I. Celica
The noise was all gone.
Yang found herself in a place of tranquility.
Her eyes watered as they adjusted to the sudden light and sought out the nearest landmarks, trying to determine where she had wound up. The air was quiet and dry, a late summer heat wave dissipating in the evening air. The sun hadn't quite begun to set but it was low enough to give the sky a washed-out cast and make the shadows long in the coniferous wood. Insects in the distance began their evensong, and Yang was wholly confused.
Moments ago her whole system was vibrating with an adrenaline high.
She remembered being in the sub-basement of Beacon Academy's ruined tower.
There was a pitched battle, and the team split in half. She gave Blake a boost of confidence before sending her to back Weiss in holding off the neverending Grimm that assaulted the gates.
She caught up with Ruby and the world became a blur of rose petals amidst the darkness. When they landed, they were in the deepest, most ancient parts of Beacon Academy. Before them, the cave's darkness yielded to a chamber where by some magic a copse of trees in perpetual autumn splendor stood guard before a gilded gate enameled with the visage of a venerable king.
Salem's people had reached the sanctum first.
And in the ensuing fight, Ruby gave Yang the opening she needed to break through and lay a hand on the second relic she had managed to claim in her short life.
It seemed an unassuming laurel crown, yet it hummed with power as Yang picked it off its keeper, a statue resembling the monarch on the gate.
The victory would not be long for hers to savor. As she took it for their own, she looked back and saw her sister pressed and losing ground to their two adversaries. Panic welled in her chest as she thought she might not be able to clear ground in time to help her.
The last thing she remembered was wishing that everything could have been different.
And now here she stood. Alone.
Except she wasn't alone. Before her thoughts could grow too deep, she detected the crash of steel and the occasional shout of exertion.
The voice was familiar, yet strange. It was relatable, yet Yang wasn't quite sure who it could be.
Seeing as how this appeared to be a wild area, Yang determined that there could have been travelers or passersby who had been set upon by creatures of Grimm. Readying her guns, she set aside her confusion and hoped that the conflict just beyond her sight would yield some answers.
As she tore through the undergrowth, Yang dodged tree limbs and bound over great husks of rotting logs. The needles of the low-hanging boughs scraped her lightly and threatened to catch her voluminous hair, but she figured that if she moved quick enough the trees wouldn't be able to take hold. It was at about this time, when she was congratulating herself on her craftiness, that she arrived in a clearing large enough that it might as well have been a field.
Her mouth parted slightly as a white-robed figure danced around a swarm of Beowolves and Ursai with ease. In her hands spun a great metal ring, possibly bladed judging by the way an unfortunate Beowolf was suddenly cleaved in two, that presented a danger in all directions around the huntress. She had to be a huntress, anyway, wielding a weapon that outlandish; a chakram, Yang thought she'd heard them called. While this had been her first time seeing one in person, they were apparently much more common in Southern Anima—and much smaller, as well. It was thanks to her weapons nut sister and her magazines that she had access to that lore, though the ones showcased were four or five inches in diameter, not four or five feet.
The figure had a distinctly feminine shape to her and leaned a little to the slim side of builds. She was fast, a blur on the ground and a leaf on the wind with a gleaming halo flowing about her at all times.
Yang found herself transfixed, hand propped up on a tree trunk as she was drawn in more and more by the mysterious huntress' dance. A part of her urged Yang to join the battle and help the stranger eliminate the rest of the Grimm, but the cautious part of her plied for observation and confirmation that the huntress wasn't hostile first. After all, "huntsman" did not mean "good"; that naivete was cast aside long ago, even for her idealist sister.
Yang felt her eyes widen at a thought.
Ruby… that is who she reminds me of!
The speed, the flowing cloak, the relentless whirlwind of disembowelment and decapitations… Yang felt a smile creeping onto her face. She watched as the huntress presently hooked an Ursa's hind legs mid-rear and brought it down onto its back, and how in the same movement she brought the chakram around and over the exposed belly, slaying the beast as though it were an afterthought. The easy grace with which the movements came to the woman made it look effortless.
