When Neo finally made her way out of the forest, she was exhausted. Her journey had started off great, with most strong grimm she met at first simply running past her towards the giant tree, as they all wanted to take advantage of the mess going on over there. After that, the grimm would be far more interested by drinking sap from the nearby trees than with her, allowing Neo to sleep soundly for several days.
However, once she stopped meeting grimms above level 10, things took a turn for the worse. The nearby trees, permanently bleeding sap due to the grimm continuously slashing them, had attracted hordes of weak grimms, too mindless to focus on the sap rather than her whenever she was nearby.
The low level grimm weren't a threat, at all, but their numbers forced her to fight continuously for the rest of her journey. By the time she came out of the forest, she hadn't slept in days. The world around her was turning, she could barely walk, and she would randomly close her eyes and lose consciousness for a few moments.
She didn't falter though, not when her very life depended on her remaining ready to fight at all times.
Only once she arrived to the city, and saw Glynda talking with the soldiers on the wall, did she finally allow herself to faint.
She'd probably wake up in a cell, but at least she would be alive.
It took all of Ruby and her team's concentration and teamwork to finally kill the Grimm they were facing, although Ruby was the one doing most of the work. By the time they had finished, the fighting taking place between the other Grimm had mostly ended, with about half having died and the rest having found a new balance of power, all back to sitting around the tree.
"We need to regroup the refugees and go through while we still can," said Ruby, noticing the remaining grimm were still very weakened.
"What do you mean go through?" asked Yang.
"To go back to Vale," explained Ruby, "I don't know why you came all the way here, but this is our best chance at getting out of here alive."
"What the…" started Blake, only for Ruby to ignore her and start rushing to find the refugees.
"Wait!" shouted the rest of her team as they tried to follow behind her, "Ruby!"
They saw Ruby come back in a burst of petals, carrying a couple refugees with her, before she darted off again. When she came back the second time, Weiss grabbed her sleeve.
"Stop!" she ordered, making Ruby stay to listen, "What is going on? Why is there grimm around that tree? Why did they fight each other? Why aren't they attacking us? What do you mean we can go back to Vale? And why is there Maria and Pietro over there?"
Following where Weiss was pointing at, Ruby saw Maria wave at them while she helped Pietro's wheelchair travel through the rough terrain. Then, she turned back towards her team, who looked completely confused.
"We don't have time for this," she ended up saying, "We need to gather the refugees first and pass through, I'll explain while we travel."
"No!" shouted Yang, "You're not keeping another secret from us. If we're to do this together, then everyone needs to be on the same page. No more keeping information for ourselves."
"We may be losing our best chance at getting through here!" shouted back Ruby, "I'll tell you later, I promise, but we need to do this now!"
"No!" refused Yang, her eyes starting to turn red from her anger, "Remember what happened the last time you kept something for yourself?"
"Remember what happened the last time someone trusted you with a secret?" shot back Ruby, making both Yang and Blake flinch.
Instantly realizing what she just said, Ruby put her hands over her mouth as she stepped back in fear.
"I… I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to…"
"To what?" asked Weiss, "To say you can't trust us?"
"Weiss, no!" said Ruby, "I trust you, I do, but we can't take the time to explain and understand everything that's going on right now! Not when so many lives are at stake."
"I don't see any life being at stake here," noted Weiss, "The grimm are being pretty obedient, sitting over there silently."
"That's because you don't understand what's going on!" objected Ruby.
"Then make us understand!" shot back Yang.
Ruby hesitated, knowing this was their best chance at getting everyone out of this forest alive, but also understanding that her team wouldn't budge without an explanation. She wasn't sure what to do, both options carrying huge risks for them, when Maria came to her rescue.
"You four have your talk," she said, "I'll help gather the refugees."
"Are you sure?" asked Ruby.
"I may be old, but I was still a legendary Huntress kiddo," replied Maria, "Besides, most of them are coming back on their own anyway."
Indeed, now that the threat was dead, most of the refugees had decided to come back to what was their safest bet at survival.
With a sigh, Ruby turned towards her team.
"Well, here's what I know."
To her surprise, Neo did not, in fact, wake up in a cell.
What was less surprising, was her waking up tied up to a hospital bed. Made sense.
She was feeling much better, although she wasn't yet sure for how long she had been unconscious. Not that she cared.
After a few moments, a nurse passed by and noticed she was awake. Several minutes later, a doctor came in to check up on her, and following that came Glynda.
"Neo…"
The young woman looked up at her… mother? Teacher? Well, Glynda had indeed helped raise her, but maybe not as much as Roman had, and she barely saw him as more than an uncle. So teacher it is.
"How have you been?"
Small talk huh? They haven't seen each other in a really long time, but small talk was as good a way as any to start back up.
Neo shrugged with a smile. She'd say her life was doing great, now that she was back to civilization. Although it would be better if the world wasn't under attack by an immortal grimm queen. She wondered how that was going.
"I had some level of correspondence with Vacuo recently," noted Glynda with a saddened look on her face, "Apparently you helped destroy Atlas, after Vale."
Neo tilted her head, then shrugged again. She didn't really care how Glynda saw her now, not anymore.
"We'll be going with most of the Valean Hunters to Vacuo," said Glynda after a heavy sigh, "I know what you're capable of, and since you appear to have your aura now, I wouldn't trust even the best Atlesian cells to keep you locked away for long."
