I don't own anything from RWBY, that honor belongs to the fine people at Rooster Teeth.
Chapter 4: Bonding
Yang hadn't been having the best afternoon. Besides having to deal with a Hydra Grimm, nearly dislocating her human arm and also having to deal with a splitting headache, she had also found out her robotic arm's modification was starting to wear out. At least they managed to get the fabricator that Ruby needed and were able to restock on some supplies and resupply their medkit… after using some of the medical supplies to stop the pain.
Luckily, Blake had been watching out for her. Had it not been for her presence, she would have almost certainly tried to rush in headstrong to strike down that stupid Hydra with a nearly dislocated arm. But seriously, the girl had moves. All it took was just a few charges of Rock and Ice Dust, and she had the Grimm so fixated on her that it had no time to react to Yang.
Hell, she would've wagered that if Blake had a little more dust, she could've easily taken down the Hydra Grimm all by herself, even if she swore that Yang was the only reason they were able to take it down. Maybe once they got back to the ship, she could take some time off to rest and relax, perhaps. Maybe get to know her a little better? After all, it wasn't like she held anything against the Faunus, and Blake was rather interesting to say the least.
But all attention that Yang had in her mind was automatically diverted once she found a call coming from Ruby on her scroll. Bumblebee automatically pulled up an interface, courtesy of her scroll being connected to her bike, and soon Yang was in direct comms with Ruby.
"Hey Rubes! Is everything okay?"
"No! Weiss is down, her aura's failing again! Please tell me you were able to resupply the medkits?!" Ruby's voice rang over, frantic.
"Yeah I got them stocked up. I'm headed your way right now! What happened? Who's Weiss?" Yang asked.
"Grimm attacked, me and Weiss killed it… but then she collapsed… her aura's fading fast!" Ruby replied in a panic, making Yang increase Bumblebee's speed.
"Just keep her in a safe place and don't try to move her at all costs, I'm rushing over to you. Just hold on!" Yang said.
"What's wrong?" Blake asked.
"Weiss's aura still hasn't adapted to Vale's climate If we don't stabilize it soon, she's going to end up with something permanent!" She replied, putting on her goggles. "Think you can chart a path for us to take?"
"Of course," Blake replied, giving Yang a sense of relief as she also updated the scroll permissions in Bumblebee to extend to Blake's scroll… which had been active in the Mistralian and Atlesian subsystems? Then again, they found Blake aboard the ship of a stuck-up princess from Atlas so maybe things weren't as complicated as they seemed.
Speeding through the coarse dirt of the badlands, Yang looked towards the holoscreen on Bumblebee, waiting for Blake to finalize planning out a suitable route for them to take towards Ruby.
"I assume the red dot is Ruby and the yellow dot is us?" Blake asked from behind her.
"Yeah, do you see any good options?" she asked.
"Not yet… wait, there's a canyon to our left. It looks like it's going to give us a direct route to Ruby's location if we can get to it" Blake replied. Letting out a sigh of relief as Yang looked to the holoscreen.
The path would take her a little longer than 10 minutes, which given the added stress of the setting sun, was probably the best course of action she could take. Grimm activity however seemed to be a little more than nominal, but that was the price of faster travel.
Putting the pedal to the metal, Yang went ahead and activated the ship's autopilot to follow the route marked out. She was almost certain a couple of Grimm Surveyor Drones would come out in the hopes of taking them down.
And lo and behold there they came, their T shaped visors looking to them menacingly. Taking out Dawnbreak, Yang quickly fired out two shots, downing two more. Her partner did the same, using both her pistols to shoot down three more before the remaining caught up to all of them.
As she attempted to shoot down another group she was instead surprised to find the drones creating shields to block her. Deciding she was having none of that, she used her gauntlets to boost over them and take out the Grimm creating the shield. Upon landing, she quickly shot out the 2 drones forming the shield.
Turning her attention to the Grimm at her feet, Yang tried to punch out the drones but was quickly met with a piston to her face and 3 shots to her arm, which she blocked. She only realized her mistake in not taking out the floor beneath her when she almost fell to the ground as her platform's began to shake and gave way.
Suddenly finding herself holding on for dear life under the Grimm, she watched as circuits rearranged, metal broke apart and recombined and weapons turned and twisted to form a railgun pointed at her face. The Grimm drones had fused together, and their new form had a much better chance of actually taking down Bumblebee.
Grabbing onto the sides of the Grimm, armed her shotgun gauntlets and quickly shot down the two stun guns that came up to try to knock her off, before getting atop the Grimm Surveyor and ripping a hole through its central wiring. Pulling out the wires with one sweeping motion, Yang disabled the Grimm and jumped off them and onto Bumblebee.
Hearing a loud bang and more metallic parts fall to the floor, gave Yang the sense of satisfaction as she knew she had killed two birds with one stone. As she landed back on Bumblebee, the entire hovercraft shook with her weight before stabilizing to a normal height.
Not even getting a chance to recover, Yang quickly found herself struck in the back and sent off her bike. Grabbing onto the back handles of Bumblebee, Yang held on for dear life as she slowly tried to pull herself back up to her bike.
