The couple exited the room to find the hallway already in a full scale battle. At least thirty faunus were fighting the various grimm that were now uncaged and rampaging. One particularly nasty looking grimm that resembled a King Taijitu with only one head and oozing purple where it's armor should have been roared forcing a few faunus back in terror as the monstrosity lunged at the man closest to it.
"God, I'm gonna be sick again." Weiss grumbled, grabbing Ruby's shoulder as they watched the creature chomp down again and again as it slowly managed to swallow the large man who was bleeding profusely from the fresh fang wounds.
"Our exit's that way." A voice behind them said quietly as the battle started anew, both parties unaware of the three spectators.
"Did you find anything?" Ruby asked as she turned to Kurt who was cleaning one of his ballistic wakizashi on his shirt.
"Nada." Kurt answered with a shake of his head. "Whole floor's filled with security and nowhere ta stick a generator. Probably ta catch whoever might attack before they go causin' damage."
"Sounds likely." Weiss agreed as they carefully crept closer to the fight, trying to see a way to go around.
"Let's just hope-" Ruby started just as every light in the hall went dark. For a brief moment, she thought she was seeing things, but then noticed that the battle was still going on. "Shit."
"At least them buggers got glow in the dark parts." Kurt said as he pulled his second weapon from his back. "Regroup on the other side. Go!"
He disappeared from beside Weiss who could just make out the faint pop of his weapon shooting into a target.
Ruby waited for Weiss who squeezed her hand before dropping it in favour of drawing her weapon. Weiss felt the cool metal against her palm and took a deep breath, remembering exactly how many shots of each type of dust she had left in her weapon.
Four red, two blue, and one green. She armed her red dust and sent a fireball into the fray in front of her, following close behind with Ruby as faunus and grimm alike moved out of the way of the incinerating blast.
She repeated the action three more times as they passed more grimm and less fighters the farther they got to their destination.
"Duck!" Ruby yelled as a scythe-like appendage came out of the dark along the walls narrowly missing the girls as they rolled under the deadly swipe.
The two made it to the end and Weiss loaded her blue dust to seal the path once Kurt had made it.
"Ah! Fuck!" A voice cursed amid the battle cries of grimm that dominated the fray. "Take that ya little-"
His voice disappeared in a loud yell that silenced the battle for the briefest of moments before returning to the usual screams and pops of weapons firing at grimm.
"Git outta here! Run!" Kurt yelled as he spun into view of Weiss and Ruby with a glowing acid green stain dripping over his badly cut stomach.
"Kurt!" Ruby took a step forward, but Weiss held her back.
"I'll make sure nobody follows ya…" He spun, throwing his weapon into a glowing patch of blue before pulling the cable that attached it to his arm to retrieve it. "I'm done anyhow. Ya tell tight-ass back at camp ta go an' suck it!"
He rushed forward into the darkness as Ruby dropped her arm to her side. She turned to Weiss and gave her a quick peck on the cheek. She then walked up the stairs leaving Weiss to do what she knew was the best guarantee for their safety.
Weiss used all the dust she had left to make a barrier of ice in the doorway. She knew it would be able to last a week if left untouched and at the very least an hour provided it was hit with a small bomb.
She met Ruby at the top of the stairs that they had climbed down. She took off at a manageable pace, Weiss following, her hand emitting a throb that almost sent her to the ground with the intense pain radiating through her arm. She followed Ruby with bleary vision as she fought to control the pain of the burn that she knew was just beginning.
"What are you doing?" A man asked as Weiss passed through the doorway Ruby'd run into.
Weiss felt a rib break as something hard and pole-like smashed into her back sending her face first into something large that was made of metal and made an echoing bang as she bounced off it to the ground.
She lay there for a second as the world stopped spinning, blinking her eyes to see Ruby's cape just above her. Weiss pushed herself up and crawled back as the pain in her hand fought for priority over that in her chest.
Ruby was standing still, her scythe fully extended as she faced a man wearing a typical white fang mask. His appearance was different than most of the others, as he appeared to be wearing a uniform that resembled what a guy would wear to a nightclub.
"So… where do you think you're going?" He asked as he waved his odd looking weapon at Ruby. "Eh, doesn't really matter does it? I've got orders to kill you, so no hard feelings okay?"
