Half a year. That's how long it's been since I last posted anything. Partially, that's because I'm actually working on a fantasy novel, and partially it's because ever since the end of Volume 3, RWBY has been interesting me less and less. It still has its moments, but I haven't even watched Volume 7 past episode 5 or so at the time of writing this. Oddly, my gripes with it are that it's, in a way, doing what this fic has been doing: going to places, talking, fighting a bit, then moving on. But whereas I'm a hack fanfiction writer, the series writers are professionals, and I don't like a number of story elements that have been introduced. That said, I do very much want to finish this story, and we're now speeding up as we head towards the endgame. Please let me know what you think, and enjoy!
Chapter Twenty-Two: Over the Edge
The airship Winter had arranged for us was fast. Really fast. It still wasn't fast enough, though. I was annoyed at myself for being so frantic. I knew perfectly well that Ruby could take care of herself and that she could outfight, and if necessary outrun, most of the White Fang members. But we knew that Vacuo was a trap for us, arranged by Adam and his mysterious partner Redhorn.
"We're approaching Vacuo," the pilot's voice said over the intercom.
"Where do you think we should begin looking?" Yang asked Blake. "I remember you saying something about a base around here after we broke out of that treetop fortress."
Blake nodded. "The Smuggler's Retreat," she said. "But I doubt Ruby will be there. The Retreat isn't, technically speaking, a White Fang base. It's used by all sorts of lowlifes both Human and Faunus. It's a place where the more militant White Fang leaders gather to discuss business. Lower ranked members aren't told the location, and if they already knew from before they joined up they're not allowed to be in uniform or anywhere near the leaders when they're there."
She shrugged apologetically. "I don't actually know where it is, either. I know you enter through an oasis, but there are many oases around Vacuo and Adam never told me which one hides the entrance."
Yang sighed. "Damn. But if this place is supposed to be a trap for us, wouldn't it make sense for it to be in the one location we actually have to go on?"
Blake nodded. "Yes. And I have no doubt that the Smuggler's Retreat would have a warm welcome waiting for us if we turn up there. But Ruby will most likely be somewhere else, like an actual White Fang hideout. I just don't know where we'd find any."
At that moment, the door to the cockpit opened and two Atlesian soldiers strode out.
"We are about to touch down in Vacuo," one of them, whose name I thought was Grayson, said. "Professor Tallgrass will be waiting for you at the airfield."
I nodded in affirmation. "Thank you. We really appreciate everything you're doing for us," I said.
Grayson saluted, then went back into the cockpit with his partner.
"Have any of you ever even seen Tallgrass before?" Yang asked. "I mean, Ozpin is fairly well known by just about everyone, Ironwood is hard to miss and even Lionheart sometimes speaks in public but I don't know anything about Tallgrass other than the fact that he and Qrow hate each other."
I cocked my head. "Why's that?" I asked.
Not that I found it strange that someone would dislike Qrow, or anything, but it did strike me as odd that the one thing Yang would know about the man was his dislike for her uncle.
Yang shrugged. "Beats me. It's just that whenever Qrow talks about him, he only mentions how much he loathes the man."
"He didn't when we were in Northern Star, though," Blake pointed out.
"Special circumstances, maybe? I mean, Ruby is his favorite niece, what with her being a scythe prodigy and all," Yang said dismissively.
There was a small tremble when the airship touched down on the landing pad, and a moment later the pneumatic door hissed and opened.
The first thing I noticed when I stepped onto the landing pad was the blistering heat of the sun, which seemed especially harsh because we'd spent a couple of days in the arctic circle, and the bright light despite the relatively early hour.
There was another, empty landing pad beside ours, and a path marked by patchy white line led towards a canvas awning a short distance away, beneath which I could see a tall, thin man waiting for us. His limbs seemed to be too long for his body, somehow.
Despite the heat, I shuddered when I looked at him. I glanced at Blake and Yang, who were also looking in the direction of the tall man with apprehensive looks.
"I'm guessing that is Professor Tallgrass," Yang said. "Let's go meet him."
Before waiting for a response of either Blake or me, she began walking towards the awning. Blake and I quickly followed her. When we were in the shade of the canvas, the heat became just a fraction less severe than before, though I was mainly glad I didn't have to squint in the bright light anymore.
