Last Dawn
The hum of hard light was unbearable in the metal box Yang was stuck in. It sank into her bones like a hive was right under her skin. Or was that just nerves? Yang guessed she couldn't be blamed for that: this screwed up situation was bad enough without having to spend a night in some tiny brig deep inside of Amity. The room was as large as a small bedroom, but there was something about the emptiness that paradoxically made it feel cramped. Claustrophobic.
Or was that just the nerves too?
Sitting on her simple cot, Yang hugged her knees closer to her, uncaring of the opinion of the two guards she knew were outside the barrier of cyan light keeping her inside. Or of the general pacing back and forth, in and out of sight. The sound of his heavy boots striking steel again and again was, at first, a welcome interruption to the barrier's buzz. Now, it just joined in to give her a headache.
And yet, there went her eyes for the hundredth time, watching every move of the person asking questions. There went her heart for the hundredth time, dying to be heard.
"I'm telling you the truth. The bell didn't ring. His aura didn't break. His legs were fine. Nothing felt any different until those robots zapped me," she insisted for the hundredth time. "The next thing I knew, he was hurt."
And for the hundredth time, whoever she told it to gave her that disappointed, untrusting look. General Ironwood was no different. At least he'd stopped, and his footsteps were thankfully gone from her head.
He looked to one of the soldiers out of her sight. "Can you confirm that she's said that to you?" Ironwood asked.
"It's truncated, but yes, sir. She's reported the same to every person who's asked," the soldier reported.
Ironwood shifted his jaw, and his gaze returned to her. He just watched her for a few seconds, and Yang tried to pretend that didn't unnerve her more. That look in his eye had changed. It was slight, but even that was enough to throw her old guesses of distrust and annoyance away.
"You were close to the epicenter of the Ildaite Breach, correct?"
Yang blinked and lifted her head. "Yes? Why?"
"Has it been stressful since then?"
Yang tried to search for some reasoning, but his stoic expression gave nothing away. She pushed herself up to her feet.
"A little, sure, but nothing crazy—"
"Are you sure?" Ironwood stepped closer, illuminated by the light of the barrier. "You haven't seen anything you shouldn't have? Done anything?"
She balled her fists and tried her best to manage a glare. "What, do you think I'm crazy?"
Ironwood's stare narrowed, he clenched a fist, and to Yang, the room felt a little smaller. Then, the feeling passed just as quickly, and with a sigh, Ironwood folded his arms behind his back.
"I believe you might be under a lot of stress, and that stress and adrenaline can cloud your judgement before you've ever noticed. Sometimes, in that haze, you might miss the obvious, you might rely on instinct, or even... see things that simply aren't there."
She crossed her arms, and suddenly it was a lot harder to look him in the eye. Cold tendrils of doubt wrapped around her heart. Was that really it? He could brush past it all he wanted, but the implication was obvious: she'd lost it in that fight. Somehow, that felt worse than being accused of assault.
Ironwood pressed on. "It doesn't need to be a fight that would put you in that mindset. You could've done something you've come to regret, you could've seen things you shouldn't have." She felt his gaze boring into her. "Or maybe you discovered something you wish you hadn't. Especially if it was about someone close."
That brought her attention back to him, eyes wide.
"You may not believe me, considering your situation, but if you're feeling trapped, there are always others you can inform."
He couldn't know about Raven, right? Or Ruby? There was no way some general from Atlas could. But then who else could she have 'discovered' something about...
The realization struck her, and with it, well-needed heat. He was trying to use her to get at Adam? How low could someone even get! Grabbing onto that anger for dear life, she scowled.
A crash echoed through the steel hall and broke her train of thoughts, and as Ironwood turned and reached for his pistol, pieces of his own droids rolled and clattered to the ground around him.
"Qrow!" he shouted. "This is a restricted area and—"
Shouts of protest from one of her 'guards' probably trying to stop him ended in a pained grunt. Qrow stormed into view with a fire in his eyes Yang had never seen before.
"Shove it, James." He jabbed a finger at him. "Keeping her here for the night's crossed the line!"
Despite his scowl, Ironwood withdrew his hand from his weapon and crossed his arms behind his back once again. "It's standard procedure."
"I hope you aren't trying to fool me with that bullshit: you know just as well as I do that this wasn't on purpose."
