Chapter 59

"Please tell me this isn't a joke," Yang demanded as she gave a certain rabbit Faunus a stern look following what they had recently heard.

"You know that I'd never joke about this," Velvet said with a frown. "Seems that either Penny is somehow still alive somewhere...or someone is trying to draw us into a trap by making us think that she's alive."

"Either way, we should go check this out," Raven declared with a serious expression. "If it is a trap, we'll need to spring it and teach the person responsible the consequences of using our friend's memory like this."

"And if Penny really is alive, then I'd never be able to look myself in the eye if I just left my future co-wife out there all by herself," Weiss said with a nod.

"Yeah, I...wait, what?!"

Weiss blushed, having just realized what she said and by extension what Ruby's reaction had been. "Penny and I talked shortly before the fight with Salem, and...well, now's as good a time as any, though hopefully Penny won't be too mad that I'm doing this without her."

"What are you…?" Ruby gasped as Weiss got down on her knees and held out a ring.

"Ruby Rose, you are by far the most important person in the lives of myself and Penny Polendina," Weiss remarked with a smile, doing her best to sound like Penelope had been possessing her. "So would you do me the honor of spending the rest of your life with us?"

Ruby's only response was to tackle her to the ground and kiss her. "And here I thought I was supposed to be the dolt: did you really think I'd say 'no' to you? To either of you?"

"Oh, Ruby: you have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that." Weiss said with a tear-filled grin before the two of them kissed again.

"I know this is a bit early, but welcome to the family, Aunty Weiss," Holly said with a grin.

"Yeah, I can't believe that Ren is missing this," Coco declared, noting how he had stormed off shortly after hearing the message that Velvet had picked up on. "Speaking of which, any idea of what's going on with him?"

"Yeah, now that you mention it, I saw him go in there." Dew pointed to the cave with a slight frown. "He was acting all mumbly and angsty like an Asian Gollum from Lord of the Rings."

"Hmm, let me talk with him." Nebula offered as she entered the cave by herself. "Ren?"

"Go. Away." Ren muttered, bitterly.

"Aren't you coming with the rest of the group?"

"Why?" Ren sighed. "Why does this always happen? I had everything I wanted; a peaceful corner of the world for me to live my life. And now, I'm being dragged back into this inane adventure that doesn't seem to bother anyone else."

"What about Penny?"

"Oh, fuck that guilt trip!" Ren snapped. "I wasted my entire school life dealing with Penny's shit! Her identity crisis! Her resurrections! Her mommy issues! Why… why can't she just stay dead?"

"How can you say that?!" Nebula gasped out. "After everything I've heard about you, everything you've been through...do you know how lucky you are to have an opportunity like this? To have your supposedly dead friend possibly come back to life? Not all of us can claim that sort of thing, you know: some of us were forced to watch helplessly as their best friend was killed right in front of them!"

"Wait, what?!"

Nebula sighed. "You guys weren't the only ones that Adam and company went after. When I refused to give up the location of a particular piece of information to his men, they tortured a close friend of mine to force me to spill the secret...right before they slit his throat right in front of me. So before you continue to complain any more about how Penny won't stay dead, consider that some of us wish we had that sort of luxury."

Ren looked away in shame. "Sorry, that...I didn't intend to open up any old wounds like that."

"It's fine, I get it: this is a rather stressful situation." Nebula said with a shake of her head. "But either way, it seems to me that this is something that you need to talk to your friends about."

"...yes, I do."

A few hours later, everyone gathered in the main courtyard as Winter explained the plan. "Alright, Teams RWBY and JNPR will trace that signal to its point of origin while Team CFVY and Holly head back to Rushland and inform Svetlana of what we've learned. In the meantime, Qrow and I will look up a few retired Guardsmen for help in case this is a trap. We'll start with Agent Green and see if he knows where anyone else is hiding."

"Well, well, well, look who finally decided to show up." Qrow crossed his arms as Ren walked up to the group. Needless to say, everyone was perplexed and frustrated that he was wearing a hoodie and sweatpants and not carrying any weapons.

"Yeah, sorry I'm late." Ren sighed. "I was doing some thinking and… I quit."

"... quit what?" Jaune asked.

"You. All of you." Ren shrugged. "I'm not going with you."

"W-what?" Pyrrha sounded hurt. "But, you have to come with us."

Ren scoffed. "I don't have to do anything. I'm not a huntsman anymore. Come to think of it, I was never a huntsman to begin with. We never graduated because we kept getting distracted by shit like this!"

"But… what about Penny?"

"Let it go, Ruby." Ren sighed, tiredly. "All of you. She's been resurrected more times than Ozpin at this point. It's getting old."

Blake hugged Ruby to her chest before shooting an angry gaze at her friend. "Seriously?!"

Yang was equally upset by Ren's harsh words. "Dude, what the fuck?! After everything we've been through, together, how can you be so selfish?!"

Ren stared, blankly, at his friends. "I'm… tired." He said, plainly. "I'm tired of running for my life. I'm tired of fighting for my life. And, honestly, I'm kinda tired of each and every one of you. But we've known each other long enough that you at least deserve to hear it from me, first. I'm done." And without another word, Ren turned around and headed back to the cabin.

"He… he can't do that!" Ruby stammered. "Someone say something!"

Raven stepped forward, cupping her hands around her mouth as she called out to him. "Ren! Abandoning your tribe is punishable by death! Ren, I'm warning you! If you back out now, you will never be welcome here, again! … seriously, Ren, turn around."

