Arc I Conclusion: Pieces to Their Places, Part I
"Our top story today: Staff at Vale General were thrown into a panic early last night due to a patient going wild in the wards. The incident occurred at roughly around eight in the evening, and left three injured, two of which were nurses on duty. I'm here with Trevor Marsh, a nurse at Vale General who experienced the incident first-hand. Mister Marsh?"
"Yea, uh, it was sometime around dinnertime last night, A bunch of other nurses and I were responding to a Code Blue, uh that's usually some kind of critical emergency. It was an older man who was involved in a dust robbery a few weeks back. He wasn't hurt or anything, but he was unresponsive and in a coma.
"Oh my, is that normal?"
"Not really. It wouldn't be strange if he had suffered a cardiac event due to shock, but that wasn't the case. The patient was relatively healthy, besides the fact that he was in a coma. He was pale, though. Paler than I think I've ever seen a patient. Like, bone-white, which definitely wasn't normal but we just couldn't detect anything wrong with him. Anyway, he flatlined the moment we got to his room."
"He died?"
"Uh, not quite, it was really too soon to call it. We were about to start attempting to resuscitate him, then out of nowhere, he jumps out of the bed. This is a relatively old man, mind you, and he springs up like it's nothing and starts attacking one of our resident nurses out of nowhere. Not just punching or kicking either, he was biting and clawing at her like some kind of wild animal. Made a break for it when he saw us coming at him."
"And that was around the time he escaped the hospital?"
"Yeah. No one in the hospital was noted to be dangerous at the time, so nobody was expecting a patient to make a break for it. Made it all the way to the ground floor. We were on one of the upper floors, too, so he had a bit of a climb to get down there. I hear he caused some damage on the way. I don't really know what happened afterward, but I heard he got hit by a car right outside the hospital and died. I just feel really terrible about the whole thing."
"Wow, that is truly a tragic accident, thank you for speaking with us about it, Mister Marsh. This has been Benedict Rouge on-site at Vale General, back to you Lisa."
"Really a harrowing tale, my condolences to everyone who witnessed that traumatizing experience. Next at Eleven: Is your cat trying to kill you? We spoke to professionals, and the answer may surprise you. This has been Lisa Lavender of the Vale News Network, signing off."
Ruby groaned, slumping over the desk. The news anchor on the lounge television abruptly vanished as Ruby clicked off the screen. She hadn't really been paying attention to the program, but the bland noise had been a source of comfort in the otherwise abandoned common room.
For the umpteenth time, the events of that battle played out in her mind. They had been outclassed, wholly and utterly. If not for what had seemed to be some form of divine intervention, some of them wouldn't even be here right now.
The plan that Jaune had formulated had been sound in theory, though uncertain in outcome, but they hadn't even gotten to that point. She had blundered right at the get-go. Her focus had waned–something that Weiss had scolded her on mere minutes prior–and it had nearly cost her dearly. She could still recall those chilling, golden eyes boring into her own as that being held her very life in its hands. That recollection always sent a shudder of repulsion coursing through her.
The aftermath of the initiation, though not nearly as harrowing, came as a shock nonetheless. She had been appointed leader of team RWBY. She, the one who had messed up at the most crucial moment, was supposed to lead this team. Yang, Weiss, Blake, any one of them would have made a better leader. They had been the ones who did their jobs properly, not her.
Despite her own misgivings, most of her teammates accepted the appointment gracefully. Yang had even cheerily slapped her on the back in congratulation. Only Weiss had raised a fuss, but even that had been halting and uncertain. It appeared Ruby hadn't been the only one questioning her own performance in that fight.
The heiress had become fairly withdrawn. Though Ruby didn't know her well enough yet to know if that was simply her natural disposition, she sincerely doubted it. The arrogant, proud girl that had berated her at the landing docks was nowhere to be seen, and in her place was an uncertain, frustrated form.
Sleep had been an elusive prospect, and Ruby found herself lying awake into the small hours most nights. It was at those times that she heard the hushed self-deprecation coming from the heiress's bunk, when she believed herself to be the sole soul awake. It was clear that the battle tolled as heavily on her partner's mind as much as it did her own.
