"...if there is no Mantle then there is no reason for you not to work with me," Ironwood carried on. "Neither of us want it to come to that, but one of us... is willing to do it."
It was appalling to hear: the calm way in which the general threatened to detonate a bomb -a bomb he'd originally intended to kill Grimm- on a population ostensibly under his protection, and for what?
The Grimm threat may not have been completely contained and Salem would return sooner rather than later, but why was he still pursuing Penny so relentlessly? Was he so afraid?
Or was he just so desperate to be right?
The general put his clasped hands -including a new black prosthetic- behind his back, rising to a firm stature. "If anyone tries anything other than what I've ordered, Mantle is gone. You have one hour to respond. I hope you live up to the title I gave you."
No one had any immediate thoughts to offer. They all glanced around at one another, trying to make sense of the staggering weight of Ironwood's ultimatum.
Eyes shifted between Ruby, Jaune, and Oscar. Team leaders, the host of Ironwood's former friend and mentor... none of whom seemed armed with an answer. Not that their friends could blame them.
"...maybe you guys should talk to Klein and get checked out after the... explosion," Ruby suggested. "When everybody's all... all good we can talk about what to do next."
She was stalling for time. Yang knew it better than any of the others.
Still she offered Ruby the indulgence. She faintly nodded and shepherded Jaune, Ren, and Oscar away from her sister towards... Weiss eventually pointed out the bedroom where Klein had set up. Weiss too was clearly trying to help buy Ruby a bit of time to decipher Ironwood's hard line.
But after Yang ascended the stairs with the boys, she paused outside the bedroom door. She heard a faint clattering she didn't immediately recognize and glanced around -at Weiss and Blake standing meekly a few feet away from Ruby, to the ruins of a stone statue in the antechamber, to Weiss's family members (her mother and brother? Yang hadn't been introduced) watching everyone wander about their house- trying to find the source.
It took her a while to notice it. It was always the last place she looked.
Her right hand was giving off a twitch. A familiar sight to her, but one entirely new to this hand... she'd thought the replacement would be free of the nervous twitches of her left. Its mechanical whirrs and clangs took some time for her to become accustomed to, but at least her hand had been... steady. Her left trembled constantly, and she took pains to hide it from the others, but her right had been a source of strength, of confidence...
A gift she'd first spurned, then embraced... a gift that with some time, some patience, had helped make her whole.
A gift from General Ironwood.
Was it a defect? Damage from the trip into the belly of the beast that had somehow gone overlooked?
No, it was operating properly. It wasn't the machine that was suffering a tremor...
"Miss Xiao Long?" inquired a timid voice. Yang looked up from her prosthetic to a short, baldheaded man in a waistcoat waiting outside Weiss's bedroom. "Are you ready?"
Right. Ruby had suggested that they-
That they waste time. That they delay confronting the terrible reality in front of them.
Yang knew that feeling well. She was uniquely positioned to understand it.
To be crushed under the weight of the world and backed into a corner, to be left without the strength to move forward...
"No, I'll... I need to get some air first, if that's alright," Yang requested. "Take a look at Oscar first: he took the worst of it."
The short man -Ruby had referred to him as Klein- nodded. "Yes, so I see. I'm sure we can accommodate you in course."
Yang nodded, quickly extricating herself from the conversation. Not that she wanted to be rude to Klein, but that she was in no mood to discuss the problem actually afflicting her. A doctor may well have understood, but he wasn't the person she needed to talk to. He wasn't the one with the power to change anything right then.
Yang headed back down the stairs, taking out her Scroll on the way down. Blake reached out and took hold of her shoulder, briefly halting her momentum. "Hey, what is it...?"
She'd noticed; she may well have heard the twitch. She just hadn't interceded until Yang started to storm away. She hadn't tried to anchor Yang until she felt like she had to.
Blake's eyes found the Scroll in Yang's hand. She looked up at her partner, plaintive, waiting... allowing Yang to volunteer the answer rather than succumbing to her own curiosity.
"There's something I need to do," Yang explained. "Something... I don't know if it'll help or not. It could go bad. But it's... it's something. It's not nothing. I can't just do nothing now."
Blake knew the pain of inaction better than the others. She knew Yang's suffering better than most.
