"Duck and cover!" Ruby dove on top of Blake, taking shelter behind an upturned wheelbarrow as a flurry of icy missiles zinged past. She scooped snow into ammunition, propping herself on the Faunus's shoulders to peek over the rim of the wheelbarrow. A sharp clang had her ducking back, yelling over her shoulder to the picket fence behind her, "Prepare the counter-attack!"
The skies were a clear winter blue, the sun pale and bright over the valley as the four huntresses-in-training and a bunch of the town kids faced off in a snow fight to end all snow fights. Ruby sputtered, wiping snow and ice bits from her face when a shot clipped the edge of the metal rim of her improvised hiding place. She called to the kids behind the fence, "You guys ready?"
On the other side of the narrow strip of field, Team Freezerburn and their minions were constructing a fortress.
"Yang, walls. Build walls," Weiss snarled and shoved at the fiery blonde to throw off her aim. Honestly, they needed a solid defense but her melted and refrozen balls of ice were going to kill some kid and then where would they be?
"Hey! Watch it!" Yang watched her carefully crafted projectile arc wide to the left, completely missing Team Ladybug's metal barrier and landing harmlessly in a bush. "Weiss, what are you doing?" Yang rounded on the other girl, blinking at her commanding gestures towards the beginnings of a wall constructed of snow.
"Oh, right, some defenses would be g-UGH-" the brawler took a snowball to the face, stumbling sideways as she spluttered, trying to keep her semblance from kicking in and melting what little they had built. She saw a flash of red duck down behind that blasted wheelbarrow. "Ow - OK yes a wall, but payback FIRST." Grabbing another fistful of snow, at least, as much as she could in her unnaturally warm grip, she lobbed another half-snow-half-ice-ball at the upturned wheelbarrow.
"Nice shot, Ruby." Blake's smile at her comrade in arms was interrupted by a resounding CLANK right beside her head that made all four of her ears ring. She eyed the dent that had appeared in their wheelbarrow. Her smile became a smirk. "I think you made her mad."
Ruby scooped some more snow from around the rim of their shelter, lying shoulder-to-shoulder with her teammate, her voice low, "That's the plan- we've got to distract her from building fortifications for Weiss or she'll do that melt-and-refreeze thing and their team'll have an impenetrable ice fortress," she peered through a rusted-out spot in the bed of the wheelbarrow at the progress Weiss and the village kids were making. Already there were rising towers and walls with square-ish parapets. Who would've thought you could build that much that fast? Ruby worried the edge of her glove with her teeth for a second, "... we could probably take it over, but..."
Meanwhile, Weiss paused from trying to corral Yang to dole out orders to her volunteer army, "You," she pointed to a dark-haired child missing one of her front teeth, "we need ammunition. Start piling it by the north tower. You, start curving the wall back. We don't want them flanking us."
"We need some more snow, Commander, ma'am," the boy, Jack, from the watchtower saluted her. Grass showed through what was left on the ground. Weiss summoned a white glyph, setting it at ground level and angling it in such a way that it shifted the snow overtop of it with an efficiency that would make a bulldozer look like an awkward, broken snow shovel.
A few snowballs pelted the ground near the wall, lobbed by Ruby and Blake's forces behind the picket fence. Weiss scoffed at the pathetic attack, and turned to make sure Yang wasn't doing anything crazy.
The brawler was standing stock still, icy snowball in hand, surveying the surrounding area of Team Ladybug's fortress. Her eyes narrowed into a devious smirk when she spotted exactly what she was looking for. She took careful, precise aim at her target - the stately tree standing over their wheelbarrow. "You'll regret the day you challenged TEAM FREEZERBURN," she shouted across the field as she flung her now-completely-ice-ball through the air.
Blake's ears perked at the challenge, as well as the following CRACK of a tree branch being struck with something very hard - a very high branch, directly overhead - one that was now sending a growing cascade of freshly loosened powdery white tumbling down upon them at rapid speeds. With only seconds to spare, Blake shoved Ruby to safety, interrupting the younger girl's rapid-fire instructions to their squadron. The Faunus disappeared under a mountain of snow an instant later.
Blake poked her head out from the pile of snow - cold, wet, and very very disgruntled. Her sullen gaze traveled to meet Ruby's. "Avenge me."
"Blake!" Ruby bolted upright, spitting snow. "Blake, noooooo!"
