Chapter 52 - Transition
"Why aren't we going out there to get her?!" Yang's voice came out from the tent and Weiss sighed, both annoyed at Yang going over this again and at what it meant to see her former team torn apart like this. For a brief moment when she had reunited with them, it seemed like they'd be Team RWBY, together forever, then everything changed.
"We've been over this - I can't force her to come back. You had your shot at convincing her and failed." Weiss wondered how much Raven actually wanted Ruby to be in the tribe, given her eyes and connection to Yang, but it wasn't like she was part of the conversation (or would risk saying that to Raven in the first place).
"Look, it took me a long time to realize how manipulative Oz was, give Ruby some time" Qrow offered his support for his sister's view. "I followed her and the others on their journey, and they did well. They'll survive out of Mistral."
The man had been barely tolerable before as a huntsman, and Weiss could easily see what problems her sister had with him. Now though, he was nothing more than a drunk brute, a bandit. Of course, the same could be said of her (the bandit part, not the drinking - she had no intention to inherit that trait from any of the adult figures in her life).
The arguing continued for a bit at a lower volume until Yang stormed out of the tent, unhappy but not able to change their minds. Raven flew off to ready the tribe as the sun was rising and it was time to make their march on Mistral. If she wasn't so worried over her partner and friends, she'd have almost laughed at the state of things and how ridiculous this all would have seemed for her to take part in a few weeks ago.
Taking her aside for a moment, she asked "What was that all about?"
"I'd hoped that Qrow could go out and keep an eye on her, maybe try and convince Ruby later to join. Mother and him shot it down, saying they needed Qrow here. And that his bad luck semblance might be seen as an attack on their camp or hurt them. Uncle Qrow was useless, just telling me to give it time."
"Yang, if you're worried about Ruby, we can leave. Go after them on our own, find her and-"
"And then what? Drag her back? I- I hate to admit it, but I don't have a way to convince her, and I'm not going to stand by and watch as she throws herself at darkness until... until she ends up like Summer." Seeing the fire burnt out of her was painful. "I may hate that they're right, but they are. I've got no idea what to do."
The blonde didn't look in the mood to hear any more of the former heiress' arguments. She was trying to help Yang though, convince her to join Ruby and Blake, make their team whole again. More and more they felt farther apart though, as if an impassable gulf was widening between them.
Part of Weiss had slight doubts about herself, about how she fit in. Not that someone would think that she was trying to get Yang away, but the opposite. She found herself drawn in to the tribe. It was liberating in many ways, to do what she wanted, when she wanted. None of father's rules and standards. When people looked up to her, they didn't do so for the Schnee name but because they saw her as strong, someone who could be a champion of the tribe. Combined with everything she had seen Ozpin do over his many lives... she wasn't sure she'd be trying to convince Yang to leave if she thought it would be easier to convince Ruby to come to them instead.
Not that her new partner was making it easy. Any time she'd suggest anything about Ruby's choice possibly being the right one, the girl would snap at her. Her arguments basically boiled down to 'she's putting herself in danger and I don't want her to do that' and 'I'm the older sister so I know best.' Trying to bring up Ruby being the leader at Beacon once had been a huge mistake and just led to a rant against Ozpin (something she couldn't really deny).
If they were all together, would that just lead to them all dying at Salem's hands? Was it any better to band with Raven and let the immortal witch burn the rest of the world before getting to them? Bad choices all around. For the moment, she just looked ahead, focused on the city standing before them.
Mistral was an incredible sight, a sprawling city built out of a mountain. Weiss hadn't really gotten the chance to see it approached like this before, sent both in and out by portals (in the airship back from the raid, everything was too distracting). It was magnificent, the tall walls built around and into the cliffsides, and every moment she expected some defenders to pop up, for a trap to be revealed. Even though their scouts had already determined that a large portion of the city had already left.
The gates were closed, and no one stood there to greet them, but neither did anything bar the tribes path as Raven waved a hand and a gust of wind blew them open. They marched down the street, Raven leading the procession inward, Yang unhappily behind her but still willing to follow her mother's lead, with Qrow and Vernal having flown to strategic points if they needed to make a portal.
A few people from the city eventually nervously approached the entering army as it advanced, making claims about how they 'loved them' and were 'eager to have a proper monarch in place than the weak council.' Raven imperiously ignored them, marching her way through and Weiss did the same. Those toadies would suck up to whoever they saw was strong and try to leech off a bit for themselves.
