A/N: And I'm late. Again. I'm really sorry. I tried to finish it last night, but I didn't.
Also this chapter is a little longer than my normal chapters. It's just over 3.1k before notes. So, yay?
Anyway, this is a huge chapter as it was one of the original scenes I planned for this story. And I've been looking so forward to writing it. I had a lot of fun with the fight scene, and I think a lot of people have been looking forward to another one of those.
I have quite a few notes at the end that you might want to read.
I hope you enjoy the chapter!
I don't own RT or RWBY.
Guilty Rose Chapter 20
"Why are you defending those criminals, Blake?"
"They are not criminals!"
"Yes they are!"
Both girls howled at each other.
This fight had been going on for the last few hours. The two had been at each other's throat since their initial confrontation in Vale.
Rose was honestly getting tired of it. She couldn't stand the constant screaming and knew she was going to have to step in, or else there would never be peace in the team again.
"Weiss. Blake. Stop it, stop screaming at each other and talk about this."
"Fine, I'll talk about it, I'll tell you why I hate the White Fang so much."
Weiss sighed, she was no longer displaying the rage she had. She just sat on her bed and wouldn't look up from the ground.
"I hate them because they've been at war with my family for years. Don't get me wrong, I've realized that what my father has done deserves their animosity. I hate the man too. But the workers doing their jobs, the shop owners who have to follow his policies, the children and families of the executive members, they shouldn't have to suffer and die because of the men in charge of of the SDC. But what makes me more upset than anything, is that now I think that because of me being with Rose has made them mark her as a traitor to her kind...and even I have heard what they do to 'traitors'."
Weiss hugged herself and started shivering. Rose, not sure what else to do, sat next to the heiress and leaned against her.
Blake was rooted into place though, she hadn't expected this at all from a Schnee, even after seeing how she acted at Beacon for the last few weeks.
"I'm so tired of people getting hurt because of my family."
"Weiss, you are not the reason they are after Rose."
Rose locked eyes with Blake, trying to communicate that the other faunus didn't have to say anything. Blake seemed to understand this, and shook her head. Blake's eyes looked determined to carryout her decision.
"What do you mean?"
"I think it's time I told you the truth about how I met Rose the first time."
While Blake said this she pulled off her bow, trusting the heiress not to panic at the sight of her ears.
Part of her wanted to run away when she did this,. But having seen Rose bear her sins to the entire team, as well as her scars, She find the confidence to squash the urge.
Finally the bow came off fully and revealed to fluffy cat ears. A sight which left the heiress slackjawed.
"Y-you're a faunus?"
Weiss finally stammered out something, it wasn't accusatory which Blake took as a good sign.
"I am, I was also a member of the White Fang."
Blake paused to let the new information sink in.
"What!"
Blake held up a hand to stop Weiss from going any further.
"Please let me finish before you say anything Weiss."
The tenderness of Blake's voice seemed to affect Weiss who nodded her confirmation.
"I was practically born into the White Fang, you see. Back then it was the peaceful protest organization it was supposed to be. Peaceful, but getting no where. Then the previous leader stepped down to someone with more forceful methods. Methods which did get results much quicker than before, but the results came out of fear not respect."
Blake took a deep breath before continuing.
"The first time I think I noticed this was the night I first met Ruby. My former partner, myself, and some other members were planning to coerce a politician from Atlas into ceasing her anti-faunus policies. What we were planning to do that night didn't sit well with me, especially because the woman's daughter would have been present through the whole thing. I didn't want to hurt anyone. But I was going to do it, I was blinded by the hate that filled the White Fang and the results we were getting at the time."
Blake glanced over at Rose with a myriad of emotions on her face.
"Rose came crashing through the roof of the warehouse we were in at the time. She was with this cruel looking woman. My former partner, drunk on himself, tried to kill Rose and the woman. Rose killed everyone but me and him that night."
Blake sunk into her seat from there. Now that she was started, the words just came pouring out. She had to tell them everything.
"After that, I started noticing that my old partner began acting weird, obsessed with finding Rose. And that obsession became this craze that fell on him and those that followed him. Our missions became...haphazard about those that got hurt so he could go back to hunting Rose. It wasn't much longer until I couldn't do it anymore and I started drifting away from them. I left the White Fang when he tried to destroy an entire train that still had passengers and crew on it. I protected them and I betrayed the White Fang."
