A/N:

TWs for "kids punching each other" and "severe injury," which are thankfully unrelated.

Chapter 14: Comrades

Five Years ago.

"Okay kids," Tai said, sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of their house on Patch. "Quiz time."

Yang groaned and flopped back onto the dirt. "Dad, whyyyyyyy? It's Saturday, I wanna go exploring!"

Ruby just shuffled her feet, not looking at anyone like usual. "Okay…" she mumbled.

"Hey, you two said you wanted to be Huntresses," Tai said. He smiled, but it was just with his mouth and not his eyes. "If you two are ready to go wandering off and slaying Twistjack nests, you're old enough that you should know basic Grimm classification."

"Oh my god dad, who cares," Yang groaned. "It's just a bunch of dumb rules that don't even matter 'cuz Grimm are all too different to categorize."

Tai sighed, running a hand through his hair. "This stuff might save your life, kiddo."

Yang shut her mouth grumpily. She hated when dad pulled that card.

"So!" Tai clapped his hands together. "Do either of you know all the classes of Grimm?"

Ruby raised her hand, and Yang looked up at her in surprise. "Wait, really?"

"It was in the book," Ruby mumbled, her face reddening.

"That's great, Ruby," Tai said, but his smile was fake again. "So, you guys met some Twistjacks the other day. Can you tell me how they're rated?"

"F," Ruby said, looking down. "'Cuz they're only scary if they sneak up on you, or you don't have aura and you're slow."

"Yup!" Tai turned to his other daughter. "Now Yang, I know you've been beating up Beowolves when you think I'm not paying attention. So what's their ranking?"

Yang rolled her eyes. Of course dad would pay attention to her when she didn't want him to. "D."

"I knew you knew this already! And what does that mean?"

Yang picked a leaf off the ground and placed it over her mouth, before blowing it into the air with a sigh. "It means that they're dangerous to anyone who's not a trained Hunter, but civilians can still fight them and stuff, as long as there's only one or two."

"That's right! And y'know, it is really impressive that you took one out when you were only fourteen. Most girls your age couldn't do that."

"Uh huh." Yang's leaf landed on her forehead, and she grumbled a little as she swiped it off.

Tai's smile thinned. "Okay. Now can either of you name a C-Class Grimm?"

"Um, an Ursa?" Ruby said, looking up at her dad with uncertainty. He nodded, and she broke out into one of those wide, bright smiles that were getting more and more common these days, the ones that made Yang's heart feel like it was glowing. "A Hunter can fight them, but they're way too scary for me and Yang right now."

Yang pouted at her, unable to stop smiling despite her indignance. "Hey! Speak for yourself, I could totally take on an Ursa, no problem!"

Tai's smile went away completely. "Maybe," he said. "How about B-Class?"

Yang's fire dwindled a little. "Like… a Deathstalker?"

Tai nodded.

Yang pondered for a moment. "They're big," she said, frowning. "Like, call more than one Hunter big. I… don't think I can take one of those."

"And A-Class?"

"A Centurion," Ruby supplied. "Like Mr Legs!"

Yang and Tai looked at each other in a moment of shared discomfort. Ruby's plushies made her happy, and a happy Ruby was just about the most important thing in the world… but Mr. Legs was a little much.

"That's right," Tai said, as Yang shook off the image of the stuffed nightmare that Ruby insisted that they keep (and Yang insisted that they keep locked in the closet). "So if you find out there's an A or B-Class Grimm around, what do you do?"

"Um… go get help?" Ruby asked. "I mean, when we're older." Yang nodded, reluctantly.

"Yup. Never fight one of those alone." Tai's smile was real this time, but only for a moment. "And… what comes above A-Class?"

"Settlement Killers," Ruby said, her face grown somber. Yang's heart skipped a beat.

"Correct. S-Class, if you're being technical." Tai looked his daughters in the eye. "Remember, if you see a purple flare or smoke signal, it means that there's a S-Class Grimm nearby. If you see a purple one and then a red one, it means it's in your town. Now, what do you do if you ever find out there's a S-Class Grimm around?"