Close up, I could see that Professor Tallgrass' eyes lay deep in their sockets and that his face was long and gaunt. It did nothing to alleviate the creepy vibes he gave off.
"You're the Huntresses from Beacon, I presume," he said.
His voice was dry and raspy, and I wondered if that had anything to do with the climate here. Sun was also from Vacuo, and he certainly didn't sound anything like this.
"We are," Yang confirmed. "Have you spoken to Uncle Qrow?"
I wondered why Yang specified that Qrow was her uncle. Every other time I'd heard her mention him she just called him Qrow. Ruby was the one persistently adding the 'Uncle' part. Was she trying to antagonize Professor Tallgrass on purpose? What could she possibly hope to gain from that?
Professor Tallgrass's eyes narrowed. "He's your uncle, is he?"
His voice was laden with so much disdain I could almost feel the temperature drop. Yang clearly hadn't exaggerated about the hatred.
"Yes, I have spoken to him. It remains a bit unclear to me, however, what he expects me to do. It is known to everyone, after all, that the White Fang have a fairly large presence in Vacuo because they find it easy to…disappear in the many small oases. We cannot spare the Huntsmen to scour each and every one of them, and I feel little inclination to try. I also doubt his assertions that the White Fang are conspiring to attack us. Human-Faunus relations here are better than almost anywhere else on Remnant, and the population is thinner. There are far more likely targets for an attack than here."
"Be that as it may, Professor, we have good reasons to believe the White Fang are planning an attack here," Blake said. "Redhorn, one of their most violent and dangerous members, leads the cell here."
Professor Tallgrass regarded her coldly. "And? He has done so for well over a year, at this point, and while more White Fang members have been spotted the level of violence hasn't increased at all. His presence alone is not nearly enough of a threat to me to warrant the searching of the entire desert. It seems far more likely to me that, if the White Fang were to attack, they would go after the Vytal Festival."
His cold dismissal made my anger, which had been on a somewhat lower burn after Winter had agreed to help us, flare up all over again. Ruby was in danger, and this imbecile was making everything far harder than it had to be.
"Haven't you heard about Northern Star?!" I exploded. "Hundreds of people died and all of Atlas is in a lockdown! Do you seriously believe that something similar couldn't happen here?! I know there's a lot of sand around here, but that's no excuse to bury your head in it!"
I heard Yang chuckling appreciatively at my outburst, but I didn't take my eyes off of Tallgrass's.
"I don't take kindly to a child telling me how to do the job I've done for decades," Tallgrass said. "Shade Academy is the one source of law and order in Vacuo, and I intend to make sure it remains that way. I will address any and all security issues as I, and I alone, see fit, regardless of the recommendations Oz or his stooge Qrow might make. You have my permission to look for your lost teammate here, and I couldn't care less about how you handle the White Fang as long as…"
He fell silent and looked past me, at the landing pad that had been unoccupied when we landed here. I followed his gaze and saw an airship that had been amateurishly painted black, and which had obviously seen better days, touch down on the concrete. The paint was scuffed, and I could see dents and burns all across the hull of the craft. A white feather had been stenciled on the front with a lot more care than the rest of the paint job had received.
The dented side door opened, and four people wearing black coveralls with the feather logo on it descended the ramp, shielding their eyes from the glare with their hands. When they spotted us, they began to casually saunter in our direction.
In the front was a tall, dark woman with her hair tied in a long, black ponytail. She wore heavy-looking gauntlets, from which protruded blades so dark they didn't seem to reflect the intense sunlight at all.
Behind her walked two men, one tall and broad, the other smaller and nimbler. The big man had a massive battleax casually slung over his shoulder, while the smaller man wore double bandoliers that I presumed were filled with Dust, though I couldn't see an obvious weapon on him.
Lastly, there was another woman. She looked frail, but from the way she walked I could tell she was anything but. A chain was wrapped around her left arm, and its end lay casually draped over her shoulder behind her neck like some kind of odd fashion statement.
The group reached us, and to my utter surprise the tall woman in the lead completely ignored Tallgrass, and instead addressed me.
