Chapter Thirty-Two
Alone
Glynda's words rang in her ears, drowning out the din of the few students protesting her appointment. Rapidly lengthening shadows crept along the lecture hall walls and ate the fleeting sunlight streaming through the windows, all stemming from Qrow's feet. Beads of sweat gathered on his brow, his control stretched beyond a healthy limit. Blake helped out after a moment, grabbing his hand and reigning in the stray tendrils threatening to consume the closest students. Yang shut out the ensuing chaos in favor of engaging in a staring match with the Deputy Headmaster, her Deputy Headmaster now.
She had stalked in here to throw Glynda the clockwork cane, field questions from the trailing Team JNPR, and then jump right into fortifying the aerial defenses of the Academy. Neither Weiss or Blake needed orders to go their way and finish the final preparations for the Vytal Tournament: a few more units of mounted weaponry, a few tweaks to the Bullhead aircraft relics, and tests of connectivity to Menagerie. Those plans sat smoldering in a fire pit, Yang thrust into the lead administrative role of Beacon Academy.
Dozens of terrible possibilities flashed through the forefront of her mind, her legs cramping up preemptively at the thought of having to spend hundreds of hours at a desk and mindlessly rifling through stacks of teetering paperwork. Ruby had somehow done it, managing more paperwork than expected of her. She single-handedly eliminated the machine of bureaucracy by taking it all on herself, and the idea of having to do the same sent a cold wave of trepidation scorching across her limbs.
The damn Commanders of the Hunter factions held secrets of the highest level, and the High Commanders had secrets with secrets that had their secrets in their secret back pockets. Ozpin dealt or rather, had dealt, with paperwork with the efficiency of an immortal or deity and somehow Ruby matched him. Ironwood, Nikos, and Kaldwin also had methods she never bothered learning, never thinking she'd have to ever file mundane paperwork.
Maybe the drudgery of it all swung back around after a while into enjoyment, or maybe she needed to shut everything off and delve into it. Her first mechanical engineering texts didn't sit well with her the first time she tried to understand them either, Weiss taunting her with articles of clothing for every problem she solved. That had changed her tune around incredibly quickly.
Blake could make clones and, since Ruby manipulated them to structurally fracture their cores and transfer them in her bid to leave a piece of her behind, she also possessed a fragment of her teammates, a bid she admitted she grudgingly succeeded at, a lance of purple flame spiraling around her arm.
Rather than instantly fizzle away, the purple flame duplicated into another strand, chasing after its sister in paler imitation. A gauntlet of purple glyphs grew around her arm soon after, the unintentional activation of her secondary defense system again confirming the odd connection between emotion and Aura, snapping into place as a more efficient deflection system than her taxing Aura shields.
They demanded a constant feast of Aura to maintain their density, every impact costing a corresponding amount.
Now she only needed it to permanently take over her usual shields. The creation of the thrice-damned glyphs took more concentration than she had to spare on the field, but if she could passively create a template for them to follow and then charge them up at will, well…
A stupid grin promising reckless explosions broke across her face when she inspected the glyph armor closely. The pale violet attempting to match Blake's original surprised her, expectations happily shattered upon the realization her glyphs cared not for which core provided the raw Aura to power them. She inspected it, marveling at the intricacy of the intertwined components, the glyphs shimmering in symphony with her Aura pulses to glow intensely and fade the moment after.
"I'm only twenty-three years old, Glynda." She finally replied to the older woman's execution statement, the eyes of over a hundred Hunters peeking over their desks. The terrifying display of shadow tendrils hadn't scared too many of them away, all of their cores coiled and ready to unleash havoc. Either their survival instincts sucked to the point they could put Ruby's to shame or they were ignoring them. "How much of my history has been rifled through?"
Glynda answered by starting the slide presentation all over again, 'The History of Team RWBY' displayed in a large and imposing typeface with their portraits emblazoned underneath. Yang frowned at the implication of the crowded room behind her, a good section of the Academy crammed into the lecture hall. Qrow couldn't have ordered this as he didn't have a scroll so the one person with any sort of clout to put any of this together was currently running as quickly as possible away from them.
"Seriously?" She rubbed the bridge of her nose, sighing dejectedly and turning to face the gathered crowd. "How many of them know about Prune?"
Glynda blinked at her owlishly and she couldn't figure out whether the answer was just so affirmative or whether even the Deputy wasn't in the fold of the highest echelons. She poked Qrow to get an answer from him but he shrugged, Yang twitching at the casual disregard for internal operational security. "The only A-rank student here is Miss Nikos."
So only she had accessed the highest level of records and learned of Prune, Mt. Glenn, and Jacques Schnee. The remainder of the missions were classified under A-rank so almost every student at Beacon could access them, and with how controversial Ruby's appointment was in the first place, everyone would clamor for every record they could.
"Sit," Yang commanded and the students practically tripped over themselves to rush into their seats. Weiss shivered, reminded too often of the many times she was at the receiving end of the voice. Goosebumps streaked across her flesh and she suppressed a shiver poorly, catching the end of a satisfied smirk from a content Blake. She swiped at the Faunus for good measure, a pale purple glyph deflecting it with ease, making her curse subtly. Ruby's machinations usually didn't come back to bite her so ironically.
"All of you should now be aware Ruby Rose was the Fourth Commander of Vale's Hunter along with the dozen most pertinent missions, both in this dimension and our two previous ones." Yang took a seat on Glynda's test, tapping her new cane rhythmically, letting it bounce against the floor. She didn't know how to breach the subject, their records stained with the human blood and Grimm essence equally. These younger students could never understand the depravity of their war, the terrible circumstances thrust onto the shoulders of any available S-rank. "For operational security, none of you were allowed access to any history about the start of our war, but you should all be aware of just what the four of us were forced to do."
The edge to her voice prevented any student from calling them out on the perceived cowardness of abandoning their first home due to the Primordials, but sketches and reports only went so far. The harrowing screech of the beasts tore through her mind, echoing and blanking out any coherent thought. Only her supernova ability stood a chance against the flying armored Grimm, and even that wasn't a guarantee, not when it cost Ruby a precious eye to smite one of them down in the first place.
"Most of you here dream of glory for slaying Grimm but that's a fool's notion we will stamp out of you." A few students flinched when she passed over them with her vermilion gaze. "Of the four members of Team RWBY, only the Fourth and I joined Beacon to fight Grimm, Blake joining to escape her life in the White Fang and Weiss escaping her solitude in Mantle."
