The prompt this week was "Pyrrha comes back. However, while she isn't evil, she is batshit insane." Read this and guess which movie I saw this weekend.
Jaune walked down the streets of Mistral, laden with shopping bags. The whole gang had gone out earlier for groceries, but they'd forgotten a few things, and somehow it fell on Jaune to go back out and get them.
He didn't really mind the time away from the group though. His emotions had been on a roller coaster ever since the battle for Haven two days ago. There was a lot to be glad about. The school was safe, they'd gotten the Relic, Team RWBY was back together, and no one had died. Jaune had even discovered his Semblance.
But at the same time, he felt conflicted. Emerald, Mercury, and Hazel had escaped, Lionheart's body was found in a bloody mess, and Cinder's status was still unknown. And then there was how soundly she'd beaten him after failing to even recognize who he was.
They'd won the fight, but they'd also been shown how far they still had to go before they could think of beating Salem.
Thinking about Cinder quickly pulled Jaune into thinking about the girl she'd killed. He tried to push those thoughts away, but they'd come and now they wouldn't leave. He even thought he saw her in the crowd of people he was passing through.
Wait…
Jaune blinked, and then rubbed his eyes, but the girl was still there. She stood twenty feet in front of him, staring back at him through the crowd. She wore the same bronze armor that she had at Beacon, and her weapon and shield were on her back. The only thing that was missing was her tiara.
"Pyrrha?" he whispered.
She smiled at him for a moment before answering.
"I'm not going to say the thing."
Jaune didn't even process her words. He just kept staring at her like she was, well, a ghost.
"Oh, what the heck, I'll say the thing," she said with a chuckle. "Hello again!"
"Pyrrha!" cried Jaune, dropping the bags he was carrying and running towards her. He threw his arms around her, and when he felt that she was really there he lifted her off her feet and spun in a circle, laughing and crying all at once. They got a lot of strange looks from the people around them, but Jaune couldn't possibly have cared less.
Finally he set her down and pulled away just long enough to look at her. She was beaming back at him, her eyes sparkling.
"So are you going to do that every time I say it?" she asked. "Because I could get used to that."
"Pyrrha…" Jaune whispered again. "Is it really you?"
"What, were you expecting Agent Carolina?" Pyrrha asked sarcastically.
Jaune frowned with confusion. "Who?"
"Don't worry about it," replied Pyrrha. "But yes, Jaune, it's really me."
"But how?" Jaune asked. "Ruby said you were incinerated."
"Yeah, and she pulled a big old Deus Ex Pyrrha's Death out of it too," she replied, rolling her eyes.
"What?" asked Jaune.
"Nothing. Anyways, it turns out I've got this crazy healing factor I didn't even know about because nobody had ever managed to hurt me before. So I guess I'm Magnikos and Deadpyr!"
Jaune just stared at her with a confused expression on his face.
"Wait," he finally managed. "No one had ever hurt you before?"
"I know, I'm pretty OP" agreed Pyrrha. "But it took me a while to heal from being completely incinerated." The last two words were a growl.
"How long?" asked Jaune, trying to ignore her abrupt shift in tone.
"Months," she answered, suddenly sounding chipper again. "Then it took a few days to rebuild my weapon, and a few days on an airship to get to Mistral."
"Oh, you took an airship," Jaune mumbled sheepishly. "That makes sense."
"Don't tell me you guys spent a whole volume walking here!" Pyrrha cried. "Did you at least do anything fun along the way? Fight any Joker wannabes? Discover any dark secrets that the teachers kept from us? Settle any childhood traumas?"
Jaune gave her a quizzical look before answering.
"Yeah, I guess so… Pyrrha, are you feeling OK? You don't really seem like yourself."
"I'm fine," Pyrrha replied in a very Nora-like tone that Jaune had never once heard from her before. "I mean, I was kind of pissed when I saw the plushie of me, but I got over it."
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Jaune said, shaking his head slightly.
"Don't worry about it," Pyrrha said. Then she sighed and looked at her feet. "Look, I've been through a lot lately. I was dead for six to eight months, then that was ret-conned, then more time passed so I think it really was six to eight months, but Blake's story was a month behind, and we're all left wondering what time it even is." She glanced back at Jaune to find him looking like his brain had blown a fuse. She sighed again.