"Nope." Ruby smiled as she twirled her scythe into a more universal combat stance.
The man shrugged and fired his weapon, sending a long sword out of it. Ruby blocked the projectile but the man had already moved in and snatched the weapon out of the air, bringing it around in a slashing motion as Ruby ducked and countered forcing him to block her sharp blade.
Weiss noticed that it was only the one enemy and that she was in what looked like an underground aircraft hangar. She stumbled as fast as her broken rib allowed into the nearest, fast looking plane. It can't be that difficult to fly. She thought as she landed in the pilot's chair, winding herself in the process.
She turned the chair around and sighed at the thousands of buttons in front of her. Well shit.
Ruby spun her scythe, barely blocking attacks and countering at every opportunity. Even her semblance wasn't helping as the ever-present rose petals floated to the ground around her as she fought the well-trained warrior.
His weapon was a blade and a gun that was used as a sheath. For whatever reason, he kept on placing the blade back after every few hits and drawing it out again. Ruby noticed the dull red glow it had and took it for granted that she didn't want to get cut by it.
The man wasn't tiring at all as he gave a particularly powerful strike forcing Ruby to roll out of the way of the bullets that flew out of his gun. Ruby blindly spun her scythe just to feel it get deflected by the man's sword.
"You're not bad." He laughed as Ruby caught him off guard with a kick to the knee. "Too bad you're not a faunus. We could use a few like you."
Ruby smiled at the compliment. "Sorry to say they broke my mold." She swung her weapon in an elegant arc as she placed her last magazine in the weapon. She noticed Weiss was missing but knew she was probably off doing something smart. She'd never just leave me.
As if on cue, a loud rumble echoed through the hangar as an old fighter plane's propellers spun into action. A loud victory cry came from the direction of the plane, distracting Ruby's opponent for a minute. It was all she needed.
Her scythe spun around at the man who noticed the movement just slightly too late. One of his legs was cleanly sliced off at the knee as he jumped to avoid the low swipe. He screamed in pain as he fell to the ground, firing his weapon at Ruby who used her speed to avoid or deflect the rounds.
The fighter plane sped past as Weiss screamed from the cockpit. "I don't know how to stop!"
Ruby laughed as she dodged another bullet and sprinted after the plane as it continued to pick up speed. She just managed to jump up to the tail as it sped out to a long curved ramp that led to a bright splotch of air. Ruby jumped into the copilot's seat beside Weiss and watched as she wiggled her legs back and forth while she used her good hand and a small glyph to steer.
"I didn't know you could fly!" Ruby laughed as she caught her breath from the mission.
"I don't." Weiss said grimly, her focus solely on keeping the plane from listing towards one of the walls.
A moment later, the plane burst out into the bright pink sky of dawn as a loud roar echoed beneath them. Weiss leveled out the plane as best she could as Ruby looked out the glass at the ground.
"Uh… We have a problem." She sighed, rubbing her hair in frustration.
"What? Is it that I barely know how to fly, and I have to land this thing?" Weiss asked, her frustration with the complex aircraft coming out in her reply.
"Well there is that." Ruby agreed. "But also there are more grimm below us than the ones that attacked Vale."
"Great! And all I have are two explosive rounds and a speed round left!" Weiss cheered sarcastically.
Ruby thought for a moment, pondering everything they could do. She finally decided on the only option left, though it was a bit of a gamble.
"What do you think would happen if that crystal I took from that pillar exploded?" Ruby asked hesitantly, knowing that whatever that crystal was, it was powerful.
"Do it. Use my speed dust so you don't miss." Weiss said, quickly tossing her weapon over to Ruby who ejected the dust.
"Wish me luck." Ruby said as she opened the door on the side of the cockpit she tossed the crystal as far as she could. She watched it almost disappear as she used Weiss's dust on her head. Her semblance kicked in, amplifying the dust's effect. She aimed her sniper out of the window, slowly adjusting to the various velocities acting on everything. She knew she had one shot left in her clip.
She took a deep breath and pulled the trigger, watching as the fiery explosion took shape at the end of the scythe and the small copper round sped away, falling and curving as she moved farther and farther away. She pulled her weapon in, but kept watching as the small grain of black flashed white in the distance.
The air itself started shaking as a circular ball of bright blue formed, growing quickly as it hit the ground and expanded, devouring everything in it's path.
