It has been what... a year? Yep. I've constantly been getting comments saying to continue, and honestly, I'm glad I did. This story has always been my favorite, my furthest continuation yet, and I'll be darned for letting it die out like this. Thank you all for you support, I hope to keep this thing updated! Just, be patient with me yah?
The door crept open, light from the hallway stretching across the dimly lit red carpet floor. From the door frame, a shadow of a figure appeared, the gleam of a knife reflecting the light, red eyes peering into an empty room.
Yang had grabbed Weiss, pulling her down on the other side of the bed, hand cupping her mouth. The heiress struggled slightly in reflex before realizing the situation, and held her breath, freezing up.
"Hey, no point in hiding. We found your friends in the room next to you. Unharmed, we promise." The figure spoke up, the voice sounding rather feminine.
Yang bit her lower lip, thinking about what to do. If they had caught Jaune and Ren, did they kill them? How could she trust them.
"How about you bring them here? So we can make sure they're alive." The blonde responded.
A sigh went through the room. "You do realize you're in no condition to make demands right? Either way, I don't want any trouble. So, sure. Merc! Bring in the boys!"
There was a bit of shuffling, and then some complaining as two familiar voices filled the room. "Yang? Weiss? We're fine. They just want to make sure we don't have weapons or stuff, like, a cautious search." Came Ren.
The brawler took a breath and stood up, taking Weiss by the hand and helping her up. "Okay, we believe you. What do you want."
Finally getting a better view of the figures, one was a girl, with dark tanned skin, red eyes, and light green colored hair. She wore a white shirt and black shorts, the usual black combat boots covering her feet, green and white striped socks leading all the way up her thighs.
Next to her was a man, leaning back against the wall. His silver hair spiked back, wearing a gray jacket with a black undershirt, black boot cut pants over his legs and black sneakers.
"I'm Emerald, and that is Mercury. Merc for short." The green haired girl explained, approaching Yang. Lilac eyes met deep red, and for a second, the brawler shuddered, feeling like a mouse staring down a cat. This girl was indeed dangerous, but the lack of killing intent meant she was trying to be friendly.
"Yang, and this is-"
"Weiss Schnee, the heiress of the Schnee company, daughter of Jacques Schnee, yes we know who she is." Emerald interrupted the blonde. She walked across the room to the pair and stared hard into the uncovered blue eye of the heiress. "Your father is the cause of this virus."
The blonde brawler had no time to react, as the waist she was holding onto slipped from her grasp, and in one fluid motion, Weiss slapped the green haired girl, the look of hatred in burning in her eye. "My father did no such thing! I am sure of it! Why would he release some virus in Vale, while i'm still here?!" Her voice loudly bouncing off the walls, raising it in anger. Yang recoiled, noting not to piss off the princess.
"The answer is simple. Vale is the headquarters for the Black Fang. To answer your second question, You're just a whiny little wannabe trying to follow your sister's footsteps. Winter and you are being denounced by Jacques himself, why does he need you or her?" Emerald just smirked and walked toward the door, looking behind her shoulder at the heiress. "There's a boat with your daddy's emblem on it in the harbor, you can use it to get back to Atlas and ask him yourself, if you can make it there." She just smiled one last time before walking out into the hall, Mercury behind her.
Yang rushed to Weiss, hugging her from behind as soon as she heard the heiress choke back her tears. Jaune and Ren, feeling awkward, usher themselves out of the room, the door closing behind them.
"Weiss, what happened? Who's Winter? What's the Black Fang? Why would they say your dad did this?" The blonde was just a flurry of questions, trying to understand the situation. The heiress just wept in her arms, not giving a hint of answering. Yang sighed. She was not helping by overwhelming her with questions. She backed up against a wall, and slid down it, cradling Weiss in her arms as she cried against her shoulder. The feel of warm, wet tears against her skin reminds her of a similar situation…
At the next dinner, the group sat at the table, eating their canned meals in awkward silence. Weiss' eye was still puffy from crying, Yang was still lost deep in though with all her questions, and both Jaune and Ren just didn't know what to say.
Weiss forcefully placed her fork down on the table, causing all the plates to clatter and forcing all the attention towards her. "We should get to my fathers ship on the docks. I need to get to the bottom of this." The heiress spoke with such resolve. The table went quiet for a moment.