"Run," Yang said without hesitation. She sat up, crossing her legs. "Run as fast and as far as we can, right?"

Tai nodded. "Exactly. Unless you've got an army with you, don't ever try and fight."

Ruby fidgeted uncomfortably.

"I know this stuff is tedious," Tai continued. "But if you two are going to become huntresses, then you need to know the risks. This scale isn't perfect, but it'll help you make smarter decisions, and that is more important than any amount of skill or training."

Yang grumbled to herself, but she knew he was right. She wasn't stupid; she knew she was only a teenager and that she'd have to be a lot stronger to fight real Grimm. Even if it was annoying…

Ruby's voice was soft, but it cut through the silence like a bullet. "But… we can't run away. Huntresses have to fight the monsters, or people will die."

Yang's guts fell through the ground.

She looked at her sister, and images of a rose-covered gravestone flashed behind her eyes. "Ruby… it'd kill us too."

"But that's what Huntresses do!" Ruby protested. She fluttered her hands desperately, looking near Yang but not quite at her. "We can't just leave people to die! It's not right."

"Ruby—" Tai started.

"Well, maybe I don't wanna die!" Yang yelled, standing up. Her eyes were burning, and her back felt all hot where her hair touched it, but she didn't care. Her thoughts were hazy. Something buzzed in the back of her skull.

"Nobody wants to die!" Ruby shouted back, whirling to her feet with her semblance, her eyes flashing. "Huntresses can fight, but most people can't! If there's a big Grimm coming, I wanna make sure nobody dies!"

"Kids!" Tai tried to interject.

But the buzzing blew Yang's thoughts right out of her head. "Yeah, well, I don't want you to die!" she screamed, and before she could stop herself she stepped forward and slugged Ruby right in the face.

"YANG!" Tai shouted. He grabbed her.

"Let me go!" Yang screamed, kicking against him. "I'm not letting Ruby die just 'cuz some dumb civilians don't know how to run fast enough!"

Ruby pushed herself up, looking at Yang with tears in her eyes and a grimace on her face. "You're a stupid head!"

"No, you're the stupid-head!" Yang felt her eyes and her hair flash, and her dad hissed, letting go a little. She kicked him in the shins and he let her go more. She ran up to Ruby, grabbing her by the front of her cape and hauling her to her feet, looking her right in the eye. The buzzing was getting worse, turning sour and sick. "The world's not nice like your books," Yang growled, tears streaming down her face. "The Grimm don't care how nice you are! They'll kill you and eat you and you'll be g-gone and I'm not letting that happen! "

Ruby glared back, and spit in Yang's eye.

"EUAGH." Yang let her go, and Ruby tackled her into the dirt.

"I don't CARE!" she screamed, wailing on Yang with her tiny fists. "You're just a dumb meanie! I'll be a Huntress who saves people, just like mom was!"

Yang froze up, and Ruby reared back and punched her right in the eye. It was a sloppy hit, but it hurt a lot more than Yang thought it would. She cried out, and Ruby froze too as she realized what she'd just done. "Y-Yang! Oh no, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry…"

Yang shook her head, dizzy as the buzzing finally faded, and looked up at her sister's hazy face. She had a black eye starting up. Yang realized they were going to match.

She also realized how stupid she'd just been.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. She reached up, and pulled Ruby down into a hug, her face burning with shame as she felt her baby sister start to sniffle and shake. "I'm sorry I hit you. I shouldn't've got mad."

"You're a meanie," Ruby mumbled into her shirt.

"I'm a meanie, yeah," Yang sighed, realizing it was true. "I'm a big ol' meanie beanie."

Ruby stopped crying, and let out a little giggle. "Hehe… meanie beanie…"

Yang chuckled a little too, and she realized that her dad was sitting beside them. She looked up at him, and saw how tired he looked. "Um, sorry dad."

