A/N: I was feeling inspired, and wrote this whole thing in two hours, so there might be typographical errors. Enjoy!
Yang dodges the next kick and starts throwing punches faster, ignoring the pain. Blake and the girl with the red eyes are a blur of sparks flying off their blades and deflected bullets next to her. This is under control.
"Go," she tells Weiss, and the girl nods uncertainly and leaps off the edge of the building, before soaring above them.
Good. They can handle two hired goons.
The first one jumps, aiming a kick at her face that Yang deflects effortlessly off one gauntlet, sending him spinning faster. The second leg hits her too fast to block, and she tastes blood.
Oh, he's dead.
He hesitates for a moment when an aura of fire ignites around Yang. She can see the uncertainty in his eyes. He's still good enough not to cut his losses and run, which Yang appreciates. Finally a real fight with a human opponent who's a match for her in skill.
He's still nowhere near her level of raw power, although his bullets are more than nuisances. She has to consciously deflect them, rather than simply melting them. It's still barely enough to slow her down.
The girl with the scarlet eyes joins the fight, staying far enough out of Yang's range that her gauntlets are next to useless and her corona of fire is ineffective. Like that's going to make a difference when neither of them can hurt her.
Yang creates a fireball the size of her head and slams it into the first thug's torso. He staggers backward.
Tougher than an ordinary human, but not by much. Probably just cybernetics, which is nothing she can't handle with more fire.
Yang laughs at them. She's back in her element, back in a fight she knows she won't lose, back in a whirlwind of flame. There's nothing left to worry about. She drives the girl with the red eyes back, then prepares to deal the killing blow to the first.
There's a burst of chatter over her earpiece.
"Enormous White Fang uprising. We're trying to hold City Hall."
"Torchwick's back, with more Atlesian robots."
"We need backup. Blake?"
Oh, God. Blake's gone, probably killed by the girl with the red eyes, Ruby and Weiss are facing off against Torchwick alone, and Pyrrha's having a nervous breakdown at exactly the wrong time.
Yang's fire flickers out for a moment, and that's all the time her opponent needs.
The bullets aimed at her chest are shallow wounds thanks to the Kevlar plating of her jacket, but the impact flings her back and off the edge of the roof. Yang hits the ground too hard, then stands and ducks into the building underneath them for cover.
She's injured already, and low on energy. Everyone is in danger, but she can't get to them or save them or –
Blake. Blake needs her help, and she's nearby. Yang's going to save her. No matter what.
…
Ruby struggles to find her footing on the slippery roof, then attacks again, spinning her scythe. The robot eventually falls, but there are two more to take its place, and more rampaging through the streets. Torchwick is above her, laughing.
"What a shame your little friends aren't here to help, Red," he says.
The rest of Ruby's team have their own threat to deal with. Ruby left Pyrrha alone to chase after Torchwick, confident that Pyrrha, even in her current state, could fight off anything. Pyrrha's team are just trying to contain the chaos and keep the civilians from panicking, which is something of a losing battle with the news copters overhead still transmitting the fights, and that odd announcement declaring that a hero who killed with so little hesitation could not be trusted as the savior of the city.
That part is what's worrying Ruby the most. Even if they win this fight, the entire city has seen The Huntress rip an innocent child to pieces. Remnant won't trust the heroes for a long time. And as much as Ruby hates admitting it, PR is important. If the people of Remnant can't trust their own heroes, what do they have left?
Ruby can't think about any of that now. Don't worry about Pyrrha, or think about Penny. Just keep fighting. She'll get through Torchwick's robots, and she'll finally face him one-on-one, and she'll take him down. That's how this is going to go. It's the climax of the story.
Two more robots, again the Atlesian kind, stand between her and Torchwick. Either Atlas has far worse security than they claim, or they're deliberately helping Torchwick, neither of which are good options. But that's not Ruby's concern. Destroy the robots and fight Torchwick. That's all she has to do, and then things will be okay.
Someone lands behind Torchwick. It's Pyrrha's new recruit.
"Thank goodness you're here," Ruby says into her earpiece. "Cut off Torchwick's escape route and we'll take him down together."
The new recruit smiles, showing all of her teeth. There's a flash of the wrong color in her face, but Ruby can't see what happened in the darkness.
Ruby carves her way through the two remaining robots and rushes towards Torchwick and the new recruit, praying that she didn't get shot.
She's still upright, and smiling, but her face is shimmery, like it's a screen without high enough resolution. Her clothes are shimmery too, and seem to be getting lighter in color.
It's just a trick of the light. Ruby's going to take down Torchwick, and then things will be fine. She'll go save her team just in the nick of time, and Pyrrha will recover and take down everything that's in her path, and things will be okay.
"Neo, so glad you could join us."