Neither of the two mentioned gave any indication they'd even heard her, standing stoically by her side. Blake's original White Fang tattoo caught the attention of everyone for a moment, all of them aware of the hell the future organization could wreak on the planet. Glynda gave her an odd look for referring to Atlas as the technically defunct State of Mantle, but Yang knew better: that the prevailing force of power within the northernmost region remained in a select few hands with them still being the most militarized country on Remnant, their fleet of naval carriers and ships unmatched in the air.
Until Weiss got a hold of them and ripped them from the skies, holding them back at the Bay of Vale with the near limitless Aura battery of Yang.
Standing at level with the incoming fleet, she summoned a veritable armada of glyphs to make them, slinging the impossibly durable blades to anything within her reach. Tears streaked her cheeks during the entirety of the defense, knowing thousands of innocent souls had waited inside the ships on orders of old men in clean uniforms back in their isolated capitol. Yang pulled her into a hug the moment she deemed it over, the hundreds of Atlesian ships hanging in midair until they broke apart into pieces and fire, slamming into the cold waters they dared invade.
They hadn't tried again.
"Eventually," she continued, a Primordial howl eating the memories with a fury until it resonated within her skull. "The team of Hunters put together by Ozpin stopped in their duty of defeating Grimm and turned to prevent the war from escalating. The Fourth alone massacred entire battalions of Vale military, taking the burden of slaughtering the misguided to save the innocent."
"Along her side stood the former right-hand to Adam Taurus, the current leader of Vale's White Fang faction. She begrudgingly hunted her people down during the war, understanding that while they both wanted equality, the other was going about it the wrong way." Blake fielded a dozen nasty glares from the amassed crowd until Yang released a burst of blue flames, catching them by surprise and forcing them back. "She has nothing to do with the current Fang situation so take your prejudice and stuff it deep into your dark souls before I throw you off the cliffs and see if you can swim!"
"Weiss and I combined accounted for over a fifth of the casualties during the war, both of us responsible for wiping Vacuo from the map." More missions sat accredited to them in the massive library of information, but nothing overshadowed the brilliant and terrible moment they annihilated an entire country. Her defense in 117M: nothing. Weiss' defense against Atlas: negligible. Blake's assassinations of Atlesian Generals and Fang officers alike: laughable. Ruby's casual slaughter of two thousand soldiers ordered to march across Sanus and invade Mantle: nominal. "You now know our history, what we've done and may have to do in the future. What most fail to understand is we did everything on the Fourth's orders alone, and continue to do so despite her passing. She led us in our darkest times, entrusting me to lead the team after her. Ozpin now entrusts me to lead this Academy with Commander Qrow overseeing the rest of Vale, but I will leave the final say to you, the constituents we hope to lead. So what says you, Beacon Academy? Will you accept me as your Headmaster?"
Even Weiss and Blake seemed shocked by the rapid turn of events, her speech flipping from bitter reminiscing to inflamed passion. They understood why though, both of them, and Ruby before them, thrown into their respective positions with nothing more than a regional notification when the usual protocol demanded an election. She might've not declassified the entirety of their mission records, but she wasn't going to turn the advantage away, not with Ozpin retreating away from them. Combined with Ruby's death, any military installation would struggle with their morale.
The first person to speak surprised everyone, Cardin Winchester standing from among his team. "I may not understand what you've gone through and most likely never will, but we can't afford to turn you away." He took his seat again, pleased with the few words he managed to get out.
Coco spoke for the second years after a few moments of tense silence. "I don't agree with your war Xiao-Long, but Beacon needs your strength. Headmaster Ozpin trusted you and I choose to trust him."
Third and fourth year representatives also stood in turns and voiced their concerns about the dimension travelers, some asking questions about the egregious decisions the Fourth took in her reign of Beacon. Yang fielded them well, keeping her responses short but ultimately defaulting to explaining her views on the matter, even pulling one of the few times she vetoed an idea to better explain the commanding team dynamic. Blake received her fair share of questions due to her involvement with the Fang and her other two teammates translated much to the student body's confusion. She chose not to explain why her voice was sore in the end. Weiss got one question about her mission against the SDC but a quick glyph pinned the unfortunate soul to their seat, a miniature blizzard forming in the hall from her ire.
With Rei nowhere in sight, Blake soothed the women with whispered nothings and a gentle hug from the side until she regained control over her emotions. No one, wisely, chose to ask questions about the topic further.
"For all those in favor of the combined rule of Headmaster Xiao-Long and Commander Branwen, raise your hand," Glynda announced after all the questions were done, counting the hundreds of students packed in within seconds. She didn't even bother asking for the opposing votes, the presentation screen lighting up with the votes. "With 73% vote from the populace of Beacon, Yang Xiao-Long will remain your Headmaster with Qrow Branwen as your interim Commander, waiting for confirmation by the rest of your peers."
A thunder of applause rumbled across the campus, every student but one standing and clapping with enthusiasm, even those who didn't vote in her favor. Ruby would've despised this, this idea of democracy in the military when the strongest almost always needed to rule to prevent chaos, but she wasn't Ruby and didn't want to be. She was her own person, and with their leader gone and turned to dust, she decided the direction her Hunters needed to take.
Blake and Weiss surrounded her from her sides and pressed kisses to her cheeks, the applause growing in volume. That didn't surprise her, their unorthodox relationship most likely thrown in their faces by Glynda to get them used to it with her then immediately clamping down by telling them it wasn't any of their business. It was how she handled their relationship the last few times she discovered them. She was predictably good and efficient at her job.
Now if only Pyrrha could stop glaring at her with her emerald orbs.
She remained the only student refusing to clap, the only one privy to the horrifying consequences leading to and from Contingency: Prune.
"You killed her." Yang clenched her fist tightly at Pyrrha's whispered words, the younger woman ambushing them almost immediately. She chose her moment well, waiting until the former Command group managed to escape to their old room.
Weiss visibly held back Blake from throttling the lone redhead, her team hanging a good few meters behind a wall and waiting for the inevitable explosion. Out of the four members of JNPR, only she knew the real reason Ruby had to die and she knew better than to risk the ire of not only Glynda and Qrow but also the former Command team by bringing them into the conversation.
Yang didn't fuck around with Ruby's secrets, not when she managed to reign in over eight thousand Hunters under her command and keep them running better than chickens with their heads cut off. Pyrrha could choose to share anything she learned with her team depending on her superior's orders, but that opened her up to discipline if anything ever got out.