Tai looked at her with that distant, sad expression he wore when he got stuck in his head and didn't know what to do or what to say. It was happening a lot less these days, but Yang realized she'd made it happen this time, and she felt a hole open up in her chest. She reached out to him and took his hand, using the other to brush through Ruby's hair.

"I'm not gonna fight any Settlement Killers," Ruby mumbled. "Not till I'm bigger n' stronger than dad. I don't wanna die either, I promise. I just wanna save people."

Yang hugged her sister tight. "I know sis. I'm sorry."

Ruby sniffed. "I love you."

A sob slipped its way out from Yang's throat, and she hugged her sister as hard as she could. "I love you too."

Gently, Tai gathered them both up in his arms, and they sat there in the dirt, holding onto the family they had left.

Present Time

How strange, the way love could change your perspective.

Yang's heart had never beat so hard in her life as she ran through the forest towards the pillar of purple smoke hanging in the sky. Blake was close by her side, her eyes wild and panicked as she gripped Gambol Shroud in white-knuckled fingers.

Every instinct in Yang's body screamed at her to send Blake away. Invent some excuse to get her to leave and be anywhere but here, but instead she just kept running.

It was funny! It really was, even if she didn't have the breath to laugh through her terror, but the thing that kept her going was the image of Weiss fighting alone. Their defiant Ice Queen wouldn't run. Yang knew it down to her bones, and she was sure Blake did too.

If it takes an army to beat a Settlement Killer, then I guess we'll just have to be that army. Together.

Their scrolls finally blipped to life, and a voice rang out clear in their earpieces. "Sufjan here! We broke away from the thing, but it's closing in on us! We were setting one of the drones in some ruins when it just burst out! It's… some kind of huge octopus!"

The words drained all the blood from Yang's face. She stumbled as the ground suddenly shook under her feet, tripping and landing hard on her shoulder.

"Yang!" Blake skidded to a stop and ran to her side. "What happened?"

The ground shook again, and Sufjan's voice came back.

"It's moving too fast, please—shit, Ao, get—AH—"

The scream rang out not far ahead of them, and Yang scrambled to her feet and broke into a mad sprint. She tapped her earpiece, speaking quickly. "Sufjan just described an Atkorock. Teach, call the school. Sufi, Blake and I are twenty seconds out, just hold on!"

"It's got my leg! It's—"

Yang and Blake broke the treeline just in time to see a colossal tentacle twist Sufjan's leg off.

They'd been halfway back to the gate when they heard the flare, but there'd been no hesitation for either of them. By the time Weiss and Taffeta arrived, the battle was already in full swing.

Taffeta had heard the words "Atkorock" in class before, but she'd never thought she'd see one in the flesh. They were the monsters that killed Mountain Glen, the reason children were told never to explore the caves of southern Vale.

Seeing one in person was worse than the stories.

The body was out of sight, but tentacles thick as tree trunks whipped through the forest with terrific force, shattering trunks and churning great gulfs through the mud and rocks. There were a dozen of them, each one covered in bony hooks and barbs that flexed and writhed with every motion. Red eyes dotted the tentacles at irregular intervals, gleaming with familiar malice and unnerving intelligence.

There were four students on the field so far: Belka, Yang, Aoba, and Ormond, and they were each doing the best they could to just stay alive.

At the top of a small hill twenty meters back, Sufjan lay on the ground with his right leg propped up against a large oak, breathing heavily as Blake desperately wrapped a tourniquet around… what used to be his left leg.

Weiss ran up to them, dropping to her knees in a skid and examining the stump. "Do you need help?"

"I've got it," Blake said curtly. She finished tightening the dressing and laid her hand on it, her aura faintly flaring as she activated the ice dust woven into the gauze. "That should do for now," She jerked her thumb towards the fighting. "But they need support, ASAP."

Weiss turned, fixing Taffeta with a cold and calculating look. "Taffeta, do you think you can fight that thing?"

Taffeta swallowed, glancing around the tree at the chaos beyond. "N-no. I'm best at horde fighting. L-large targets like that give me trouble."