"Miss Schnee, I think? Vanta, captain of this little group of idiots. We're with Nevermore's Feather."
I blinked stupidly at her, and Vanta laughed at my confusion. She turned to her teammates. "I don't think our heiress here had expected us to actually succeed in getting through the Atlas blockade. And after we did our best to make good time to Vacuo, too."
"How did you get through, anyway?" Yang asked, seeing that I was obviously still too lost for words.
The man with the battleax made a dismissive gesture with his free hand. "Please. We've eluded far worse than some lazy soldiers and mechs." He grinned. "The full-spectrum jammer helps, though."
Yang laughed. "That's awesome!" She turned to look at me. "Well, Weiss? Still so certain about Atlesian superiority?"
"Technically, the jammer is Atlesian tech," the smaller man pointed out.
"Details," Yang said, waving his words away.
I shook my head to clear it, but before I could address Vanta, Tallgrass spoke up.
"What, exactly, is your purpose in Vacuo? These landing pads are for priority guests only. I doubt my traffic controllers just allowed you to land here," he said.
Vanta simply pointed at me. "We're here because Miss Schnee hired us back in Atlas, to break through the blockade. We knew we were a diversion, but we've been in this game for a while. A diversion like this has to have a follow up. So, we came here to see if we could be of use…and to see if we can get some more money out of it."
If nothing else, I certainly appreciated her honesty in stating her intentions like that. But I quickly realized just how useful this could be, and from the quick glance Yang and Blake gave each other I knew they'd come to the same conclusion as I had.
"Yes," I said to Vanta, "I think we can work something out."
Despite the rocky interaction between Tallgrass and me, he did allow our airship, as well as Nevermore's Feather's, to remain on the priority landing pads for the time being, though he made it clear that we shouldn't expect any active help from him.
I didn't care much about that. Having Nevermore's Feather here opened possibilities I hadn't been able to consider before. If they had been resourceful enough to get out of Atlas, surely they would have an idea as to how to locate the Smuggler's Retreat.
But that wasn't even really my main concern. No. Every single time, we'd danced to Adam's tune. Every confrontation we'd had with the White Fang had been orchestrated by him in some form, and every time he had held all the cards. If we were to just waltz into the Smuggler's Retreat, there was no doubt in my mind that the deck would be stacked in his favor.
Furthermore, neither I nor my friends had forgotten Northern Star. There was bloodthirst in us, and a part of me was glad Ruby wasn't with us when we made our plan. She probably wouldn't have approved of it. But while I admire her hope and optimism, sometimes hard decisions have to be made. And this decision was a very hard one. At the start of this journey I don't think any of us would ever have dared to even suggest it. And the truth was, I was still a bit uncertain if it was truly a good idea. Most damningly of all, there was a chance that our plan would put Ruby in even more danger than she already was.
See, our plan wasn't just to find the Smuggler's Retreat; we were going to level it, and everyone inside be damned. Since the Smuggler's Retreat was our only lead and it wasn't technically speaking a White Fang base, we figured that Ruby most likely wouldn't be held there, if she'd even been captured at all. So, we decided that rather than springing the trap waiting for us there and then trying to escape, as we'd done several times before on this journey, we were going to wipe the whole thing off the map from the air.
Our airship was a reconnaissance craft, and Nevermore's Feather's ship only had minimal armaments, sure, but every Atlesian craft, even if it's a civilian one, is built to be easily modifiable for combat purposes to fit in with Atlas's 'always be prepared' philosophy.
And that's exactly what it was we were doing now, under the suspiciously knowledgeable lead of Auburn, the bandolier-wearing member of Nevermore's Feather. It had also been surprisingly easy to convince our airship's crew to agree to the plan. All three of them had seen the devastation in Northern Star, and in typical Atlesian fashion that reminded me a lot of Winter's excuse to send this ship here in the first place, came up with a perfectly plausible explanation as to why engaging the White Fang was the proper course of action under the circumstances.
Normally, converting civilian or reconnaissance craft for combat would be done by installing actual military hardware on it, which we obviously didn't have. Auburn, however, knew how to construct missiles as long as he had access to enough Dust, and although Vacuo had been strip-mined for its resources in the past, there was still an active enough black market for us to obtain all the Dust and metal for the casings we'd need. The guidance packages were made out of modified scrolls.