"Yes, technically, I did." She answered back, the cold pit of disbelief taking root in her chest and sendings ebbs of freezing shocks across her body. That same statement threatened to destroy the team mere weeks, Blake tearing random, poor storage rooms apart in her bid to master her new Semblances and ignore the grief, and Weiss locking herself in her study to try and make sense of Ruby's while attempting to solve how to travel in time without jumping into a new dimension.
She had sat dejectedly in the shower attempting to scrub bloodstains from her arm, the red flakes caking her skin and seeping into her pores. No matter how much she pushed her loofah or scrapped with a dull knife, nothing refused to give. A Blake clone caught her once in the shower, licking at the stains to make sure they existed and her tongue screamed YES, tasting tantalizing iron, her sins wrapped like satin, a badge of both duty and regret.
They took no pattern to this day, simply daring to exist in her sight, streaks painting across her worn skin. Another set of tattoos probably followed shortly, mentally noting to track down Blake's elusive artist and nab him long enough for a full sleeve. She grabbed Pyrrha by her hand and pulled her along towards a familiar location, noting the streaks matched the brilliant crimson of her hair.
Blake refused to follow, sulking in Weiss' grip until the smaller woman wrestled her over her shoulder and picked her up with as much dignity as a little kitten. She sulked further, unable to glare at the cause of her irritation. The remainder of JNPR trailed behind them, amusement painted clearly on their faces until she threw a spare knife at their feet, silently promising to make them dance to her amusement instead.
Weiss wryly chuckled, Blake tossing restlessly to her grip to swap her around, eventually getting her wish of a loosened hold until she clambered across Weiss and settled on her back. This position gave her the added benefit of staring ahead at her leader and the girl by her side, and the enjoyment of Weiss' hands on her. Weiss continued to move forward during this entire interaction, refusing to say a word but acquiescing to the silent demand. Let the peons wonder at the crazy strength training Yang put her through to get even a smidgen of control over her Semblance.
Pyrrha got thrown unceremoniously into their room, landing on the large king-sized bed they'd abandoned months ago. Absolutely nothing else dotted the desks or walls, everything stripped bare after their last appearance on Beacon. Blake similarly joined her on the mattress but with much more dignity, predicting the action and rolling to gain a positional advantage. Pyrrha found herself staring at menacing amber above her, a knife poised at her throat. She couldn't swallow much less move without some part of Blake restricting her.
"So…" She had enough of an angle to notice Weiss closing the door and sealing it with a glyph, More glyphs spread from the epicenter until they were entirely sealed off from the outside world, Pyrrha entirely at their mercy.
"You know…" Blake trailed off, taking a moment to cough raggedly, dragging the point of her knife across her jugular. Pyrrha struggled against her bindings, her brilliant emerald eyes filled with fear, darting every which way in a bid to escape. She lifted her hips to shove the older woman off of her, her body instinctively reacting against the threat. A shiver ripped its way through her but she couldn't figure out whether it came from terror or arousal. Horror overtook her rational senses and her Semblance reached for the weapon pointed at her, wrenching it violently to send it flying into the armored wall.
Her captor flowed with the sudden change, tracing her neck delicately with devastatingly sharp claws and causing goosebumps. A blazing blush bloomed across her cheeks, Blake rumbling viciously at the reaction she helped cause.
"How are we supposed to talk to her if you're busy seducing her?" Weiss saved her from further embarrassment, pushing Blake to the other side of the bed. She sat as the picture of innocence, a satisfied grin carved on her face and another knife in her hands to clean imaginary dust from under her claws.
Pyrrha gasped deeply and attempted to shove the heat down from her face, rising to join her in a seat. She refused to look in her direction in case her body betrayed her, dozens of conflicting signals slamming into each other and leaving her confused rather than aroused. Jaune never elicited such feelings, though he would never dare treat her in such a manner.
Her crush had dimmed over the last couple of months, Ren and Nora both catching her attention. The damned confines of their shared room didn't allow for much privacy and Ren never wore a shirt to hide his body when going to and from the shower. Nora also teased her relentless, wearing tight clothing to reveal her watermelon-crushing legs and delicious midriff.
"I don't care if you're not seducing her. She still looks a hair away from an orgasm!" She missed the subtle signals from Blake denoting her response, too busy resisting the urge to rub her legs together to abate the growing heat building at her core. Her tongue dried when she tried to respond to the accusation, Weiss staring at her inquisitively, knowing of the many signs to read after living with three women for a few years. "You can finish seducing her after."
She managed a squawk of indignation at that but her body reacted counterintuitively, eyes dilating at the implied pleasure and her previous fear melting away entirely away to creeping arousal. Blake reached over and pulled her into an insidious hug, nuzzling against her hair and petting it condescendingly. Part of her resisted the feeling but a large part screamed at her to melt and accept it.
If Blake wanted to give her her first time then she didn't necessarily want to resist, not when she knew she had the skill to make it worthwhile.
A pair of snapping fingers shook her from her guilty fantasy, reminding her she started this entire series of events by accusing Yang of premeditated murder. She blushed again, but this time from righteous embarrassment rather than unrequited pleasure.
"I'm sorry!" She blurted out, curling up on herself and staring down at her clenched hands, adding in a final bit meekly, "I was just… angry I suppose. Your report read very blandly and I wanted to know what happened to my friend but there's almost nothing there." Yang struggled to hide the twitch in her arm when she pressed two of her fingers together.
"Aww!" Weiss glomped her instantly, taken by the sheen of tears stretched over her eyes. She collapsed backward onto the bed again, unable to see the envious look Blake shot her teammate. The need for petty vengeance against her for her attitude quelled in comparison to knowing what an alternate version of her would go through in a couple of weeks. This dimension hopping screwed with her sense of time to the point she barely remembered her age anymore, her first timeline ending with her somewhere around twenty-two.
The weeks and months in the second dimension, when they'd masqueraded as their alternates of Team SKBN, threw those calculations so she could've been either twenty-two or twenty-three until some trio of meddling deities decided they weren't meant to be and pressed the big, red reset button. And yes, she fully expected Neo to have conjured up said button to screw with the other two. And, Neo definitely had something to do with it.
Almost everything did.