Blake spoke without looking up. "Do you have medical training?"

Taffeta nodded.

"Then switch with me."

Running footsteps approached, and suddenly Yang was there, holding—

Taffeta flinched, but steeled herself as she reached out and took Sufjan's severed leg. She conjured another pair of arms to fish out her map and laid it on the ground so she could keep the wound out of the dirt, while another pair pulled out her medical kit so she could start wrapping the limb in fresh gauze.

Blake nodded appreciatively, glancing at the boy's pale face. "Sufjan, are you feeling okay?"

Sufjan gestured emphatically at his newly-bandaged stump. "Gee, I dunno doc, do I look okay to you!?"

"Being well enough to complain is a good sign." Weiss smiled, patting the boy on the arm. "We're passing you over to Taffeta. Taffeta? Take care of him." She stood, and Blake stood with her, joining Yang.

The three of them hesitated only for the briefest instant, before rushing back into the fray.

Taffeta swallowed, returning her focus to the boy in front of her. He smiled weakly, looking down at the leg she'd wrapped up. "Can I hold that?" he asked.

Not quite sure what to do, Taffeta gave him the leg.

Sufjan set it on his lap. He patted it twice. "There there little buddy, it's gonna be all right," he said. "Wow, Teal's gonna have a real leg up in next week's dance competition, huh?"

Taffeta suppressed an incredulous giggle, and Sufjan shot her an appreciative smirk. He wasn't someone she knew, really. A fourth year, member of team FRNS. Almost a stranger.

Still, he was a comrade, and his life was in her hands.

"It looks like your aura is stabilizing you," she murmured, taking out her scroll and scanning him just to be sure. She quickly typed out some notes, including approximate times of injury and treatment. "Let me know if you start to feel dizzy or faint, and keep your g-good leg elevated."

"Hey!" Sufjan protested. "Both my legs are good legs. This here—" he hefted the bundle in his arms, "—this is a great leg. Maybe my new favorite leg." The ground shook, and he winced through his smile. "Yeah, okay, I gotcha. Sorry, the jokes help with the pain."

"Oh god…"

Taffeta and Sufjan looked up, finding Hikari standing there in shock. Her pale gray eyes were wide, her teeth caught on her lip. She looked from the wound to Taffeta, and then Ruth muscled past her to check on the boy.

"You'll be fine," Ruth said, gruffly, examining Blake's work. "The break looks bad, but with aura, surgery, and luck you'll get your leg back." She looked up at the ongoing battle as Sufjan's attempt at a quip was drowned out by a bellowing wail that rattled the trees all around them.

Then, to Taffeta's shock, Ruth turned and pulled her into a powerful hug. Taffeta let out a faint squeak, hugging back with all her might.

Ruth rarely touched her outside of sparring or battle. Not even in passing. But at that moment she felt… solid. Real.

"Keep him safe till it's over," Ruth said, releasing her and meeting her eye to eye. Orange like the brightest sunsets. "Got it, Taff?"

Taffeta's chest felt tight. "R-right!"

Ruth smiled, and then took off, leaving Hikari and Taffeta behind with Sufjan.

Taffeta swallowed, standing on shaky feet to better watch for minor Grimm sneaking through the trees towards them. "Kari, you should go too. Y-your sword, they'll need—"

She wasn't prepared for Hikari to walk up and kiss her.

It only lasted a second, but the force left no ambiguity, and when it was done, Taffeta found herself cupping Hikari's cheek like she held the sun itself.

"K… Khar'atai," Taffeta begged, in a rush of emotion so desperate she forgot to make sure she was understood. "Khar'a—don't die. Please, please, please don't die, Kari."

"You neither," Hikari said, smiling bright with tears glittering all down her face. She pulled away, whipping Mikazuki off her back and triggering its secondary mode, an arc of hardlight dust forming to extend the curved katana into something that could slay giants. "I love you, Taffy. Let's talk about that when we get back, kay?"