Sighing and tired of sitting alone in the common room, Ruby trudged back to their shared dorm. Each step forward brought a growing sense of dread on the prospect of facing her partner. Team RWBY had been rather fractured since the initiation, and outside of classes or around bedtimes or waking, it was rare to see more than two members of the team spending any significant amount of time together. Certainly, Ruby's conversations with Weiss had been halting and curt, neither offering or asking more than was strictly necessary.
It was a trouble borne of the girls' radically differing ways of coping with distress. Ruby tended to wilt in upon herself when faced with harsh conditions, while Weiss bloomed with all manner of remonstrances towards her own lacking performance. The heiress held others to a high standard, but it seemed she held herself to the highest standard.
Whatever their reasons, it needed to change, Ruby decided. Team RWBY couldn't continue like this. She was the leader, so she needed to figure out how to fix this, somehow. Who better to start with than her own partner?
She stopped outside the heavy, oaken door. Already, Ruby could hear the voice of her partner through the door, chiding and frustrated. The voice was not in any way manic or crazed, it was simply the frustrated soliloquy of a girl who had failed herself profoundly.
Ruby knocked hesitantly on their dorm door, and the words stopped immediately, replaced by a rush of fumbling. Weiss would be alone in the room, Ruby knew. Yang was always out on her own having fun or scoping out any promising parties in the city in her free time. Despite her sister's boisterous attitude, Ruby knew her too well to be fooled. Though she reveled in lively environments, Yang never purposely sought out venues of debauchery with such zeal unless she was feeling truly bothered. Then, she would opt to drown her worries in good times and drink until the time came to face them properly. It was just something that ran in the family, she guessed.
On the other hand, Blake seemed to be taking the situation the best out of all of them. The girl remained reticent in her thoughts and expression. She acted on her own and operated on her own, and had taken to disappearing to the training rooms at any given time. The disaster seemingly spurred her to become stronger, as opposed to wallowing in the mire of her own thoughts.
Before long, the door cracked open, and a white head peered out.
"Hey, Weiss, can I come in?"
The door swung open. "It's your room too, I don't see why you need to ask," she sniffed haughtily. Her tone was even and pristine, a hair's-breadth from cracking.
Ruby entered their dorm room, studiously avoiding her partner's gaze and climbed, sitting silently on her bunk. The seconds stretched to minutes of awkward silence, and Ruby found herself throwing furtive, nervous glances at her partner, who was pacing in an agitated fashion about the breadth of the room, pretending to be busy with her scroll. Several times, their sidelong glances met, only to prompt a hasty turn of the head to break eye contact. Ruby wasn't sure what to say, and chose to just take the plunge to the heart of her worries.
"Weiss, do you think Ozpin was right in making me the leader?"
Weiss fumbled, freezing and nearly dropping her scroll in surprise. She stared, wide-eyed at Ruby. "I…" Weiss stumbled over her words. At any other time, she would have scoffed and asserted her own worthiness, but the girl's voice, so vulnerable and soft, threw her off. Even she could tell that Ruby was frightened and uncertain, seeking encouragement from the only source within her own team that was readily available.
More than that, the events on that battlefield had shaken her confidence in her own prowess to her very core. At that time, she had not been Weiss Schnee, heiress to the Schnee Dust Company. She had not been the perfect huntress-in-training she believed herself to be. She had not even been a worthy or a competent fighter. She had simply been a little girl faced with impending doom whos entire efforts amounted to merely staying alive by the narrowest margins.
Encouragement and comfort had never been her forte, and she was unsure whether to tell Ruby what she needed to hear, or the truth. "I...suppose…" She couldn't meet those wavering silver orbs and averted her gaze.
"Weiss, please."
Defeated, the heiress exhaled crossly. "I don't know, Ruby," she admitted. "I don't know about any of this. I never gave it much thought before, but that battle brought up a lot of things. It made me thing thoughts, bad thoughts."
"What kind of thoughts?"
"Thoughts about whether I should really be here. Thoughts about what it really means to train to be huntresses. We could die, Ruby. At any time."
They were the words that Ruby's mind had formulated many times over sleepless nights, but had never dared speak aloud. They were the nightmare specter that now haunted her dreams of heroics and action, always there, always waiting for her to slip up.
"I mean, I always knew that it was a possibility, of course, but it didn't ever feel real until then. It was always just something that happened to someone else." Once she had begun speaking, it was as if a blockage had been cleared, and the words poured out. "You and Yang were caught and I couldn't do anything. Both of you would have died, right in front of me, and I couldn't do anything. And then I began to wonder if that's what it would always be like."