"I'm sorry. If you're headed to Atlas, then I can't come with you. I have someone important that I'm waiting for here in Vale." Ren spoke up with sadness in his voice. "I do wish you the best of luck though."
"That's alright Ren. Just stay alive when we get back." Yang sighed, looking up to Ren and giving him a small smile. "I don't want to lose a good friend."
"Likewise." He chuckled.
Jaune looked up from his food and shrugged. "I'm not sure what I want to do. My parents are gone, so, I guess i'll just follow you guys."
"As long as you can keep up loverboy." Yang chimed in, lighting up the mood. For the first time in a long while, the group laughed together.
The sun was high in the sky as the group began traveling again. Their plan was to duck through the alleyways and avoid the open streets, staying as quiet as possible. Out of the corner of Yang's eye, she could swear she saw the girl with the pink and brown hair out on the street, but every time she stopped to look, the girl would be gone.
"The harbor should be a few miles ahead. We should get there by today if we kept pushing." Ren noted, looking at the street names as they passed. Jaune struggled to keep up, huffing as he ran. "Hey… Ren… could you carry me?" The blond winced as he ran.
"What? No."
"They why does Weiss get to be carried?"
"Cuz my ankle is sprained you idiot." Weiss hissed.
"So… if I break my leg…?"
"I'll feed you to a Grimm so we can a break." Yang answered, fixing Weiss so that she was more comfortable riding piggyback.
"Cold… so cold…"
Weiss stifled a giggle and Yang winked. "I learned from the best."
They continued to run, taking care to avoid groups of Grimm and areas with noise. As distance was covered, they noticed the amount of Grimm were increasing, as if they too were shuffling towards the harbor.
"Guys… I… I cant keep up!" Jaune groaned and fell over, accidentally knocking over a trash can. The loud metal banging noise echoed through the alley. Everyone froze, Yang cursed, and soon enough, the Grimm broke into a frenzy. They groaned, growled and snarled, falling over each other to investigate the sound. Weiss covered her mouth, trying not to scream, and as soon as the first Grimm appeared in front of them, blocking their escape, another went flying in its direction, slamming it out of the way. From the other side of the alley, round a corner, sounds of smashing, groaning, and metal scraping against concrete was heard. The sickening crunch of bones being also echoed through the halls. Everyone was still frozen, and soon after, all groaning ceased, and only whistling could be heard. Ren in particular was shocked. He knew this tune… Ren watched as a shorter figure, with orange hair, covered in blood and other various human liquids turned the corner and walked straight toward him. It raised a hand, pointed at him, then poked his nose.
"Boop!"
Ruby Rose sighed. Her head tipped back and silver eyes went up to the blue sky of Atlas. Another breath of air blew up her bangs resting on her forehead. All this waiting was getting boring.
"Here Ruby." A soft, gentle voice came from behind her. She turned her head to see Summer approaching her, sitting next to her and handing her a water bottle. "Stay hydrated alright?"
"Yes Mom." she answered, taking the bottle. The bench they shared was facing the ocean, near the Atlas harbor. They were waiting to board the boat heading to Vale, but for unknown reasons, the harbor was on lockdown.
"I wonder what Yang is doing right now…"
At the Vale harbor, the group looked around in amazement. Survivors on the coast of Vale gathered together to make an outpost. Walls made of shipping containers rose high, generators constantly supplied electricity, the nearest gas station was being used to resupply gasoline, and barrels of clean water were plentiful. Survivors worked hard at things, sewing clothes, fixing the defenses, cleaning weapons, taking inventory, the works.
"Nora… I know you like hugs, but… you're covered in guts." Ren sighed.
"But… BUT IT'S BEEN SO LONG!" The ginger named Nora cried. She was still covered in blood but attempted to cling to Ren.
"You two look pretty close." Yang rose a brow in curiosity.
"Ah, yeah, this was the person I was talking about. Yang, Weiss, Jaune, meet-"
"NORA VALKYRIE AT YOUR SERVICE!" She yelled, giving them all a salute.
"Is she always this loud?" Weiss asked.
"N-no. Not normally. I can only guess it's cuz she's very happy to see me."
"Nora, how many times do I have to tell you to wash up when you come back from a slaughter spree?" Another voice came from behind them. The group turned around to see a redhead, clad in a red tank top, black gym shorts, and silver running shoes. Her long hair tied up into a bun.
"Yes Pyrrha… I'll go shower." Nora replied as if she was just ordered by a nagging mother, and sulked off toward an area with a lot of blue barrels.