Ironwood grit his teeth. "Unfortunately, you are not all of Remnant. It's time you put your biases aside and accept the reality of what's going on!" Their shouts bounced off of the metal walls, even beyond the hard light barrier separating them from her. The walls curled even closer.
Qrow barked out a cruel, mirthless laugh. "My biases? Please! I'm surprised you don't have anymore of your Specialists searching my nieces' room for White Fang masks. Or maybe you'll just skip the wait and go right to trying to take them out too! Your little pet Tortuga's still around, isn't he? Should I be keeping an eye out for him, too—"
"That's enough!" Ironwood's voice boomed like a cannon, and suddenly that barrier didn't feel strong enough.
"I quite agree." Ozpin's voice doused the fiery argument in an instant. "We have better things to do than to frighten our own students, wouldn't you two say?" With silent steps, he approached the two. Ozpin was the first to cast a look in her direction, but Yang couldn't even begin to figure out his thoughts.
Then it clicked that he was waiting for her to say something, and the world rushed back to her.
"What? N-no, I'm fine, really." She forced herself to sit back down on her uncomfortable cot, well aware that her 'confident' smile probably couldn't fool a single person in Beacon.
With a soft smile, Ozpin nodded, then turned his attention to the two doing their best to kill the other with their glares while not letting Ozpin notice. "I'm sure. However, that still does not excuse the behavior on display. Please, Qrow, James, why don't we take this to one of the security rooms to better discuss this?" He motioned off ahead of them.
A tense silence followed. Both nodded at the same time then, watching the other, turned and left without another word. A door shut further up ahead, and Ozpin let out a relieved sigh. He looked back to her with kind eyes and it was like the question was ripped straight from her heart:
"You believe me, right?" she asked.
Her headmaster stared at her for a second, interrogating her with his gaze alone. Then, he smiled.
"Completely."
Despite asking the question in the first place, Yang stood, eyes wide in surprise. "You do?"
"Of course, Miss Xiao-Long. Spend enough time in my shoes and you learn to tell not just when someone is scared but why. When I look into your eyes, I can see plain as day that you're not afraid that you've been caught or could face punishment. Perhaps not even afraid of what you could do. Besides, you are my student after all: I'm well-aware that you're a good person." He looked over his shoulder back to where he'd come from. "I'll try my hardest to make sure you're safe. But for now? I'll settle for comfortable."
Ozpin nodded to someone she couldn't see, and Ruby, Weiss and Penny—that was a weird one—rushed into view, a flurry of questions mixing in with the guards' protests about even more people being let in. Ozpin held up a hand, and it all ceased.
"They shall be fine: I'm sure that Miss Polendina here can handle any defenses and ensure Miss Xiao-Long remains inside for the time being."
"With all due respect, sir: General Ironwood is handling the security of this coliseum," one of the guards protested.
"And I shall take full responsibility if these three decide they would fight the entire Atlesian military in a coliseum they wouldn't be able to leave," Ozpin joked. "They have my full trust."
The girls looked between the sides of her cell, where her guards waited in silence. Then, with a sigh, Yang heard one of the guards leave and saw the other jog after him. Only when they were gone did Ozpin glance down to Ruby.
"Try to stay out of trouble." He left to join Qrow and the general, and immediately the questions came flooding in again.
"Geez, wait, hold on!" Yang held up her hands and couldn't hide her grin. "One at a time?"
"Are you feeling alright?" Weiss asked. It was probably what every other question boiled down to.
Yang waved it off, and her grin only grew. "Obviously, duh." She hadn't slept, nor had she even checked the mirror to see how much of a mess she probably looked like right now. Unfortunately, from Weiss' raised eyebrow and crossed arms, it must've been pretty rough.
Her grin faltered, then faded away. "I... I could really use one of those group hugs right about now," Yang mumbled.
"Don't worry! We'll get you out of here somehow," Ruby declared and pumped her fist. Beside her, Weiss nodded along.
Penny, however, rocked on her heels and leaned back, eyes darting down the hallway.
"Well, my orders mean I am not allowed to let Yang out..." With a mischievous grin, Penny swept her hand across the barrier, and after a few quiet beeps, it vanished in a wave of a sparkling Dust. "Bu~ut no one said I can't let us in!"
For the first time Qrow could remember in a long while, he saw Ozpin get a drink. It was just a simple motion of his cup of coffee towards Ironwood when the general drew out his flask of whiskey, but it was enough to concern him. Considering how even Ironwood paused at first before obliging, he guessed he wasn't the only one feeling that way.