One of them came up to Weiss, a filthy man grasping at her, begging for money and help before she pushed him off roughly. A vindictive thrill ran through her as she reveled in being able to do that, no overbearing father to shut her in her room for a 'lack of decorum', only to have that turn to guilt as she saw him cowering from her.
"You alright there Weiss Cream?" The nickname failed to get any good response from her, but seeing Yang care about her helped improve her mood a good deal. She was still stressed out, tired, and likely angry underneath that sadness, but she still reached out to Weiss, wanting to help and make sure she knew she wasn't alone. It was that part of the blonde girl that Weiss found so inspiring and helped brighten her mood a bit.
"Just... grumpy, about Things." Not 'Things' they were going to be talking about again right now, but Yang got the message instantly and didn't press. She was a pretty amazing woman.
"Yeah, I am" she said with a chuckle and it took Weiss almost ten seconds to realize she had said her thoughts out loud, causing her to splutter and go beet red in the face.
Before she could go further about that, she noticed ahead, Mercury being dismissed from Raven's side as she flew up through the city, the rest of the tribe setting up bases in case of an increasingly unlikely attack as they solidified their hold on the city.
Mercury didn't seem upset, but he had a good poker face, and while their leader hadn't said a word condemning him (in specific, after her lecture to all three of them pointing out how foolhardy and risky their behavior had been), she'd also found reasons to keep a close eye on the silver haired young man ever since they came back. It could be nothing, but Weiss wondered, especially with some of what Pyrrha had mentioned happening.
"Hey" she said, nodding her head over at Mercury. Yang nodded and slipped back as well, the two of them following stealthily after the man. He split off away from the main group, acting casual but obviously looking for someone. No one was around, until suddenly they dropped in, literally.
Vernal descended and said "What was that?" Weiss and Yang hid around the corner, hoping she hadn't seen them flying above, and it looked like Raven's right hand woman hadn't as she continued. "Where did you get the idea to attack the Fall Maiden like that?"
"You were the one who said 'make sure she doesn't join up at any cost'. Would have been nice if you told me about the assassins you hired to get the job done. Honestly kinda hurt you didn't ask me, it's what I was trained to do."
"What? I only heard about those goons when Raven was busy reading you the riot act. I didn't say anything in front of her but thought you paid them and lied your ass off to Raven about it."
Weiss looked over at Yang, her eyes gone red as she heard that. Before she could stop the other girl, Yang burst out from cover, marching towards them. "You planned this? You tried to attack my little sister!?" She charged at Mercury, the young man caught off guard and hit by a shot to the chest. Vernal flew, flipping gracefully over the one sent her way but then had to deal with the blonde brawler's furious fists.
Weiss rushed forward to support, trying to lock Mercury in place where he had crashed, sending out a burst of ice, but he pivoted on his back, flipping his legs up and out of the way to the side before using that grounding to pull the rest of him out of the way. He rushed forward, pushing her back with his kicks as she tried to dodge. "Didn't you hear us? That wasn't even us." Parrying a strike from her rapier, he kipped up and fired a fast shot into her face, landing back on the ground easily.
"Even if you weren't behind the original attack, doesn't mean you weren't trying to hurt Ruby." Her glyphs brought her some space, but she could see Yang was having her own difficulties with Vernal, not having a way to fight the older woman in the sky. Even using the shotgun recoil to boost herself up could only take her so far, while Vernal could easily move about in any direction, without having to throw her body one way or the other.
Trying to summon her Lancer got a kick to the gut and she glared at Mercury as she recovered her breath. "If that's the case then why are you fighting us now?"
He shrugged and said "You're the ones who started shit." He also didn't take another move towards her, obviously wary, but not trying to restart hostilities. Weiss sighed and looked over at Yang, beating away angrily towards Vernal. It was sloppy, not bad compared to how her teammate had fought at the first term of Beacon, but she'd improved a lot since then.
"Yang" she called out, causing the blonde girl to look over at her. Vernal could easily take advantage of that, but she didn't, remaining impassive in the air. "Let's hear them out first, before jumping to conclusions." Yang grit her teeth audibly, before snarling and waving the woman down.
"Let's get the facts straight; I didn't tell Mercury to attack your sister. I didn't even tell him to start a fight with the Fall Maiden." She gave a significant look over at the young man and he scoffed.
"I told you - and everyone by now - that she started it. I just wanted to rile her up a bit, make her realize the camp wouldn't be a good place for her and she went out for murder at first sight. Wonder if she really wouldn't fit in so well here." At three pairs of eyes glaring at him he grumbled. "Whatever. She was fighting me before even those spider thugs attacked us."