Weiss theorized they'd either been sent to their original first dimension as a penance for failing to save it the first time or thrown into a completely new one to continue their toil. With how futile the search for one dimension among a series of infinite parallels, she'd guessed they'd replaced the younger set, hijacking their bodies and killing the occupying minds. Some small smidgen of guilt came not from their deaths and replacements, but from their failure to defend their first planet, leading to the unnecessary reset. She pushed the nagging thought that their initial interference led to the unneeded manslaughter, but they'd tackled it with good intentions.
An unintentional snort erupted up through her vocal cords, a few rough coughs joining shortly afterward. This ridiculous body, wracked with countless scars from Ruby's wind blades in their final battle, gave fewer problems than the supposedly healed mortal wound from Neo. She hadn't died from the injury only due to Weiss' glyphs helping by stitching the wound shut and keeping her airways open.
The demon played its field, uncaring what havoc he left in her wake. They played with their life, utter meaningless pawns moved across the board to fulfill his desire. She'd helped establish Mountain Glenn and secure Ruby's rule as her hidden weapon, only to turn right around and uncaring maim her, permanently robbing her of her voice. She'd then disappeared into the ether, unwilling to help with the search for a captured Ruby, despite having the best idea of where she might've been kept.
Ruby hadn't faulted them for his mistake, keeping a relatively healthy relationship with the demoness. It similarly showed no remorse for its actions, working with the team without so much as a few hand signs to convey her ideas.
She saw through the devious thought process of the hellion only now after years of working with her and toddling behind blind and confused, even with her enormous network of implanted and disguised clones and bought informants. The overpowered SS-rank ghosted across her nodes, touching briefly across the planet to create apocalyptic events, chaos seeping into the very foundation of civilizations under her watch.
She stood behind the worst of the apocalypses, but only Ozpin and her could confirm which she'd actively helped engineer. Ruby's capture and subsequent personality spoke of the enormous influence she wielded in their first Remnant's events. It all first started with Qrow's death when she trapped Ruby in her corporeal illusory prison, which led to her early promotion.
Neo's betrayal during their final assault on Cinder before their training hiatus forced Ruby to become Summer, the nightmare child receiving her wish of a companion to brighten her bleak existence. Two avatars of nothing towered over the remainder of the planet, one in charge of their protection and the other with her mysterious motivations.
Even her injury was planned to ensure Ruby and her team had to learn sign language or risk isolation of their own and reducing operational capacity. Though she'd received it during Ruby's capture and remembered nothing coherent beyond a few scraps of memories, she knew deep down Neo maneuvered her brilliantly, fighting disguised and leaving their team in full retreat, allowing her to take Ruby away from them in their greatest moment of weakness.
She blamed herself more than Yang though she wouldn't ever be able to get the blonde to believe that, unable to get anything through that thick skull. Her hubris ripped their team apart when she forgot she wasn't supposed to ever be on a battlefield. She wasn't supposed to fight in the open. Her name unknown, her skills unknown, her face unknown, but she'd thrown that away on the eve of perceived victory. Her threat came from her ability to disappear, not from her ability to tear armies apart.
The one thing she couldn't blame her for was Ruby's death. She remembered how distraught she was after Ruby and she shared a moment after their successful assassination of Jacques Schnee. She'd looked close to tears just before disappearing in her usual fanfare. No, Ruby chose her end and accusing the immortal of any more wouldn't change her plans anyway.
She sighed dejectedly, Yang pulling her chin up to stare her down. Her vermilion eyes glowed in unrestrained fire, speckled with embers and ashes of mesmerizing violet, chasing away the vestiges of doubt. Ruby's reasons were her own, people ranked as pawns by their usability to the protection of Remnant, but she still failed to understand why she used a thing so unhinged and perfectly balanced between the two largest factions.
They had their own world-ender in Yang, their own control mage in Weiss, their own assassin in her, and their own CQC specialist and nightmare in Ruby. They didn't need another nightmare, another assassin, another mage, or another world-ender, especially not with each of them in possession of each other's Semblances. Was it her need to keep a kindred spirit nearby, or the need to keep tabs on her, however limited they might've been?
Was it some misconceived notion of a debt, a thanks to breaking her free from the shackles of humanity and birthing the perfect Hunter Commander? Were there other plans in play she couldn't imagine, some pact deciding when Neo helped and when she presented an impossible roadblock? Ruby's prerogatives valued the lives of innocents far over her own or even Blake's, and other than a few murders of questionably ethical leaders, Neo never strayed into Ruby's definition of a reasonable threat, her Hunters firmly labeled as combatants and freely subject to the expectations of casualties.
Whatever it was, it didn't matter. The next time she dared show herself anywhere near Beacon or during the Vytal Tournament would spell her end. Ruby might've only forced a draw against her, but she'd been half-blind, wielding a mastery of only one Semblance, and fighting alone. Though she'd be fighting alone, if she even counted assassinations as technically fighting, she'd have the distraction of the tournament, one mastered Semblance, two other partially reliable ones, and one she liked to think would save her with its defensive properties. Her Last Breath already offered her nigh impenetrable defense and was always a hair's trigger away from popping, her clones and it sharing similar first steps.
The battle would easily cost her life, of that she was sure, certain the hellion had the staggering skill to match her on the field, but surprise and preparation had more often than not fallen titans. Ozpin's disappearance in their first dimension stood as a testament to how ridiculous the demise of a god had to be. She frowned, Yang following in her wake, unable to read anything beyond frustration on her face. Though Neo wasn't their first Neo, probably, she still danced to her own tune, a discordant harmony screeching across the world, a harbinger of the end.
Just like their Pyrrha, not the harbinger part but the different dimension part. The murder disappeared from her visage, replaced with a mask so similar to Ruby's. Concern etched over Yang's face, purple specks flickering between vivid orange and pale white, rapidly displaying the different Auras held in her core.
"Let me go-" Pyrrha struggled against the clingy Weiss, the smaller woman tucked under her chin and nuzzling into her chest. Weiss managed to trap her arms by her sides, her inner koala coming to bear, happily nestled on Pyrrha's lap. The aforementioned redhead, first subjected to an overly affectionate Blake and an unrepentant Yang, and then serving as a teddy bear substitute for Weiss.
Seeing her again, not as alternates to an already existing Team RWBY, but as a reborn Team RWBY, freed her. When they'd rescued Pyrrha from her fate in their second dimension, she'd breathed easier, satisfied with saving the pure woman from death at the hands of a megalomaniac.
"You were the first casualty in our war," Blake answered blandly, uncaring for the destroyed past. Pyrrha's previous actions offered nothing helpful. She didn't aspire beyond her humble dreams, didn't have Ozpin whispering in her ear, and didn't have Amber's death hanging over her. Cinder decisively removed her from the field by successfully doing away with Amber without fragmenting the Maiden power.