There was a long pause before a small voice broke it.
"No, they betrayed you."
The voice belonged to Weiss.
"You wanted equality for faunus, not to hurt and kill people. They betrayed you, and now they need to be stopped."
"Weiss?"
"I know why you want to defend them, it's the same reason I defend my family's company. It's a part of who we are. And even though we are ashamed of what they have become, we know what they once stood for."
Blake nodded solemnly in agreement.
"And that's why both need to be stopped, right Weiss?"
"Correct."
Rose smiled softly now that her teammates had finally made up. Tonight went as well as it possibly could have.
….
"So how'd you find out about this shipment again, Weiss?"
Blake asked her teammate.
The heiress had informed the team that there would be a massive Schnee dust shipment that night. A shipment that would be a prime target for the White Fang to hit.
So there they were, laying on top of a dock warehouse waiting for the any sign of the terrorists, in full combat gear.
"I told you, the SDC will soon be my company, thus I keep tabs on outstanding events, like this resupply shipment."
"She was looking all morning for possible leads on the White Fangs next target, while also looking in ways to make sure she succeeds in taking over the SDC."
"Semantics, Rose."
Yang chuckled at the exchange while keeping her lookout.
"So, how long before we call it a night?"
"Yang, we will wait until we are sure that shipment is safe."
Right as Weiss finished her statement, the distinct sound of bullhead engines.
The aircrafts came into view and hovered over the docks as White Fang grunts jumped out of them.
"Welp, at least we didn't have to wait long."
"This is not a laughing matter Yang!"
"Blake, calm down, we knew this would happen."
"I know, I just."
"You had some hope we were wrong?"
"False hope, but yes."
Ruby spotted Roman ordering around the grunts through the scope of her Rifle. She blinked a few times as her surroundings and the voices of her teammates began to warp.
"Rose, do you have the target?"
Rose watched as the man in her sights moved about.
Hannya's voice whispered again.
"Remember to make the shot count. I don't want so much as a gasp."
Suddenly, a hand on her shoulder brought her back to reality.
"Rose, I said we're moving in. Blake's upset about Torchwick and ran off."
"Okay. Go on ahead and I'll provide fire support."
Yang gave Rose a look before she and Weiss hopped off the roof.
Rose peered back through her scope to find Blake holding Roman Torchwick hostage. Her teammate was saying something to the grunts when two more bullheads showed up. But that wasn't what Rose was concerned with.
Rose noticed Roman moving his cane into position to fire at the ground between him and Blake.
Rose couldn't allow that and fired her rifle. She placed the lightning dust stun round perfectly on the side of Roman's knee.
With a shout of pain the thief collapsed and all hell broke loose on the docks.
The grunts on the docks began firing wildly at Blake, who was nimbly dodging out of the way. A few of the faunus tried to take pot shots at Rose, but she hit them with stun rounds before they could do much more than aim in her direction.
Yang and Weiss came barreling out of cover and began engaging the White Fang members. Yang delivered a perfect haymaker to the first grunt she encountered, knocking him out cold. Weiss had decided to use ice glyphs to lock down several members at once.
It was going well, but the grunts just seemed to keep coming. And Rose could only carry so much ammunition.
Roman managed to recover thanks to his aura taking the brunt of the stun round and began blasting away at the three huntresses-in-training with his cane. Rose had tried to hit him with another stun round, but he kept using grunts as human shields. Weiss and Blake were agile enough to only be thrown off by the new source of fire, but Yang took a shot straight to the chest. The blast only knocked some of the wind out of her and she would have recovered after a mere moment.
But the grunts didn't give her that moment.
Yang was set upon by two faunus with assault rifles and another with a sledgehammer. Yang managed to defend against the hail of bullets with her arms, but she didn't see the sledgehammer coming until it was far too late. The blow connected to her head and she was sent reeling to the ground. It didn't knock her out, but she wasn't getting up.
Weiss and Blake weren't so lucky. While they dodged Roman's initial attack, they were still thrown off and left open to the White Fang.
