29

Not So Alone in the City

Ruby felt the crushing hug of Yang after they had stepped through the portal, it swirling to a close and winking out of existence.

"Ruby what happened? Are you okay?! What happened to Jaune?!"

The younger sister pushed her back to arms length as she fought to take a breath, "Grimm. Lot's of Grimm. And…" She looked to her unconscious friend, bleeding on the hardwood floor, Ren staunching the flow with some towels and pressure, "Jaune was hurt by some Grimm I've never seen before. I'm so sorry, Yang!"

No longer in danger her legs gave out with the relief of being safe. Her sister caught her and slowly the two settled down on the floor, Yang holding Ruby as she began crying. She could feel the blonde's hands start rubbing her head as her shoulders shook.

"I'll call a doctor I know. She can help." The voice came from their host and caused Ruby to look up at the woman and catch her breath for a moment. The similarities were so stark and obvious she would have believed it was her friend had it not been for the difference in age. The woman had scarlet hair with brilliant emerald eyes hidden behind a pair of glasses.

"It's the least I owe to my daughter's partner." She turned to Ruby and inclined her head, "I wish it were under better circumstances but it's a pleasure to meet you. I am Phyllis Nikos."

A single, golden eye glowed in the dark as Ruby felt a searing heat wash over her. She panted, heart pounding in her chest as she felt the cold claws of fear seize her.

"I will destroy everything you hold dear." A silky voice came out in a whisper next to her ear, "You will never be free of me."

Ruby's eyes snapped open as she gasped for air she looked around and took in the room she was in. The young girl had fallen asleep in the chair next to the bed, her sister's blonde hair was splayed out on it has Yang slept next to the bed in a similar chair to hers, hands clasped tightly to Jaune's as he lay in the bed, unconscious.

His breathing was still labored, the white bandages around his shoulder stained with blood. Again a painful feeling wormed its way into her gut when she looked at it. Ruby's hand moved to her chest, feeling her heart pound in her chest, the last vestiges of her nightmare fading away. Her head sank into her hands as she closed her eyes, Cinder's face lingering in the back of her mind.

When she opened them again her eyes trailed back to her friend and his wound. Jaune still hadn't woken up since they'd been rescued. Ruby shivered as she remembered those Grimm, even Crescent Rose had hardly scratched them. Even her Uncle Qrow hadn't heard of these Grimm, wouldn't have believed them if he hadn't been there himself.

Shaking her head to clear the thoughts away, Ruby linked her hands above her head and stretched to try and wake herself up more. Checking her scroll she noticed it was in the early hours of morning, still before sunrise. Getting up she moved to Jaune's other side, the one not occupied by her sister. With a dry rag she wicked away the sweat accumulated on his forehead before untying his bandages. Of course she was worried, the wound wasn't healing, and she'd been horrified to see the gash left by the beast's fangs.

Ruby yelped when she finally undid the last of the bandages a pulled back the pad to reveal a dark, black, ugly growth inside the wound.

"Ruby?" Yang's head shot upward and he sleep addled mind could been seen processing what her sister was staring at. The blonde struggled to get up and look at what her younger sister was staring at, "What the hell is that?! An infection?"

"We should call the doctor." Ruby cast a worried look to her sister.

It didn't take more than an hour for the private doctor to make a house call, all expenses paid for by their host. The middle aged woman looked over Jaune's wound carefully, huffing at the teenagers who crowded around her, eventually she kicked them out and they had to wait for the woman to emerge from there.

"Enough! If you won't let me speak I won't tell you!" She levelled a glare at the unrepentant team members before turning to the woman who was hosting them, "Miss Nikos I'm afraid that this is out of my area of expertise. I've been a doctor for nearly thirty years and never have I seen something like this."

The other woman, their host, nodded, her short hair bobbing with the motion as she adjusted the glasses on her nose. According to Yang they had met Pyrrha's mother while they were running around town looking for a place to stay and had come across a large statue of Pyrrha. Ruby figured the girl would be mortified at having such a large monument made in her name. The story had caused her to smile bitterly at the time.

"Like what, Doctor Violet?"

The medical professional sighed, "It seems that a Grimm parasite has attached itself to the boy's nervous system. As far as I can tell the Grimm is growing but being combated by his aura, as long as it lasts, he won't die. But eventually he will run out of aura, and when he does, the parasite will most likely kill him."

There was a thumping sound as Yang's knees impacted the floor, a vacant, shocked look upon her face. Nora grabbed onto Ren's arm and buried her face in his shoulder.

"A Tyrant." Heads turned to the speaker, the older woman known as Maria, "I encountered them ages ago, when I was a huntress. I've seen similar wounds before. The Tyrant is a particularly nasty Grimm. It's quite intelligent, you see, and has a unique ability. It's bites leave a parasite in it's victims, which grows and consumes the host, leaving the body to become a puppet. We hunted them to extinction, or so we thought."

"I see." The doctor replied, hand coming up to her chin in thought, "Did any live who were bitten before."

Maria put both hands on her cane, "A few."

The Doctor Violet perked up at that, "How? What treatment was used?"

