A/N: The site ate the last chapter and I only posted it today, so if you skipped straight to this chapter you probably missed that update. Enjoy.
"Nora, Plan C," Ruby says, voice tight, struggling to get the words out. She can't let anyone die, not here and not now. Not yet, not so soon after they lost far too many. She has to start with what would normally be a last-ditch option.
Ruby fires the Lightning Dust towards Nora, and it hits her chest. Right on target, because even when the rest of Ruby's body is trembling from terror and fatigue, her hands stay steady. She's a sniper, and being able to shoot in any situation is the first thing she learned.
There's a long moment of nothing. Ruby can't see Nora clearly enough through the scope, but she knows her powers take a moment to activate. Part of her is still panicking, because a moment may well be too long, with two robotic arms streaking toward Ren. Ruby fumbles at her belt for another cartridge of Lightning Dust, ready to fire it at any minor injury Nora can inflict.
Nora and the arms make contact, and a second later the roar of sound reaches Ruby. She ducks farther into cover, then wipes the dust off of the scope and peers through it again. There's no visible damage to the arms so far, although Nora's beatdown may well have an impact. For now, everyone is temporarily safe.
"Ren, move," she says into her earpiece. There's no response. "Jaune, get Ren out of the blast radius."
"I'll do my best," Jaune says. The connection crackles with static, and Ruby scowls. Just what they need, a scrambler on top of everything else the robot has. It's possible to communicate via signaling and guesswork, but it makes teamwork more complicated, and teamwork is what keeps them alive.
Ruby keeps her eyes up, away from the scope, so she can try to keep track of each arm. Nora's fighting four of them now, and two more are whipping around. It's an effective way to keep additional firepower out of the fight, as well as use the scanners on each arm to their maximum capacity.
"Nora, update." There's nothing but static on the other end, and Ruby's not surprised. She peers through the scope again. Nora's slowing down already, and she fires her next cartridge of Lightning Dust to give Nora a power boost and potentially – she doesn't like "potentially", but it's their best option – injure the robot.
The robot doesn't seem injured, but it's impossible to tell at this distance. Nora is still holding her own.
"Jaune, update."
"We're alive," Jaune offers. "I dragged Ren back to the tree line. No physical damage to either of us."
"Hold position," Ruby says. Jaune and Ren are both good fighters, but neither of them have the range to be effective or the raw power to fight toe-to-toe with it. "Search and destroy arriving reinforcements."
That's a necessary job, and one that's forgotten about too often. Ruby's lost count of how many times she's taken down a robot, depleting her ammunition and sometimes getting injured, then collapsed to the street and been ambushed.
An arm whips over her, too close for comfort. Ruby isn't in a position where retreat is an option, so she stays where she is and reloads, firing Ice Dust into the treads and around the joints in an effort to slow the robot. Nora's hammer blows are still having next to no impact.
What Ruby needs now is a miracle, and she's good at those. She needs one more wild plan, one more ace up her sleeve, one more ally. Anything.
There is nothing. Ruby scans the valley, mentally goes through every team member they have. More explosives might grant them a split-second advantage, or enough pure firepower. Hijacking an Atlesian mech – no, that's almost impossible with their capabilities.
"Retreat," Ruby says, quietly. She doesn't like retreat. They don't retreat, in any situation, because retreating means innocent people die. But right now they don't have a choice.
"What?" Nora asks through the static, and Ruby winces.
"Retreat," she shouts, then empties four or five cartridges of Fire Dust into the robot and starts running. All she can do is hope and pray that Nora is taking advantage of the momentary distraction as well, and is following Ruby's orders. Nora doesn't follow orders well, particularly when those orders involve what she'll undoubtedly call giving up.
…
Yang taps the monitor again and curses.
"Powered event, sector 40," she repeats. "Any available units to the area immediately."
There's still no response. Ruby and Pyrrha's team are still in Mistral, out of range to help. Qrow and Oscar are just as far away, chasing a gang out to the borderlands. There's nobody left to save Atlas.
Let them die, part of her insists. Why should Atlas still get the help of the heroes after time and again resisting them? Atlas has their own military forces, let them take a break from brutalizing protesters and deal with their own problems for once.
Any other time, Ruby would tell her that Atlas isn't all bad, and that all people deserve to live. Yang would nod and they'd leap into the fight, escaping the area as quickly as possible afterwards regardless of their own injuries. Ruby's always been the good one, a foil to Weiss's gloom and Blake's bitterness and Yang's showboating.
Yang doesn't have any of them now. She doesn't have anyone who lets her play devil's advocate, anyone to talk her out of a rash decision. All she has is herself, and herself is never enough.
"Focus," she says, out loud, getting frustrated with herself. There's a fight to be had, and she can join it or let Atlas handle things. It's a simple choice.
Yang pulls on her gear almost by instinct, keeping her eyes flickering between newsfeeds. She's been performing the same ritual each night for a decade, and the month out of practice doesn't change things. There's someone to fight, and Yang can worry about everything else later.
She stops when she gets to the mask, holding it carefully, turning the worn leather over in her hands. The mask itself has become another instinct, and she can adjust to the lack of peripheral vision seamlessly. Now, it's been a month since she's worn the mask, a month since she's been fiery and unstoppable and a hero. For a month, it's been nothing but her real self. Her real self, lonely anxiety-stricken support staff.
That's not true. You're a hero, and the mask doesn't change that. It's just a disguise.
It's a disguise that Yang doesn't want. The disguise, the pressure of the two façades, is what killed Pyrrha, not the fire or the bullets.
But whoever Yang is under the mask will never be good enough.
She compromises, picking up her sunglasses and sliding them on. The gauntlets are ready at a moment's notice, as she still keeps them, and she slides her hands in. There's still no fire, no spark, nothing, but it's close enough.