Weiss was pelted with fire from a nearby grunt, which left her open to Roman's second volley. She took a full force hit that knocked her back into a shipping container. Not having the same constitution as Yang, she was immediately knocked out.
Blake suffered a similar fate after getting shoulder checked by a rather large ram faunus.
Rose kept firing to keep the grunts away from her team, but it wasn't long before she ran out of ammunition.
"Heh, looks like their sniper ran out of bullets or ran away. Guess we'll just have to have fun with these girls."
"I call the Schnee bitch first!"
"No fair!"
"Hey! We have a job to do and all this shooting will have the cops coming. So if you don't mind, let's get the dust loaded before they show up."
"In a minute, we got time to at least kill these three."
Rose heard everything.
"They want to hurt them."
Her heart thudded in her chest.
"They want to kill them."
Something in Rose snapped.
"I won't let them."
Rose threw her rifle away and loosened Guilty Rose. She twirled her kamas and jumped into action when the first grunt neared Weiss with a sick grin on his face.
The grunt's vision became nothing but Rose petals and he felt a sharp pain in his neck before the world went black.
Rose had landed in front of Weiss and lashed out at the faunus, separating his head from the rest of his body.
Without missing a beat, Rose spun around to keep the momentum of her weapon and slashed at the chest another nearby faunus.
To the terrorists' credit, they registered the new assailant quickly.
"What!"
"It's the Guilty Rose! Get that traitor!"
A dozen faunus charged instantly.
Rose responded in kind though. Twirling her weapons to keep momentum, she ran at the grunts with abandon.
She would make sure they would never hurt her team.
And make sure she did.
Rose let loose a kama once the first grunt came into range. It dug into the deer faunus' shoulder and cleaved through to his opposite hip. And while she retracted the weapon, she leaped into the air and loosed her other kama. It ripped through another grunt as she spun in the air like a bloody buzzsaw.
When the faunus touched down to the ground, she shifted her momentum into another horizontal spin which struck another three grunts at chest and neck level.
Not caring if the ones she had maimed were dead or not, Rose retracted her weapons and grabbed their handles.
She met the next terrorist, who didn't seem committed to the charge, by hooking her legs from under her and bringing her other kama down on her. The bear faunus screamed in agony as the weapon punctured her side.
Rose, still consumed in what should be called bloodlust, ripped her weapons free and switched them to knife form as another grunt tried to tackle her. With a viscous grace, she spun out of the way and lashed at the man's neck. She didn't cut deep enough to kill him instantly, but he wasn't long for the world anymore.
The last five charging her tried to hit Rose all at once. They found the same success as the first seven did.
One man got his throat slit open, another was stabbed in the heart, the last three were carved up in the following spinning slashes.
Breathing heavy, Rose looked out to see a majority of the White Fang and Roman retreating while two of the bullheads were pulling into a strafing run.
Rose ignored the remaining fanatical grunts and retrieved her two concussion grenades. She primed the grenades and waited for the aircraft to get close enough.
She tossed the grenades into the air with perfect precision, and they were sucked into the bullheads' engines.
As the two craft crashed into shipping containers, Rose turned her attention back to the remaining grunts.
Their faces now spoke the heart-stopping fear that gripped them. Unfortunately, Rose was in no mindset to give them quarter and charged once more.
….
Yang saw the whole bloody thing.
She had heard that Rose was the infamous mass murdering Face of Death from the faunus' own lips. But she never wanted to believe it.
Now though, she had to face facts.
Rose had killed over a dozen people in two minutes.
And now her sister was standing there in the middle of the carnage, covered in blood.
The faunus panting slowly turned into sobs, as if she was only just realizing what she had done.
A feminine groan caught both girls' attention.
Rose seemed to break out of whatever was over her and dashed to the last surviving member of the White Fang.
It was the bear faunus she had stabbed in the side.
"Get away from me!"
The faunus continued to yell at Rose as she went about treating the wounds she inflicted. She pulled the woman's uniform of despite the protest so she could inspect the wound better. The wound itself was deep, but seemed to have missed her organs. Rose was almost happy that in her haphazard attack that she managed to inflict one wound that wasn't fatal.
Rose cut the woman's uniform so that it could be used to bind her wounds. The faunus seemed disgusted by this.