Yang felt her fingers twitch over the bark of the tree. Something in the air unsettled her. It was that familiar feeling of murderous intent, but it was only present, not directed at her. She held her breath as the sounds of battle died down, the woman on exhibit about to finish clearing out the last of the Grimm. The smallest ones had scattered whereas the largest ones now lay in pieces or evanescing piles of black dust.
To an onlooker like herself, the danger seemed to be passing away. But that unsettling feeling clenched her stomach like a set of icy fingers, and she set her jaw as she tried to locate the source of the malaise.
Out in the field the huntress stood slowly, her dance now ceased. She seemed to take a breath as she cast her eyes about, and the large ring in her hands collapsed down in an almost cathartic series of metallic clicks until it was about the size of a small shield. Yang observed the white-garbed woman for a little longer as she looked around.
Her breath hitched when she suddenly looked in Yang's direction.
It felt like ice had been poured down her back.
To see her face was like looking at a photo.
"Ruby?" Yang mouthed, whether it was from caution or suspense finding herself unable to speak above a whisper.
The pin dropped. Another blur screamed out from the far edge of the field towards the huntress, and the impact of their collision violently parted the tall grass in the meadow.
A tall, lean man barely had his attack foiled, but the woman managed to raise her weapon against his before a lethal blow was struck. The woman shoved her assailant back with a flash of sparks, and Yang saw that he, too, was wielding some kind of chakram, albeit more of a normal size, and not quite hoops so much as daggers with twin halfmoons framing the blades.
An assassin, Yang deduced.
"We meet again, Little White Briar," the man declared theatrically while bowing in kind. "Salem sends her regards." He punctuated with a deranged chuckle.
"Tyrian," the woman replied evenly, but said nothing more. The stance she took spoke louder than her voice. This hadn't been their first meeting and she wasn't wasting her breath on conversation, evidently.
The air went taut, such that Yang could hear it ringing like a tuning fork. Her breaths went shallow and rapid, and the urge to get involved began to override her better sense.
Though Yang was certain from analyzing her that the mysterious huntress could easily handle herself, she had just finished fighting off a large mob of Grimm. Yang knew that although she didn't show it outwardly, she had to be feeling it. Even the most powerful sprinters in the world have to stop and catch their breath, after all.
Yang armed her guns and came down from her perch. As quickly as she could without giving herself away, she began to sneak around the perimeter of the clearing to get a more unexpected angle of attack.
The two clashed again, bounding around the large meadow as though it were only a small clearing. Metal on metal on fist on bone, Yang heard the distinct sounds of combat between taunting laughs and defiant battle cries.
Yang grit her teeth and felt that migraine creeping back in. Trying to follow the two was frustrating, and even more unsettling was how she couldn't keep tabs on the woman's condition. She knew that she had taken a few hits by now, judging by the sounds she'd heard, and she knew that she had to be fast because the intent to kill was thick in the air.
She found a densely shrouded area and crouched, elbows bent and shotgauntlets at the ready. Well, one shotgauntlet and one robotic arm cannon, but who's making that distinction anymore? Her eyes fell upon the combatants, a laser focus searching for an opening to catch the assassin off guard.
The woman faded back, her large chakram spinning before her along its horizontal axis, a steel bubble created for a moment enough to deflect Tyrian's blades. His hands were thrown wide, and the woman made to hook the inner circle of her weapon around them and strip his weapons free.
The attempt failed. How, Yang wasn't certain, but it was then that she noticed a scorpion-like tail lashing away at the chakram, which was stopped short of snaring his arms. The huntress growled, the first sign of frustration she'd seen from the skilled fighter.