"What spider thugs?" Yang asked
"I dunno. They had purple jackets with spiders on them. Didn't get a good look at them before she torched the place over that corpse she found in the trash. Don't know if those gang members even knew about it either, I was too busy barely getting my ass out of the fire. Litera-" Weiss cut him off, pressing for more answers.
"Wait, what do these spider gangsters have to do with Neo?"
"How many times do I have to say this: I. Do not. Know. There's a reason why Cinder subcontracted out these things to Roman and Neo in the first place. Even all as 'criminals', they ran in different circles than us, had a lot of connections." The way he said it reminded Weiss of the fact that the Branwen tribe and all of them could still be considered that too, that even taking over the capital of one of the four kingdoms wouldn't make them 'legitimate' in the eyes of the rest of the group.
"Then let's find them" Vernal said, surprising the group. "Look, I didn't want Pyrrha to join because I thought she'd be a bad fit for the tribe, cause problems in the long run. And it looks like she and your sister came to that conclusion too, and without us really doing anything."
"Bullshit!" Vernal leaned right towards Yang as the girl shouted, not backing down an inch.
"You've already heard the facts, you know it's true. So are you going to sit here arguing with me, or are you going to get up and do something useful and take out those idiots that tried to kill your sister?" There was a small staredown before Yang nodded her head, ever so slightly.
"All right, time to catch us some spiders."
"How do we even know they're still in the city?" The silver haired boy let out a quick bark of laughter.
"Let me tell you something Miss Heiress- oh ex-Heiress my bad, when something like this goes down, the gangs don't toddle along behind the council happily. Right now, I bet that those fools are living it up, taking anything they can from whatever anyone else left, wiping out their rivals, etc. All the things the law wouldn't let them get away with before."
"Then let's show them who's the new law in town." Yang cracked her knuckles eagerly.
The bar was on fire and it might have been Weiss' fault. It's not like she planned on that one gangster suddenly having the survival instincts the Brothers graced a pig with and scampering backward at just the last moment. She wasn't even sure that her partner had noticed, busy beating someone bloody. Vernal was off to the side, carving out someone guts with her blades as she slipped by before shooting down the chandelier atop another mook's head. Mercury was off to the side, slapping aside a blade aimed at his back and kicking another man's head so hard it made a sickening 'snap' sound. Both of them looked completely at ease here.
Sensing danger behind her, Weiss whirled around, stabbing Myrtenaster out, impaling the woman that had tried to sneak up on her. She wasn't sure if she just had a weak Aura, or had already been damaged in the fight, but the girl coughed out a bit of blood as she hung in the air for a moment before Weiss pulled her blade back out through her heart. It was... disquieting to see the corpse in front of her, and even more so to realize that she wasn't as affected by it as she thought she'd be. Sure, they were fighting low lifes and would-be murderers, it wasn't that different from what she'd be doing as a Huntress, but still...
Shaking her head clear of those thoughts she got herself back to focus on the chaos at hand. The gang had long since given up even the bare showing of fighting them off and had devolved into disorganized chaos. One woman up in the higher rooms was banging on the doors, a cupboard having fallen down to block it off as the fire spread. Weiss put it out with a burst of Ice Dust and used Arma Gigas to wrench the pathway clear as she stepped up and cleaved a way into the room.
"Wha- you can't do this! Do you know how I am?" The chubby woman in a purple dress asked.
"You're Little Miss Malachite, from what your 'Spiders' told us before we were finished with them." The fighting had died down and they could have the chat at regular tones, even with the occasional piece of debris still falling down around the place. "You tried to have Pyrrha Nikos and Ruby Rose killed." Along with a number of other people, her minions had taken to gleefully shaking people down and running rampant just as Mercury predicted, leading a clear trail to their boss. Not that they were the reason why they had chased her down, but it definitely wiped away any pity she might hold for the woman.
"So what of it? Neopolitan had a good stash built up from Torchwick and paid us well. Besides, they were your enemies too! You should be thanking me." Yang marched up angrily, her footfalls setting small new fires as she walked up the stairs.
"Thanking you? You tried to kill my sister!" The woman's face paled.
"My contacts didn't reveal that... Look, I'm sorry, alright, but it failed. She's still alive and fine, and with Neo dead, the hit is gone."
"The problem is" Raven's voice came out from behind them, causing everyone to turn around and look at her sudden portal entrance, the woman walking through the wreckage gracefully. "You seemed to think that you could take that job without asking me first. It's why you made that mistake, but the bigger one was thinking you could act with impunity at all. It's a mistake you and several others have been making I think, and I'll have to rectify that." She turned to the rest of them, a slight smirk on her face as she addressed Weiss and the other tribe members. "I see you've been busy. Good work cleaning up the city." Weiss was ashamed to admit she felt some happiness from the woman's approval until she looked down and saw her bloodstained sword. They weren't the only ones 'busy' as it were.