"Yeah…" Ruby shivered involuntarily, curling up and draping her arms around her legs in an unconscious bid for security. "Yeah. It's just...I was the only one to mess up. Everyone else did what they were supposed to do, but I was the one that got caught. Why did Ozpin pick me?"
Weiss gave a distinctly unladylike snort, any facade of formality discarded as she flopped onto her bunk beneath Ruby's. "You weren't the only one to mess up, you know." Her voice, slightly muffled by the mattress and bed-frame separating them, rose up from below. "I was useless. I could barely hold her down for a few seconds." Her tone soured, taking on a scornful, mocking edge. "I couldn't do the single thing I should have been able to do. I couldn't fight her, and I couldn't hold her down. What good was I?"
"Weiss, none of us could do anything. She beat us in every way."
"No, you don't get it," Weiss vehemently denied. "The Schnee semblance lets us summon things to fight on our behalf, except I can't do that yet. If I had just been a little bit stronger, if I could just use my semblance a little better…"
"Weiss, It wouldn't have mattered."
"Well, It would have been better than doing nothing!"
The pair lapsed into an uncomfortable silence for several moments after the outburst, and Ruby was suddenly quite glad for the bunk separating them. She got the distinct sense that Weiss was feeling quite abashed at the loss of control, but could not formulate any words of comfort. Eventually, she spoke again in a small voice, changing the subject. "How...how do you think Kiana's doing right now?"
"I don't know, and I don't care."
Ruby recoiled visibly, as if struck, at the frostiness in her partner's tone. "Weiss, that's not fair," she admonished softly.
"I know," she replied flatly. "I know, Ruby, I really do. But I don't know her the way you do. I can't trust her the way you do. Whether that was her out there or not doesn't change what happened. She, it, whatever, was trying to kill us and I can't just let go of that right away." Weiss paused before speaking slowly, carefully choosing her words, "Maybe, if she wakes up, and she can explain herself, I can give her a chance. But I can't do anything like this."
Ruby could find no response to that, and they sat in silence once more, though it was significantly less awkward this time around. Both of them were left contemplating just where team RWBY would go from here, considering the dysfunctional state it was in. Eventually, Weiss broke the silence again.
"Ruby," she began hesitantly, but grew more confident with every word she spoke. "I don't know what's going to happen from now on, but we have to get better. I have to get better. I refuse to be put in a situation like that ever again." She paused for a fraction of a second, before adding, "and if I'm going to do it, you're going to as well, no excuses."
"Really?" Ruby perked up. The return to the "normal" Weiss, however slight, brought no end of relief to her heart.
"Well, we are partners after all. I have to make sure you're in top shape so you don't hold me back."
The words were light and almost playful, and the pride that laced the girl's tone was almost comforting. Ruby cracked a small smile.
"Thanks, Weiss."
For the last two weeks, Pyrrha Nikos had dreamt of a vast expanse of white.
That wasn't to say that she dreamt of nothing, or that she didn't remember her dreams, but that her dreams had taken place somewhere that consisted of nothing but enduring, unending whiteness.
She was alone in the dream, left to wander the emptiness on her own, but despite the solitude, she could not help but feel that something else had accompanied her in that space as well, unfelt and unseen. Some entity had watched her from on high, appraising her, judging her and, at times, seemingly trying to make contact with her, though all she ever got was a vague sense of the entity's presence.
It almost felt as if she were at the precipice of some great discovery; that this being held the uncountable and unspeakable truths of the universe, and was proferring them to her, if she could only reach past the membrane that seemed to hinder its advances and grasp them for herself.
It was usually then, at that moment of truth, that Pyrrha would awaken within her own bed, and the mist of dream quickly obscured any memory of the night's discoveries. Whenever Pyrrha woke from one of these dreams, the first thing she would become aware of was the now familiar throbbing in her digits.
The ache had scarcely stopped since the initiation, only waning in intensity until it was more of a mild irritation than a burning agony. It was only after one of those strange dreams that the sensation once again rose to something that could be considered pain, and only for a scant few moments upon waking.