"Weiss can you make this thing go faster?" Ruby asked as she watched the approaching smooth ball of energy.
"Hold on then!" Weiss replied as she slammed her elbow onto a lever. The craft shot forward, making Ruby stumble as she managed to pull herself back to her seat.
The aircraft screamed through the air, vibrating as if it might lose a wing at any moment as the ball of energy slowly gained.
"We've got two minutes unless it stops growing." Ruby estimated, looking through the window uncertainly.
"Well, it's been fun, dolt." Weiss said with a grimm laugh as she relaxed since the speed of the craft kept her from having to constantly readjust the course.
"Hey, we're not done yet Princess!" Ruby argued, watching as Weiss placed a glyph to keep everything where it was.
"Two minutes, right?" Weiss asked, looking out the window at the blindingly bright light slowly closing in. Ruby nodded in response as she walked around the cramped plane to her beautiful girlfriend.
"I wonder what we could do?" Ruby asked playfully, earning her Weiss's signature frown.
"We have two minutes to live, my hand has worse-than-third-degree burns, and I'm pretty sure I have at least one broken rib." Weiss said quickly. "So naturally, the one thing I want to spend these final two minutes doing is you!"
Ruby's mouth dropped at how direct Weiss had been and Weiss caught her in a deep kiss, pulling at the horrible smelling fabric that was covered with paint. She ripped what she couldn't undo with her one good hand, her burnt one remaining uselessly at her side as Ruby's hands pulled her face closer.
Weiss felt a deep moan build inside her as her tongue twirled around Ruby's.
The two were suddenly thrown to the ground as the electronics in front of them sparked and smoked while the entire craft bumped and shook and rattled, picking up even more speed as it sped towards the ground with the blue wall of energy still speeding towards them.
"I love you Ruby!" Weiss yelled over the increasing volume of the rattling as she struggled to get to the other side of the plane where her lover had fallen. Her hand was throbbing painfully as she scraped off countless layers of fused skin and muscle trying to crawl across the rough floor.
"I love you Weiss!" Ruby screamed back, lunging and capturing Weiss in a tight hug. "You know what?"
Weiss didn't think it mattered at this point, but what the hell, right? "What?"
"Team White Rose is the best!"
Darkness swallowed everything as soon as Ruby finished her sentence, Weiss's arms freezing where they were wrapped around Ruby.
Ozpin watched from his post at the wall of Vale. A large dome of blue grew from seemingly nowhere, expanding to the size of a small island in diameter before suddenly collapsing to a point and sending a massive shock-wave outward across the land.
People around him screamed and ran for cover as the wall shook violently with the force of the shock-wave, the dust it had kicked up burning his skin as it flew past on the current the shock-wave left. He looked down at his scroll as it flickered with static before returning to normal. Just as he was about to turn and leave his post to report the events of his shift, his scroll rang.
"You saw that, right?" A male voice said grimly from the other side.
"Yes."
"Did you see how far it went?" He asked again.
"No." Ozpin answered with a sigh. There was only one place this could be going.
"We have to do something! Ruby's out there!" He exclaimed in a slight panic.
"There is nothing to do but wait and see." Ozpin answered before hanging up.
He knew Qrow would listen to him, no matter how much he might want to do otherwise. He dialed a number in his scroll. He waited several moments as the ringing continued over and over. A voice-mail message greeted him and he hung up. His message was one that would be best not delivered via a message.
He dialed another number. This time it only took two rings.
"Hello?" A female voice answered calmly.
"It's me."
"Oh, Ozpin! How are you?" The voice suddenly took on a far more girlish tone as if intent on flirting.
"I need you to get JNPR and RWBY together." Ozpin ordered, already dreading his news that he'd have to deliver.
"Any particular place?" The voice asked curiously.
"I'll send you the details." Ozpin said as he hung up.
He looked back at where the large blue wall of energy had been minutes before. The ground was scarred black and even at this distance he could tell that it had been brutally burned into a glassy substance that reflected more light the longer it was allowed to cool.
Was this my fault?
Author's Note:
I'd like to thank you for reading Bloody Snow Volume 2. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing and editing it.
Be sure to check back for the epic conclusion of Bloody Snow in Volume 3 coming Spring 2016!