She received a thump for her troubling words, worry, not anger, roiling in Yang's eyes, a singular shade of crimson wrapping around a pitch-black pupil. No, she didn't think her comment was insensitive, figuring out the unspoken question. Pyrrha wanted answers to a few things so shoving her foot in the door solved a few of them, got her over the shock of it, and let her vent her misplaced vengeance.
Shock and awe. She signed quickly, getting a nod from the trooper. Weiss freed a hand from keeping Pyrrha imprisoned and signaled her agreement.
Pyrrha choked before answering. "What?" She pushed Weiss away from her to stare down at her, asking silently for confirmation of the truth. Weiss didn't answer, sitting comfortably on her lap, enjoying the returned presence of her friend. "How?"
"A certain former headmaster manipulated you into accepting a destiny beyond your ability and you ended up dead at the hands of one of Beacon's enemies," Weiss answered, shoving away her happy and fuzzy thoughts to blitz through the vaguest definition she felt comfortable giving without infringing on Yang's authority. She pressed a finger to her lips to prevent a response. "Ruby already handled it, and as long as you follow orders, you'll remain alive… understood?"
Pyrrha nodded mutely, fidgeting full of questions she so desperately wanted, no, needed to ask. Blake knew the feeling well, the same urge nagging her on reconnaissance or espionage missions. Though the information she obtained was of vastly greater importance to the function and operation of the Hunters, she couldn't disregard personal feelings.
Those kept Hunters fighting beyond mortal means, the camaraderie tying their lives to each other. She hadn't needed to risk her life, save for the scarce occasion where she also bit it, but Yang and Ruby almost fought for the right to save each other, pushing themselves to do better and covering their weak points when Weiss couldn't.
Pyrrha's face screwed up after a moment of contemplation where she released the tension in her shoulders right after. "Can you tell me why you had to kill her? She spoke without mincing her words, her tone steady, and emerald eyes hard. Blake almost applauded her for the ability to keep her tears back. "A lot of Ru- her reports before Moonfall never mentioned her psychological state, but after Bleeding Rose she has over dozen reports attributed to her from each of you, detailing an unmentioned change to her personality."
She slowed down talking when Weiss and Yang looked over at Blake accusingly, the Faunus woman picking at the dirt under her claws with a knife absentmindedly. She pretended exquisitely, ignoring the questioning gazes until Yang again thumped her over the head, the silence in no way making her uncomfortable.
"Exactly how much of our first dimension did you manage to write down?" Yang cut herself off and the ensuing answer by facepalming. "Or rather, how many clones did you set to the task?" The accused started counting condescending until she abruptly stopped, paling ever so slightly. She fished her scroll out from her many pockets and rapidly began flying between dozens of spreadsheets. Her ears plastered down on her head and she sheepishly handed over her scroll.
Yang took the offered item and glanced at the total at the end of the first spreadsheet, shooting Blake a curious look. The entire collection of Blake clones spread around Remnant, originally believed to be somewhere just under 400, actually stood ready with just over a thousand. Considering Beacon fielded under 10,000, she composed an entire regiment alone.
"Where exactly are you getting the Dust to maintain a thousand copies, and where did the extra 600 come from?" Blake caught her thrown scroll, averting her eyes from looking directly at her leader. "Please tell me you gave them a base case to prevent infinite replication?"
She didn't answer, not from a mistake she made in creating her legion but in not keeping a closer eye on them. Each Blake was an extension of herself, so trust came implicitly, but that came with them being independent. With the sheer amount of Blakes under her control, she had to assign designated leaders, who came with their own free will and ideas of how to manage the Blakes under their command.
Narcissistic orgies aside, their usefulness came with their ability to adapt to new situations without involving the original Blake, her. That independence, unfortunately, led to them creating their own clones to suit their needs, which in turn created their own clones, leading to an inadvertent self-sufficient pyramid scheme.
Now, not all of them created their own schemes or there'd be around upwards of several thousand to the point they'd start overtaking active Hunters, but she now possessed a terrifying amount of one-shot Hunters, all of who possessed the same skill as the original. None, or only some of them, had the four Semblances due to the timings of their creations, but her first Semblance almost ended a war with only one of her.
The only real question remained as to where exactly all of her commanding clones got the Dust, but she already had a sneaky suspicion with how decidedly silent the Fang remained in their pre-Vytal activities.
The first time they noticed her old organization's machinations was when she'd run out on the team after they'd discovered her extra set of ears. Her run in with Sun, she suppressed a blush at the dirty thoughts of the man she once knew, had been fortuitous, both in showing her what the Fang was doing and in shoving her past her prejudice against Weiss. She'd so stupidly assumed she'd follow in her asshole father's footsteps, but she'd risen beyond that.
She'd been wrong in judging her, expecting racism when she'd done nothing to warrant it. She'd be the one at fault, not her. Even expecting it cast her in a negative light when she'd barely snipped at her for the policies of the company she only just inherited and had direct control over only because she'd gone ahead and planned assassination without Ruby's initial approval to move this stupid dimension to a point where something could finally go wrong without either the collapse of civilization, a debilitating injury, incompetent governing bodies, or incoming armies of human or Grimm!
Yang pulled her into a hug for some reason, holding her tight and rubbing soothing circles on her back. A slight tightening in her chest brought her attention around to a panic growing in her brain, the lack of oxygen stemming from shallow hyperventilation. Discovering her clones waged a guerilla war against by stealing from them didn't surprise her, but the panic attacks sure were new.
"So where exactly did you get the idea to wait until the Fang stole Dust shipments from my company so it could recoup its losses from insurance?" Pyrrha didn't notice when Weiss gave her enough room to breathe, retrieving her scroll and accessing Blake's network. Neither Yang or her expected answers from their selectively mute teammate, more than tuned into reading her subtle quirks. "You're going to have to stop. Even plausible deniability wouldn't save you."
Blake handed over her scroll, Weiss tapping a message to inform the army of Blakes to stop their course and reconvene to prepare for the defense of Amity Coliseum. A flurry of messages from the top commanders answered her, most affirmative at the change with some suspicious and sending their clones to Beacon to confirm the orders.
"Hmm, I'll have to start my research into thought deviation within a neural network sooner than I thought." She sent herself a message about the curious development of the Blake armada. Each clone counted as a node and each performed their best to a certain goal, but each had different ways of accomplishing it, leading to the split in ideas.