The flesh on her hands and arms was tender and sensitive, and the tips of her fingers had begun to show an encroaching discoloration of pale white. Otherwise, there was nothing outwardly wrong with her. Certainly, the insistent ache worried her to no end, but none at the school infirmary could identify any known malady, and could only suggest the typical advice of rest and, if need be, mild painkillers.
It was from one such dream that Pyrrha awoke to yet another new day at Beacon.
The girl yawned widely, reflexively flexing her aching fingers to dispel the pain and flipping her legs over the side of the bed. Glancing to her left, she found Jaune already awake, though his eyes were still shut. He sat on his bed, legs crossed, hands grasped loosely together. His breaths came in even, deliberate intervals, his posture ramrod straight.
Seeing this the first time had surprised her. She had not pegged the awkward, slightly scatterbrained blonde as someone to practice something as mindful as meditation. It was, he had said, something that his master had drilled into him as part of some magnificently brutal training regimen. A sound mind resides within a sound body, and a sound body cannot be without a sound mind. Or so his master had stressed.
Rising, Pyrrha lightly tapped a hand on the crown of his head, smiling kindly when his eyes fluttered open. The boy flushed slightly, as he always did, but returned the smile weakly before hopping out of bed and shaking the circulation back into stiff limbs.
Jaune took stock of his team once he had gotten his blood flowing again. The muted hiss of running water behind the bathroom door told him of Ren's whereabouts. The Mistralian boy was apparently quite the early riser, and Jaune had been surprised to see him up so early on the first morning of their cohabitation, going through his own pre-day exercises.
Contrastingly, Nora still lay sprawled on her bed, arms and legs splayed carelessly about, still happily dreaming. She had, at some point, reversed her orientation in the night, and her head was now positioned at the foot of her bed.
Moving to that final occupied bed in the room, Pyrrha began the arduous process of rousing the slumbering girl. Exuberant as she was in her waking hours, she slept like the dead in the night. It was only through insistent shaking, pleading, and copious promises of something sugary to perk her up that Nora finally deigned to rise into a halfway-seated position.
After a few minutes, the bathroom door swung open, permitting a large volume of steam to billow out and revealing an already-dressed Ren, dampness still clinging to his long hair. The Mistralian boy made his way to Pyrrha's side and proceeded to help her coax Nora into wakefulness.
Jaune surveyed the assembled group with a small grin. His team was all here. Still, he could not help but have his brow crease into a slight frown as he observed the spectacle before him. It seemed normal. It was normal. Too normal. It felt like a world's worth of difference from the dire catastrophe that had occurred not two weeks prior. Two weeks since that fight for their lives in the forest that had left him stunned and wavering, paralyzed by uncertainty and indecision.
Apparently their friend-turned-enemy had been lying in a coma at the infirmary ever since. From what Ruby had told him–teams RWBY and JNPR had kept up regular correspondence since the event–she had visited the unconscious girl several times, though Jaune had yet to bring himself to do the same. Every time he considered it, the memory of those baleful, cold eyes brought bile rushing up to his throat and left him nauseous.
His team, at least, seemed to be doing fine.
Ren and Nora seemed rather used to the harshness of life, and had taken it all in stride, quietly (and not so quietly, in Nora's case) absorbing and processing the recent events. They seemed none too worse for the wear, and after a period of adaptation, seemed to be their usual, unflappable selves.
Pyrrha was, needless to say, incredible. Despite her own brush with disaster, she had maintained the stolid and cheerful outlook she always held, her confidence unmatched by none. At times, Jaune could see her wince, as if a phantom pain had raced through her, but she always insisted that she was fine. While that hadn't been the most convincing reassurance, Jaune couldn't imagine someone as strong as Pyrrha having trouble and he dropped the issue, though not without some amount of uncertainty.
All-in-all, his team seemed to have recovered mostly from the initiation–a sentiment that Jaune wished he could echo. The matter with Kiana weighed heavily on him, and he found his mind cluttered and his manner rather distracted on many occasions. He could not help but replay that scenario anytime he closed his eyes
The words his master had admonished him with in their first meeting echoed in his head, and, not for the first time, he bemoaned his own weakness. He had been a fool to think that he could just waltz into Beacon and pretend he fit in. Even with the hellish training, he was barely up to par, having been soundly thrashed in just about every spar he had been pitted in. It was just another worry to add to the ever-growing pile.
