"ugh, would someone like to explain how we got out here?" Pyrrha asked groaning, but looking around it seemed like no one seemed to know either and traded looms of confusion and murmuring. Everyone looked around the beach to assess where they were but because the ship was totaled they couldn't use its GPS.
"lets make shelter here for the night and plan for tomorrow" Ruby said grabbing her bag and went through it looking for something.
"so~ is nobody going to question the fact that we woke up under a bunch of trees and our stuff stacked outside with us?" nora asked taking her armor off leaving her boots, t-shirt, shorts and crop top jacket.
"Reaper pulled us out and interrogated me, I think he was supposed to kill us but…" she trailed off unsure of what to say next.
Ren walked over to her and asked "what is it yang?" he looked at her wet form and noticed the drying salt in her hair and clothes.
She looked up and sighed "I think he's not the only one following us out here, but he seemed to be the only one trying to protect us". She lied and ren knew it but ignored it for now.
Jaune pushed ren aside and glared at her "have you lost your damned mind yang!?" he paused and turned to see everyone surrounding them. Ren was trying to figure out how to calm his leader, nora was beside yang, Pyrrha walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder, weiss stood there stunned at how jaune had just yelled at yang, Then there was Ruby, whom walked over to make sure they didn't start a pointless fight, and rayla was too busy building the fire pit opting to eavesdrop.
Ciri stood at the back of the group guarding them incase trouble came.
"reaper doesn't care who he kills as long as it gets him paid or if he just feels like it-"
Ciri felt the need so she hollered, "he's no better than the grimm we hunt!"
Which made he and everyone look her way, and they all wore looks of worry- hell they had a right to be, the jaune that they knew wasn't like this and when he didn't notice nor seem to care about his change inti what or who stood before them.
they all wanted to help him before it got too far but there was only so much people can do. "that's a tall tale you know that?!" weiss said walking over to him "I know what the reaper's real goal is and it sure as hell is not to get a higher bank statement; he may be accredited with assassinating quite a lot of people but his targets were corrupt politicians, Faunas slave traders and owners, and currently he's hunting down cole's old classmates and anyone else responsible for the day he died"
"jaune listen to me" Ruby said sternly clutching his cracked chest plate "if the reaper was going to kill us we would already be dead, but instead he let us live- you of all people should be worried, because you're on his list so I'd really hope you change your attitude before he comes back"
"just shut it!" they all turned around and saw rayla drop a bunch of coals still in the bags into the sand and walked over to them. "we can worry about that guy when he comes for the your resident knight of dumbass later, for now just help me find some fresh water and somewhere to clean up otherwise more grimm will be here for us" she paused when she turned to jaune and frowned "if he didn't kill you yet he sure as hell might still target the others, seeing as you have been changing for the worse; best for last as they say right?"
Ciri whipped around for a moment practically taken off guard at what she'd ended with. "Hey, that was definitely unneeded of you"
as Ruby looked over everyone she saw how miserable they felt stranded on the island and fighting was making things worse, so she felt like a distraction.
fed up with everything and everyone now. She shouted "split up into groups of two and see if you can find some fresh water or at the very least water dust crystals to try and purify the saltwater, we'lldie of dehydration faster than hunger." everyone nodded and split up with their partners but Ruby was still upset with weiss so she went with yang to spare Ruby of getting angrier.
Ciri walked along the improvised camp perimeter, planting metal debris in the sand to create a pseudo wall the caught ruby's plan and smiled prideful as could be. "Oh geralt, if you felt this way towards my heart you truly deserved to be a father." She said to herself.
Rayla looked over at jaune and said "Pyrrha I think we need to talk, don't you?"
she looked at rayla sweating bullets and said "b-but didn't you j-just talk with me not a few days ago?"
"great, lets go look on the other side of this cliff" she said pulling Pyrrha away from jaune, "hey jaune why don't you go with Ruby; don't rip his head off please".