"How did you…" Pyrrha trailed, rephrasing her question into a statement. "You asked three questions and she didn't answer any of them, just showed you a few things, got angry, and got hugged."
"Yes," Yang answered, keeping her hold on Blake and making sure she remained passive, moving a hand up to caress her ears. "That's normal Blake. Now, during the events of Moonfall, an incident occurred where our enemy captured Ruby." Blake flinched visibly enough to startle the other two in the room, Yang shushing her gently. "It wasn't your fault, or mine, it just happened."
"Why would she think it was her, or your, fault?" Pyrrha interrupted with a whisper, pale but still composed, simultaneously elated and distressed to finally learn about the secret history behind the team.
"I am the team's designated sacrifice, meaning I get left behind in the event the rest of the team needs to escape." Pyrrha started shaking her head in denial, unable to comprehend the need for such a mechanic. "I've been left behind twice, I think. Once during the defense of District 117M and the second time right after Slicing Storm but recalled instantly to jump dimensions."
"And you chose to stay behind on these missions?" She probed, the last word leaving a nasty taste in her mouth. Too many of their declassified S-rank missions dealt with running interference against one of the four kingdoms with many of them costing human lives.
"Fuck no. Ruby ordered me every time, well, Weiss did during 117M because these two were busy pulling an unconscious Ruby from the field, but she would've. She did order me to buy time for Vale to evacuate, but the Grimm already torched half of Remnant by the time we mobilized."
Pyrrha shuddered and closed her eyes, an image of a Primordial flashing up from the horrid description Blake provided in her reports. Three to four billion people perished in their first dimension, the nightmarish beasts roasting the planet with Ruby taking one of them down at the cost of an eye.
"You sent your wife off to die?" Damn, Pyrrha mood swings couldn't be normal, earlier despondent and now flipping to angry. Her grief hadn't run its course by flipping between the two, rather starting and ending at acceptance with brief bouts of depression induced anger and anger induced depression. "And you're okay with that? I thought you two loved each other?"
"It's because she loves me that she trusts me to come back, and even on the chance I don't then she knows I died protecting her." Yang shrugged casually, keeping an arm wrapped around Blake and rubbing her waist soothingly. Blake also held a vested interest in the order of sacrifices considering she was the designated survivor, Weiss following directly after Yang with Ruby taking the spot right after. "Besides, we split our duties to the Hunters away from our relationships. Now, Moonfall ended in disaster, Blake losing the use of her voice and Ruby captured."
"Blake here rescued Ruby after refusing to stop looking for six months, but what most of our forces misunderstood was that Ruby never walked out. She died in captivity." Yang finished, having lived through the events and seen Blake rampage through Mt. Glenn to the medical bay with Ruby in her arms.
If only she'd know it was too late to save the woman she loved.
"But?" Weiss silenced Pyrrha with a finger, shaking her head solemnly.
"Though her body survived, if barely, the torture she crumbled under destroyed her spirit and her primary personality, replaced with a new personality. After Commander Qrow fell during Redemption, she took up the mantle and led us to the best of her ability, but she struggled. After her rehabilitation, she became the perfect Commander, but she became merciless and utilitarian."
"Commander Qrow attempted to keep the war cold and quiet, but the new Ruby's first action saw her slaughter an entire regiment of Vale soldiers daring to ignore Qrow's lockdown orders. Not a single soldier dared break quarantine after she ripped through 2,000 humans in a matter of seconds. Even the resulting massacre of Grimm right after paled in comparison." Yang reached for her trusty flask and twiddled with the screw top. Blake smiled against her neck, aware she hadn't refilled the thing since Ruby's death. "Her rebirth turned the four of us from Hunters into warriors. You read the reports so you can compare the amount of Grimm we killed against the number of humans we went after."
"So what? You killed her because she went too far, became too perfect?"
"Something… happened after one of our missions. She believed after her torture she had two masks, one to manage the Hunters and the other to wield control on the field, where for original personality got molded into one of the new ones. Those two she switched when she needed, but she discovered only in this dimension she was wrong. Her two personalities stemmed from her break, but her primary first wasn't molded into a new one, no, it was shoved behind a set of doors, a seal if you will, a seal she learned was slowly breaking because we tried to fix her."
"But that meant your first Ruby was coming back, right?" Pyrrha followed the chain of events well enough and could extrapolate what happened next.
"That's what we thought too, but remember, that Ruby died in captivity so what emerged from behind the doors was viciously pissed at us for failing her, bent on revenge against the world so…"
"You killed her…"
"No," Blake answered with a raspy whisper, eyes closed and nestled tightly against her portable space heater. "She -" A set of crippled hacks and wheezes wracked her body, Yang holding her throughout the episode, unable to do more than that. Her arm plagued her with the odd phantom tingle but her primary Aura soothed the worst of it away, but it wasn't a debilitating injury, not like hers. She got a replacement, the arm a less complicated piece to replace than a set of vocal cords.
"She let us kill her." Yang finished where she left off, proud she spoke without stammering. The monster of grief crept deep into her chest and squeezed tight, sending shocks of cold up her spine. "When the other Ruby emerged we had already trapped her body and were ready to execute her, but she was so… so terrifyingly strong."
Memories of the evening flashed behind Blake's eyes.
Her corruptive violet Aura crawling around her arm, moments from seeping into Weiss' glyph prison.
The last warmth of the setting sun, dancing across skin just waiting for the taste of a blade to split it wide open and let loose the crimson tides of mortality so forgotten beneath the guise of cloned immortality.
The taste of the desert air, mixed with the grit of sand from tanking Ruby's counterattacks and blood from taking damage for the first time in years, stained her tongue after dozens of washes. The insipid desert refused to leave her, already having invaded the hundreds of cuts from Ruby's petal hurricane, and now stuck to her damn eyelids.
Why couldn't she have broken down if the scraping mountains, the lush forests, or the frigid tundra? She supposed the same issue would result with leaves and snow or the like, but the desert annoyed her. Sure, Ruby became part of it in the end and that alone should've endeared the environment but after their first debacle with the Wastelands Queen, the half-hundred of crafts rammed into the sands, and now Ruby's death to top it all off, she really, really didn't like sand.