The meditation helped to sort his scrambled thoughts, though not by much. His master had told him not to empty his mind, but to accept and explore each trailing thought that passed, to see each to their conclusion and, when he had finished digesting them, release them to the winds. The problem was that his worries were far too large to digest. He was left mulling them over and regurgitating them, only to mull them over once more as a cow does with its cud. It was a cycle that neither seemed to lessen with time, nor could he find any respite from. A groan jumped, unbidden to his lips as these thoughts raced, drawing the attention of his red-haired partner.
"Are you alright Jaune? Not feeling well?" She asked with her typical kind concern.
"No, no," he stammered, flushing at the inadvertent noise. "Just a bit tired. Let's head to class, shall we?"
And thus concluded a typical Beacon morning for Team JNPR.
Night fell early, in Autumn, and moonlight, shrouded as it was by heavy, rain-laden clouds, cascaded in through a window of Beacon's infirmary. It spilled in without constraint, unobscured by trees or shrubbery, as the room was on the highest floor, and cast a rectangular, grey pallor upon a bed and the form sleeping within. The celestial body was at the zenith of its nightly traversal, and the shadows it cast were long and sinister, as if fleeing from the wavering light.
Silence had long since fallen. The air was dead, and the sounds of the night creatures had ceased to be. No insects creaked, no frogs croaked, and the small, scampering denizens of the night had suspended their scamperings, seemingly in anticipation of something to come.
As if to rebuke the stillness, a great CRACK suddenly sounded. Lightning flashed and the still winds began to move, battering and thrashing trees in their violence. Thunder split the belly of the vaporous behemoths hanging indolently in the air, unleashing a deluge upon the entirety of Vale.
The figure on the bed stirred, roused from the deepest of sleep by the sudden cacophony. Slowly, shuttered eyes unfurled and she murkily glanced about the dimly moonlit room. She made to lift her arms but halted, hissing, when the movement jerked the IV embedded in her vein. She lifted her opposing hand to rip out the offending tube, but halted once more when its movement was impeded with a jaunty jingling of metal. Glancing down, she found glinting handcuffs bound to the steel railing of the hospital bed to be the culprit.
The cuffs seemed to be almost a formality, or at least, whoever had bound her hadn't tried too terribly hard. Or else, they were not aware of her inhuman strength. With some effort, the steel links gave way and snapped. The process left angry welts upon her wrist, but was otherwise easily managed.
With her arms free and the IV extracted, Kiana swung her legs over the bedside and stood, only for her knees to buckle, nearly toppling her to the ground. As it was, she was holding herself up on the railing while her legs grew accustomed to her own weight once more. Her body felt far too weak. How long had she been asleep? She hadn't even felt this weak when she had first awoken on Remnant, within the dark, sepulchral depths of an ancient ruin.
She tested her legs again after a few moments of holding that position to find that they now supported her, however shakily. She tottered forward, taking small, hesitant steps. One hand still grasped the railing, knuckles bone white. It was only after several more moments, when she was confident in her body's stability, that she deigned to properly examine her surroundings. The room, darkened as it was, was clearly a ward in the infirmary.
She strode to the door. It was locked. Her gaze fell to the lone window to find that it was similarly bolted and barred. What was going on?
She made a small noise of frustration, but it choked and died before leaving her, refusing to proceed beyond her parched and dry throat. She coughed a bit and stumbled to the large medical sink. Within seconds, the water was running and she was gulping down the fluid as if she hadn't had a proper drink in weeks.
She emerged, gasping for air and feeling much better. She flicked wicks of moisture from her mouth with the back of her hand, and studied her reflection in the mirror. She froze.
The face that stared back in that cold, polished surface was undeniably hers, but it was different. One eye was the same, cool cerulean that she recognized, but the other shone a radiant gold, like it did whenever she called on that power.
At once, a flood of recollection filled her mind. She recalled the dire skirmish within the forest. She recalled the heinous actions of a being that wore her flesh but was not her. The words it had said. The destruction it had wrought. It was almost surreal, recalling her own body moving of its own volition, as if she were watching a program on television with no real control over the events. Except it was her own body.
Her breathing sharply rose at the sudden clarity and understanding. So that's why she had been cuffed. That's why the doors and windows were locked, and why she had been placed in a solitary ward. They considered her a threat, maybe even an enemy. How could they not, after the showing she had put on in the Emerald Forest?