"...are you sure?" was all Blake asked her.
Not doubt: opportunity to turn back, without the implication of judgment. Understanding. Support, if Yang so needed it.
It seemed like a necessary thing to do right then. But it was also a very weighty thing, with real consequences. Just taking this action may well have affronted the general enough to take the drastic step he had promised.
The world was so heavy and her arm still shaking...
"I have to do this," Yang insisted. "I'm the only one who can."
Blake squeezed her shoulder a little more firmly. She leaned over to press her forehead against her partner's back, even if it meant getting caught in a messy tangle of hair. One final moment of hesitation to cling to this, before facing the challenge alone.
Blake relaxed her grip. Yang continued her march outside.
"I wasn't expecting anyone to call so quickly," General Ironwood observed from his station. "I certainly didn't expect you to be the one to negotiate this surrender. But so long as you are-"
Ironwood paused at the silence on the other end of the call. He expected her to interject, or protest... not dead air.
A distraction?
Ironwood's tone turned firm. "Miss Xiao Long, I would not take it well if I learned you were trying to stall..."
Another moment's silence. Only provoking Ironwood further.
"I will trace your Scroll's location shortly," Ironwood assured her. "If you have nothing to say, then-"
"How's your arm?" Yang finally asked.
Ironwood was now the one given pause. "My... what?"
"I saw you on screen and noticed you had some new gear," Yang continued. "I wanted to know how you were doing... if you were in any pain."
Ironwood's suspicions continued to mount. "And... why -exactly- would that interest you?"
"Because not so long ago you sent me some fancy tech in a box," Yang replied. "I never took the time to thank you for it. I never so much as thought to ask how you were doing when I knew you weren't well... and I wanted to try and make up for that before whatever happens next."
Ironwood drew a long breath. He had, hadn't he? He'd sent her the prosthetic after Beacon, after she'd been maimed, after she'd sacrificed while defending her school, her kingdom...
She should've understood it better than any of them. She knew what the material cost was.
"What happens next is exactly as I instructed," Ironwood curtly answered. "I thought that was clear."
She hadn't yet defied him. He tried to persuade himself that this was not disobedience, not distraction... but he hadn't yet determined what she was doing.
"We'll know what happens when it happens," Yang flippantly replied. "This... this is for us. For just us. If you don't want to talk I get it; I've been there. I just... I wanted to give you the chance to say it, to me -to me and no one else- if you wanted to. I wanted to give you just that much time."
Silence between them again.
He'd had high hopes for her once. But she betrayed him. She lied to him. She'd undermined his efforts chasing some pipe dream rather than seen the bigger picture.
She was young. Younger than several of his finest soldiers. She was hardly the first spirited fighter who'd lied to him in the... zeal of youth and idealism.
Ironwood looked down at his left arm. The aches were dull now... but they hadn't left him. They'd never leave him. They reminded him why he couldn't allow himself to stop.
That was why Yang needed to offer him this chance to talk. She'd been wounded too, just like this. They may have been on opposing sides now, but they still shared... this.
If only it was enough.
"No, Yang," Ironwood firmly replied. "There's nothing to say."
"...no, I didn't think so," Yang admitted. "Now we both know."
She hung up the call. Ironwood looked at his station for the tracking info... incomplete, but easy to extrapolate if he instructed his technicians to find the ping.
He settled back into his chair and continued to stare at the screen. He wanted to -if nothing else- repay the courtesy of time.
"Yang? Hey, Yang, are you okay?"
Ruby. Yang slid her Scroll discreetly into her sleeve and turned to face her sister. "Yeah?"
"I... I think I know how I'm gonna do this now," Ruby explained. "I hate that I have to, but-"
Yang instinctively reached out to embrace her. Instinctively, with her right hand.
"I know," Yang assured her. "I know you'll do what's best."
It was unfortunate Ironwood refused the same offer... but knowing that he'd had the chance to steeled Yang's resolve.
Yang's eyes shifted from Ruby to the metal fingers on her sister's shoulder.
She heard no whirs and clanks. Her hand was... steady.
A blessing- it'd soon need to be. But the weight of the world would not be strong enough to hold her down again. Where her hand faltered, many others reached out to help hold her up.