Luckily for Yang, Blake was a pretty good shot and she quickly was able to stun the surveyor that nearly killed Yang with some ridiculously well placed shots. Finally getting back up, she started clearing out the surveyors with her weapons.
"How did you do that?" Yang asked, as she jump-kicked the surveyor drone and shot down another few drones that had missed their stun lasers with her pistol.
"I found a modification off the Hydra Grimm for my pistols," Blake explained as she shot down two more drones. "It helps me find their weak spots. I can't hold it forever though."
'Damn, she's not just pretty, she also knows how to handle tech. She might be worth having when me and Rubes get to Beacon,' Yang thought as she downed three more drones with her shotguns.
After clearing out all the immediate targets, Yang jumped back onto the main seat and checked up on the flight path. So far so good although there were still a whole bunch of Grimm to take down!
Not that she had anything to complain about though. After all, she still had her semblance to burn.
Keeping calm under stressful situations wasn't exactly Ruby's best trait, in fact she was kinda terrible at it but what else was she supposed to do?! She was supposed to be a huntress, not a medic!
'Okay, calm down Ruby, calm down. You can do this; you can totally figure this out! Just believe in yourself,' she thought, breathing rapidly.
After calming herself down to some extent, Ruby activated the bioscanner on her scroll and immediately moved it across Weiss's unconscious body. The girl was shivering and was starting to toss and turn uncomfortably in the sleeping bag, Ruby had moved her to.
The results of her scan told Ruby that Weiss was suffering from a fever and a pretty bad one at that. Her temperature was rising rapidly and given how badly Weiss was shivering, she wasn't doing so well. there was one solution that Ruby was somewhat sure would work but that involved a little bit of hacking on Ruby's part.
All she needed to do was to make sure that the suit didn't try to oppose the shift in temperature.
Scanning Weiss's combat suit, Ruby quickly found a series of Dust Pouches and found that they were linked to the central systems of the combat rig. The only thing she needed to find now was Weiss's scroll. After searching through the pockets in her coat, Ruby eventually found it as well.
Setting it down next to the sleeping bag, Ruby scrambled towards the ship's storage room and began to search for some Ice Dust. Given how much Dust was in this ship, she was pretty sure that some Ice Dust wouldn't be too hard to find. And lo and behold there it was. An entire crate of Ice Dust! Grabbing as much dust as she could, Ruby ran back to her sleeping companion.
Shivering as she ran back, Ruby contemplated using her semblance but decided against it knowing how reactive her semblance was with some types of Dust. She certainly didn't want to find out if her semblance just so happened to also be compatible with ice.
Upon reaching her sleeping ally, Ruby immediately took up Weiss's scroll and after using the hacking module in her own suit, got to work on gaining access to the temperature systems of Weiss's suit.
'Alright, first attempt. brrr... it's freezing out here! Darn It! Alright second attempt! You can do this Ruby!" she thought to herself as she tried to hack into Weiss's suit. 'Almost got it… almost… Done!'
'Now let's disable the temperature reduction countermeasures and set the standard suit temperature. Don't want this thing to reject the Dust. How on earth does a piece of clothing manage its own temperature? Does it have some weird fibers or something?' she thought as she adjusted the setting of the suit, granting her knowledge of its name as well.
'Myrtenaster? Such a cool name! No wonder it fits Weiss so well!' Ruby thought 'It's also really pretty. Makes sense for such a pretty girl.'
Stopping herself from making further comments on Myrtenaster, Ruby quickly began to place the Ice Dust inside the Dust pouches between Weiss's suit and sure enough the suit didn't appear to reject the Dust.
Reopening Myrtenaster's systems on her scroll, Ruby let out a fist pump and whooped when she began to see the suit's temperature begin to fall back down to normal. It worked! Ruby had finally been able to cure someone without Yang's help. Her sister would've been proud.
As she got up from the unconscious heiress, Ruby felt an odd tug at her cloak. Turning around, she found that Weiss was unconsciously clutching it. Seeing Weiss's cold hands desperately hold on to Ruby's cloak for warmth immediately made Ruby remove the straps of her cloak and take it off.
Wrapping up Weiss with her cloak, she let out a sigh of relief as the girl finally relaxed herself and stopped shivering. Putting her hand over her forehead also revealed to Ruby that Weiss's temperature wasn't too high. As she watched the evening sun fall below the horizon, she couldn't help but feel that somehow, somewhere, her and Yang would be okay.
But as soon as the sun set, her joy and contentment turned to worry. Hearing the unnatural sound of thunder booming off in the distance, she watched in horror as an Ion Storm began to develop, impairing her vision and was now approaching her.
Any electronics Ruby had were now in danger of being electrocuted by the Ion Storm. she would have to disable most of her suit to prevent electrocution. But what about Weiss? Shuddering upon thinking what the Ion Storm might end up doing to Weiss if it struck her, Ruby quickly gathered Weiss and rushed back into the ship.
It might've meant putting herself in a situation where the Grimm could easily swarm her, but that was still better than sitting around in the open, waiting for the storm to beat down on her and her partner.
On the plus side, Ruby was looking forward to kicking some more Grimm butt.