An inexplicable, uncharacteristic feeling of claustrophobia settled upon her mind. The air had become too stale in here. She couldn't breathe. She felt nauseous and lightheaded. She could feel her heartbeat thundering in her ears, and her eyes darted wildly about, seeking some form of egress from this room, this prison. She needed to get out.
Her head suddenly throbbed violently, and, as if in response, a yawning portal expanded to life in front of her. It pulsed and crackled and seemed to beckon with an almost welcoming air. Against her better judgement, Kiana felt compelled to step through.
Hesitantly, she blindly thrust a hand through the tear in space, flinching backwards reflexively at the sensation of the cold pitter-patter of raindrops upon her flesh. Next, she experimentally stuck her head through, blinking raindrops out of her eyes as she now gazed upon the drenched courtyard of Beacon. She retracted her head and began formulating a plan.
The first order of business was finding some proper attire. The sheer hospital gown she currently wore left her far too exposed to consider venturing out in. Hastily, she began flinging open the numerous drawers and storage units that lined the room. By some stroke of luck, she actually found something in the otherwise bare cabinets. Some spare scrubs and lab coats had been left behind, likely forgotten, if the thick layer of dust was any indication. It certainly was not rainy weather gear, but it would have to do.
She layered as many of these items as she could upon her body before in hopes of hindering the drenching rain. She wrapped an additional coat around her head as a makeshift hood in an additional attempt to stave off the elements and conceal her identity. Catching her own reflection in the mirror, she would have scoffed had she not been in such urgent agitation. She looked like a mummy.
Taking a deep breath, she charged through the portal and into the downpour.
Half-an-hour found Kiana crouched in the metal belly of an outbound bullhead, trying desperately to get warm. Freighters didn't typically soar at any great height, especially on a short trip like the Vale–Beacon transit, but the combination of the night, the storm and the altitude made conditions cold enough to send violent tremors quaking through her frame. The soaked clothes certainly didn't help.
In an attempt to take her mind off of the chill slowly seeping down to the marrow, Kiana began trying to parse the details of her situation into a form that her still-reeling mind could digest. She was probably being considered a threat, hence the cuffs and the locked room. That meant people would probably be looking for her once they realized she was missing. She lacked weapons, money, or even proper clothes. She would need to fix that somehow, and soon.
She could make portals now, that was new. The distance she could travel was laughable, but it had been enough to escape from the infirmary and secure passage on this cargo vehicle undetected. The pain that usually accompanied the use of her power seemed lesser now, mitigated, but still jarring if used in quick succession, as she discovered in her escape from Beacon. Kiana wasn't certain whether that was a good or a bad thing.
Her primary plan, to attend Beacon and become a Huntress, seemed well and truly ruined. Not just that, but it had been ruined by none other than herself. Or some vague approximation of herself. Or perhaps it had been someone else entirely. She did not know.
What she did know, was that she was now adrift in Vale with precious few resources, no contacts, and no shelter.
In short, she was screwed.
Her musings were interrupted by a spot of turbulence that was a bit stronger than the norm. That, coupled with the rapid sense of descending, told her that the Bullhead was preparing to dock and, not wanting to be found, she prepared to disembark. Another lancing pain pulled a portal from nothingness, this time manifesting on the floor of the bullhead. Harnessing the power seemed to be getting easier.
Like a diver dropping through a hole in ice, she plunged through the portal feet-first.
And hissed in pain as she crashed heavily upon asphalt, bouncing once, twice, thrice before rolling to a stop against an overfilled dumpster.
Momentum was maintained when moving through portals. Of course it was, why wouldn't it be? It would be a good thing to keep in mind for the future, but for now, she just hurt. Kiana pulled herself to her feet, moaning all the way. At least nothing was broken, it seemed.
Rubbing what was almost assuredly going to be a hefty bruise in the morning, she surveyed the location she had dropped into. It was a dimly lit alley that stunk to high heavens. The pungent odor of oil and smoke permeated the air, underscored by the more normal stench of trash and other city refuse. Trash and debris were strewn carelessly about the length of the alley, and the only source of light was the moon, obscured by the tall buildings, and the lit windows of the upper floors of said buildings.