"Welcome to the outpost! I'm Pyrrha Nikos. It's a pleasure to meet you all." The redhead smiled.
"I know who you are! You're that rising star athlete aren't you?" Weiss spoke up. "I've attended some of your events!"
"Oh? Ahaha, I didn't realize people recognized me from that. I'm not really the best." Pyrrha spoke, a blushing abit.
"Yet you won the gold in all your events. You can't fool me. I'm Weiss by the way." The heiress announced and raised her head high.
"Pleased to meet you, I know you already, Ren. And you two are?" She looked to Yang and Jaune.
"In love." Jaune nodded.
"Not as straight as I thought." Yang nodded.
Pyrrha blushed at their words as Yang crumpled to the floor upon being kneed in the thigh by Weiss, who was fuming. "Wait… why am I… feeling jealous?!" The heiress whispered to herself.
"Ahem, that's Jaune, and the one that fell is Yang." Ren stepped in to finish the introductions. Jaune still stood in awe of the beautiful girl before him.
"Anyways… You should get yourselves situated with the outpost, and if you need anything just ask around for me. I'm usually out and about." Pyrrha gave them one last smile and walked off to attend some other matter.
"Woah Ren she's so pretty!" Jaune finally snapped out of his trance, leaning towards Ren. "Do you think she's single?"
"Yeah, yeah, knock yourself out." He rolled his eyes. "I'm going to go find Nora, just don't break anything Jaune."
"Yang and I will go find the boat. How about you go help out Pyrrha, Jaune?" Weiss commented, poking the blonde until she got up.
"Schnee Company…" Yang said aloud as she stared at the cargo ship docked at the harbor. Being the biggest boat there, it wasn't hard to find. "There has to be some way onto it."
"I'm not sure dunce. Look over there." Weiss pointed to the right.
Yang turned to look, and sure enough there was a walkway leading up the side of the boat. She sighed and carried Weiss over to it. "Well, that was easy."
"Maybe you should look with your eyes and not your mouth." Weiss humphed and turned her head away.
"Was there something I did to anger you Weiss?" the brawler frowned, taking step by step up the walkway.
"If you can't figure it out yourself then you deserve to be punished."
"But I haven't even done anything! Or made a pun! Since my puns always get me pun-ished"
Weiss glared at her and just continued to give her the cold shoulder. All Yang could do was sigh in defeat.
On board the cargo ship, Yang and Weiss were not alone. Pyrrha had sent people over to take inventory and bring back what they could use to help the outpost. So their search was mostly all in vain. "You know, when they said boat, I was expecting something small… How do we get this behemoth over to Atlas?" Yang mused, looking up and down the ship's deck.
"We don't. But we may be able to find something here to help us." Weiss groaned. She too, had hoped it was a small boat.
As Yang walked around with the heiress on her back, she saw something incredibly eerie. From the top of some cargo containers, sat a certain girl with pink and brown hair. She flashed Yang a smile before standing up and walking off the container.
"Slow down Yang you brute! Where are you going?!" Weiss complained, hanging onto the blonde's neck harder as she broke out into a full run.
"Someone… someone is following me!" Was her reply. She was soon at the container that the girl was sitting on. Yang was out of breath, having to climb and run up containers to get there, all with the weight on her back. She placed a hand on the container to steady herself.
"What… what was that?" Weiss whispered, her voice shaky.
"What do you mean?" Yang said in between breaths. She paused, and heard groaning. "Is that… Grimm?"
The pair looked up at the container, and the brawler banged on it. More groaning. She backed up from it and tripped, falling back onto the container she was standing on, and Weiss with her.
"No… no! This can't be!" Weiss cried. "Father... Father! You… You!" Her words were lost in her throat, caught in the disbelief. The Schnee emblem clearly sprayed onto the side.
"Hey! Who's manning the crane!" Someone below shouted. Yang and Weiss watched in horror as a yellow claw came down, and picked up the crate full of Grimm. It lifted it off the cargo pile and swerved over the outpost. They watched as it dropped the crate into the outpost, and bust open. Screaming rose from the people below, and they watched as hundreds of Grimm rushed out of the crate...
"Well… that's just crate…"
Yang had suffered a blow before the fight even started.
It felt rushed. I hope not. I'm just setting it up for a stronger next chapter~ See you all again later!