He's a faunus? Yang thought to herself. Her thoughts swirled until a connection became stark. Was this the same attacker that fell upon Ruby and their Uncle Qrow? She'd only heard bits of the story, but mainly that the attempted kidnapper was a scorpion faunus that had managed to envenom Qrow before Ruby maimed him.
But here he seemed perfectly intact, if it was the same guy. What was going on?
A cry jolted Yang out of her head, and she saw a dark red bloom on the woman's otherwise pure white cloak. It looked like Tyrian had caught her on the backswing with one of his daggers. The woman didn't seem too hindered by whatever injury she had suffered, but it indicated something more alarming to Yang.
Her aura had broken.
All the assassin needed was one lethal stroke. And knowing this, he began a slow stride towards the woman, arms up to his shoulders as though leaving himself open on purpose. As though gloating about the inevitability of his victory.
The inevitability of her death.
Yang bared her teeth.
She pumped her arms back and forth until the several flares fired off were bearing down on the assassin, who had been caught off guard by the sudden eruption of ordnance. As explosives sent dirt and grass into the air, Yang gave herself a recoil-propelled flight out of cover, and she came to a skidding halt between Tyrian and the huntress. She glanced back briefly at the wounded warrior before instantly deflecting an incoming tail stinger with her steel hand, something the one named Tyrian clearly wasn't expecting.
He didn't seem to be expecting a lot of things. His eyes were widened with shock, shrank back into disdainful curiosity, as though somebody forgot to tell him something important. If this was a targeted attack—and it was, Yang guaranteed herself—then he likely meant to catch the huntress alone.
But Yang wasn't about that. Especially since she heard the bit about Salem, too.
"Ooo, but who is this flaxen-haired beauty?" Tyrian cooed in a way that churned Yang's insides. Yes, this was the tone that she did not like at all.
"My name's not important," Yang muttered, still erring on the side of caution. She locked a bored gaze on Tyrian. "Now get lost," she spat, "before I shove that tail of yours into you like the last Death Stalker that pissed me off."
She had help. But he didn't have to know that.
Tyrian let out a long-suffering sigh. "Where do you hunters get all this bravado? My Yellow Rose, you haven't the slightest clue who I am, do you?"
"Mm," Yang hummed as though she were thinking hard on it. "Tyrian. Works for Salem. Has looks that feel a stinger to the eyeballs. Yup, I know enough." Her gauntlets armed loudly.
Again Tyrian sighed like some great annoyance had been heaped onto his lengthy list of already tedious chores.
"You'll learn respect for Her Majesty," he snarled. Nonchalantly, the tail flew out at Yang again, and again she batted it away. She was already closing to discharge Ember Celica into Tyrian's center of mass, her shotshells being the payload of choice.
She caught the light of his aura as the shot landed, and though she cheered internally she kept her focus on where that tail was. His blades were now coming at her face as well. It was good, then, that this was where Yang was most comfortable—right in the face of danger, where her most lethal assets could be best utilized. She used her right arm mainly to deflect the blades when she couldn't get inside of his swings, and when a stab came at her she tacked and weaved like a boxer, throwing counterpunches that soon elicited a scream of frustration from Tyrian.
In a way, she sympathized with Tyrian's frustration. After a minute or so, the battle seemed like a stalemate. She wasn't able to create any opening large enough to get her most devastating haymakers in, and whenever she tried to trip him up with a heel sweep he seemed to have a preternatural sense of balance that allowed him to recover before he fell that short distance to the ground.
It reminded her of Blake. It was a cliché, and in spite of how adamant she was that she wasn't a cat, she sure had a knack for always sticking the landing. The girl was always too fast and nimble for Yang to get her with that combo, but it was thanks to their countless sparring and training sessions that she was even able to fight at this level.
Just when it seemed like no decisive blow could be struck by either of them, Yang suddenly felt her nerves fire an inscrutable warning. She jerked a step back as Tyrian's tail came from an unexpected angle, up from between his feet rather than over his shoulders as he had been attacking. Yang's eyes went wide and cross as it sped past her, close enough that she could see the bead of venom at the business end of the thing.