"bring her back in one piece" jaune said nervously walking with Ruby, whom of which took his shield from his waist, gave his sword back and stopped to dig in the sand on one knee.
"uh Ruby, are you-?"
"shut up or help" she snapped driving it a foot into the ground and dragged the sand back and dug in more with her armored hands.
"scoot over then" he said kneeling down and started digging with her.
They dug two feet wide four foot deep holes until they had enough dust crystals to fill Ruby 's cloak and used it as a sack to carry the bigger ones while jaune carried the rest on his shield.
"Ruby can we talk for a bit?"
"what is it" she asked flatly setting the dust crystal down and sat down on it a rock.
"why aren't you giving us a chance to make amends for what we did, it's been a year struggle since that day and we're no closer that I hoped for" he said a bit apprehensively playing with a wand crystal like it was a pencil like when he used to when he was in class.
"because this" she motioned to herself and jaune "kind of trust we had, needs to be earned back and it took cole to show me who all you really were, so tell me again why I should consider it...weiss loved him and he was a new friend and a great weaponsmith partner"
Jaune stopped twirling it and accidentally cracked the crystal in his grip making it explode and soaked him from head to toe in water. She stood up and looked down at him with anger and bitterness.
"yes I may have only known him for less that a year but I still-" she took a deep breath and began pacing back and forth "when we met, you were nothing if not the best kind of friend I could hope for, weiss was difficult at first but we got through it, Pyrrha knew where I was coming from since the two of us are prodigies in our own right, yang was the bombastic but overprotective sister, Blake and I loved Romance books and tv shows, nora and ren helped me with schoolwork and how to have fun when needed…." She stopped to look him in the eye and tightened her fists. "but it's just like cole said, you guys lost sight of who you were, and now that your actions caused this to happen you just expect me to hide that much anger and pain because you were once considered my family?"
Jaune snapped at that and visibly trembled with tears brimming in his eyes "how long am I going to have to apologize for my mistakes?!" he stomped over to her and grabbed her chest plate and glared "for the last three years -three fucking years- all of us tried to apologize, but you pushed us away, and for what!?" she scowled, grabbed his arm and body slammed him into the sand, in a counter he rolled her off his back, pinned her arms over her chest and panted out "be….cause of wh-what?! some walking battery with a broken heart that treated all of us like shit?"
She kicked him in the groin and rolled him into an arm bar hold "he was a complicated man with a lifetime of pain; you all treated him the same way you'd treat a serial killer, so of course I don't see any of you the same; people change when they're treated like trash!"
She let jaune go and palm struck him in the back, "give it time and I might be willing to trust you like old times" she said standing up and grabbed her cloak. "but I doubt you'll change back to the way you used to be" jaune slowly got up and grabbed the dust crystals following her back to the site with enough dust crystals to last all nine of them at least two weeks after they ran out of water in their canteens and water packs (1.5 liters).
'your no different' he thought just as the ship came into view.
Walking over to rayla she casually dropped her cloak in the sand and walked over to the ship and yelled "im going to get out of my suit, call me if you want something!" weiss scolded her for dropping dust crystals and opened her mouth to do so but was ignored immediately by a broken door slammed in her face.
yang was in the middle of hauling a large boar, an improvised net of fishes, and a bag of roots that she'd picked thanks in part to Blake's tutelage in survival studies with ciri and geralt.
nora and ren came back blushing and sweaty making everyone upset.
Jaune set his pile of dust crystals with weiss, pecked Pyrrha on the cheek and sat next to her to rest his head on her shoulder to watch the fire dance in the pit of sand.
By the time everyone -minus Ruby- sat around the shrinking flame jaune was moments from saying that he'd go to get more wood when everyone noticed rayla had grabbed a pinch -a literal pinch- of fire dust crystals and tossed it onto the wood along with more shredded tree fibers and logs creating a plume of bright orange flames that shot twelve feet into the air and shrank down to a three foot flame from inside the two foot pit she dug up.