Finding no telltale landmarks, she made her way to a wider street to better gauge her location. The target of her jump had been largely arbitrary, and she had had no specific destination in mind upon creating the portal. From the look and smell of it, she had been deposited somewhere along the Industrial District, and quite a seedy part of it, at that.
She sighed, exasperated. Her stomach rumbled. Her head ached. Her body was tired. There was nothing more she wanted right now than food and some shuteye, though her glaring lack of funds and the late hour made the former a dubious prospect. For now, she would just find a nice, abandoned warehouse to sleep in for tonight and figure out what to do in the morning.
The opportunity for proper, if uncomfortable, rest finally came when Kiana found a row of abandoned tenements tucked away just behind Main Street. The structure had been mostly hollowed out, likely through natural degradation and neglect, or else by vandals, but some of the upper floors remained somewhat intact. The walls separating the individual rooms had long since collapsed, and the space was large and open. All of the windows were devoid of panes, and the howling winds freely entered the abandoned edifice.
In short, the building looked like it could collapse at any given moment, but it was a roof over her head and a shelter from the rain.
She stripped and hung the many layers of clothes to dry out, leaving on only the innermost lab coats, which were only slightly damp, as opposed to soaked. Kiana was rather grateful for the oversized garments, as they afforded her some additional comfort and just a tiny bit more warmth with the excess material. She could easily draw the collar up over her head in a makeshift hood and still have the hem cover her needing to curl up beneath it.
The modicum of comfort the building provided also allowed Kiana time for contemplation. For the first time since her escape, Kiana well and truly thought about her situation. It was with a growing sense of dread that she began to understand the full gravity of her actions. She had messed up. Badly.
Why had she run?
She had panicked in that first, fleeting moment of consciousness, an emotion amplified by sudden, horrified recollections, and fled without a second thought. Was that truly necessary? Surely, Ozpin would have at least heard her out, given her a chance to explain herself, before turning her over to the authorities? Surely, the fact that she was still at Beacon and not in some government facility meant that she would at least be allowed to plead her case? Surely, there was no need for such an expedient and impromptu escape from that infirmary ward?
The more she thought about it, the more Kiana realized that she may have acted a touch too rashly. Things could very well have been resolved tidily had she stayed, but instead, she had opted to run. To flee like a frightened cat.
And now she was forced to confront the fact that the matter of her innocence was looking increasingly tenuous. From an observer's point of view, she had attempted to take the lives of several prospective Beacon students and, failing to do so, had fled under cover of night.
If she wasn't a fugitive then, she certainly would be one now.
The thought appalled her. She did not enjoy the thought of spending the rest of her life fleeing from authorities, and she expelled the idea from her mind. She was tired and her own rampant worries weren't helping. For now, she would rest and sort things out in the morning. She huddled into the slightly oversized, white coat, attempting to preserve as much body heat as she could, and tried to fall asleep.
Kiana must have succeeded to some degree, as it was in the small hours of the morning when a shrill shriek shook her awake. Instantly, she was on high alert, every nerve fiber firing and ready for action.
Lifting herself into a silent crouch, she crawled over to one of the broken windows and peered through the darkness below. The storm had ceased sometime when she was asleep, and the moon was now bright and unobscured, bathing the near-vacant alley in mellow, serene light. It apparently existed in some form of depression with poor drainage, as a pool of water had accumulated over the course of the night, the surface of which was absolutely still, perfectly reflecting a world within its depths.
However, one corner of this pristine mirror had been sullied.
Scattering the immaculate reflections were the violent ripples kicked up by the rapid footfalls of a chase. A woman was being pursued by what seemed to be two men, cloaked and masked. Apparently having turned off of Main Street in a failed bid to lose her pursuers, the group now found themselves in the very same alley that Kiana's impromptu lodgings overlooked. The men had been gaining on the woman in their wild dash down the road, and the lithe one, being smaller and faster than his compatriot, had managed to latch a hand onto the woman's handbag, roughly yanking it.
With a yelp, the woman quickly untangled herself from the bag, leaving it behind, but in the course of doing so had upset her balance too greatly. She was only able to stumble forward a handful of paces before her balance failed entirely, sending her sprawling to the soaked asphalt with a splash. She screamed for help once more, desperately scrambling away on hands and knees, and Kiana bound to action.
The ancient bloodline of House Kaslana, warped and modified as it was, would not allow her to ignore a cry for help. It was literally imprinted upon her very genetic code.