It was then that she did the crazy thing.
She grabbed his tail.
The reaction from Tyrian was immediate and visceral. He emanated a pained wail as Yang clamped her iron grip down. His catching daggers thunked on the grassy ground as his whole world became agony. The bulb of his tail flailed pathetically, unable to bend far enough to harm Yang.
She grit her teeth and squeezed her muscles until she could hear the chitin straining.
He managed to speak between screams. "You… vile… bitch!" he wheezed out.
Yang twisted her hands oppositely and wrung out another scream.
"That's Sir to you!" Yang snarled, going back to an old taunt. By now Tyrian's sulphuric eyes were unfocused and not really seeing anything except stars of anguish, and Yang looked for a way to end this confrontation quickly; the pressure she was putting out was quickly sapping the strength in at least one of her arms, and if she let go for exhaustion she would have to fight tired as well.
Yang suddenly pulled the tail back and forced Tyrian into a backflip. As he went airborne, paralyzed by the pain, Yang wound up her right leg back and struck out, landing a sharp snap kick to the skull. Her shin cracked against his jawline, the blade of her foot jerking his head in a way that would rattle the braincase. By the time he landed on his face, her boot was already flying down at the spot where the back of his head would be.
There was a sickening, hollow thunk on impact, and Yang had forced his face all the way through the ground to where he might as well have had his head buried in the dirt. His tail went limp, and his aura flickered and cracked. Yang threw his tail to the grass with disdain.
As she stood over Tyrian's still body, she contemplated a choice. She leveled her right arm towards the unconscious assassin and the shroud of her concealed gun snapped back.
"Wait!"
Yang's focus broke and she looked back to the source. A pair of wide silver eyes stared back at her from beneath a mop of layered auburn hair, the white hood hanging limply from the owner's head. Her eyes darted to the red stain on the otherwise perfectly white cloak. Left arm, some kind of laceration. Her eyes went back to the face, arrested by familiarity. The voice, no less...
"Ruby?" Yang finally had to know. She threw the name out to see what reaction she would get.
The huntress' eyes widened further, some kind of nerve clearly touched. Yang stiffened as the huntress moved towards her and laid her hands on her shoulder, as though to halt the coup d'grace.
Yang glanced at the delicate fingers, nails caked in grime and blood.
"Why?" she said curtly, narrowing her eyes at the woman.
"Look," the woman said, gesturing. "He's down. I'm sure he's injured. He won't be posing a threat any time soon."
"He just tried to kill you!" Yang replied incredulously. The moment's pause caused her to doubt suddenly, realizing the ruthlessness she was about to act upon. "At least let me rip his tail off or something," she said mournfully, starting to feel a mote of guilt quicken in her chest.
The woman, too, donned a sorrowful look and cast her eyes down.
Suddenly, she sucked a breath through her teeth.
Yang's awareness went cold and she shot her eyes back towards Tyrian. She reacted purely on instinct, catching his stinger as it blurred towards her throat using the back of her right hand. A metallic sound rang off the chitin while she swore and stumbled.
She felt her ankle caught in a grip and she lost the rest of her balance.
Above, she saw the woman in white brandish her weapon again, catching a few glancing blows with the side of her chakram. Like that, Tyrian was back on his feet, eyes burning on his dirt smeared face, a wide grin splitting his lips.
"Two flowers to pluck," he growled menacingly while barely restraining a giggle. "I shall come for you later, Yellow Rose; but for now—"
Jeering, he struck out immediately at the mysterious huntress. Even without weapons in hand he pressed his attack.
Even without aura he was intent on finishing his mission.
Yang scrambled to her feet, guns arming. But she wouldn't get to have another word in edgewise.
Tyrian's voice raised in a shrill howl and Yang watched a gout of blood bloom into the evening air. At the same time, the woman staggered, holding her side and pinching her throat closed as a scream instead came out as a strained groan.