Neo waited for the rest, wondering where she was going with this.
"I'll be taking you with us," finished Glynda, "That way, I'll be able to keep an eye on you."
Neo grinned, and Glynda sighed again seeing that she was somehow happy with the situation.
It seemed she was getting a free trip to Vacuo.
Gathering the refugees after she had explained the plan to her team took longer than Ruby had expected, especially given how there were a select few that didn't trust them with their protection anymore and failed to see that there was no better option for them.
Yet, that slight delay may have been what ended up in their salvation. By the time they gathered, a horde of elder grimm appeared in the clearing and tried to gain one of the spots around the tree for themselves. Now, they were busy fighting each other and they had a chance to go through, but had they passed by a few hours earlier they might have ended up having to fight all of them.
The group managed to travel through the forest relatively safely. The four Huntresses plus Maria were doing a good enough job at protecting the refugees, and while their progression was slow, it remained steady. During the entire trip, Yang, Blake and Weiss were able to see just how much Ruby had progressed while they had been taking care of the refugees back in the camp.
After a couple weeks, they stopped meeting elder grimm and instead only saw weak ones on occasion. Weirdly enough, at this point there was a lot less grimm around and they were able to travel a lot faster.
It took them a little over three weeks to finally reach Vale, while Neo had done the trip in a little under one on her own.
Waiting for them near the edge of the forest was Glynda and a small group of Hunters, who escorted them all the way to the city.
"I'm glad you're all safe," said Glynda upon seeing them, "We were about to come look for you."
"Thanks, but how did you know we were there?" asked Weiss.
"Well, Neo came back to Vale a while ago," explained Glynda, "From talking with the others that are in Vacuo, I learned that she fell with you, so if she's there you would be too."
"Oh…" started Ruby.
"That being said, it was her that told me what to be ready for and in which direction to look for you," added Glynda, "It surprised me, but I'm glad I believed her on this."
Ruby made a soft smile when she learned of this, then quickly remembered something.
Neo was a criminal… right? So why would she and miss Goodwitch be able to talk to each other?
"Speaking of, where is Neo?" asked Ruby.
"She's in our custody," answered Glynda, surprised by the question, "Why?"
"Can you let her out?" asked Ruby, about to explain when she was interrupted by Yang.
"You can't be serious?" asked back Yang, "She's a criminal!"
"She helped us against Cinder!" argued Ruby.
"She's the reason Cinder was there in the first place!" pointed out Yang.
"But…"
"Ruby," interrupted Weiss, "She is a criminal, just because she had a last minute change of mind doesn't mean she gets a free pass for everything she did before. She did help destroy Beacon too."
"But it wasn't last minute!" objected Ruby, "She was only fighting to help Roman, then to take revenge for him! She never was on Cinder or Salem's side."
"It doesn't change the fact that she made people die," replied Yang.
"But she could help us against Salem!" said Ruby, "She could make amends by helping us save people!"
Blake took a little step away from the argument, but just as the other two were about to reply they were interrupted by Glynda.
"Stop," she said, "Regardless of what happened, Neo Politan is coming with us to Vacuo, I cannot let her stay here without supervision. We'll debate about what to do with her once we are all gathered in Vacuo."
The discussion closed after that, and the group entered the city. The refugees would stay in the city, but team RWBY wanted to go to Vacuo with the Hunter force, so they were given temporary lodgings near Glynda's office while the refugees were gathered at the town hall until they found homes for themselves.
"We've actually been waiting for you before leaving," explained Glynda, "So we'll be departing first thing in the morning. Be ready."
The group nodded and got ready for the night, but just as Glynda was leaving the room Ruby caught her.
"Wait, miss Goodwitch," she started.
"Yes?"
"Could I… talk to Neo?" asked Ruby.
Glynda silently stared down at her for a moment, and Ruby thought she was going to get scolded until she turned around and left.
"I'll make it so you all will be staying on the same airship."
It seems Ruby's team don't really trust her anymore… That may make things a bit hard for them.
Poor Neo, low level grimm really don't give much in terms of experience at this point, even when she faces a horde of them.
To be continued on January 15th
Name : Neo Politan
Age : 18
Level : 21 (37%)
Class : Illusionist [You add both your Intelligence and Dexterity modifiers to your AC and to Dexterity or Intelligence based attacks as long as you can still cast illusions]
Path : Me, myself and I [You live for yourself first and foremost, no matter what pain you might cause others]
Destiny : All for one [Everyone can die, if it means you get to survive]
Title : The Gamer
HP : 11/11
AP : 110/110
STR : 12
CON : 11
DEX : 20
INT : 23
WIS : 13
CHA : 17
Semblance : The Gamer
Status effects :
Gamer's body [Your body follows game-like mechanics. You can restore 1/4th of your total HP (rounded down) by resting 15 minutes. You can only die if your HP reach 0 and you fail your last breath]
Child of Remnant [You are from Remnant and follow different rules than other worlds. Your HP is always equal to your constitution and any bonuses that would normally improve it are transferred to your aura]
Words that shouldn't be said [Your last words almost caused you to lose your life. You cannot talk until you overcome your trauma]
Defenses:
AC : 29(34)
For : 22
Ref : 28
Will : 25