"If I'd known this room had coffee in it, I would've brought my mug along." Ozpin, of course, acted as if nothing were wrong. "I never really enjoyed these paper cups," he continued, looking over the green cup marked with Vale's emblem as he moved to sit down.
The security room was just a secondary one, empty in the early morning as there was little reason to monitor the coliseum from anything other than the main room. Screens on a number of desks flicked from location to location, bland pavilion to bland hallway. At least it was air-conditioned. The quiet hum of it was the only sound in the droll room for a few seconds.
Ozpin looked between the two. "Well, don't let me get in the way," he said with a smile. "Please, continue with what you two were talking about before."
Qrow rolled his eyes, dropped into a chair and waited for Ironwood's inevitable whining.
"I don't believe this was on purpose either." The general kept his eyes on the screens, apparently deciding that parade rest was more comfortable than sitting down. Typical.
"Then why do you have her locked up!" he protested.
"Because the alternative is much worse, Qrow. If someone put her up to this, forced her or, worse, somehow managed to trick her into this, then we have a much greater problem on our hands."
"What do you mean by 'tricked?' A Semblance?" Qrow leaned forward.
Ironwood shook his head and finally turned to look at them. "Mental Semblances are rare and carefully monitored. Mental Semblances without any sign of activation, even more so."
"But if it's possible, we cannot put it out of our minds: it's precisely what She would rely on," Ozpin added.
"No matter the reason, keeping her here is protection, not punishment," Ironwood said. "Personally, I believe it's a matter of stress. It can't be easy having a murderer on your team."
"And here we go." If Qrow could roll his eyes any harder, they'd fall out of his head. "You say that like they know who he is."
"Don't you think it's odd that by now, they don't?"
"Your last conspiracy didn't work out so well, Jimmy."
Ironwood scowled. "My last 'conspiracy' has yet to be disproven. Nonetheless, they've interacted directly with the White Fang at least twice: in the Breach, he was even leading more faunus! Surely, they would have heard rumors. And that's if none of the White Fang didn't tell them on their own."
"Them knowing would make things easier, at least," Ozpin spoke up, though his eyes were focused on his coffee. "Say what you will about James, but he is not the only one who can miscalculate." He took a long drink. "There is no doubt in my mind about who could be behind this: the culmination of Her plan has come sooner than we could've thought. Maybe even today."
"Then we should cancel the tournament immediately," Ironwood proposed.
"And that is the issue with trying to act without knowing what the plan is: the abrupt chaos may be just what She needs."
"Oh, I get it," Qrow said as he leaned back in his chair. "You don't want to play right into their hands."
"Precisely. It's best to pretend as if we do not know: She may be exploiting our time of peace, but a false sense of security cuts both ways. In the meantime..." Ozpin sighed. "In the meantime, I suppose I will have to end this experiment of mine. I'll need to press the issue with Taurus: by tonight's end, we'll need his decision on his allegiance just as we will Miss Nikos' tomorrow."
Ironwood tensed up, but Ozpin didn't notice. His thoughts were elsewhere.
"I guess that leaves the million dollar question," Qrow said, keeping an eye on Ironwood while he popped open his own flask. "Just where the hell is he, then?"
Glass exploded and sent countless shards to shower across Adam and rip him from his sleep. He threw himself to his feet with a body of sore concrete and his head a lead weight. All around him, within the building and outside, shouts, demands and orders flew in a desperate attempt to be heard over the repetitive rattle of gunfire. Somewhere in the haze around his mind, he recognized it for what it was: the White Fang was attacking. The room wobbled and swayed in Adam's vision as he pressed himself up against the wall and peered out from the broken window. The sudden, early sunlight forced him to squint his eyes, but he could still make out what was ahead: a good dozen squads of White Fang were arranged behind sandbags in the Vytal Tower's plaza and peppering the skyscraper with a barrage of shots. A lone Paladin watched over the warfare, cannon raised.
A single round from its cannons had the skyscraper rumbling and sent dust and sparkling glass pouring down from above. Adam squeezed his eyes shut and forced his body to cooperate: he needed his aura just to dampen the overwhelming activity, let alone get his sore form moving as it should. Then, he rushed to the door. Without thought, he snatched Wilt from where it lay against a nightstand. Only halfway to the lobby did he realize that he hadn't put it there in the first place. He grimaced: he must've been out cold if someone entered the room while he was sleeping, ally or not.
