Blake's plan of visiting Jack's house first lasted all of one block. She had barely made it to the corner when a crashing sound and a shrill scream pierced the night air, dragging the Faunus's attention away from her intended destination towards the relatively small house she had just passed. A cloud of dust partially illuminated by the nearby streetlamp rose from the now-missing corner of the home. The wall and part of the ceiling had fallen in.
Sharp amber eyes cut through the darkness looming outside of the streetlamp's meager circle of light to see a Liliac diving straight towards the source of the original scream - an old man pinned beneath his own home's rafters. Gambol Shroud was already in pistol form by the time Blake took aim at the creature, firing a single shot that tore straight through its wing, throwing the Grimm off course and sending it careening into the ground just short of its target.
The snarling beast landed hard, but it wouldn't give up. It writhed and dragged itself towards the cringing man, stopping only when Blake slammed into it from the side, sweeping Gambol Shroud's sharpened sheath straight into its neck and sending the beheaded beast flying into the darkness in two distinct pieces.
"Are you all right?" Blake lowered her voice in an attempt to keep from further startling the wide-eyed man. She breathed an internal sigh of relief when he came to his senses enough to scowl and spit blood from what looked to be a busted lip and a missing tooth. His leg was pinned by the roof's collapsed support beam, and he growled in pain when he struggled to his elbows to get a better look at who had just spoken to him.
The elderly man blinked through the inky blackness of the evening, squinting to see anything beyond the dark amber-eyed figure standing amidst the rubble at the very edge of the streetlamp's circle of light. "Are you..." he caught sight of the girl's weapon, "Oh thank Dust a huntress. Finally. I figured you lot had abandon-" his voice caught in his throat when a Liliac dropped from the sky out of nowhere to literally rend the girl in two, dissipating her stoic form in a burst of darkness.
Just as the Liliac turned its blood red eyes on the frozen old man, Blake descended from the darkness herself in her own improved version of the Grimm's earlier attack. One clean stab to the back of its neck killed the creature mid-snarl. The old man stared in awe. "How did you-"
"It's not safe here," Blake cut the man off before he could waste time with questions, taking quick stock of the beam pinning his leg. It was without a doubt too heavy for her to move on her own, but... she could cut it to a size light enough for her to manage. She moved to the beam and paused, poised to strike with her blade. "Don't move."
The old man had lived long enough to understand an order when he heard one and complied immediately, flinching at the sound of steel meeting wood, and heaving in shock when the severed beam only rolled to crush his leg further. "What in Remnant's name are you doing," he gasped through the pain even as Blake rolled it the rest of the way, freeing him.
"It was too heavy to lift," Blake's simple explanation didn't seem to appease the old man, who glowered at her even as she came to help him stand.
"Oh god my leg," he moaned, grimacing both for the pain and for the mere sight of the appendage hanging at an awkward, useless angle as Blake began to help him move forward, "You broke the blasted thing - because a piece of wood was too heavy? Dust, why couldn't it have been that blonde one to find me, she had muscles to rival an ox, that girl."
Blake's fierce scowl silenced the man's tirade. With one arm supporting the old man and guarding him with Gambol Shroud's sheath and her free hand gripping her sword, Blake and her charge hobbled their way back towards the clinic, making slow but steady progress, each step punctuated by a grunt of pain from the man. It wasn't long before they turned the nearby corner and the clinic came into view just a few yards away.
Even beneath the bow, Blake's Faunus ears caught the telltale sound of wings fluttering above and to their left, allowing her to duck and pull the old man down with her just as a Liliac dove past them, bone-white talons brushing right through the hair on the top of Blake's head. The close call drove her to ignore all else but the goal before them and she hissed, "Move."
The sharp, one-word command spurred the elderly man to grit his teeth and shuffle faster to match Blake's increased pace, making it to the light of the clinic's door in half the time it would have taken previously. Bake paused to carefully scan the skies, catching sight of their attacker already heading off in pursuit of a new target. A grim expression overtook her features when the realization sank in that that the Liliac would actually make her sweep of the town incredibly easy, drawn as they were to the intense fear that was doubtlessly being given off by anyone left alive.
