his sword back into it's frame and slid it onto his back. He made his way over to Ruby and picked her up, making his way out of the base again as Yang and Blake followed.


When the airship came flying in, they were quick to enter. Blake insisted bringing along Adam's corpse, even though Jaune protested at first. He didn't know the extra would be the corpse of one of their enemies. Yang however shot him a glance that made him hold his tongue. If even Yang insisted, he knew there must've been some reason for it. They restrained Neo and took her to one of the small rooms on the airship, closing it to make sure she wouldn't escape.

Ruby was quickly taken to another small room on the ship in order to treat her wounds. Yang tried everything she could not to think about it. Jaune attempted the same, keeping himself preoccupied with making sure Weiss was okay. She seemed slightly out of it as she woke up and looked scared as she regained her senses and sat up. "Where are we? What happened to Cinder?" She instantly asked. The familiar faces of her teammates and Jaune calmed her quickly however.

Jaune tried his best to smile at her, but felt he wasn't doing a good job of masking the worry in him. "We're on our way back to Vale. Cinder's dead. Ruby.. killed her." Jaune said, as he turned to sit on the opposite side of Weiss. Yang was pacing back and forth, her face downcast as she did so. Blake was letting her hand caress Adam's hair, attempting to keep her own guilt from eating her. Weiss was somewhat taken aback when she couldn't find Ruby however.

".. Where is Ruby?" Weiss asked.

Yang stopped pacing and Jaune sighed heavily. "Ruby got wounded after killing Cinder. I only woke up when that other girl had stabbed her already. I defeated her however and captured her in hope she might be able to give us some information on other disturbances in Vale." Jaune said, turning his head upwards. Weiss breathed in sharply at the mention of Ruby being wounded.

"Was it bad?" Weiss asked and looked with concern at Jaune. She took hold of Myrtenaster and held it in her lap. Idly, she let her thumb rake the dust cylinder, attempting to calm down her own nerves and worry about Ruby.

"She lost quite a lot of blood. I wasn't able to bandage her quickly because of .. 'Neo' I believe her name was." Jaune said and looked at her again. Yang's mind clicked at the name. She thought she recognized the woman. It fueled the anger in her as the room heated up due to semblance flaring up.

Yang angrily stomped her way to the room they had thrown Neo in as the other three all noticed the sudden shift in her behaviour. Blake however felt Yang was about to do something reckless again and quickly stood up and stood in front of Yang, attempting to stop her. "Don't." Blake said in a commanding tone. Yang's fury was apparent in her eyes as she looked back at Blake again. She attempted to make her way around Blake for Blake to only step the same way as her, blocking the way once more. "This isn't going to solve anything, Yang." Blake said, trying to appeal to Yang's reason.

"It's going to solve one thing very well and that's her existence. Or rather, that she won't exist anymore." Yang said, her voice laced with anger and malice as she stared back at Blake.

"And go against everything you said to Adam? Hm? I won't let you be blinded with hate, Yang." Blake said, the conviction in her voice only strengthened by the low gaze she was giving her partner. The guilt of her failure boiling over as tears fell from her eyes again.

The staredown continued until one of the medics cleared his throat from the door, causing the four of them to look at him instantly. "Ruby's doing okay. Her aura still has to do a lot of healing for her because of some internal damage. But most of the danger is over. She's still out however. When we're in Vale, we'll start working on making sure she'll recover fully." He said, before nodding at her four and making his way back in the room again.

A collective breath of relief was let out by the four. Yang looked at Blake again as her anger subsided, the heat disappearing away from her. "I'm sorry. You're right." Yang said, shooting a small smile at Blake. Blake sighed deep as she sat down again. However her hand didn't return to Adam's hair. She looked at him for a brief moment before attempting to close her eyes and get some rest.


The rest of the flight back was uneventful. When they arrived at Vale, Ruby was taken to a hospital quickly in order to be treated. Yang and Blake had taken Adam's body and left to Forever Fall. Jaune had taken Neo, whom was awake as they landed and proved to quite a handful, to the cells. This left Weiss to report to Qrow about their mission.

She was not looking forward to it. Mostly because the thing seemed fishy from the start. It was as if Cinder knew they were coming from the start and had prepared for it with the mechs and everything. Something just felt off on the whole mission, causing Weiss to only formulate even more questions in her mind.

With a small ding the lift signalled Weiss that she had reached Qrow's office. Stepping inside, she found him sitting behind the desk with his feet kicked up as he examined a photo of what appeared to be.. Cinder?

"Oh hello there Ice Princess. Saw that the lot of you completed your mission. Bit curious to find out it's you that's reporting to me however.." Qrow said amusedly and took a sip of his flask.

"Well, Ruby's in the hospital, Blake and Yang are most likely burying Adam in Forever Fall and Jaune was still dealing with a woman called.. 'Neo'? Who was the one that caused Ruby to get hurt in the first place." Weiss said nonchalantly before peering at Qrow.

Qrow seemed almost unshaken by the news. "Huh. So Ruby got hurt. Didn't expect that." He said, kicking his feet of the desk to sit behind it properly. It unnerved Weiss.

"Then you did expect the other things. About Adam and 'Neo'.." Weiss said, putting a pondering finger to her lips as she analyzed Qrow's words and body language.

Qrow smirked. "You do the same thing your sister does. So I guess I won't be able to fool you into thinking it was some kind of weird coincidence." Qrow said and stood up as the holograms on his desk disappeared. "Yes. I knew about those two being a possible problem." He finished and shot Weiss a grin.

Weiss her gaze was kept low as she continued to look at Qrow. "Then why didn't you tell us so we could prepare for them? Now Ruby got hurt because we only expected Cinder and had to split the team in order to deal with the both of them." She said. Weiss attempted to hide the anger in her tone, but the slightest hint was still picked up by Qrow.

"Because, if you had known, Cinder would've had an edge. Now, all your effort was put on defeating Cinder. And it worked, evidently." Qrow said, walking around the desk to sit against it. He had his arms crossed as he returned the low gaze. There was no more amusement in his tone anymore. "Besides, you're huntsmen. You improvise." Qrow ended and emphasized the last words.

"That's ridiculous! What are we then, weapons pointed at your enemies!?" Weiss yelled at him, throwing her hands up in frustration.

Qrow smirked low. "In a sense. Yes."