"there we go, nice and warm" she grinned putting a few fishes on a stick over the fire.
Weiss was the only one to speak up "why are you really here? You don't exactly want to find out how we felt about cole's life at beacon nor before it so-"
"its been over an hour, how long is she going to take to get that armor off?" nora asked whining childishly.
Ren chuckled and said "your aren't any better nora. She's probably cleaning herself up"
Just as be said that Ruby opened the door to the pilot's seat and jumped out wearing a cole's t-shirt that read: 'smile when you eat your teeth' on the front, a pair of shorts that reached her knees and no shoes but still carried her scythes, and cole's old pistol on her hip.
"Of course I'm ignored...like usual"
"see, even she needed-"
"hey rayla, where'd you get the fire dust crystals?" she said cutting ren off.
"weiss' rapier" she said jabbing in her direction with a bone. "she had loads to spare so I took a small vial for myself"
"More I gave it to you cause I was low" she retorted eating a tongue stuck out at her and giggling.
Yang tossed her a foil wrapped meal and said "I was saving that for you"
"what is this?" she asked setting it down on her side grabbing her flask from her back pocket.
"its boar meat cooked with ground up roots and herbs I found on the cliff side, it's my dad's special."
Ruby quietly thanked her, opened it, and found that it was probably the thickest piece of meat she'd ever had and ate it gratefully and uncharacteristic she tore into it without a crate in the world.
Nora looked at her meal and asked "can I ask you something Ruby?" in her defense she didn't mean for it to sound sad but she wasn't always able to hide her emotions.
"what is it nora?" she asked as evenly as she took another bite of her bar of meat.
"do you still hate us for hurting him?" she asked passing her a makeshift bowl of boar broth.
Taking a drink she gave an angry sigh and replied "look, I never said I hated any of you, I just said that I might never fully trust you again since cole died, an innocent Faunas named Ilia died with him, I lost a few new friends in that base; cole was just the one I loved like a potential brother...hell, weiss and I were the sole inheritors to everything cole owned in his will; weiss' sister has been sending me two hundred thousand lien every month since cole was technically a registered specialist with explicit orders to keep me safe." she paused to calm down and saw everyone hanging on to every word she spoke and watched her wipe her eyes. "I may forgive you guys somedaybut it's going to be difficult
to earn, a few of you are at a starting point but not all of you."
yang stood up and tossed her meal into the fire causing the flames to toss ash and embers into the air "then why the hell aren't you acting like it; family sticks together through hell and back again, yet you let us fall faster than an overweight competition eater!"
Ruby shot up and let her voice go from quiet to loud "don't you dare throw tai's logic in my face yang, you abused, and agitated someone who needed stability; your mother is still alive and breathing, you have a chance to see her anytime you want, you still have a full time family to rebuild, but I don't have that privilege!" she showed everyone the ring cole had made her and it gave them mixed feelings towards cole which attracted a few creeps and nevermores, which screeched out for blood to spill.
"we'll deal with it, you guys just talk it out" rayla said sprinting towards them as she started slicing through them with ease ciri behind her, both back to back fighting with such fluidity that it lookedalmost beautiful.
"you all caused these events with how you all became; at least when i was turning out the same way I decided to fix it at the source if not, I would've been the worst of you all-"
She was cut short just as an ursa head fell into the pit tossing the contents up and all around them startling the seven of them.
Looking over they watched as an ursa lost its top half, creeps were diced apart, a few mini death stalkers were dismembered or stomped on by both shadow user and witcher. watching their fight containing the initial threat they continued.
Ruby took the opportunity to keep pressing yang about the issue and with no thoughts given to how bad it was becoming. "after cole passed away you all thought he wasn't worth mourning for since you deemed him a monster; when my mother died Qrow once told me that an act towards another person creates a ripple that winds up leading back to you, well guess what?" she asked looking over everyone gritting her teeth.
