Another chapter, I'll be trying to update regularly Sunday nights from now on. please read and review I love your input it makes me a better writer.
Ruby Rose stared out the bullhead window to the white landscape below. From up here the grimm only appeared at moving black dots, like ants scurrying around a clean white floor. "That's a lot of grimm," she said watching it all pass down below.
She felt a hand touch her shoulder and she looked back at Yang giving her a reassuring smile. "Don't worry sis, it's Penny, she's a powerhouse, I almost feel sorry for any grimm dumb enough to mess with her. And Jaune's not a pushover anymore, he can handle himself."
Ruby nodded quietly giving her sister a smile she didn't feel, Yang was obviously just trying to keep her from worrying but ever since they got the message that Jaune and Penny's truck hadn't arrived as scheduled she had been nursing a bad feeling in her stomach. The last hour had simply been spent on standby waiting for the bullheads to be fueled and loaded up. That hour hadn't been good on her nerves and she wondered if this was how Jaune had felt waiting for her and her team to reach Argus after getting separated on the train.
"We've located the beacon from the truck," the pilot said his voice coming through the bullheads intercom, "adjusting our bearing."
Ruby looked back to the window seeing even more grimm in the distance. She sighed and turned back to the rest of their team.
"Ugh, I can't move very well in this coat," Weiss grumbled looking bulkier than usual in the arctic gear they'd been ordered to wear. Ironwood had briefed them that weather conditions were deteriorating and they should dress for severe weather instead of relying on their auras for protection against the elements. Ruby wasn't exactly happy wearing bulky snow pants and the heavy coat but she kept her complaints to herself.
"Combat skirts aren't appropriate for every occasion Weiss-cream," Yang reminded her from her seat, she adjusted the laces on her snow boots looking far calmer than anticipated.
"It's probably just some grimm or maybe engine trouble," Weiss retorted, "it's probably a whole lot of worrying over some mundane problem."
"If that was true we'd probably be in radio contact by now," Blake interjected sitting rather still in her seat eyes pointed to the floor of the bullhead. "Besides, if they did need assistance they could have had Penny fly back for help by now."
Ruby frowned at that, Blake was the one teammate not trying to make light of the situation, she'd been rather pleased to go off on a contract with Yang, apparently the bounty they'd hunted had been found quite easily drunk in a bar having drunk away the stolen money. Ruby wondered what she was feeling, she was the one originally meant to have been with Jaune.
"I'm just saying there's probably a reasonable explanation to all of this," Weiss responded.
"Yeah," Yang agreed making a fist and popping her knuckles, "and if things aren't then it's Team RWBY to the rescue."
The bullhead descended and Ruby looked outside the window once more. She spotted the truck, dusted with snow and tipped over on its side. The grimm meandering around the crash made her stomach sink, there was no sign of Jaune or Penny anywhere.
"Let's clear a landing zone!" Ruby ordered trying to focus on the task at hand. An Atlas soldier opened the bullhead door bringing his doorgun into position firing a few controlled bursts at the grimm. The chilly wind whipped into the bullhead and Ruby leapt out into a free fall deploying Crescent Rose, she swung the blade into the neck of a Megoliath using it to slow the fall as she ripped its throat open and took off into a burst of petals.
The two other bullheads circled around the door gunners firing on any grimm that approached their position. The rest of her team had already landed and was tearing into the gathered grimm. Weiss's giant summoned knight charged a Megoliath decapitating it with a single blow.
Pink explosions blasted apart a pack of Beowolves as Nora launched grenades from the circling bullhead. Ren was already on the ground moving gracefully from one foe to the other slashing and shooting.
The icy wind carried away the clouds of black smoke from the rapidly deteriorating bodies. In little time the six of them had managed to clear a perimeter around the crash, they turned the weapon to the outskirts of the area. Ruby's sniper rifle boomed with every shot killing a charging Sabyr or Beowolf. The rest of them formed up clearing out the few stragglers at range.
"Look around," Ruby ordered her team as the first bullhead landed deploying the rest of the Atlas soldiers helping to secure their position.