The two had struck some kind of lethal blow on each other. Tyrian clutched at his limp right arm, blood pouring freely over it until it was completely glistening. The woman seemed less worse for wear, but she was still clearly in pain as she staggered back from Tyrian.
The assassin regarded Yang with equal parts alarm and contempt. He grunted and didn't wait for Yang to snap out of her stupor before he dashed for the treeline.
"Get back here!" Yang screamed while she shot a salvo of flares after him. Neither of them made a direct hit, however. Dirt and rocks and ripped up grass pelted the surroundings, now the only sounds between labored breaths and the rustling wind in that forest field.
Yang's long legs brought her quickly to the wounded huntress' side. She had collapsed to her knees, quivering, and favored her right side just under the leather bustier she wore for additional protection. Most huntsmen relied on their aura for protection, but Yang had seen a fair number of them don armor as backup in case of a surprise attack, or loss of aura.
Didn't help here, she thought somberly. Lavender eyes darted up to the hooded woman's face, which was pinched with an effort to resist the pain in her side and glowed with perspiration upon her dark brow. Yang brushed a few strands from the woman's face and caught her eyes.
"He caught me with his tail stinger," the woman said with a sheepish grin creeping over her lips. "It feels like someone is pouring liquid fire into my side."
Yang knew right off what was going on. She took a breath and put her hands on the woman, issuing a comforting squeeze.
"You have to relax," Yang said rapidly. "Breathe slowly, don't panic." She wasn't panicking. Just thinking quickly. "You've been poisoned. Panicking will make it spread faster." She darted her eyes over the growing evening. "Where is here?" she finally ventured to ask.
"Sanus," the woman forced out between breaths. "Far north of Vale." She heaved breathlessly. Yang looked on helplessly as the huntress shook. She hated the useless feeling and yet she somehow always wound up in situations where it got dredged up. It was like the universe knew which wound to apply pressure to.
She just kept rubbing the woman's back, hoping that the comforting sensation would help her steady her breaths so that they could get her somewhere safe.
"You know," the woman spoke, seeming to come around, "I have a daughter named Ruby."
Oh, thought Yang, although she rounded her mouth as if to say the same thing aloud. It never came out.
Like pieces of a puzzle falling into position, Yang started to come upon a conclusion that set her head spinning like a top.
The white cloak. The nickname.
The silver eyes.
"My name's Summer, by the way," the woman said as she looked up with a wincing smile. "What about you? What's the name of my hero?"
Yang's eyes were wide as lilac saucers. Her mind raced along as thoughts swirled, internal screams abounding, as question marks and "why?" flew by like streetlamps on a highway.
Is this a dream or a vision or what?
"Ya—" Her throat closed on its own and the half-syllable she got out terminated in a squeak.
NO, her mind screamed at her, You're her daughter too, remember?!
Until she figured out what was going on, Yang needed a fake name.
"Uh, I'm—" Her eyes glanced down at her left arm. Ember Celica was still armed and hot. Her mouth closed as she decided, and a flick of her wrist prompted her shotgauntlet to collapse itself down.
"Celica," Yang introduced herself. "You can call me Celica."
"Celica," Summer started, feeling out the name even while she flinched through the pain. "That's a beautiful name." Summer gave Yang a kilowatt smile. "Your mother must've loved you a lot."
Yang lowered her eyes and said nothing.
After a moment she glanced back to Summer and nudged her lightly. "Can you walk?"
"Yeah," the cloaked huntress sighed. "The village is not far from here," she added as she pointed off towards the north. "Down some foothills on the other side of this wood. We can meet up with my partner there."
Yang's breath hitched. It couldn't have been Raven; she left STRQ first. Not dad—that is, Taiyang, either; he would have been at home with them.
I wonder if I could run into Little Yang, she wondered with an inward grin.
All others accounted for, that left one possibility...