Placing both hands on each side of the empty window frame, Kiana braced a bare foot against the edge before silently launching herself from the third story. For the briefest moment, she hung suspended among the cold lunar rays, emulating the divine visage of her namesake.
And then gravity reclaimed her, and she descended upon her hapless prey like a predator of the night.
The first assailant, skinny, saw only a dark shadow descending from the moonlight above before an axel kick drove a heel into the back of his head and he dropped to the ground.
The second, a stocky, middle-aged man, if the general shape of his body was to be believed, fared only slightly better. He, at least, had managed to choke out a strangled cry of alarm before Kiana drove a hard fist into his sternum, cutting off any further utterances. A solid kick ensured that he wouldn't be getting up for a while.
Kiana stood from her crouch and surveyed her work. Quick and efficient, she nodded to herself in approval.
The entire exchange lasted a scant few seconds, and the water she had splashed explosively into the air upon landing now rained down in a light drizzle, refracting the pale light all about her in shimmering, gleaming rays.
"Um...miss."
Kiana fumbled, coming down from the rush of adrenaline and remembering that she was, most likely, a fugitive now. She tugged the "hood" of the lab coat further over her face and, thinking quickly, tore the mask from skinny's face, and slapping it over her own. It reeked distinctly of cigarettes, and she had to suppress a gag as she whirled to face the woman she had saved.
"Call the police," she instructed. She tried to drop her voice a few octaves, but succeeded only in sounding like she had a bad cold.
"Miss, thank you so…"
But she was gone. In a flurry of movement, Kiana dashed away and scaled the factory wall, leveraging the various protrusions of the building to pull herself, hand over foot, to the rooftops. Within seconds she had disappeared from view, leaving the woman stunned and alone, save for the two unconscious men.
Kiana waited vigilantly, unseen, watching as the woman pulled out her scroll and, within moments, summoned a cavalcade of police and medical vehicles. In short order, the unconscious forms were carted off in stretchers and statements were taken. The woman was making excitable, sweeping gestures with her arms in her interview with the officer, who could only shake his head, bemused.
Kiana exhaled deeply, sinking into a seated position against the parapet wall after confirming that the woman was safe. She gazed at the mask now in her hand. The White Fang, she recalled from the bulletins on the news. Apparently, they had been stepping up their activity in Vale recently, though why they went around mugging people in the dead of night was something she couldn't quite fathom. Random, small-time crimes like this weren't their usual modus operandi.
She traced a finger along the edge of the mask, noting the smooth, worn texture. The luminescence of the shattered celestial body overhead shone upon its surface, deepening the contrast of gleaming white against the shadows. It was a simple thing: a featureless, white mask with two horizontal slits over the eyes to allow for sight. The form and design were simple and unfamiliar. Even so, examining the object pulled forth a memory of something she had seen on television once when she was very young.
It had been the story of a hero–a young woman with crystal-blue eyes and snow-white hair just like her own–who had donned a mask to fight the corrupt church and protect the people. She had helped many, but in the end, was discovered and sentenced to death for treason.
A black, half-mask that covered the upper face. An off-center, violet plume. A cruelly hooked beak. Even with the twin veils of time and memory obscuring much of her past, Kiana could still recall the design of that haunting guise with singular clarity.
A small smile crept upon her lips, the first she had bared since awakening. She couldn't afford to be discovered waltzing around Vale, but a certain, mysterious masked-hero could, and if people happened to be helped in the process, that could only be a good thing, right?
Not much of a chapter, really. Nothing really happens. I just wanted to get everyone set up in their places for the story proper. It's rather short.
I never really like how Ruby and Weiss sorted out their differences on the whole "team leader" issue in canon. Rather than being set straight by their professors, I feel like it would've helped a lot more if they just talked it out like adults, which is what I'm planning to have them do here. And yes, I'm aware they're teenagers and not adults, but still.
If it isn't clear by now, this fic will likely be a slow burn, which may turn some people off. I would like to move away from copious fight scenes and really start to flesh out the world a bit more. It feels like these last few chapters have just been our cast beating the crap out of things.
This arc ending will be a two parter, with the second part focusing on the not-Beacon gang. I hope to have that up within a week or two.
I actually managed to get this out earlier than usual this time, and I'm quite stoked about that.