Speaking of which, he burst in through the doors to the lobby to find it in complete chaos: smoke and embers clogged the air and left the faunus rushing about inside little more than silhouettes searching for a place to fire from or even just to hide. The roar of machine guns and rifles rumbled like jackhammers, bouncing about the lobby and blending with the sharp cracks and pings of incoming bullets missing their mark until it all twisted together into a painful din. Adam cursed under his breath and waved down the first person he saw.
"Where's Chiffon!"
"Over here!" he heard his unofficial second-in-command(in defector leadership matters, lest he invoke Almond or Ruby's wrath) call out from behind a sturdy, granite front desk at the back of the lobby. Adam rushed behind it, a line of gunfire tracing behind every step.
"Not the best wake-up call, huh?" It was hidden behind her black mask, but Adam could hear her smile. Chiffon clicked her dual short swords together, and they transformed into a dimly glowing, pulsing Dust rifle. "I tried getting you up earlier, but you were out like a light. I take this and the fact that your aura was run ragged to mean your mission didn't go well?"
"I guess not." Though Cinder might've just been throwing around her weight in revenge for her humiliation. "Before we get too dug-in, I'm going to need your Scroll." Adam drew Wilt and fired over the desk with Blush. A burst caught one of the White Fang in the shoulder and sent him sprawling to the ground.
"Bad news: the CCT's down. Our Scrolls are just music-playing paperweights," Chiffon said and tossed him her Scroll to prove it. 'No Signal' flashed in red when he opened it, and the warning remained faint but ever-present in the background, after.
"It's not just us getting attacked: the Grimm have been going insane around here since yesterday night, and a huge fight's going on at the outskirts between the White Fang and the police around the walls. I don't know who started it, but I guess it's bad enough for Vale to have cut us off from the CCT completely."
Unless they hadn't caught Cinder in time at the CCT's central terminal after all. Maybe Cinder was still able to do something to the the entire network: establish influence, maybe? If she knew someone with the administrative codes, it wouldn't be out of the picture to be able to bring it down. That meant it might not have been down in totality at all.
"It's local," Adam growled.
"That's my guess too," Chiffon said. "Cutting off the CCT right before the tournament kicks back up? That's gonna have people on edge everywhere, especially with what happened yesterday." She rose up and fired lances of Dust-borne flame that sliced through the smoke-clogged air. Their attackers ducked down, but looked to be settling in for a siege, not for an assault.
Adam scoffed. "I could feel what happened last night."
"How're you holding up?"
The din faded from his mind, and Chiffon now held all of his attention. "What do you mean?"
"That Yang girl's from your team, isn't she?"
Before Chiffon could say more, Adam yanked her back down behind the desk, eyes burning red, yet his blood going cold. "What happened to her?"
She stared back with wide eyes and didn't move a muscle. "S—she's fine, sir. At least, I think? She blew a guy's leg off after the bell rang."
"Is he dead?"
Taken aback by the bluntness of the question, it took a second for her to reply. "No. They cut the broadcast, but rumor has it he was in critical condition after the shock hit him. Your teammate was probably thrown in a cell somewhere... sorry."
It was only now that Adam realized she was trembling. Her aura strained where he gripped her, and despite being in the middle of combat, this was what left her pale. He withdrew his hand and looked away.
"There's no need to apologize. She'll be fine, but that's all the more reason not to let this continue." He began opening cabinets and drawers, searching for maps of the building in full.
"Where's the rest of our soldiers? This can't be all of them."
Chiffon took the chance to regain her confidence. "Most of them are scattered on the first couple floors to make sure they can't break in."
"With a Paladin, if they wanted to do so, they would have: they're getting ready for something. Have half of the soldiers start bringing furniture and supplies to fortify this lobby. The other half need to take positions across this side. Anyone with aura, have them shatter windows across floors five through ten and fire from there to force the White Fang to retreat. If we let them dig in, they'll catch us in a siege, and we don't have the resources. Understand?"
She nodded.
"Good. I'm holding onto the Scroll: I need a connection to Beacon when the time comes. Our goal is to break them by nightfall at most, but the moment we have a route, we'll send messengers out to any defectors who've gotten stuck elsewhere." Adam looked back over the desk and sneered: already, more White Fang were beginning to arrive, setting up walls of sandbags and lugging in much heavier weaponry.