Taffeta nodded silently, and watched her comrades rush into battle.

"Damn," Sufjan murmured. "You are one lucky lady."

"Yeah," Taffeta clutched a hand to her chest as joy and fear ran freely down her cheeks. "I am. I really am."

Clasping her hands together, she prayed, harder than she'd ever prayed before. "Cantríon, cantríon, dai'kor cle'sai…"

By the Song of Songs, be safe my loves.

Blake remembered playing with octopi in her youth, in the tide pools of Menagerie and southern Anima. She recalled being fascinated by how they moved so fluidly, and how their almost-alien eyes held a strangely familiar spark of intelligence and curiosity.

This was nothing like that.

She grit her teeth as her double was smashed into nothingness a hair's breadth behind her. She spun and slashed, but the tentacle just took the hit and twisted to curl around her legs, forcing her to leap straight up to avoid being snared.

On her right, Yang threw punch after punch into two of the huge black limbs, forcing them back centimeter by bloody centimeter and leaving huge gouges and craters in the flesh. On her left, Ormond held his ground against a tentacle of his own, slashing and parrying as fast as his greatsword would swing. Belka leapt in and out beside him, striking with a spear whose tip crackled with wild electric fire and made the Grimm's flesh bubble and pop where she struck.

They were making little progress. The Atkorock was keeping its body out of sight, using the length of its arms to strike at the students through the forest. Worse, it seemed to be regenerating where they hit it—even the thickest severed tentacles just retreated back into the woods and were replaced a moment later. The students, by contrast, were firmly limited in how fast they could recharge their aura. Aoba was already out of the fight, having made heavy use of his semblance getting Sufjan to safety.

Things were dire, but the students had one advantage.

Weiss.

She stood in the air amidst an array of dozens of glyphs, her sword raised as thick lances of ice formed in each one. With a flick of her wrist, she let them fly, each one stabbing deep into the Grimm's arms and pinning them to the dirt.

Blake whipped her kusarigama out to loop around one of the spears near Yang and used it to hurl herself across the field. She swung her cleaver as she landed, carving deep into the Grimm's flesh and earning another unholy screech.

She heard a yelp of triumph, and saw that Ormond had cut clean through one of the tentacles, which was disintegrating before him. The boy laughed wildly, his long hair matted with sweat, and didn't see the tentacle coiling to strike from above.

Blake gritted her teeth and hurled her ribbon, wrapping it around his waist and heaving. The boy cried out as he suddenly went flying, and then screamed as tons of Grimm flesh, bone, and teeth impacted the ground he'd just occupied. The Atkorock wasn't satisfied though, and another tentacle lashed out, it's barbed side coiling around his chest.

For a moment, Blake thought she was about to watch the boy get ripped in half, or that she'd have to abandon her weapon to not get pulled to death herself. Then Belka's spear came hurtling into view, slamming into the tentacle and exploding in a blinding burst of lightning and fury that severed it completely. The tentacle spasmed, and the half constricting Ormond evaporated, leaving the boy dazed and covered in dozens of tiny lacerations but alive as Blake hauled him bodily out of the fray.

He groaned as she dragged him to the treeline. "Hey, f-fuck off kitty kat, I can still… guh."

"Yeah, no you can't," she hissed, ears folding back against her head. She leaned in, fixing Ormond's pasty white face with a glare sharp enough to cut through steel. " You're just lucky your partner and I care more about your life than your politics. Now stay down and get your aura back so we can all kill this abomination and live to see the sunset."

She didn't wait for an answer, but from the expression she left him with, she figured he got the message.

She ran back in, just in time to tackle Belka out of the way of another sweeping strike, sending them both rolling in the dirt. "Is the fuckboy safe?" Belka shouted.

Blake scrambled out of the way of another coiling smash. "He'll live!" she shouted back. "Just focus on stopping this thing!"

Belka gave her a grim look that Blake couldn't help but agree with.