Pushing that thought aside for the time being, Blake ushered the winded elderly man through the door of the clinic and quickly shut it behind them, breathing a short sigh of relief that halted when she realized he was staring at her strangely. She stared right back, tracking his eyes, noting how they were locked onto something just slightly above her head.
Instantly Blake's hand flew to her bow - her ears - the bow was gone. Her revealed Faunus ears flattened almost as if they were trying to hide themselves, betraying the shock she attempted to hide with her passive expression.
The man's eyes had narrowed. "You're..."
"They can help you in the kitchen. Follow the blood," in a rushed flurry of movement, Blake carefully deposited the man in the nearest chair and flung herself out the clinic's front door, escaping into the night.
Anything else that happened that night was a blur to Ruby. She wanted to help- she really did—but when she stood up her legs shook and the room pitched and spun. Cyan and Curtis shifted Weiss to one of the small cots near Yang and buried her in blankets while Ruby crashed on the floor at her bedside, curling up on her partner's relatively unbloodied outer coat with Crescent Rose in case there was any more trouble.
The door open and closed, opened and closed, and Ruby sort of heard other voices talking and crying softly- other survivors?- but she only snuggled a little closer to her compact scythe, the metal warming to the touch of her skin as she sank into a deep, exhausted sleep.
Morning came, but it was dark. The barred shutters rattled in the wind. The only light from outside was gray and bleak with falling snow.
Ruby woke by degrees, shivering on the floor between Weiss and Yang's cots. She pushed herself up, disoriented at first. The room was crowded with the sleeping injured. Some dozed against the walls, others huddled on the floor as Ruby had, sharing blankets against the cold that collected on the floor even in such a packed space.
There were bloodstains on the wall, tracked across the floor, everywhere. A low lamp burned on the kitchen table. Cyan had her brown hair tied back in an austere bun to keep it out of the way as she and Curtis cleaned and stitched wounds, or set bones, or gave broken townsfolk cups of weak tea.
Ruby scrubbed her eyes, sticky with sleep and worry, and got up on her knees to check on Weiss.
The fencer was still breathing. Even with all the blankets, her skin remained cool to the touch. She didn't open her eyes. Ruby took her hand from her partner's forehead and rubbed both of hers together, blowing them for warmth as she got to her feet and stumbled to Yang's bedside.
Her sister looked rough. Really rough. Bruises everywhere, and were those burn marks? Could Yang get burned? Ruby got a lump in her throat and had to sit back down on Weiss's coat for a second and blink away the prickly feeling she got when she was about to cry. They were both alive, at least. And so was she, and Blake.
Her heart skipped a beat. Actually, where was Blake? Had she made it back? Was she still working out in snow? Ruby wiped her eyes on her sleeve and tried to locate her teammate in the gloom.
At that very moment the kitchen door swung open, and as if summoned by Ruby's thoughts, Blake stepped through the threshold. The Faunus cut a frightening image, painted head to toe in wild streaks of blood and dirt. Dark bags underlined hardened amber eyes, light cuts and scrapes littered her clothing and skin. And yet, despite the lines of fatigue etched into her expression, Blake stood strong. She carried a shivering young girl in her arms and an even younger boy rode her shoulders, clearly not yet old enough to grasp the gravity of the situation as he played with Blake's cat ears, happily murmuring "Kitty~" each time the velvety black appendages twitched away from his fumbling touch.
Blake's put upon expression warmed considerably when she caught sight of Ruby awake and well, and she sent a tired smile her team leader's way before refocusing her attention to the other side of the room. "Cyan," voice deepened with exhaustion, she called as quietly as she could to keep from waking those who were still trying to rest, glancing down at the girl in her arms. "Hypothermia."