"There's no sign of anyone," Ren said running up looking sullen, "they're not here."
"No one?" Ruby asked, feeling her chest tighten. She collapsed Crescent Rose into its storage mode that she strapped to her waist.
"I took a look inside the broken window of the truck's cab," Ren explained looking away from her, "I saw what was left of the driver, that's it."
Ren didn't offer any further details about the driver which Ruby was thankful for. She turned to the wreckage of the truck. The snow piled up on it told her it'd been there for awhile.
"There's no tracks they could have left," Ruby mused trying to think of their next move the soldiers were already moving to the truck with crowbars, "if they're not in the truck they probably had to get away from the grimm, they might be nearby, maybe one of them was hurt and couldn't move very far or-."
BOOM! Everything went black, heat washed over Ruby. It took her a minute for her to open her eyes, her vision was blurred and it took her a moment to realize she was looking up at the grey overcast sky watching snowflakes dance and twirl falling to earth. Her ears hurt and all she could hear was a faint ringing.
Ruby looked up clutching her aching head. The wreckage of the truck was ablaze, scattered into twisted unrecognizable pieces. Everything around her sounded muted like she was under water.
It took her a moment to realize that she was being dragged away from the burning wreck by her hood. She heard the faint sounds of someone yelling and as her senses recovered she heard it was Ren, he was the one dragging her and yelling. She looked up at him trying to make out his words but her head throbbed with pain.
"Nora!" She managed to hear as Ren stopped to call out for his partner.
"NORA!" He cried cupping his hands around his mouth, the ringing faded and Ruby looked up spotting Nora running towards him.
"I'm alright," Ruby coughed, her mouth tasted like a car exhaust and everything smelled like it too. She sat down in the snow as the Nora ran to him pulling him into a hug.
The front of her snow jacket was burnt the nylon charred. She checked herself finding no wounds despite several punctures. It seemed her aura had protected her from any shrapnel. She forced herself to stand on shaky legs only to feel a strong arm wrap around her. It was Yang.
"Are you alright?" Her sister asked, holding her steady as they walked away from the demolished vehicle. Ruby could only nod silently. She spotted one of the bullheads torn apart by a piece of debris in the explosion.
"Where's Weiss?" Ruby asked her, "And Blake?"
"They're fine," Yang assured her, she spoke calmly and evenly to her, "we were all far away from the truck before it exploded."
Ruby nodded once more. Her senses were recovering, the aches and pains receding as her aura healed her. In a moment she was strong enough to walk on her own as Yang led her to sit in one of the landed bullheads.
"Just rest here for a moment," her sister insisted.
"I'm alright," Ruby insisted looking out at the snowy tundra, "we still need to find Jaune and Penny."
Yang looked into her eyes holding her gaze, "and we will," she promised her, "but rest here."
Ruby didn't understand. She needed to find Jaune and Penny, there were people out there that needed help, the truck had exploded. What if Jaune and Penny were in the truck? No, she didn't even want to think about that, she couldn't. It was only then that she realized that she was shaking. Ruby forced herself to take long deep calming breaths filling her lungs with frigid air and holding it before releasing.
It took her a little bit to calm down, the breathing helped and she listened to the pilot speak tons of technical jargon she didn't understand focusing on the crackle of static and garbled electronic voices.
A clang on the hull of the bullhead grabbed her attention. The familiar pop and crackle of gunfire in the distance.
"Contact!" Someone called and the rattle of return fire answered. Ruby stepped out of the bullhead and grabbed Crescent Rose shifting it into its sniper rifle mode. She laid prone in snow as the bullhead behind her returned to the sky. Ruby looked through the scope of her rifle spotting the shooters.
"Atlesian Knights?" She asked no one spotting the black robotic bodies kneeling in the snow firing off bursts from their assault rifles. They were older 130 models, not top of the line 200s but bullets usually didn't care much about who fired them.
Ruby drew her crosshair over the first and fired shattering it and sending it down to the snow as a pile of scrap. Ruby didn't who had deployed these outdated pieces of scrap, but they had to be behind her missing friends. They could try blowing her up, they could try shooting her, but she wasn't going to stop until she found Jaune and Penny. Her rifle roared again and again kicking up snow and shattering her targets into scrap. Luckily she'd packed plenty of ammo.