Malachite didn't respond well to that, standing up angrily as the woman approached. "You think you can just march in to my business and wreck the place? You may be the newest thing in Mistral, but the Spiders have been here for decades. You need us, our contacts and sources, otherwise one day you might find yourself slipped some poison at nigh-" Raven's fist hit the woman's face, cracking her jaw.
"The Branwen tribe has been around for centuries, but that doesn't really matter right now. What matters right now is that I have power and you? You don't. You need me, to grant your gang an inch of power in this new Mistral. I don't need you though. But that doesn't mean" she said, grabbing the woman roughly by the chin and causing her more pain. "That I can't use you."
Conjuring up a portal she waved at the others to follow. Walking behind her, Weiss looked questioningly at the others, but none of them (except maybe Vernal, stoically not giving anything away) knew what was going to happen.
They exited outside, nearby the city council, Qrow looking somewhat questioningly at them before Raven nodded to him. "Get a crowd, I need to make an announcement." There was a slight grimace Weiss could make out on the man's face before it quickly smoothed out and he flew off.
"Wha ae ou gonn do?" Miss Malachite asked fearfully through her injury.
Raven seemingly ignored her, tossing the woman to Mercury, who quickly held her down. "Mistral is an interesting place, built straight out of the mountain. Many of it's roads and pathways have a more natural bent to them, even where the major buildings are, like here." She found a spot out about 50 feet away where there was a good patch of dirt, her eyes glowing.
Clenching a fist and waving her other arm about, a slight shift happened under the dirt, while water fell from above, focused on just that spot. Sproutlings grew, pushing there way up through the dirt rapidly, a tree and roots forming in minutes. The shape of it was odd though, it grew in unnatural ways, low level branches forming tightly together at near ground level, weaving over each other to form a platform. The tree above was unadorned by leaves or many other branches, a knotted, gnarly thing with a top that curled over a bit, a vine hanging down from it.
Only as Weiss heard the crowd, some tribe people, mostly city folk, gather behind her and she stepped back did she realize what Raven had made, gasping in horror. A few others in the crowd did, though it seemed like most hadn't realized it yet - or were too inured/ready for what Raven's reign would bring to be surprised.
Mercury handed Malachite back, and the woman tried to run, not getting more than a step away before the bandit queen froze her feet together. "People of Mistral" she called out, dragging the woman on to the center of the platform. "I am your new Queen, Raven Branwen. Your council, the children you called hunters, the headmaster of your academy, have all betrayed and abandoned you. But you need not fear, for I am here. As of this moment, all of you are a part of my tribe. I will protect you, and lead us to new glory." She let that triumphant note hang in the air for a second before thrusting the leader of The Spiders forward.
"Not everyone seems convinced, even though they stayed. Gang leaders and the like thinking they can run amok with complete impunity, without paying their dues to me. Without asking for permission." She magically pulled down on the vine, wrapping it around the woman's neck in a noose without lifting a hand. Malachite was crying in fear, begging, so Raven raised her voice over that. "That cannot stand. I am the Spring Maiden, your new Queen, and I will not tolerate such disobedience. Treason must be punished." Snapping her fingers, the vine shot up, the living execution platform pulling Malachite off her feet and choking the woman.
"This is the new order of things. Let the people know, those who think they can loot with impunity, trade drugs, weapons, or even other goods without asking... know that they are stealing from me, and they will face the same justice she did. For those who work with me, I promise a glorious and bountiful life." As Malachite's struggles on the vine stopped, Raven's powers made the tree grow new branches and leaves, peaches growing off of them.
The crowd (at Qrow and the other tribe members start, the others following quickly after) dropped down to one knee, chanting "Raven, Raven, Raven!" Weiss did the same, turning her head away from the twisted display of power. This was the end of Mistral, and she had been a part of it.
A/N: So, been a while hasn't it? Whoops. The schedule slipped away from me as life and a new job have kept me quite busy. Still, I really wanted to get this out there. Ultimately, there's a lot of pieces and things I wish I could show more of in the tribe, but they 1) Aren't the main story, that's with Ruby and Pyrrha, and 2) Don't generally seem to be as well received as the other stuff. I felt that I needed to show the opening transition of power as Raven took over, and hopefully was able to leave enough hints to infer a larger picture about how things are changing as the character adapt to their new circumstances.