Until they were gone, he was stuck here.
Tracers left streaks of light zipping across the plaza. Faunus fired upon one another, bogging each side down in a long, protracted firefight. Glass fell like rain from Vytal Tower, and though faunus fired down from high above, the air was soon full of the heavy buzz of a heavy machine gun from the White Fang, designed to chew through even Huntsmen. They'd tear each other apart.
Good.
From behind a window, safe and sound high within a now-abandoned skyscraper, Cinder watched the battle unfold with an impassive gaze. After another minute of watching, she finally smiled and, satisfied with her work, walked away.
Two down. Two to go.
The conversation between the girls of RWAY ceased at the sound of the door to the brig being unlocked. As the door opened, it was Ruby who drew the short straw and was left to poke her head out of Yang's deactivated cell to see who it was and, more importantly, how likely it was they were all about to have some not-so-comfy cells of their own.
Qrow locked eyes with her. He looked from her to Yang, from Yang to Weiss, and from Weiss to the girl who was supposed to be making sure that the big glowing wall keeping Yang from wandering on out was still there.
He kicked the door shut behind him and swept his Scroll across it. The beep of the lock was like a starter pistol being fired, and in a rush of panicked activity, the girls piled out, Yang made sure to look extra depressed and Penny raised the hard light barrier of the cell with a wave of her hand just as the door beeped again.
"Qrow, what in the world are you doing?" Ironwood asked as he swung the door open. He stared with judging eyes at Ruby, Weiss and Penny doing a very poor job at looking innocent.
"Hey, don't look at me: must've just been a stint of bad luck." Qrow shrugged.
Ruby rushed over to Qrow's side. "Is Yang being let go?"
"I'm afraid not, Miss Rose," Ozpin answered, the last to leave. "But do know that we'll be getting to the bottom of this as soon as possible." With a soft smile to the girls, he left. Ironwood gave only a curt nod to them as he followed.
"This is so unfair!" Ruby threw her arms up. "Can't you do anything about this, Uncle Qrow? You know she'd never do something like that."
He sighed and tousled Ruby's hair as he passed. "Sorry, kids. I might know people, but that doesn't mean I can change their minds. Don't tell anybody, though, but this isn't what you think it is." Qrow nodded to Yang. "Trust me: none of us think you're some kinda psycho, Firecracker."
Yang crossed her arms and tried to look like she believed that. "Does this have to do with what happened to Team JNPR?"
"We don't know yet, but don't worry. You'll all get the full story soon. Speaking of people who might know the full story, though: where's the edgy one?"
Yang was the first to respond. "Why?"
"Well, it's 'need to know' kind of info, but he might know a thing or two about getting you out of here." Qrow slipped his hands into his pockets and made for the door. "If you hear anything, be sure to let me know, alright?"
"He's not in trouble, is he?" Ruby asked.
"Nah, don't worry about that. But Oz is looking for him."
"Should we know that he is?" Weiss said.
"Hey." Qrow grinned. "What Oz doesn't know won't hurt him."
The brilliant-red leaves of Forever Fall drifted through the air just outside of Beacon's boundaries. The river rapids crashed against the cliffside beneath the simple road leading to its gates. It was a beautiful morning.
If only Pyrrha knew when she started it. It was like she'd woken up right in the middle of a morning jog. Was she dreaming? Her heart was pounding, and as she stopped and looked for any strange signs, she became aware of just how hard she had been pushing herself. Somewhere in the back of her head, Pyrrha felt the urge to keep going. To escape. Without thought, she began to walk further down the road. Her vision blurred as she remembered that she was in danger: she was just attacked, after all. The last thing she needed was to be caught in the open like she was last time, and the more she spent around Beacon—let alone Ozpin—the more likely it was that black-haired girl and her partners would try to—
Something wasn't right. How did she get here? Where was she?
With a cry of pain, Pyrrha brought a hand to her head. Her subconscious pulled her aura to the surface, and as the comforting warmth surrounded her, the pain faded just as quickly as it'd come. She was even further down the path now, but her thoughts were clear. For now, anyway. She blinked the dreams from her eyes and, refusing to let her aura dip for a moment, ran back towards Beacon.