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"Damned rust buckets," Yang grumbled kicking away one of the Atlesia Knight's heads away with a sigh looking to the bullheads landing to begin evacuating the wounded from the area. The demolished body twitched and sparked dying in the snow helpless.
Ruby nodded surveying the area littered with the shattered mechanical bodies of the Atlesian Knight lying in the snow. The falling flakes burying the pieces wiping away any signs of a fight. The wind was whipping up blowing waves of white with it. They'd wasted enough time clearing out the drones from the landing along with more grimm that'd attracted by the fighting. Though Ruby couldn't see the sun through the dull lead colored clouds she knew it was starting to vanish.
Any clues to where Jaune and Penny had been had either been destroyed by the bomb in the truck or covered by the snow. A beep from her scroll pulled her eyes away from the harsh landscape as she opened it seeing the stern face of General Ironwood looking rather sullen. The image from her scroll was fuzzy, the signal boosters they were using to try to make contact and keep in contact with Atlas could only do so much. Ruby felt her chest tighten knowing that no good news would come from this call.
"Miss Rose," the General began, "I'm afraid the situation is worsening, our weather service has detected a snowstorm approaching the search area," he explained, "I regret to inform you that I am postponing the search."
Ruby took a breath, "they're still out there," she pleaded, "if there is a storm heading our direction that's even more reason to double our efforts and keep looking."
Ironwood averted his eyes from the screen, "Miss Rose I understand your worry and frustration but I think we both can agree we've lost enough people today," he told her, "I want to find them too but there's little chance of that in this storm."
Ruby sighed, she knew he was right, getting more people lost in a blizzard would only be counterproductive to their efforts. But the idea of spending the night warm safe and comfortable when Jaune and Penny were out there lost or worse.
"How much time do we have?" Ruby asked determined to make the most of what little they had.
"There's a freshly fueled bullhead enroute to your location." The General explained. "You'll be the last ones out and I'll give you a half hour to look for them from the skies, after that come back to Atlas, rest and debrief, I'll keep you on standby if the weather improves."
Ruby nodded, it was the best she was going to get. She ended the call and pocketed her scroll. "Listen everyone," she said rallying her team along with Ren and Nora, "Ironwood just told me that the weather is getting worse," she explained, "there's a blizzard heading our direction so he's postponing the search."
"What!" Nora spoke out with evident rage coloring her feature her fists clenched at her sides. "He thinks we're going to leave our leader out here in a snowstorm!?"
Ruby winced she knew Nora wouldn't take this well, "I don't like doing it either Nora, but we can't find Jaune and Penny if we freeze to death."
"So we're supposed to leave Jaune to freeze to death!?" Nora sneered.
"That's not what she meant and you know it!" Yang responded stepping forward.
"We're all worried," Blake interjected, "but we've done everything we can at the moment, Jaune wouldn't want us getting lost or hurt trying to find him."
Nora turned her glare to the Faunus girl. "You barely even talk to him Blake! If it wasn't for Penny you be out there with him right now, it would be you we'd be leaving out in the cold!"
"Nora!" Ren said voice firm but gentle. He put a hand on her shoulder. "You know Blake is right, Jaune would not want us taking unnecessary risks trying to save him, he'd hate himself if anyone got hurt looking for him."
Nora deflated and looked away in defeat. Her eyes were still filled with anger but they were also red and swollen with tears. Ruby stepped up and pulled her into hug holding for a long moment. She squeezed her tightly and let her bury her face in her shoulder. She sobbed quietly against her, Ruby could only imagine just how scared she must be. Losing Pyrrha had to be hard enough but losing their leader would be devastating.
"We're not giving up," Ruby promised her patting her back. "Ironwood promised the minute the weather is clear we can get back to searching, I'll hold him to that. We will find them, both of them."
A cloud of snow was kicked up off the ground behind them as a bullhead descended down opening the doors for them. "That's our ride," Ruby said releasing her, "Come on, we'll try looking while on the flight back, the General said he'd give us half an hour."