The new recruit – Neo – shifts color, turning pink and brown and white. She smiles at Ruby, winking one mismatched eye.
Ruby attacks them before she can think. Neo blocks her blows effortlessly with her deceptively fragile-looking parasol, twirling and grinning and batting her eyelashes. Torchwick doesn't even bother to get involved in the fight.
Ruby launches herself into the air and begins to fall, a spinning avatar of death. She loves this move, and it's never failed her.
Neo jumps too, still smiling. Ruby feels the impact of a high-heeled boot in her midsection and a stabbing pain, then she's falling too fast, getting caught by the wind and dragged out from the roof.
Crescent Rose hooks one of the ornamental flourishes on the edge of the roof, and Ruby clings to the handle for dear life, struggling to pull herself back up. There's a faint, persistent scratch of metal, and Torchwick and Neo appear above her, smiling. Neo raises her parasol, revealing some kind of pointy metal stick extending from its end, that she was probably dragging along the roof.
"You think you can hurt me with a fancy toothpick?" she gasps, then yelps as a gust of wind nearly unbalances her. Witty fight banter, essential to showing that you're not scared of them.
"At last, we get to kill you."
"Ruby! Stay alive! I'm coming!"
Ruby has never been happier to hear Weiss's panicky shouting in her earpiece in her life. There's another gust of wind from behind her as Weiss swoops in, and Ruby starts calculating. Neo is holding back to let Torchwick gloat, but can kill her in moments, especially when Ruby's in this kind of precarious position. The pointy stick is too close for comfort, inches from Ruby's throat. Ruby can't fight both of them, even with Weiss's help.
She doesn't have to.
Ruby strains upward, clinging to Crescent Rose with one hand, and brushes the button on the handle of Neo's parasol. The windstorm catches Neo and the open parasol, sending her spinning away across the rooftops like a leaf.
Ruby scrambles up to the roof and pulls Crescent Rose out of the building as Torchwick backs up in alarm. Weiss crash-lands on the roof, skidding across it and breathing in gasps. She stands upright, smiling, and traces two fingers along the blade of her rapier.
"It's over," Ruby calls to Torchwick. "If you surrender now, we'll treat you a lot better."
He laughs, louder and longer than usual, tilting his head back.
"Little Red, do you really think you still have the upper hand here?"
Ruby's about to open her mouth and inform him that yes, that's exactly what she thinks, and she doesn't appreciate being called little, when an explosion too close for comfort causes the building to shake violently. There's another explosion, and Ruby flattens herself against the roof as it's peppered with bullets.
"Weiss?" she calls when the enormous robot is gone, Nora clearly balancing on its torso and attempting to beat it into submission.
"I am alive," Weiss says, crawling out from underneath a protective shield of ice. "Torchwick?"
His corpse is mostly just bullets and bits of tissue, unrecognizable apart from the inexplicably-intact hat perched atop it. Ruby can't tell if that's funny or sad.
"That was rather anticlimactic," Weiss comments. "But he's out of the way at least."
…
She has no further use for Torchwick. He's been invaluable in her plans so far, as an organizer and a distraction to the heroes, but she has no further use for distractions. And she doesn't keep the useless around.
She has more important business to attend to. She can feel the power in her veins calling out to its other half, drawing her closer to the Fall Maiden.
…
Pyrrha doesn't understand any of it. She doesn't know who she killed, or how. She doesn't know what's happening to the city. She's stuck in a loop of repeating I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, as the voice of the woman in red keeps running through her mind.
This is the hero your city depends on? The hero who kills innocent children? The hero who is letting the White Fang run free and Atlas security forces encroach on our borders? This is your hero?
Pyrrha Nikos can't move or think or breathe.
The Huntress steps in. She has a duty to save this city. The White Fang and the rogue Atlesian security robots have to be taken down, but first is the woman in red.
At any cost.
Nora lands in front of her, hair wild and skirt torn but still smiling.
"I got your back."
Pyrrha can't let another innocent person die.
"No," she says. "You need to run. You need to survive."
"Pyrrha, what's going on?"
The Huntress's fingers close around the object in her pocket. She feels it hum with power.
By any means necessary.
She ignores the pain as she carves open her own arm and places the object into it. It soaks up her blood, glowing brighter. The wound slowly knits itself shut.
And The Huntress ignites. She feels pure power rushing through her veins, exhilarating her.
Flames flicker away from her fingertips and the ends of her hair. Her power is unstable now, and has to be tamed lest it destroy everything in its path. The Huntress focuses her power, turning it inward until her heart and mind and body are nothing but a weapon.
Pyrrha smiles sadly, then kisses Nora for the first and last time.
"Go," she says, and she watches Nora's eyes fill with emotions she can't name, before the girl nods, salutes, and runs back into the fight.