She pointed to her sister across the open field, "You'll pay for this!" Motioning to the crew of five, six, and seven-year-olds behind the fence, she yelled, "Charge!"
The little kids broke cover, laughing and racing to meet Team Freezerburn while Ruby covered them with her speed. Rose petals danced across the snow as she spiked down snowball after snowball, defending her team.
"Throw at the same time. At the same time-wait, where are you-?!" Weiss slapped a hand to her forehead as her ragtag troop of slightly older kids abandoned their defensive position as well as any semblance of discipline as they ran cheering to meet the opposing forces. So much for organized warfare. At least Jack had stayed to defend the fortress.
Ruby had the biggest kids bowled over in a flash, making them easy targets for her troops to dogpile in the snow. The heiress turned to Yang, fuming, "Do something!"
But the brawler's eyes were elsewhere, staring over Weiss's head. The heiress was shouting something at her, no doubt asking her to save their reckless squadron from a swift defeat at the hands of her sister, but she paid no mind, squinting instead at two spots of black that had appeared just over the distant treeline. They were moving fast - directly towards Weiss.
Yang's eyes widened in recognition, her body springing into action. "Get down!" She lunged at her agitated teammate, toppling them both to the snowy ground in a jumble of white and gold just as two pairs of smoke-black claws raked by overhead. Two snarling Liliac crashed into Team Freezerburn's stalwart snow fortress, reducing it to a pile of icy rubble in mere moments. With red eyes flashing and oversized ears twitching towards the joyous shouts nearby, the pair of Grimm thrashed back onto their feet and up into the air again, making a beeline for the rowdy band of children locked in battle at the center of the field.
Jack, the blonde-haired sub-par watchman, had just struggled up, laughing and dancing to get snow out of the back of his coat when one of the red-fanged monsters shot towards his face. Before he could even cry out, a flash of familiar crimson knocked him to the ground.
Ruby skidded in the snow, Crescent Rose unfurling in her hands as she sprang after the second Grimm. The creature's claws had already latched onto the brown coat of a little girl. Its clinging wings muffled the girl's screams and its beady eyes gleamed blood red.
The young team leader's focus narrowed to the speed, the angle she needed as she called on her semblance, the rush of it prickling up her spine, taking every ounce of concentration she possessed. The field around her became a blur as she cheated time, her weapon a lethal rush of steel. It parted the Liliac's fur and flesh and bone like butter.
Petals scattered in her wake as she skidded again, boots digging into ice. Her heart hammered. She didn't spare a second to think when the Liliac's body fell in two fast-disintegrating pieces. There was blood. The little girl was sobbing. Was she bitten? Was she dying?
Other kids were shrieking, crying out. Ruby's silver eyes darted over them, wild and quick. Where was the second Grimm?
Two clear shots rang out, followed by an ear-splitting shriek as the second Liliac fell from the sky, a gaping hole torn into the membrane of one of its wings. Across the field Blake stood with Gambol Shroud in pistol form, eyes wide and teeth showing in a grimace - the Grimm's flight patterns were too erratic - she had missed the body. She watched in horror as the twitching beast landed a little ways behind Ruby, right in the center of a clump of the children, sending them scattering every which way in a frenzied panic.
The Grimm's relatively small body all but disappeared in the fray, but Yang's eyes were trained on the spot where it fell, catching glimpses of writhing blackness between the colorful coats of the children. She shot to her feet, her mind racing through a host of options before finally flickering down to Weiss, who was still recovering from having just suffered the brunt of Yang's crushing weight.
"Weiss!" Yang reached down to help the heiress back to her feet, pointing with her other arm to the fallen Grimm - it had snagged the scarf of a small boy and yanked him to the ground, advancing with red-white fangs visible even from this distance. "There!"
Weiss scrubbed snow from her eyes and fumbled for her rapier, off balance as Yang dragged her up. She flung up her arm, and half across the field an ice blue glyph sprung to life between the lone Liliac and its prey. It's patterned teeth rebounded off the circle of blue with enough force to send it flailing backwards in the snow.
It didn't get a chance at another victim. With a resounding crunch, Ruby brought her massive scythe down, burying the first quarter of its blade in the frozen ground straight through the Grimm's skull and upper torso.