Nora nodded wiping her tear stained face as they moved to board the final bullhead. "I'm sorry," she apologized to everyone but she turned to meet Blake in the eye, "I'm sorry Blake."
Blake nodded, "It's alright… I'm worried too."
They all boarded the aircraft together, they took their seat and silence and stared out the window. No one was trying to make light of the situation anymore, no one was in the mood to talk because everyone was thinking the same thing. The unanswered questions kept circling in their minds. Who'd planted a bomb in the truck? Who'd set those Atlesian Knights to attack them? Did they capture Jaune and Penny? Were they even alive?
That last question was unspoken. No one wanted to even consider the idea that their friends might already be dead. The possibility was taboo to them all and no one even considered the reality aloud. It was just too cruel for them to speak.
The bullhead shuttered as wind blasted the fuselage. They wiped the foggy windows and stared down at the landscape. They could barely make anything out from blowing snow kicked up by the wind obscuring everything. It was just white below them swirling with the harsh winds.
The radio crackled as they tried everything they could to get within contact of a Jaune and Penny though his scroll or through Penny's built in communication systems.
Their final half hour came and went with nothing to show for their effort. Their silence held as the pilot turned them back towards Atlas. Ruby rested her head against the cool glass trying to fight fatigue. She hated to admit that she was indeed tired, it felt wrong to her getting to rest away her weariness when she had no idea what kind of hardships her friends were still facing. The explosion had shaken her, and the fighting had been draining in its own right but she couldn't help but feel that it was unfair that she got to rest.
"We got a blip on the tracking beacon," the copilot up front monitoring the equipment announced over the intercom in the back.
Ruby instantly sat up as static through the bullhead's radio crackled through electronically with a familiar voice coming through. "Hello?" It asked.
"Penny" Ruby asked grabbing her scroll linked to the bullhead's radio. Everyone around her shifted to listen.
"Ruby… that...you?" The voice responded and Ruby felt her heart flutter. The radio was full of static garbling the voice and she could only get every other word but it was Penny.
"Is… Ruby?" A second voice chimed in.
"Jaune! Thank the gods you're both alive."
"... we're being...help." Penny's voice was lost in a flood of static.
"We've lost the signal," the operator said.
Ruby couldn't do anything but look at the screen of her scroll as if she could will it to connect with her friends again. "What about the tracking beacon?" Ruby asked.
"We've lost the connection," the operator announced.
"Can we check the area where you spotted it?" She asked.
"I'm sorry but we have to return to Atlas, the winds have become treacherous." The soldier explained, "it'll have to wait until the weather eases up."
Ruby frowned and returned to staring at her scroll. "They're alive," Ruby said looking up at everyone giving them the warmest smile she could manage, "and that means we can find them, and we will."
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Jaune listened as their call was flooded with static. He knelt in the snow and clutched the stitch in his side. After an hour long rest in the cave they'd managed to hike their way here where Penny claimed they'd be within range of the CCT tower.
He listened to Ruby's voice difficult as it was to understand through the call. He touched Penny's shoulder as she worked with her internal communication system to restore the call struggling with all kinds of interference. The hiss of static continued as she worked trying to find a clearer channel, her brow was furrowed and Jaune could tell that she was worried.
"Maybe we should move closer," he suggested giving her shoulder an assuring squeeze, "maybe we could get a stronger signal if we get a little closer, a few more kilometers shouldn't be too much trouble."
Penny shook her head, tossing her red hair side to side. "It's not that," she told him, "there's all kinds of interference blocking my transmissions," she explained to him, "I'm being jammed."
Jaune felt his stomach sink and he looked around the landscape trying futilely to spot anything. Giving their pursuer the ship hadn't kept them from looking over their shoulders almost every step of the way here.
"Wait… I'm getting a video call," Penny said, her eye projecting a screen.
The image of the sniper appeared, his face was still concealed by a white balaclava but his goggles hung down on his neck revealing a pair of icy blue eyes. He pulled off the mask revealing his face, his features were chiseled and a pencil mustache ornamented his face, he was well groomed his dark hair was stylishly cut, but the pointed dog ears atop his head grabbed Jaune's attention, he was a Faunus.