They'd planned to use Weiss' flexible glyphs as a mercy killing, trapping her and blowing her body to less than ashes with Yang's Semblance. Oh, but she'd conveniently forgotten, or rather chosen to forget, to mention that while Weiss' fragments allowed for the creation and control of glyphs, they also allowed for their destruction. Maybe she conveniently forgot about that, wanting her to survive, or maybe that was just what she told herself to get through it in the end.
"She fought us alone and she still schooled us like we were green Hunters trying to spar against Headmaster Ozpin, so with whatever sliver of will she still had over her body, Ruby took control and let us kill her." Yang ended her explanation and Pyrrha deflated, her first bout of anger forgotten.
"I'm- I'm sorry." Pyrrha finally replied, stewing in a mess of emotions. She knew it too well, the life of searching for elusive information. Sometimes she found what she wanted, satisfied she helped the Hunters, but more often than not she discovered damning information, either some plot the Council devised to more their forces away from their attention or some direct White
Fang plot against them, or something even finding a mole in their forces for Ruby to make an example of.
"Good. You're now part of a select group of people who know the reason behind Prune, and Blake will kill you if you let that out." Yang released Blake to the bed, looking around the room to find something. She checked under the bed before giving up and glaring up at Blake. "I mean that seriously, but not for you to have her shadowed with a clone 'til the end of time. Now, where did the real you put Re'iyah?"
"This isn't the real Blake?"
"I don't actually know. I've stopped caring as to whether it's the real one or not. It's still Blake, her mind, a part of her Semblance, her soul, whatever you want to call it. Now, her clones let her multitask so one of her is watching over Rei, Ruby's adopted pet Grimm."
"What?"
"Yeah, well, you can check where her clones are at any given time. They like to check in regularly to deliver reports of enemy movements, changes in Council policy, blackmail material, you know, ninja cat stuff." Weiss coughed a little too audibly, making sure to add a few more to catch Yang's attention. "Oh, you mean the Grimm thing. Don't worry about her. She's the sweetest little puppy and you'll love her."
Blake tapped her shoulder and signed.
"What? Were you planning on keeping her locked away in the ship? She's a living -" She caught herself for a moment, the word sounding wrong when used to describe a nightmare of humanity. "She's a… um… I don't know. Besides, you know very well I'm her favorite." Weiss scoffed and summoned a glyph to bat Yang gently on her nose, Blake joining in and throwing a knife. "What? You know it's true!"
Cue another set of glyph and knife boops.
"Oh please, the moment the Hunters hear she was Ruby's pet they'll fall over themselves to ignore her, not with both Qrow and I peering down over them." She signed for Blake to bring Rei from her isolation, stepping from the room after ensuring they'd be fine with a newly minted Pyrrha armed with incredibly dangerous information and a barely sated hunger. "I'll be dealing with my newest and greatest enemy."
"What is she talking about?"
Weiss and Blake groaned and shared a knowing look, answering at the same time. "Paperwork."
The opening elevator chimed after what seemed like forever, Yang tearing her attention away from the third acquisition form for heavy ordinance to cross her desk from the same trigger happy team stuck in a middle district with little to no Grimm activity to occupy their time. She filed it away into her outbox after denying the request again, this time adding a personal note for them to channel their destructive demands towards the nearest White Fang base when the need required it.
Rei happily bounced from her place on her desk to greet the visitor, abandoning the intermittent pets Yang granted in hopes of a returning Blake.
The violent discharge of a gunshot scrapped those plans, Rei yipping in pain and dissipating into a mist of shadows and ghosting across the floor to pool at Yang's feet under the desk. She calmed her down with a few head scratches, receiving a scratchy tongue lick in response. "Do you make it a habit of shooting up offices or is mine just special?"
General Ironwood sheathed his pistol, walled by the response. He held her gaze for longer than necessary before glancing around the room, taking in the same decor from Ozpin, from the same leather couches to the ever-full bar. "I'm sorry, but I didn't realize Oz was playing a prank on me."
"I'm Headmaster of Beacon after Ozpin took an early retirement, General." The outbox received another form, this one dealing with a request for a team to go on leave after a grueling S-rank into the Bay of Vale to unearth a creature they named a Leviathan, a Grimm a couple of kilometers long with a penchant for strangling ships after leaving shallow waters. She approved it without bothering to read the minute details of which amusement park, arcade, or water park they wanted to visit.
"And he left a teenager in charge." He slowly enunciated, more for his benefit than hers. Yes, it wasn't a believable occurrence, not with thousands more experienced Hunters scattered about with run-of-the-mill duties. Not that they wanted responsibility for the Hunters, children with limited attention span, but maybe Ironwood instilled something in his that they couldn't.
"Glynda refused and Qrow was nominated for the position of Commander." She held up a hand to interrupt his demands, flipping through the piles of forms on her desk until she found the one she wanted. "And before you blow up about the removal of the position, let me remind you you hold the technical position of High General of Atlas, with Nikos as Champion, and Kaldwin as Shadow. Just because you renamed it doesn't make the position go away."
"But…" He looked beyond his position when her response stunned him. Ruby studied the power structure of the other Hunter factions for years and snubbed the other three by wearing her title openly. Ironwood, for the first few months of her reign, refused to acknowledge her position, though probably had everything to do with her age at the time considering Qrow got away scot-free with their usual scathing banter. He narrowed his eyes at her, scratching at the permanent shadow clinging to his face. "You are Qrow's niece after all, though I didn't expect you to have to grow up so fast."
"Weiss says I need to relax more and enjoy my younger years." She replied, reaching into her leg pouch and throwing Rei a treat.
"Oh, so you know Weiss?" He walked over to the bar, getting a nod when she realized he only wanted to get to the bar for his usual drink. Rei didn't move from her feet, nomming on her snack and watching him with her piercing crimson eyes as he carefully skirted around to her side of the desk and put down a tumbler.
"Wife and teammate." She idly toyed with the glass of whiskey before pushing it back to him, ignoring his choking to drink from her flask. Though she refused to fill it with alcohol after Ruby's death, she found a new use for it rather than let it rust in a bin on the Ruby.
"You-." He hacked a few more times, leaning against her desk while she continued filling out paperwork. She didn't know exactly why Ozpin installed a touch screen to replace the entire tabletop with how often Hunter missions required black-op permissions and a paper trail just long enough to burn. "Okay, not what I was expecting. Oof, whiskey's stronger than I remember."
"You're welcome to the contents of the bar whenever. Qrow raids it whenever he isn't sulking and I stopped drinking after the Fourth's death." She spent a few precious seconds folding a request so frivolous it needed a bigger denial than a red stamp and received the honor of being turned into a paper plane which promptly crashed just short from the wastebasket. "So, not that I'm not interested in meeting with you before the tournament, but I didn't ask for one."