"The point is that it's really me, but I'm not entirely feeling like myself."
Jaune shook his head to clear it, and then placed a hand on Pyrrha's shoulder.
"That's OK!" he insisted. "All that matters is that you're here now. Gods, I can't wait to tell everyone!"
That was when both teens realized that they were still standing in the middle of the street with people all around them. Jaune glanced at the bags he'd dropped earlier, but they were gone.
"Huh, I think that's the first example we've seen of Mistral's supposedly rampant crime," Pyrrha remarked.
"First example I've seen," agreed Jaune. "We should probably go somewhere a bit more private. Let me show you where we've been staying in Mistral."
"I'd love that," replied Pyrrha. "But the fans would probably kill us if we set foot in there one more time."
Jaune stared at her in confusion.
"Don't worry about it," she said again. "I'm actually pretty hungry right now. Do you think we could meet the others at a restaurant?"
"Sure!" replied Jaune brightly. "I'll text them. Man, wait until they see you! What do you want to eat?"
"I'm in the mood for noodles," Pyrrha answered. Then she turned to the camera and winked.
Pyrrha and Jaune sat together at the table that they'd reserved for thirteen. It was a bit early for dinner, so the restaurant was mostly empty. Even so, Jaune talked quietly as he recounted the story of what they'd been doing since they arrived in Mistral.
"Yang said that Cinder was gone by the time she got down to the vault," he explained. "We don't know if Raven killed her, or she got away, or what." He sighed and looked at the floor. "I came so close too. If I'd been a second quicker she'd have been dead."
"Hey, don't worry about it," Pyrrha consoled. "We'll get another shot at her. I'm sure they wouldn't just give our kill to another antagonist."
Jaune nodded in agreement, having learned to just go along with the strange things that Pyrrha said. He knew she wasn't acting normal, but he was too happy to have his best friend back to worry over it.
"But we got the Relic and it looks like the White Fang is pretty much out of commission," he continued. "When we went looking for Lionheart, we found him in his office, covered in stab wounds. We don't know what killed him."
"You know I met him once," Pyrrha remarked. "When I toured Haven Academy after my last tournament win. I'm not entirely surprised he betrayed Ozpin. Blake may be a cat Faunus, but he was just a pussy. And he had this weird fascination with stairs."
Jaune was trying to come up with a suitable response to that when he heard the front door of the restaurant open. A moment later there came a loud gasp.
Pyrrha and Jaune turned to see their teammates standing in the doorway along with Team RWBY, Sun, Oscar, Qrow, and Blake's parents. The students' mouths were all hanging open in shock.
Pyrrha leaned over to her partner. "Should I say the thing?"
"I think you should," confirmed Jaune.
Pyrrha stood and waved to her friends. "Hello again."
"PYRRHA!" sounded the collective scream. Seven Huntsmen and Huntresses in training crossed the room in the blink of an eye clamoring to get close to their lost, now unexpectedly found, friend.
Nora was sobbing as she received the first hug, and even Ren was tearing up as his turn came. Pyrrha hugged Ruby next, lifting the cloaked girl off the ground and hearing sniffling in her ear. Then she turned to Blake.
"Showing off a lot more than you used to I see," Pyrrha commented.
Blake's eyes widened and she glanced down at her outfit.
"Your ears I mean!" the redhead clarified before throwing her arms around the Faunus girl. "I like it."
Blake laughed as she hugged Pyrrha back. "Me too."
Yang was next, squeezing so tight that the champion's Aura flashed.
"I like the Winter Soldier arm," Pyrrha commented once she was free. "Or maybe more Cable? Either way it's cool."
"Thanks… I think," Yang replied scrunching her eyebrows together.
Though they'd hardly spoken a word to each other, Pyrrha accepted a quick hug from Sun before turning to Weiss. She grabbed the former heiress's hands and stepped very close to her, eliciting an 'eep' from Weiss.
"Weiss, there's something I've always wanted to ask you, and being dead for half a year has taught me that I shouldn't live with regrets, so I'm just going to ask." Everyone stared at the two girls, shock written on all of their faces. Weiss' face was bright red.