"what?" yang asked stepping forward challenging her but saw Ruby turn from a depressed little girl wearing a torn red dress covered in mud, change into what she was now and took a step back in shock feeling a bit of shame.
Ruby opened her mouth to answer back but her voice died in her throat when a nevermore the size of a shopping cart was caught mid air by reaper, after a sickeningly loud snap rang out through the air in vanished in a puff of smoke.
Reaper looked up at them and scoffed running off surrounded by gold, blue, and purple lightning.
"so~ is he an assassin or is he a guard dog" weiss asked picking herself up threatening to attack him.
rayla walked over to the others and asked panting "ar-are you….guys alright?" to which she got yes's and nods.
"g-good, cause I need to sit down" she fell on her backside and slumped against the log behind her panting and huffing. "I swear those grimm were getting stronger"
"that's because they feed off of our negativity" ciri said.
"I thought that they were just attracted to it?" she asked after draining the canteen.
weiss sighed looking at the shadow girl and said "grimm feed, are attracted to, and in some ways can smell our negativity"
the others murmured amongst themselves while weiss just gawked at them all, "do none of you pay attention to port and rivia's lessons!?" she asked in her old uptight tone.
"weiss, we all either spaced out or fell asleep in their classes" jaune said chuckling.
"And all of you paid for it in geralts class, paid dearly for it too" ciri said watching them shiver in dread.
"y'know, you're probably the dumbest person here jaune?" yang said making everyone freeze at her comment. "you don't have the right to talk"
"says the girl that went to jail for throwing a tantrum after
Blake left you high and dry" rayla said biting off a piece of an eel.
"listen here smoke bitch, I-"
"Had no right to act like a little brat when your actions destroyed a family and a team; you are the one im most surprised at seeing as you could have helped cole recover from almost losing the closest things he loved" ciri scolded
Weiss stood up snapping on everyone "I'm disappointed in all of you, all of you should be building each other up. Instead you burn any semblance of family you had over a few bumps in your three years so far, it's pathetic how little you try to be better people, much less hunters"
Rayla spoke up adding her two cents "yeah, especially since I've technically been dead for almost twelve years in his eyes!"
"im going to bed" Ruby said walking over to the bullhead and climbed into the cockpit and went to sleep while staring at the stars.
"well, I think she has a point" Pyrrha said walking jaune over to an improvised hut the size of a small car far away from everyone to finally have some stress relief with everything they went through.
Ren and nora went into a small cave with an assortment of leaves hanging over the entrance to give them a curtain of cover.
Yang climbed into a large tree and slept there with her belt tying her to the thick branch.
rayla looked at weiss and said "well seeing as Ruby hates you and me the least, lets go join her in the ship" weiss simply nodded and followed her into the ship and used their bags as pillows.
Ciri stayed up long enough to make sure they were safe before going to sleep herself.
All in all everyone was fast asleep but they'd forgotten to put out the fire, which surprised Ruby that the dragon archipelago really was in the middle of nowhere…or maybe it was just too difficult to get to in the first place.
Opening her scroll she filled geralt in on events and called off his search since both sides came up empty handed, honestly it was disappointing that rayla practically didn't exist past cole's accidental destruction of village lakna.
Ciri:
"Go back to beacon, plans changed for the worse and these students are not fit for beacon anymore; ozpin needs them gone in four months or less"
Geralt:
"I und...nd, bu...'s al...me...per...co ...ive"
Ciri never fully received that last recording since her scroll was bugging out and shut down due to the lack of a charge on hand, so it was incomprehensible and to make matters worse, a certain killer stalked the far edges of their impromptu camp.
Another early chapter put out and honestly it's because I had time on my hands to just relax physically.
People gonna die off in the upcoming chapters and I'm not sorry for it, and if im being blunt I look forward to hearing about your options on the subject.
As always thank you for reading and I'm greatly appreciative for your time to read my work.
in the meantime dm me or comment on my reddit: H6pp1n355_in_misery. Please send messages if you have anything you'd like to see or if it needs fixing.