There was a shout behind them. Blake chanced a look, and found Hikari and Ruth charging out of the treeline at a full sprint. Ruth had an axe in each hand, her teeth bared to reveal sharp fox canines, while Hikari had her dust katana held upright.

Hikari let out a roaring war-cry, her sword igniting brighter in her hand. She dashed past Blake and swung her blade in a low arc, carving a flaming trough in the earth and then bringing it up to sever a tentacle mid-sweep. The hardlight edge set the severed pieces aflame.

Not to be outdone, Ruth hurled one of her axes, embedding it in another tentacle. She held out her arm, a light on her bracer glowing purple, and the axe yanked itself free and returned to her hand. For a moment it seemed like it had only done superficial damage, but then a purple glow flashed in the cut, and the Grimm flesh suddenly warped and imploded, crushing and twisting together. Ruth's snarl turned to a feral grin, as she ejected the spent gravity dust cartridge and ran to join the melee.

Around the field, other students started to appear as well, until nearly the whole of Orlovski's class were present. Emboldened, Belka rejoined the fight, while Blake broke off to support her partner.

Yang was a pillar of unshakable fire, her body visibly thrumming with stored-up power. She fired a few shots to decimate one of the smaller tentacles, then ducked a large one on a sweep. The tentacle snaked around a fallen tree trunk and tried to swing it at Yang's back like a club, but, but Blake quickly slid in and severed it, sending the log crashing into the mud.

The two of them slipped into a perfect rhythm, like they'd done dozens of times before.

"My semblance is fully charged!" Yang yelled as she threw a fiery punch. Her hair was faintly burning, her eyes tinged red as the stored up power fought to escape her. "I think I can cripple it, but I need to get close to the body!"

"How are we going to do that?" Blake asked.

But before Yang could answer, another arm whipped out of the forest. Something was wrong, though—the arm didn't hug the ground, or curve to smash into anyone on the field. It arced high, seemingly sweeping the treetops, as if it was after an aerial target—

"WEISS!"

Ruby ran harder than she'd ever run in her life, petals flying in her wake as popped in and out of her semblance, pushing it as far as it would go. She could feel the ground shaking from the violence ahead, and as she crashed through a thicket she spotted motion through the gaps in the trees.

So close. She was so close.

She broke the treeline.

And there was Yang, hammering and screaming away like the burning sun she was. Blake, at her side, subtle and nimble and furiously alive as she guarded Yang's flanks. And Weiss, beautiful Weiss, like a star above them all, raining ice and fire and pain upon the Grimm.

And then a black arc swept up to swat that star out of the sky.

There was no time to think, to plan, to feel. Ruby flashed into her semblance, rushing up into the air. Weiss had seen the arm, and was conjuring glyphs in an attempt to blunt the strike.

Ruby knew how strong Weiss's glyphs were. An impact from a Grimm that large moving that fast would shatter them instantly. It would shatter Weiss, too.

There was no choice to make.

Ruby threw herself into its path, her scythe raised high. Her angle was bad, and the arm was too thick, its teeth and eyes drinking up her hatred in the milliseconds before impact.

Ruby grit her teeth.

You won't take her from us! Not today, not like this, and not while I'm still alive!

She swung her scythe, and her eyes began to burn.

It all happened in an instant.

Weiss braced herself instinctively, even as the hole in her chest told her she wouldn't survive. It would have been nice and poetic to say her life flashed before her eyes, but it was a simpler and shorter vision, in black, yellow, and—

Red.

Because suddenly, inexplicably, Ruby was there, screaming with her scythe raised and roses swirling all around her.

Weiss would later swear she imagined it, but in that moment she had the funniest sense that the Grimm looked surprised.

And then, the world went white.

The light was cold, like a mirror left out in the snow. It rang like music in Weiss's ears, like a song she'd heard long ago but then forgotten, something elegant and fundamental.

She felt it rush through her, and like windchimes her body began to sing along with it, her aura catching on the light and drinking it in. Sating a hunger she hadn't realized she possessed.

And then, quickly as it came, the light was gone.