I had my doubts about the homemade missiles, but Auburn assured us they used them all the time, and considering Ruby had managed to detonate Dust crystals on her very first day at Beacon without even trying to, I was certain the explosion part, at least, would work. And, despite the gripes I had about the whole process and our equipment, it felt good to actually be working on a way to get some long-overdue payback on the White Fang.
I still didn't know how they'd managed to orchestrate the Grimm attack on Northern Star, but the presence of their airship so close to the village at the time of the attack was just too suspicious, especially given the warnings we'd received about them having plans in Northern Star. I wasn't about to let them attack another city, even if that meant getting my own hands dirty. Hopefully, attacking the Smuggler's Retreat would elicit a response from the White Fang from a nearby base, and then…
Truth be told, I didn't really know what we'd do then. There was no guarantee that the White Fang would respond at all, and even if they did, there was a good chance Ruby wouldn't be at that base either. And what if she was at the Smuggler's Retreat when we attacked? She might have gone there on her own after escaping from the White Fang, and we'd be coming in guns blazing.
I pushed away the thoughts. We'd discussed them before, when we had made our plan, and decided that the odds of Ruby being at the Smuggler's Retreat and also being alive were slim. She was either alive and not at the Retreat, or she was at the Retreat, and no longer alive. I refused to entertain the thought of Ruby being dead, so there was no way she would be at the Retreat when we attacked.
Of all the faulty logic I had ever heard or employed in my life, this was indubitably the most faulty, and all of us knew it. And yet, we still decided to go forward with the plan, as if some kind of dark fog was clouding our thoughts, pushing us to pursue the most violent option available. I looked at the airships, now both carrying several handcrafted missiles beneath them. We were ready.
We sat in the airship, waiting for darkness to fall. Vanta and Cyane, the frail-looking woman, had gone into town to try and discover the location of the Smuggler's Retreat, but all they'd been able to discover was that it was somewhere to the south of Vacuo proper.
Our plan was to use the equipment on our reconnaissance craft to search for heat signatures coming from the oases south of Vacuo, but for that to work we'd have to wait for nighttime so it would be cold enough to even get any readings in the first place, rather than a uniform glow of bright red.
I looked out the window and saw that the sun was already beginning to set. I was glad, because all of the waiting made me feel powerless. The sooner we got going, the sooner we could find Ruby. That's what I told myself, and from Yang's agitated pacing I knew she was feeling the same way.
At long last, darkness had fallen. The intercom crackled to life and Brick, our pilot, said that he'd contacted Nevermore's Feather and that we were about to take off.
"Finally," Yang said, sitting down what for what I thought was the first time in hours.
I looked at Blake, who seemed slightly more grim than usual. "Are you okay?" I asked.
She looked at me and shrugged. "Yes. No. Maybe. I don't know. The thought of going out with the intent of killing people…it's exactly because of things like that I left the White Fang in the first place. But…after what they did to Northern Star…I can't just stand aside. I have to do this."
"It'll be okay," Yang said, more gently than I had expected from her. "We're not going after innocent people, here, after all."
Blake shook her head. "That's what Adam used to say, too. 'They were the ones who started this, Blake. They are the monsters, and we're acting in self-defense.' I don't like this, not one bit. But it's too late to back out now. I agreed to the plan, so I'll follow it."
The airship lurched as it took off from the landing platform. I looked from Blake to Yang, who both seemed to be lost in thought now after our short and gloomy conversation. Why had we even decided on this plan at all, if all of us had some kind of problem with it? Was the attack on Northern Star just the final drop that caused the simmering anger and insecurity we'd dealt with ever since escaping from the treetop fortress? Or was it because Ruby wasn't with us? I just knew she would have never approved of what we were doing right now. Would I even be able to face her at all after this? But since her disappearance, I'd felt this hollowness, that I knew Yang and even Blake were feeling as well. And it seemed like the only way to sate that now was to go on the offense for once. And yet, it still felt wrong.
"We have confirmed heat signatures at delta-zero-three. Repeat, confirmed heat signatures at delta-zero-three. Nevermore's Feather, please acknowledge."