"Why does your voice sound so different when you sing?" Pyrrha asked hurriedly, as if she were afraid she'd lose her nerve.
For a moment no one said anything. Then Yang burst into laughter, followed by the rest of the group. Eventually Weiss recovered enough to stammer out a few excuses, but Pyrrha had already moved on to the rest of the group.
She walked right up to Oscar, who seemed a bit flustered, and sized him up.
"So this is the kid Ozpin's inside of? Because there's nothing weird about that." She didn't wait for a response before turning to Qrow.
"How?" he asked softly. "How are you here?"
"Well I didn't use Human Transmutation if that's what you're worried about," replied Pyrrha sarcastically. "Turns out I can just come back when I die. I'm cool like that."
Qrow stared at the resurrected Huntress in disbelief as she moved on to the last two members of the group. Blake rushed forward to introduce her.
"Pyrrha, these are my parents, Ghira and Kali." Pyrrha shook hands with the two adults before leaning towards Blake.
"Hey, you know the song Stacy's Mom?"
Blake glanced at her in confusion. "Yeah, what about it?"
"Nothing," replied Pyrrha. "It just got stuck in my head all of a sudden."
The group couldn't keep quiet for a second as they were seated. The students were all overwhelmed and overjoyed to have their friend back, and it showed in the constant chattering all the way through dinner. Everyone wanted to share what they'd been doing since they last saw Pyrrha, and to hear the same from her.
Until finally Qrow, after having a few too many swigs from his flask, spoke up.
"So what was it like, you know, being dead?"
The whole table went silent. Everyone slowly turned to look at Pyrrha, who was staring down at her lap.
"Being dead…" she whispered. "It was… crazy. I don't even know how to process all of it. I really can't put it into words." She was silent for a moment, but then her head snapped up with a slightly manic look on her face. "But let me tell you about dying!"
Pyrrha was on her feet in an instant, moving around the table and gesturing wildly, heedless of the other patrons of the restaurant as she recounted her final battle with Cinder.
"I almost had that bitch, Maiden powers and all!" she cried, ignoring everyone's looks of shock at hearing her curse. "She had to call in her fucking dragon for help. But I even took that in stride. You don't want to catch these hands? How about these giant metal gears?" Pyrrha waved her hands in imitation of the gears hitting Cinder.
"But apparently fire can just block metal," she continued quickly. "Because that makes sense. She took out my Aura, but I still wasn't giving up. No weapon? No Aura? Guess what, I still got a shield. Bitch shoots an arrow at me, so I throw my shield like I'm Captain fucking America, but then that cheater just disintegrates her own goddamn arrow and puts it back together on the other side of my shield!"
Pyrrha stopped speaking and turned to the table. After a moment of silence, she gestured sharply at them.
"That's nuts," Yang said, and the rest of the table murmured their agreement.
"I know," cried Pyrrha. "And you want to know something else? I'd been wearing extra armor on my ankles ever since I realized my character was based on Achilles. Fat lot of good that did me. Turns out plot armor works in reverse sometimes."
Everyone stared at Pyrrha in complete bewilderment, but she just kept on going.
"So then she starts talking at me, some shit about how I 'was promised a power that was never truly yours.'" The last part was done in a bad impression of Cinder's voice. "So I asked what seemed like a perfectly reasonable question at the time: does she believe in destiny? Then she gets all up on me."
"She was on you?" asked Blake.
"No, like up in front of me," Pyrrha snapped. "And she was rubbing her hand all over my face. And she's all like, just guess what she says. Guess what she says, guess what she says!"
"What did she say?" asked Jaune, barely above a whisper.
"Yes," replied Pyrrha. For a moment everyone was silent. Then Pyrrha exploded into motion again.
"Fuck you, bitch! That's fucked up, alright? Don't talk to me like that! I deserve so much better! Fucking piece of shit asshole douchebag cunt!"
When she was finished, Pyrrha turned back to the table to find everyone staring at her with their mouths hanging open. It was quiet enough to hear a pin drop.
"Guys, relax," Pyrrha insisted, raising her hands in a placating gesture. "I was just quoting Miles."
Jaune shook his head. "Who?"
Pyrrha glanced sideways at him.
"I would think you of all people would know."