Her glyphs vanished, and Weiss dropped to the ground. She blinked frantically to clear her vision while she tried to comprehend the strange sensation, only to find Ruby lying motionless in the mud.

Panic cracked a faultline through her chest and swallowed all other cares. She ran to her love's side, sliding onto her knees. "Ruby, please, please get up—"

She touched Ruby's shoulder, and Ruby twitched. "Owwwwww," she grumbled, turning over slowly to grimace at Weiss with a face half-caked in mud. She had grass sticking out of her hair. She smiled weakly, and Weiss nearly passed out with relief.

"Hey Weiss… love you… what's up?" Ruby blinked. "Oh, wait, crap!" She sat up, brushed most of the dirt off her face, and then froze as she looked out at the battlefield. "Whaaat…"

Weiss looked too.

The field was still, the other students staring in confusion and shock at a huge, stone statue of the Atkorock. As Weiss watched, one of the tentacles cracked under its own weight and crumbled to the ground, slowly beginning to disintegrate like any other Grimm would.

"Woah," Ruby mumbled. "What… did that?"

"You, I think," Weiss replied numbly.

"Oh." Ruby took a moment to contemplate this. "Wait, WHAT!?"

"WEISS! RUBY!" The two of them look up to find Yang and Blake running towards them.

"Guys!" Ruby yelled, popping to her feet. She swayed, and Weiss quickly caught her before she could fall. Yang and Blake collided with them, pulling both of them into a crushing hug.

"You moron," Yang mumbled at Ruby, shaking tears out of her eyes. "What were you thinking!?"

Ruby's face twisted, and without a scrap of hesitation she reared back and headbutted Yang right in the face.

"OW!"

"You know exactly what I was thinking!" Ruby shouted (even as she massaged her sore head), "and you'd have done it too!"

Yang pulled back, rubbing her nose and blinking rapidly. She looked at Weiss, then Ruby, and then took a deep breath. "You're okay," she said, almost like she couldn't believe it. "You're both okay. Oh thank god , you're both okay."

Blake just buried her head in the crook of Weiss's neck, her face wet with wordless tears.

Weiss hugged them all to her, still too shocked to really process how close she'd just come to the next life. And that light…

It was Blake who recovered first sniffing sharply and pulling herself upright. "Ruby… what was that?"

Ruby opened her mouth to respond, but a loud cracking noise cut her off.

The four of them turned and watched as part of one of the stone tentacles crumbled away, revealing a red, glowing, and most troublingly moving eye.

"Oh come on! " Ruby groaned.

Galvanized by the resurgence of danger, Yang broke away from them to run towards the forest that hid the Atkorock's core. "We can kill it while it's stunned!" she shouted back.

The rest of team RWBY didn't waste another second following her. They rushed into the woods, following the tentacles even as they started to creak and move again.

One broke free and lashed out at them, but Hikari ran in alongside them and severed it. "We'll cover you! GO!" she shouted. The other students fell in around their flanks, forming a spear with Team RWBY at the tip.

And then, they reached it.

It'd coiled up in the ruins of an ancient building, which it'd leveled as it thrashed about to free itself. It was lumpy and gnarled, perhaps hundreds of years old, but the body itself was only a little taller than Yang. Cracks in the stone encasing it revealed more eyes, and a maw that screamed caustic spittle at them as the monster continued to writhe with hatred and malice.

Ruby took one glance at the rest of her team, and smirked. "Coldsnap!"

Weiss fell into the practiced motions. Raising her hand, she raised two pillars of ice and used the last of her gravity dust to form a long sequence of Glyphs aimed at the Grimm's forehead. Blake looped her ribbon around the pillars to form a makeshift slingshot, and Yang quickly climbed into it.

The Atkorock seemed to realize what was happening, and its struggles grew more and more frantic. another one of the tentacles broke free, but Ruby and Belka cut it down before it could get close.

"Ready!" Blake shouted.

"Ready!" Weiss answered.