We were all in the cockpit of the airship, staring at a monitor that was mostly filled with various shades of blue, except for a rather large yellow-and-red patch in the lower right-hand corner of the screen.
The radio crackled to life as Vanta answered Brick's call. "Signatures confirmed, message acknowledged, Atlas. Is it our target?"
Brick adjusted the view screen and zoomed in closer. The people in the oasis would certainly be able to hear the engines of the hovering airships, but the landing lights were turned off, there were no search lights, and it was a moonless night. Even with Faunus eyes we'd be fairly hard to pinpoint. They probably wouldn't open fire on us until it was already too late. My stomach felt queasy, and I was still torn up over wanting to burn down the whole oasis and essentially attacking civilians with a military craft.
On the now zoomed-in screen I could see some vague shapes in the heat map. Another screen next to the heat map showed the same patch of oasis in regular night vision. Only after looking back and forth between the two monitors several times was I able to see the faint outline of a trap door, covered in sand, near one of the palm trees. I wasn't sure if this was indeed the Smuggler's Retreat, but it was located south of Vacuo, and none of the other oases in the area we'd scanned had had any sort of heat signatures. This had to be the place.
Brick turned away from the screens and looked at me. "Ma'am? I can't be sure that this is the Retreat, but my gut feeling says it is. What do we do?"
I looked at Yang and Blake.
Yang instantly nodded. "This has to be it. Why else would it be so well hidden? I say we light it up," she said.
Blake was more hesitant. "I'm not sure, but it matches the location." She sighed. "Okay. Yes. I think."
I turned to Brick. "Alright. I think this is it, too. Move forward with the attack."
Brick nodded once and keyed the radio. "Nevermore's Feather, target is confirmed. You may fire when ready."
He gestured at Grayson, who nodded grimly and pressed some buttons on his control panel, arming the guidance packages on our improvised missiles and locking them onto the heat signature in the oasis.
On the regular camera, which had not been zoomed in and which had shown a view so dark the screen might as well have been turned off, I saw a streak of light, quickly followed by a second, third, and fourth. Nevermore's Feather had opened fire.
"Firing," Grayson said, and now Nevermore's Feather's missiles were followed by the launching of our first volley.
Down below, the oasis erupted into plumes of flame, sand, and wooden shrapnel from what had once been trees. While it certainly looked destructive, this first volley wasn't really intended to do a whole lot of structural damage just yet. Rather, it was supposed to loosen up the top layers of sand and stone, clearing a path for the armor-piercing missiles of the second volley.
On the screen, I saw the oasis burning and I felt sick and elated at the same time. I couldn't tear my eyes away when the second salvo of missiles streaked from Nevermore's Feather, followed shortly by our own. These missiles didn't seem to have much of an effect, initially, but the shaped charges on them were meant to penetrate, burning through ceilings and support beams and people indiscriminately. Eight such missiles could incapacitate a bunker, and would surely do catastrophic damage to the structural integrity of a regular building, especially one already buried underground.
"Nevermore's Feather, be advised: People leaving the structure," Brick reported.
Indeed, on the night vision monitor I could see people scrambling out of the trap door.
"Acknowledged, Atlas," Vanta said.
I heard a staccato rumble, and lines of fire lanced down from the other airship towards the fleeing people. The machine guns made short work of anyone caught in the stream of bullets, and I turned my eyes away from the screen.
Bloodthirst or not, this sight was every bit as gruesome as what we'd seen in Northern Star, and the horror of everything we were doing hit me like bucket of ice water.
I looked over at Yang and Blake. Yang looked horrified, as if she, like me, only now realized what we were doing.
Blake was deathly pale and taking short, shallow breaths. Then she clasped her hand in front of her mouth and ran from the cockpit. What had we just done?
Yes, the bloodthirst is OOC for everyone. Yes, it has a reason, which will be revealed later. I was debating mentioning this or not as it might be spoilery, but I feel that assuaging readers who don't like those developments won't spoil too much of what I have in store. Also, I know the wiki says the Shade headmaster is named Theodore and is likely based on the Wicked Witch of the West, but since I take nothing as hard canon beyond Volume 2, I based him off of the Scarecrow instead. Please let me know your thoughts, and see you next time!