The older woman looked in thought and no one dared disturb her, "I'm afraid that treatment is quite impossible nowadays. Not unless you have a way of disintegrating the Grimm instantly."

"Can't we just kill it?" Yang spoke up from the floor.

It was the doctor that vetoed the idea, "We can't. I tried to take a sample of it but when the scalpel cut into the Grimm-flesh it started causing him pain. I'd say it's tied too much into his nervous system. Unless we can instantly remove it, it would kill him if we tried."

"We have to do something!" Yang's fist slammed into the floor, cracking it, though Phyllis didn't seem to mind the damage to her floor.

"Calm down girl." Maria rebuked, "Getting angry at the floor won't do anything."

Yang glared at the old woman but it quickly faded as she slumped even further down. Blake crouched down next to her partner and simply held the woman, the blond clutching at her clothes, hugging back. The cat faunus looked perplexed as she hesitantly brought a hand up and rubbed her partners head, she seemed out of her depth.

Silver eyes tracked over to the door that Jaune was resting in, her heart clenching and stomach twisting about. Jaune was her friend, no, more than that. She loved him, the thought of him not surviving brought with it a sense of dread.

There has to be something I can do.

When Jaune opened his eyes all he could see was a blurry room until his eyes adjusted to the lamps in the room. A sharp pain lanced through his shoulder as he tried to move and his left hand wouldn't budge when he tried to lift it up to inspect his right shoulder. When he looked down he saw the hand was swamped under blonde hair, when his hand twitched he could feel the dampness on it.

"Yang?"

She must have heard his voice, slight though it was, for she stirred and blearily looked up and him, his hand still gripped tightly in hers. Her lilac orbs were ringed with red and Jaune realized she must have been crying. His heart broke in two to see the woman he cared about in such a state and knowing that it was his fault.

"Jaune?" One hand remained latched onto his as the other came up and rubbed her eyes, "Jaune!" She leapt to her feet but froze as she was about to pounce on him, a glance down to his shoulder showed him why she had stopped. With a chuckle he held open his good arm. Carefully, she slid into his grasp, tightening her arms around his torso. He pretended not to hear her whispered thanks to the gods.

"What-" He stopped, his voice creaking from not being used for so long, it felt dry and craggy and he tried to clear it. Noticing him Yang quickly grabbed a glass of water from a nightstand, it looked like she'd been sipping on it but he wasn't going to be picky. Giving up on grasping it for himself he felt heat creep up his cheeks as he let her hold it for him. Jaune tried speaking once again, "What happened? Where are we?"

As she set the glass back down on the nightstand a look of apprehension crossed her face, "The thing that attacked you in that village. It's called a Tyrant. Supposed to be some nasty Grimm that creates something called Ghouls out of corpses." Jaune shuddered, remembering the fetid breath of the creature as it pinned him down, "As fore where, heh, you'll never believe it."

Jaune raised an eyebrow.

"The Nikos Estate in Argus." A tired but smug smile crested her face.

"What?!" Jaune tried to sit up but pain once again lanced through his shoulder as he was forced to lay back down, his girlfriend's hand firmly keeping him flat in the bed, "As in Pyrrha's place?"

"Yup. Cereal's Mom herself took us in. Crazy coincidence meeting her when we got here."

Jaune wanted to say something but wasn't sure what he should say. What do you say to the mother of your dead partner? Sorry? Did the woman hate him for not being able to help Pyrrha? Both of Yang's hands found his, her fingers curling around his as she smiled weakly at him. He tried to smile back but it felt brittle and hollow. It wasn't just just the news they were being put up by Pyrrha's mother but something else was making him tired. He felt exhausted, lethargic. Like he wanted nothing more than to curl up and sleep forever. The pain in his shoulder had subsided to a dull throb and he decided it was best to put aside the subject of Missus Nikos and focused on his injury. His hand was slapped away as he tried to prod at it and he wilted under Yang's glare.

"Don't touch it."

"But-"

"Don't." She growled, eyes turning crimson for a split second before disappearing into her normal lilac ones, "It's not pretty. That Grimm…. The Tyrant…. Did something to you."

A note of panic shot through his chest as an icy feeling settled in his stomach, "Did what?" His voice wavered and it didn't help when she grimaced, her gaze flicking to his injury and back to his eyes.

"You're not gonna like it."

She was right. He didn't like it.

Yang closed the door behind her as she left, resisting the urge to cry once again. It had been difficult to break the news to him and hadn't been able to tell him it would most likely kill him. The look on Jaune's face, realizing there was something Grimm inside him, that there was nothing that could be done about it. Yes she was still lying to him and the thought of what he would think of her for keeping the lasdt bit of information from him had her heart clenching in her chest. She told herself that it was only because it wasn't absolutely certain that it would kill him, that there was still hope and she didn't want him to give in to despair.

She didn't really believe herself.

Yang felt like she could be forgiven for not noticing that Raven was stood outside the room, she wouldn't call her mother, her back against the wall and arms folded.

Yang leveled her glare at her egg donor, "What are you doing here?"

Raven regarded her for a moment, as if debating whether she should answer or not, "That boy saved a tribe member. This is the least I can do."