"What the hell is that?!" Blake exclaimed, looking up at the mechanical monstrosity staring into her soul with its visor.
All she could describe it as was an oversized drone in at T-shape, with shoulder guards and a red visor in its chest. It had guns protruding out of it's shoulders and had some embedded in its chest. But the most threatening thing about the Grimm was how quickly it was zipping around her and Yang, ominously observing.
"Beats me, I haven't seen this type of Grimm before." Came the reply.
"Why isn't it attacking us?"
"I dunno, it might be trying to send us a message. But don't put your guard down Blake, these things can go from perfectly neutral to incredibly hostile at the drop of a hat."
As Yang said those words, the red visor changed. Now instead of extending over the chest, it became a red sphere instead which was also covered by another layer of plating. Then the chest guns took up positions to the sides of its body and the head? The head shifted into a cannon which immediately fired.
Swerving to the right, Blake was nearly thrown off by Yang, who barely dodged the lasers that fired from the head. Holding on for dear life, Blake threw her grappling hook onto the Grimm, catching it.
"Distract that thing as long as you can. I'll see if I can do anything to disable some of its weapons."
"Sounds like a plan Blake, be careful though. We don't know anything about its defenses." Yang replied, firing a charged shot from her robotic arm, stunning the Grimm.
Pulling as hard as she could, Blake quickly grappled her way over the Grimm. Dodging shots sent at her from the Grimm's weapons using a Shadow Decoy, Blake plunged her hardlight sheath into the beast's chest.
Pulling it out of the beast and then using both swords in conjunction, Blake slashed against the Grimm's weapons, cutting off two before the others were able to lock up inside the Grimm. Seeing the weapons sink back inside the Grimm, she pondered why the Grimm would choose to leave itself vulnerable. she continued slashing the Grimm, taking off one of the cannons on its head and making amberlight , the Grimm equivalent of blood, spew from a cut on its neck.
Before she could run her hardlight sheath through the Grimm's neck, Blake noticed an ionic smell in the air. Recognizing it as the sign of an electrical discharge, Blake frantically used her semblance.
But it was too late. the pulse reached her suit and pain shot through her body.
"ARGHHHHH!" she screamed out, too stunned to do anything but fall to the floor.
"BLAKE!" she heard Yang scream out.
Before she hit the floor, she felt a sharp tug on her back and was swiftly pulled into the backseat of Bumblebee. Blinking rapidly, her amber eyes met Yang's enraged crimson.
"Are. You. Okay?" She asked, her voice injected with steel.
"M-Mostly."
"Sit back, I'll take it from here." Yang replied, as she jumped right at the Grimm with both her gauntlets, screaming in rage as Blake got to see for herself just how enraged Yang could get.
Watching on, she saw the Grimm get pummeled into a wall, making it lose its protective covering on it's weapons and also had two of its guns ripped off and two more shot off by Yang's blind fury. One of the guns turned to strike Yang and even landed a shot to her chest but Yang wasn't being stopped today and she kept pummeling into the beast, causing craters to form on the Grimm's chest.
Seeing it attempt to lock itself up, Blake called out to Yang, warning her to get off the Grimm, knowing an EMP was about to strike. Hearing her, Yang again used her gauntlets and shot both into the Grimm causing amberlight to pour out of its gaping wounds. Landing at the hood of Bumblebee, which was somehow still on course, Yang took out her handcannon and shot at the laser cannon in the beast's head, causing it to misfire and cause further damage to the Grimm.
After letting the EMP go off, Yang resumed her assault, this time focusing all her attention to the left side which had been quite horrendously damaged by both Blake and Yang's efforts. Ripping into the shoulder pad of the Grimm, Blake watched as Yang simply pulled out one of the beast's power cores, which contained the power source for its weaponry.
She watched in anticipation as she expected Yang to kill it for good, only to see a hammer drive itself into her back making her let out a pained gasp and then clutched her in a trap.
Her expression quickly turned to horror, as another needle came out from the Grimm's shoulder this time aimed at Yang's jugular.
Taking out both her pistols, she disabled the smart aiming module and emptied as much ammo as she could into the beast's clutch. Her efforts did manage to get the Grimm to retract its needle.
"YANG! GRAB ON!" Blake shouted as she threw her grapple towards the blonde who caught it and after firing a charged shot into the Grimm. Spotting the beast, free Yang from it's clutches, she pulled as hard as she could and was able to pull Yang back up to Bumblebee with some assistance from the blonde's shotguns.
"We're ending this right now!," Yang said, as she flipped a set of switches activating the afterburner on Bumblebee, and making Blake hold on to her seat for dear life.
"Wait Yang, we're headed straight for the GRIMM!" Blake exclaimed, as she realized Yang's intention was to ram the Grimm with her hoverbike.
Ducking her head into the seat, she waited for the impact and hoped that Yang's recklessness wouldn't spell their doom.
A/N: Quick Note, this is the last update for this story until 10th of October. After that day I shall be back to uploading this story regularly due to exams. As always, a huge shoutout to 0neWhoWanders for betaing this story. Their assistance has been paramount in making this story as good as it is.