"My apologies Miss Polendina," the man said almost sincerely, "but I cannot let you call in any interruptions, the hunt is just getting interesting-."
"Interesting!?" Jaune interrupted with a growl.
The icy blue eyes flashed with annoyance as they looked to Jaune. "Mind your manners Mr Arch, I was addressing the…" he chuckled, "silly me I almost said lady, how should I refer to you Miss Polendina? Android? Synthetic? Automaton?"
Penny frowned at him, "I would very much like to be called a lady," she told him firmly.
The man chuckled again with amusement, "and I'm sure a housecat would very much like to be called a lion."
"Who are you!?" Jaune demanded feeling his anger flare, "why are you hunting us!?"
The sniper frowned, "my apologies I forgot to introduce myself, my name is Vasily Patterson and you have the honor of being my prey."
"Honor? We're supposed to be honored that you're trying to kill us?" Jaune gritted his teeth seething, "That's what this is all about?"
"Don't flatter yourself John," Vasily said cooly, "I am hunting the Android not you Mr Arch, frankly I'm a little surprised she's held onto you so long, you're clearly a liability slowing her down."
"Jaune asked you a question," Penny said. "Why are you after me? What have I done to you?"
Vasily looked back towards Penny giving another smile, "You've done nothing to me personally Miss Polendina, but my employer has deemed you a threat to their operation."
"You're an assassin!" Jaune spat.
Anger flashed briefly through Vasily's cold blue eyes but a sinister grin spread across his face showing pearly white teeth. "I am a hunter Mr Arch, and an esteemed one at that. Don't confuse me with a common killer, and please don't think of me as a greedy mercenary. Hunting you Miss Polendina is just as much about pleasure as it is business, you are unique and one of your swords will have a special place on my trophy wall."
Penny shuttered at that, "Why are you calling me?" She asked him seriously looking around at the horizon.
"It's rare that I have the opportunity to converse with my prey, especially one as unique as you," Vasily explained to her casually. "I do wonder just what is going on in that positronic brain of yours, I've hunted grimm and huntsmen but I have never hunted anything quite like you Miss Polendina."
"End the call Penny," Jaune told her making no effort to hide his disgust, "we're wasting our time talking to this scum."
Vasily only laughed, "I'll be seeing you soon Miss Polendina, I suggest you leave Mr Arch behind if you want any chance of escaping."
Penny ended the call silencing him. "We need to find someplace to hold out," she said, "the sun will be setting in just a couple hours."
Jaune nodded, "Alright, is there anywhere we can go?" He asked her feeling that anywhere wouldn't give them much refuge from Vasily .
Penny nodded, "I think I might know a place, but we'll have to hurry."
Jaune nodded, "then let's not waste anymore time."
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Vasily smirked at the call closed. This was where things could get interesting. He observed the weather data being forwarded to him, the sinking temperatures and the coming blizzard would make conditions treacherous in the coming night. White out conditions would prove a challenge to him, and the temperatures would be lethal for the simple human.
He suspected the android wouldn't abandon him, she had already shown herself to be limited by a very human-like sentimentality. He supposed her creator was at fault, designing a weapon to think was one thing, but to be burdened by feeling and emotion was another. He supposed her creator was at fault, designing a weapon to look and act like a young girl was as illogical as it was softhearted.
He shrugged to himself and pulled up the map on his scroll. That little phone call had done more than simply given him a chance to speak to his prey, it'd helped him narrow down her location by triangulating her signal. He looked at the immediate area, if she wished to protect the young huntsman they'd need to seek shelter and that left them with very few options. He spotted them on the map, an old mine, a research outpost, an abomination ghost town, their options were limited and he had only a handful of areas to search. "Let the hunt truly begin," he said to himself.
I hope you've all enjoyed this week's chapter. I look forward on hearing everyone's thoughts and comments. I hope tp have another chapter by next Sunday. I'd like to once again thank MidKnightMoonglow99 for all the very helpful advice and ideas.