Was she showing support for Jaune? Yang shook her head, she couldn't understand this woman, "What makes you care so much?"

"I already told you."

Yang opened her mouth to retort but closed it again. She shouldn't waste her time on this woman. With a huff and a shake of the head she moved away to go find her uncle and try and come up with a plan to help Jaune. There had to be something.

As Raven watched her daughter move away in anger another, voice, firm but quiet, spoke up from her side. Reproachful silver eyes held her and she was once again reminded of her school days as she looked at Summer's child.

"Do you have to act that way?" Ruby said as she crossed her arms and attempted to look cross with her, Summer had never been much better at looking angry either. When Raven merely raised an eyebrow at her the young girl rolled her eyes, "I may be naive but I'm not stupid, Aunt Raven." She almost flinched at the title the girl had given her, "I've seen the way you look at Yang when you think no one's looking yet every time you speak you try to piss her off."

"You must be mistaken."

Ruby's deadpan stare said she didn't buy it, and Raven could admit it wasn't her best deflection but she wasn't used to being caught out like this. Normally people were chomping at the bit to lump her into the selfish and arrogant category and she let them, made it easier to trick them. She'd never been good at hiding anything from Summer and it looked like her offspring had the same talent for seeing through people that her mother had.

"You're just like your Mother."

Ruby smirked at her, pleased with what she saw as a compliment, Raven held no compunction of dashing it a moment later. "It's going to kill you."

She looked like she'd been slapped, her eyes wide, "What?" Her voice was a whisper.

"You're not just naive. You have your mother's compulsion to be a hero. You'd throw yourself in front of a bullet if it saved an innocent. Both of you won't give a second thought to those you'd leave behind on your suicidal quest to save everyone." She was starting to show more emotion than the girl had yet seen on her face. Color came to her pale face as she got worked up, the feelings she had in the years since her old partner had died coming to the surface once again. She'd had to face this young girl, the spitting image of Summer, over and over again since she'd rejoined Ozpin's little group. But she couldn't stop these feelings that finally needed to be let out.

"I may have left Yang but at least I'm still alive to look out for her." Ruby recoiled, "Yang is strong enough to stand on her own, she had Tai and Summer and then you. What do you think will happen to her if you get killed?" The young girl shrank in on herself, "You want my advice?" Silver eyes looked out from under her brow, the Rose genes were strong in her and that damnable kicked puppy face, "Save the people you can reach, but more importantly stay alive for the ones you love."

Ruby's cast her face down and her hands gripped her cloak around her tightly and Raven pushed off the wall, walking down the corridor. She paused and cast a look back at the young girl was was now trying her hardest not to tear up, her stomach clenched at the sight and she silently wished she could offer some words of comfort to the girl. Instead she begged Summer's forgiveness and put the final nail in the coffin.

"If you stay on the path you are on, you will die like so many so called heroes before you."

Raven hated herself but was used to the feeling. It wasn't anything new since she'd left Yang with her father and would be something she would continue to live with. The girl really was too much like her dear friend and it would have been so easy to love the girl but she had to keep her away from the truth, it was better that way.

Now if only she could stop that feeling in her stomach.

Private Tucker stood on the wall of Argus, his shift on duty nearly over as the city started to fall into it's nighttime routine. He was glad their armor came with loads of temperature control as his breath crystallized in the cool air.

"I'll be so glad to get off this fuckin' wall." His partner uttered from beside him, "My nose is freezing."

"So you've said. For the last. Five. Hours."

"That's 'cause it's true."

"Five. Hours."

"This is Control, all sectors, check in."

They waited their turn in silence, listening to all the other sectors call in. One be one they answered until it got to them, "Sector S-15, all clear." His partner, Private Church, called into his radio.

"It's fuckin' cold." His partner said after a few minutes of silence.

"Will you shut the fuck up, Church?!" After a moment of silence, "THANK YOU."

When he turned to look at Church he pause, a large black and white figure stood behind the man, one clawed hand pushed through the soldier's chest. Crimson stained the ground as the man looked his parnter in the eyes. In a panick Tucker made to grab his radio but found he couldn't speak into the reciever. His neck burned and he could feel a wet sensation slide down both the inside and outside of his throat. He tried to take a breath but swallowed only warm liquid and it dawned on him that it was blood, the copper tast filling his nostrils and mouth as he struggle to breath around his own lifesource.

His diaphragm started seizing as it attempted to expel the substance from his lungs, only causing more to fill them and a dark crimson to spill out and join his partner's on the ground. As he grasped at his throat futilely his legs buckled but didn't fall to the ground on the account of the claws that had lodged themselves into his back.

As his eyes closed, the cold setting in, the last thing he was was the blood red eyes, full of hate, attached to a bat-like head and long, sharp fangs.

A/N: I LIVE!

Seriously though, I AM sorry for having been gone a month. My life has been a bit of a mess lately and recently I decided I just had to get back to writing, so here I am. I do plan on trying to update this coming saturday, the 23rd, as well. I actually have a detailed plan laid out now for the rest of the story.

I ALSO plan on releasing a One-Shot story I've been mulling over and if it gets enough buzz I might make it into a full on series after I start A Cinder in the Wind.