Nora, who had been uncharacteristically silent this whole time, could only watch as her oldest companion walked away. She wanted to reach out and stop him, try to convince him that they needed each other. But Ren's words left her completely speechless.

Meanwhile, Ren was doing some last minute packing. A part of him did feel guilty about leaving like this - in no small part due to how Nebula's words from earlier having more of an effect on him then he'd care to admit - but he was just so tired of having to deal with stuff like this...and besides, there were plenty of other people who could take care of this, so it's not like he needed to go...yet even that part couldn't help but groan as he sensed someone approaching him from behind. "I told you, I'm not coming with you guys," Ren growled out.

"What: so I'm not allowed to say goodbye?"

Ren blinked as he turned to see Jaune standing in the doorway with some keys in his hand. "I figured that if you were really serious about leaving, I should at least give you the option of some transportation other than walking," his (former) team leader declared before tossing the keys to him.

After catching the keys, Ren could only frown even as he looked at the keys in question. "What do you want? I mean, as much as I appreciate the gesture, I doubt you're doing this simply out of the goodness of your heart."

"Oh, so I'm not allowed to be nice to you?" Jaune asked with a raised eyebrow that made Ren feel just a little guilty inside. "That being said, I did have a question for you before you left: why?"

Ren simply rolled his eyes in reply. "I told you: I don't want to be a huntsman…"

"Not that," Jaune cut him off. "I meant, if this had been on your mind for so long, why didn't you bring it up yesterday when we were clearing out that Ursa den? Or last week when we were helping those new arrivals to the island? Or last month when…?"

"I get it: I had the opportunity to walk away before and yet I never took it before now," Ren interrupted Team JNPR's leader with a slight blush, realizing in hindsight that it did seem kind of silly. "And I guess...when it was relatively simple things like that, I didn't mind. I mean, as much as I hate to admit it, it felt good to be doing something good instead of just standing around and talking all day, but this? I never signed up to be chasing ghosts. I never signed up to fight in a rebellion. I never signed up for all this craziness."

"So you're quitting because you're not ready for things to be difficult again." Jaune declared with a frown. "You're quitting because this mission will cut into your nap time again."

Ren blinked. "I mean, when you put it like that, it does sound…"

"Selfish." Jaune interrupted with a disappointed shake of his head. "You know, once upon a time, I thought that you were one of the bravest men that I knew: sticking by Nora and the rest of us even though you clearly hated it at times...but it seems you were right earlier: you aren't a huntsman, because a real huntsman would know that one doesn't simply quit wanting to do good simply for the sake of doing good because things get too hard. In fact, it's because things will get hard that we keep doing this: because there are a lot of people who don't have the skills that we do trapped in situations that we deal with, and if we don't help them, who will?"

Ren simply frowned in reply before blinking as Jaune turned to leave the room. "What, you're just going to leave?"

"Why not?" Jaune asked with a shrug. "You quit, remember? It's not like the words of your ex-leader actually have any meaning to you...and considering how you've forgotten that a certain redheaded hammer user doesn't feel the same way as you do, it's clear that your friends and loved ones wouldn't mean enough for you to stay even if I had anything else to say to you."

For a while, Ren just stared in silence at his former leader, and for a while, Jaune thought he had gotten through to him… and then Ren exploded.

"YOU DON'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ME, YOU JACKASS! I'M NOT FORCING ANY OF YOU TO GO WITHOUT ME! You could all stay here! Nora could stay here! With me! We could be happy together! But as usual, she'd rather go off and do something that's more than likely to get her killed than just take a moment and chill! I hate it! I hate the fighting! I hate the coercing! I hate everything about shit like this! Think of that for your next guilt-trip!"

Jaune was in stunned silence long before Ren slammed the door in his face. Later, he returned to the rest of the group.

"He's not changing his mind, is he?" Pyrrha couldn't help but ask.

Jaune shook his head as he cleaned out an ear. "I don't think so...and honestly, I'm not at all confident that my words had any impact on him either."

As they boarded the ship, Ruby took a seat next to Nora, who was leaning against the window. "Are… are you going to be okay?"

"I'm fine." Nora mumbled as she gave their cabin one final glance. "Who knows? Maybe we're better off without him."

Across from them, Nebula and Dew watched with discomfort. "Man, I liked it better when they were funny." Dew remarked.

"Yeah." Nebula agreed. "I hope we didn't just fuck everything up."

Jaune shook his head. "This isn't your fault. It's like I told Ren: if he really felt this way, he should have come forth and talked about it long before this happened. All we can do now is hope that he realizes that we never forced him to come along with us on all those missions: it was always his choice."

Raven sat next to Ruby. "Alright, kid. I want you to stay close to me throughout this mission. If this does turn out to be a trick, I want you by my side. We'll make those bastards pay with extreme prejudice!"

Ruby arched an eyebrow. "You want me to… be racist at them?"

Weiss facepalmed at her fiancee's ignorance. "No, you dolt. 'Extreme prejudice' means attacking the enemy as violently as possible."

"It's alright, kid. I, myself, made the same mistake when I was younger." Raven admitted as the Manta took off. "That was the most awkward raid the Branwen Tribe ever experienced."

Ren simply scoffed as his former team left on the Manta. "And good riddance!" he called out. "I don't need you! I don't need anyone!"

Right as he said that, however, there was a loud blast from at the door. Turning around, Ren found himself face to face with a pack of snarling Beowolves. "You think I'm scared of you?" Ren called out. "I helped take down Salem, you know? Come on, Nora: let's…oh, right: she left with the others."

He gulped as the Grimm started to circle him. "Jaune was right earlier: I did pick a bad time to quit."

To Be Continued