"What? You're just gonna bandage me up after killing everyone else?"
Rose pulled the make shift bandage tight before answering.
"I didn't want to kill anyone."
"You could have fooled me."
"You were going to hurt my team. You were going to kill them."
The woman opened her mouth to retort. But whatever it was, it died in her throat.
"You really are different from the lies Adam feeds us. I can't wait to expose him even more now."
Rose looked up into the eyes of the bear faunus with an unreadable expression. Eventually she extended a hand.
"Rose."
"Marron Sauvage."
Marron smiled as she took the hand.
….
Neo kept thinking about the talk she had with Cinder the other night. She knew most people would be happy about someone backing away from pursuing the same love interest.
But she felt terrible.
Cinder had this look on her face that made Neo's heart hurt, and now she couldn't take it anymore. She was going to talk to Cinder about it again, and Neo didn't care if Cinder didn't want to.
So, there she was, marching up to Cinder again.
Only this time it was in the middle of the night. The whole team was up for no reason in particular, they just didn't want to go to sleep.
"Neo, is something the matter?"
Yes! Why would you just give up on Rose like that?!
"I thought we were done with this discussion."
No we are not!
Now answer the question, TRUTHFULLY.
"I told you last night."
No. You didn't.
"Neo, can we just drop this?"
Neo climbed onto the bed and sat before Cinder with one arm crossed under her bust and the other outstretched with her scroll.
Talk. Now.
"Neo."
NOW.
"You really want to know why?"
Neo gave a curt and serious nod in response. Cinder let out a long sigh.
"I wasn't able to help her when we first met."
Neo was taken back by this and typed out another message.
Are you kidding me?
You heard her during that poker match!
You were the reason she escaped!
"That's not what I mean. I wasn't strong enough when we first met to get her out of that hell right then. And now, I'm a part of an organization that is trying to bring about the end of humanity. I'm afraid that I'm not strong enough to save her again."
Neo went silent.
Cinder hugged herself and looked at the small box on her nightstand before continuing.
"I've never been strong enough, not on my own. And seeing you and Weiss doing things that make Rose smile, I find it hard to even try anymore."
A harsh jab caught Cinder's attention and she turned to look at the mute to find a scroll in her face again.
Stop. That.
You are strong.
You did save Rose from that hell she was living in.
And you will save her from Salem.
"And what makes you say that?"
Because you're not alone.
You can ask for help. It doesn't make you weak, because sometimes it takes more strength to ask for help than anything else.
"Maybe you're right."
Before they could continue talking, there was a light knock on the door. A knock that somehow spoke of only bad news.
Emerald made it to the door first and slowly opened it. Neo couldn't see who was out there, but the words that came out of the green haired girl's mouth terrified her.
"Merc. Get the fuck out. Cinder. Neo. Help."
A/N: So...yeah...another cliffhanger...don't kill me?
Any who, that was a fun chapter for me to write.
And now to recap and discuss some important bits!
The rest of Weiss and Blake's fight happened and I wonder how many of you are surprised how it played out. I saw a few people who were shocked by Weiss' supposedly racist behavior. It wasn't actually racist, she was upset because she thought Rose was in danger because of her. Also, Blake didn't run. And Rose was the reason. Blake took courage from Rose telling her team about her past and willingness to take whatever consequences came with that.
The docks scene. That was a big scene to write. It took six or seven hours to finalize how I wanted the fight to play out.
Also, adding Marron. That was hard. I added her because I wanted her to see the person Adam had been demonizing to further motivate her to oust Adam from the White Fang.
And the last scene, I heard that a few people wanted a continuation of the talk between Cinder and Neo. I also wanted write another scene. This type of interaction in GR is my favorite as most of you know.
That's it for the recap.
For the next chapter.
Everyone sit down and brace yourselves.
It's happening. The reunion is next chapter, maybe not all of it, but a lot of it.
(Please take this moment to freak out if you are freaking out.)
Also, we are about 2-3 chapters from the end of v1 for those keeping track. And for those worried about a hiatus between volumes. Don't. There will be no break or hiatus.
REMEMBER: I am still collecting questions for the Q&A, I have some good ones, but I want some more to chose from.
Well, that's everything I have to say.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter.
Please follow, fav, and review!