He frowned and took a sip from his drink. "Strange, I got a message on my scroll that you needed my Airships, though the mysterious sender refused to give a reason."
"Yes, my other teammate, Blake, enjoys being cryptic for no other reason than because she can."
"And as to the reason why she knows my personal scroll number? Something I refuse to give to Qrow because I know he'd bother me with random memes or sappy pictures of him and Winter?" He raised an eyebrow, his earlier smile wiped clean.
"Probably 'cause she's Beacon's alternate spymaster, and you probably should change your number or she'll send you random things to piss you off after she learned you demanded Ozpin to prosecute her for her time in the White Fang, you know, her being their leader's right hand and all that jazz."
"Yes, I remember that debate, though I didn't realize she rose up the ranks so quickly to overtake Qrow's old position, which I thought demanded an S-rank to head it by our own shared charters, much like your own."
"To be fair, she's arguably the most powerful S-rank Beacon has to throw at problems. She did kick my ass last time we fought but trying to rank S-ranks is already a problem. I'm Yang Xiao-long by the way." She extended a hand for him to shake, crushing his under her grip. "I'd say it's nice to meet you but you tried to shoot my pet."
Rei growled at cue but achieved little more than amusing her owner.
Ironwood shook off the crushing handshake with his Semblance, cracking his knuckles. "And I'm James Ironwood, one of Atlas' Generals, in charge of its Academy." One of their many Generals on the outside but in reality held a rank above the other four while heading their Hunter faction, tying their militaries together. Why Beacon didn't write that into their charter puzzled her on a good day, but perhaps that saved them from utter destruction in their first dimension, the Council unable to flex control after two periods of time where they lacked leadership. "So why were you nominated for Oz's spot? Did he leave on a sudden vacation?"
Rei barked in agreement.
"Yeah. Threw his cane at me and peaced out to go drink pina-coladas on a beach somewhere. Glynda didn't want it, Qrow already commanded the entirety of us, Weiss would strangle me, and Blake might kill me if I tried to get her to do any more paperwork than she does."
"I thought you were the leader or did command positions change after Oz?"
"Ruby was the leader first so me trying to make them do anything usually involves a lot of sexual bribery or guilt." She answered without shame, James groaning at finding another pervert. She didn't mind sharing and while most people believed she overshared, she just thought they were repressed and needed to get some. Weiss sure as hell didn't mind and Blake never said a word, pun intended.
"I thought you were married to Weiss?" He replied with a sweatdrop growing on his temple.
"It's legally complicated, but think of it like a three-way marriage." She refused to elaborate further beyond that. Ruby shared everything with the team and didn't exactly care what her wife got up to with her free time, leaving Weiss and her to discover a brand new style of roleplay that sometimes involved Yang and rarely pulled Ruby into it. To skirt around laws of inheritance, Weiss secured the SDC through Yang and Blake secured Menagerie's succession through Ruby.
They'd conveniently paired off before Ruby had to engineer them together and she played her part well, continuing her charade of a marriage. Blake loved her regardless of whether she reciprocated the feelings, falling for the person inside Ruby. It didn't stop her from falling in love with Weiss or her when they attempted to create Ruby's mask.
When she caught Weiss in Blake's bed with the Faunus getting dressed for a mission, she got a chaste kiss in response before she dipped. They'd kissed before, drunkenly and quickly with no real meaning behind them, but that'd been something different entirely. She chose to let Blake escape and instead crawled behind Weiss and snuggle up to her. Weiss muttered an insincere for her adulterous ways but she forgave her easily enough, having spent a few months keeping her crush on the down-low.
She totally suspected Blake planned the entire situation and roped Weiss in to break them from their repression. Ruby accepted it with barely a flicker of life passing through her silver eyes and she had to accept it in the end, never thinking she'd ever love Ruby but the package deal crept up on her and she never looked back.
Though Ruby could've had a bit more tact when telling Tai rather than just pulling her into a liplock but she took what she got. Blake had to save him from choking on an hors d'oeuvre with a timely slap on the back.
"That's a little too much information Mrs. Xiao-Long." He deadpanned, polishing off his drink. "Now why am I here? I know Ozpin liked to yank me around but let's not start this relationship on the wrong foot."
"Just Yang. 'Mrs.' makes me feel way too old, and besides, Weiss considers you a better father than that sad sack of shit Jacques so I'm technically your daughter-in-law."
"She does?" He took a seat on the edge of her desk. "I've known her since she was a child, yes, and I do work with her sister, Winter, not sure if you know her. That's nice to know. I'll have to see her when I get out of here."
"And I need to borrow whatever air fleet you're bringing to secure Amity. The White Fang plans to assault it during one of the finals matches." He took the news better than expected, staring down at her in confusion.
"And the reason why I'm only being told now, two weeks before the tournament, when most of the on-ground facilities have already been set up and the flying stadium is getting ready to be moved?"
"Well, with Blake heading our intelligence division it's not a surprise nothing has managed to leak out." He gave her another look, asking for an answer. "Let's just say she's running out of places to hide the bodies of the moles she finds."
"So why do you need my ships? I already planned on having them patrol around the Coliseum and having them ramp up into battle ready mode isn't too much of a step up."
"Because the Fang plans on assaulting the flying death trap with nearly their entire organization, somewhere around 10,000 members along with their army of captured Grimm to overwhelm us." She replied nonchalantly. "Which is why you need to know I'll be moving the stadium over to Mt. Glenn during the final matchday." She decided to explain a bit more instead of stringing the man along. "Ruby spruced it up into a fortress as her gift to the forces."
"Hmm, that's a helluva gift. My predecessor decided to carve up a mountain and move the Academy into it. Have Blake send me the operation details and I'll position my forces accordingly, but remember, I'm sticking my neck out on this."
"You're stocking your ships full of droid personnel." She replied blandly. "And only moving your ships, not exactly stretching your limits. I'm the one throwing my forces at the problem."
"Keep telling yourself that."
She scoffed. "Blake'll send you whatever you need. Now get out and bother Weiss, you're making my pet fidgety." Rei happily barked at him and wagged his tail, almost purposefully impinging on her statement. "You be quiet, the author needs an excuse to end the chapter here."
AN: I hope you enjoyed this chapter while we spend time in COVID-19 quarantine.