The dark-haired teen pulled her weapon free as the creature dissolved into dark nothingness. Nothing moved among the trees on the hills above. The children who remained on the field looked to her in stunned silence. She gripped Crescent Rose and swallowed. "Yeah. Let's all go play inside for a while."
Play-in-the-snow time was officially at its end. Weiss, Blake, and Yang went about escorting the more shaken children to their homes - the heiress even personally saw Jack safely to his mother. Ruby on the other hand, rushed the brown-coated girl who suffered the worst of the attack to the clinic, faster than any ambulance.
The team had agreed to meet back up in front of town hall - both because it was an easy location to find in the center of town, and to speak with Gale. If the town leader didn't already know about the attack, she needed to be warned. Ruby, despite her speed, was the last to arrive, skidding to a halt before the rest of her team.
Yang picked a rose petal out of Ruby's hair, hoping her sister's ashen complexion was because of overusing her semblance. "So, how was the girl?"
"She was pretty scared, but we shared my cape while Curt fixed up the scratches around her ear, so I think she's okay. Cyan went to find her mom," Ruby fidgeted under her teammates attention, "I dunno. Guess the phones have been acting up or something."
Day three, and a kid had gotten hurt. It wasn't their fault, but it had still happened and Ruby had to fight off the sinking feeling that she'd failed the town and her teammates by not being prepared, or fast enough, or something. She shook her head, "The other kids were okay? How was Jack?"
"We got to his door and he offered to walk me home," Weiss rolled her eyes, "I never should have made him second in command for that stupid game. His Goliath of a mother was horrified that he had even associated with me." The woman was six feet of towering muscle- small wonder Jack was big for his age.
"Anyway, we've already contacted Gale," The heiress crossed her arms and indicated the town hall's double doors with a tilt of her head, "Apparently we're going to have that 'talk' with the brain dead chief of mining operations."
"She's already gone to get him from the mines," Blake added, eyes downcast as she typed out shorthand notes for Yang to read on her scroll. She still felt partially responsible for the chaos of the day, having essentially dropped a live Grimm into a group of unsuspecting children. "For the record, she did not look happy when she heard about the daylight attack. It's a first - the Liliac have only ever come out at night before-"
"If you guys are talking about Gale, she's headed this way with that friendly miner guy," Yang cut in, pointing over Ruby's shoulder.
The two had just rounded the corner of a building a few blocks down, the diminutive town leader taking almost three steps apiece to match the lengthy stride of her bear of a companion. Neither of them looked happy, though Gale's expression softened somewhat by the time they reached the town hall. Still, she didn't spare a greeting for any of them, simply walking to the double doors and holding one open. "All of you. Inside, now."
Weiss went rigid, positively bristling at the direct order. Ruby took the stairs two at a time.
"Come on, guys," she motioned for her team, making sure to stand between Weiss and Gregor as the two scowled and sneered respectively. Ruby held up her hands, turning serious, "Guys."
"Why should I let these punks in my mines when they can't even keep a kid safe," the man snarled to Gale. His face was smudged with dirt or gunpowder and his no-longer-white sleeves were rolled to the elbows despite the snow. Apparently he wasn't in the mood to settle in before starting the negotiations, "If Beacon sent us rejects, I say we send 'em back," he ignored Ruby, reaching over her with ease to take a fistful of Weiss's coat, his free hand straying to the claymore at his back, "Especially this one."
"Get your hands off of me," The heiress gritted through her teeth. She gripped the hilt of her rapier, the weapon's Dust chamber shifting to red.
The heavy slide of steel and the click of a round being chambered cut them off as Ruby shoved back between them, the barrel of her partially-extended sniper scythe tucked up under Gregor's chin. Ruby's hands were rock steady, her finger over the trigger, "I really, really don't like pointing weapons at people when there are Grimm to point at instead. So let's just go inside, okay?"
The chief miner bared his teeth and all but threw Weiss down the stone stairs and turned to enter the doorway. The altercation had lasted only a handful of seconds. Ruby breathed a short sigh of relief and stowed Crescent Rose while her partner straightened, the very picture of cold fury.
Blake and Yang appeared at Weiss's sides, flanking her like sentries, the latter cracking her knuckles and casting a dangerous glare at the mining chief's back as he retreated past Gale and into the building.