Yang grinned, her hair catching aflame and her eyes blazing red as Ruby's cape. "FIRE!"

Blake launched her into Weiss's glyphs, and Yang accelerated until she was nothing but a streak of fire as her semblance directed every last shred of stored-up energy into a single strike.

The impact shook the world, and when the dust finally settled, there was no Atkorock in the Emerald Forest anymore.

Lucia and Wister stood at the edge of the clearing, observing the stone coils strewn across the chaotic landscape of churned mud and shattered trees.

"Welp," Wister said. "I got fuckin' nothing. What in the name of every holy thing just happened, Luce?"

Lucia crouched down, picking up a fragment of the stone. It cracked and crumbled in her hand, before disintegrating into nothing.

"Qrow Branwen's niece, huh?" she mused, looking off past the field into the forest, where the sounds of cheers and celebration were beginning to rise.

Then, a movement in the trees above them caught Lucia's attention. She looked up, and grabbed Wister's shoulder.

"What're ye—" Wister followed her gaze. "Aw shite."

A black bird tilted its head, staring down at them with red, red eyes.

"You could have told us you had kids here, y'know," Lucia said.

The raven didn't respond, but it's eyes seemed to sharpen. It took off into the woods, and Lucia and Wister followed it until they were out of sight of the clearing.

The bird dropped to the ground, and when it landed it wasn't a bird anymore. "They aren't your concern," Raven said, staring off through the woods.

"Fine. Why're ye here then?" Wister asked, crossing their arms and leaning against a tree. They reached back and snapped off one of their quills, using it as a fidget while carefully avoiding Raven's eyes. "Ye said no contact 'til we graduate. Three years on and this's the second time ye've broken that rule."

Raven gave the students a calculating look. "I'm here because things have changed back in Mistral," she said. "I need your team to qualify for the Vytal Festival tournament after all."

"Ye cannae tell us more than that?"

"I'm already taking a risk meeting you this close to Beacon. Just know that I need you at Haven. I'll explain more once you arrive."

"Is that really why you're here, or was it to make sure they were safe?" Lucia asked, gesturing bluntly in the direction of the battlefield. Raven's eyes blazed at her, but the younger woman held her ground. "It so happens we were becoming friends with your daughters, before we figured out who they were. Florence even thinks we have a chance at recruiting them. Should we continue as we were, or back off?"

Raven's eyes narrowed. "Who you make friends with isn't my concern," she said, after a moment. "Just remember that your ultimate objective is still to graduate and return to the tribe without raising suspicion. Don't take on more than you can handle. And don't underestimate Ozpin, or your fellow students. Are we clear?"

Lucia and Wister looked to one another. "As the sky above us, ma'am," Wister said.

"Good," Raven said. And then, in a flutter of wings, she was gone.

The two seniors stood there, watching her fly away for a long, long moment.

"Fuckin' bonkers, that is," Wister grumbled. "How in the absolute shining fuck does she have two daughters? And how'd they turn out to be nice decent people?"

"I honestly thought she had another sibling," Lucia mused dryly. "Guess they're really hers though. Huh."

Wister looked at her in surprise. Then they chuckled. ''Ye smug bastard, ye're a better liar than I am.''

Lucia smirked and rolled her eyes. "C'mon," she said, turning and heading back towards the others. "Let's make sure no minor Grimm are sneaking around. This is a big victory; we should make sure they can celebrate it."

Wister stabbed their quill into a tree and turned to follow with an easy smile. "As ye say, sweetheart."

A/N:

WHOOP WHOOP

This one was a complex bastard of a chapter. But, uh, yeah! A lot of things happened.

Thanks to FriendofYggdrasil, Sgt. Chrysalis, JuniorThib, and shockfactor for the beta! Special thanks to Friend (and Chrys) for helping me understand how treating a dismemberment works, and also for generally putting up with my gooberishness.

PS: I love Sufjan. I didn't think I'd love Sufjan, but I love him, and I hope you do too. Don't worry about him though, he'll be all right. ;D