Somehow, the group made it into one of the town hall's small meeting rooms without a second scuffle. A decent-sized rectangular oak table and plush chairs lent the room a much warmer atmosphere than the one being brought in by its tense new occupants. Team RWBY sat in order on one side of table, Gregor took up nearly half of the other side on his own, and Gale stood at the table's head, waiting until everyone was settled before she took a deep breath, and spoke.
"Firstly, before anything else is said," her eyes swept the team of huntresses, "I want to personally thank you four for protecting our children," she underscored her emphasis with a sharp look at Gregor, "I don't even want to consider what could have happened if you hadn't been there." Here Gale leaned forward, placing her scarred hands on the cool tabletop as she leveled a hard gaze at her disgruntled chief of mining operations, "Secondly, and I'll be blunt - these attacks need to stop. These girls need access to the mines. All four of them."
"Gale, you've been blunt from the get-go and I've been blunt right back," Gregor crossed his arms over his chest. "We've been holding our own in the mines in the day. Daylight comes, and none of them get past us."
"Except the two that almost ate your town's entire under-twelve population," Weiss didn't so much as bat an eye when Gregor rose from his seat, features twisted in a snarl.
Blake resisted the urge to put her face in her hands - so much for keeping Weiss from talking, though, she couldn't fault her for being right. Her shorthand note to Yang read simply "sass."
"Gregor," Gale snapped the man's name like a whip, taking a second to compose herself before starting again. "Gregor. Don't let that winning personality get to you," she spared a brief, scathing look at Weiss, "but don't kid yourself. We were holding our own weeks ago. You and I both know the attacks have only been getting worse. We need help. I requested help. This is who we were sent. This is who we have to work with."
"And I'll work with 'em. Three of 'em," Gregor's chair gave a strained creak as he settled back into it. He gripped the arms of his chair as he turned back to Weiss. "You can work with Ed. You know Ed? Always looking for some help cleaning out the septic tanks round the edge of town."
"Look," Ruby broke in, throwing an arm across Weiss's front before she could rise to Gregor's insult, "We work as a team, and that's that. If you want us to help you find the source of these Grimm bats, you have to let us in."
"So the little girl wants to call the shots?" Gregor snorted but didn't make a move to threaten the formidable huntress-in-training, "So far you haven't done jack to stop these bats. They aren't just coming from the mine, either. Those two that got to the kids didn't get by us."
"And what exactly do you want these huntresses to do about the Grimm without going into the mines?" Gale interjected, a small vein beginning to pop out on her neck, "Do you seriously expect them to scour the entire mountainside for some kind of new opening to the caves? Something that may not even be there? A needle in a haystack at best that could take days, weeks to find? When all it would take is a matter of hours to guide them straight to the very opening these dustforsaken Grimm appeared in when your miners first broke through that cavern wall?"
The elderly woman's tone, which had been rising steadily throughout her rapid-fire questioning, dropped to a low growl, "If these girls are trained to fight best as a coherent unit, then forcing them to work apart would be stupid, plain and simple," scarred hands balled into fists, resting on the edge of the table as Gale slowly drew herself to her full height, eye-to-eye with Gregor in his chair, "Are you really going to sit there and deny them access to the mines, their one solid lead, because one of them happens to be a Schnee?"
"You bet I am. Beacon sent us students. As fancy as their weapons might look, none of them's gonna be able to fix this," the huge man's jaw was set as stone, "There's been more and more of these things, and I'm not compromising my operation so a bunch of teenagers can just 'look around' for a while, maybe knock out a couple of bats. Not when one of 'em share's blood with a high-class gang that's been trying to take us apart for years," he met Gale's fury evenly. "If they want to do any looking, they do it outside. That second entrance exists. Make 'em scout it out. That way when they turn tail, the real huntresses won't have to waste their time like you're wasting mine."
Ruby felt like a kid sitting at the adult table by the time the miner was finished. She swallowed and watched Weiss grip the edge of her chair so hard she'd probably leave marks. "I know we're... maybe we're not..." Ruby fumbled for words, but, well, what could she say?
It was strange witnessing such blatant prejudice aimed at someone other than a fellow Faunus, but that didn't stop the dark disgust that pooled in Blake's gut at the sight of it. She was already caught in a crossfire of fire and ice - the heat of her partner's slowly burning rage to her left and Weiss's cold fury to her right, both sensations fueling her own building anger with this impossible man. Yet, it was catching the hurt in Ruby's eyes that finally pushed her over the edge.
Blake's voice was calm as she picked up where her team leader trailed off. "If anything you are the one who's turned tail. Running and hiding behind your pride rather than accepting the help you're being offered," she never once looked up from her scroll, dutifully typing her notes to Yang as she continued in her usual monotone, "Apparently, guarding your old grudge against my teammate's family name is more important to you than the ultimate safety of this town."
Gregor scowled at Gale, jerking his head toward Blake, "Why're they even in here? Trying to out vote me, or somehing? I've got a couple dozen guys who'd work a cliff shift in freezing rain for a chance to take a crack at a Schnee, if that's the game we're playing."
"Look, we get it, okay? You really don't want us in the mines," Ruby wished she sounded a little more team-leader-ish. She wasn't intimidated exactly- well, not because Gregor was big. Just the nice chairs and the polished oak and the paintings... and why couldn't they just get along anyway? She rubbed her arm, "If there's other stuff we can do, let's just do it," she glanced to her team for support, not quite certain that she'd get it, "At least it'd be better than arguing, right? I mean, bats are showing up in the day now. That's... kind of super bad."
"Super bad is one way to say it," Gale tore her gaze from the team of huntresses to glare at her chief of mining operations, matching his scowl with one of her own "Unacceptable is another." The elderly woman took a deep, steadying breath, releasing it in a bone-deep sigh. "I had intended for us all to have a civil discussion about this, but since that seems to be impossible," her eyes darted in quick succession from Blake, to Weiss, and finally to Gregor, "we're done here. This meeting is over."
Gale stood back, folding her arms behind her back as she addressed Ruby. "You girls do what you can searching the mountainside," she shot a glance at Gregor that quite literally sparked with fury, electricity trailing in an arc from her eye as her head turned, "I will search the mines for the source of these Grimm myself." More sparks trailed from her boots as she stalked across the room to the towering oak door that led back to the main hall, "Now if you'll excuse me, I have arrangements to make for someone to manage the city in my stead, because someone refuses to let our requested help do their job." With one last withering glare at Gregor, Gale took her leave, leaving the door wide open behind her.
Ruby cringed as Gregor shoved his chair back, giving her team one last glower. She heard him mutter- the words 'crone' and 'waste of time' reached her ears- as he turned to the door, leaving the four girls alone in the meeting room.
"... that could have gone better," Ruby clasped her hands in her lap. Noticing Weiss's fists were balled so hard she was shaking, she added, "Um... but it could have gone worse?"
The heiress realized how hard she was tensing and forced herself to relax. Head up, shoulders back. She rose from her chair, hand going to Myrtenaster's hilt, "Let's just go."
"Let's," Blake stood as well, followed closely by Yang.
The brawler immediately went to her sister's side and placed a hand on her shoulder, giving it a solid squeeze. She glanced at each of her teammates in turn, acutely aware of the heavy atmosphere that had settled over the group. A confident smirk slid into place as Yang released Ruby's shoulder and crossed her arms. "So, when we find that opening in the mountainside and eradicate everything we find, I vote we make that guy literally stick his filthy foot in his filthy mouth."
The hint of a smile starting to pull at Blake's features spurred her on, "And uh, if we're going after more of those bat-things today-"
"Liliac," Blake sighed quietly to herself.
"-then, maybe we should invest in some earplugs or something first, so you all don't end up like me."
"Yeah... that's a good idea," Ruby mustered her enthusiasm as they left the town hall and crunched back out into the snow, "I mean, yeah! We'll get some ear protection and go find where the Liliac are coming from, and clear it out, and, well, if they still don't let us in the mine, we'll just put that in the report for whoever comes out here next."
Weiss cast her a slantwise glance, "Speaking of reports, you never sent yesterday's, did you?"
Ruby gave a nervous laugh, pausing at the base of the town hall stairs, "I guess I got distracted?" she poked her index fingers together, "Um. How about Yang and Blake find earplugs while you and I... do that."
A/N: So, this was an exceptionally challenging chapter to write... because... I have never played in snow... I have never even held a snowball, or built a snowman. I know nothing of this magical fluffy cold white substance. What do you mean there is a type of frozen water that isn't ice-cubes. (I basically had to ask Fiercesomest everything~~)
Will team RWBY find another entrance? ? Tune in next time~
HUGS,
Defenestrator
PS. Sorry this is late I have no excuse ahhhHHH