"Hm," Cyan hummed through her concentration as she stitched, and Curtis rose to fetch another cup of tea from the stove for the girl, weary and grumbling.
There was a dwindling pile of blankets in the corner. Ruby climbed her way under Yang's cot to reach one.
"Here," she picked her way through the others on the floor, to the table, where a man with an uneven gash in his leg sweated it out under Cyan's needle. Ruby spoke, voice hushed, leaning on a chair for support. "Blake, can you tell me what's going on?"
Blake carefully stepped over a mother and child curled up on their sides and skirted around the man sprawled out beside them, finding a bit of free space to set the girl down before taking the blanket being held out by her team leader with a quick look of gratitude. She slid the young boy from her shoulders to sit him beside the shivering girl she assumed was his older sister, wincing visibly when he briefly refused to release one of her Faunus ears without a bit of gentle coaxing. Once the children were situated, safely bundled up in the surprisingly soft fleece blanket, Blake stood and turned her weary gaze to Ruby, blinking a few times to focus.
It took a second to fully register that she'd been asked a question, but even then she didn't really know where to start her answer. After a moment where she simply stared, Blake gave up on sorting her thoughts in any particular logical order and simply started with what she felt would most quickly put Ruby at ease. "The Liliac have mostly departed with the daylight," which had made it harder to find survivors as quickly, but that didn't seem like something she should mention at this point.
"I haven't made the most... coordinated sweep of the town," haphazard would have been a good descriptor, but she wanted to inspire at least some confidence in her team leader, "but I feel like I've covered a lot of ground, and found quite a few survivors."
She also didn't feel up to mentioning the less than favorable initial reactions she'd been given by a large percentage of the very people she'd been trying to rescue - distrust, shock... fear was the worst. When the injured tried to run from her, like she was just as terrifying as one of the Grimm... She was starting to think the people of this town had never seen a Faunus before.
With a quiet sigh, Blake pushed the thoughts away. Her mind was wandering towards pessimism in its exhausted state. Maybe she really was the first Faunus this town had seen. Most of them had relaxed once they realized she was one of Beacon's huntresses and was there to help - not drag them into the darkness and feed them to the Grimm.
"The miners arrived sometime around dawn," she started once more, trying to keep from spacing out further. "They've been taking the less injured to help fortify the mines... I think." Blake closed her eyes, ears flattening as she crossed her arms. "They didn't actually say much to me." She had crossed paths with the men a few times by now, usually catching them as they were helping people out of their fortified basements. Each time she approached to lend a hand, they turned and stalked away towards the mines without so much as a word.
Blake opened her eyes again to find herself staring at the floor. When had her head drooped? She gave herself a quick shake to wake back up and glanced over at Weiss and Yang's corner. Her face fell. They still hadn't come around. After fiercely beating down the part of her that wondered if they ever would, Blake swept her gaze over to Ruby and did her best to smile. The younger girl looked far brighter with some sleep under her belt. It was a heartening sight. "Glad to see you're holding up. How are... they?" Blake couldn't keep her eyes from drifting back to their teammates.
Ruby's shoulders dropped upon hearing Blake's report and seeing her teammate so worn out. She crossed her arms on top of the back of her chair, hugging her arms close and stealing a glance back at her sister and Weiss. "They haven't woken up yet. Yang doesn't look so great, and Weiss is really cold, but she's not bleeding anymore. I didn't try getting them up or anything."
"That's probably for the best," Cyan set her needle aside, wiping her hands on a cloth before applying a bandage to her patient's leg. Curtis placed a cup on the corner of the table near Blake on his way with another cup for the young girl. Any surprise the pair of small-town physicians had experienced at finding out Blake was a Faunus had long since given way to acceptance and steady work. The same could not be said of all of the injured. Some who were still awake cast dark glances at her, wary. Suspicious. Cyan looked up at Blake, "Any sign of Gale?"
Blake's ears, which had perked at the tea set before her, instantly flattened at the mention of the town's leader. Former leader. "She..." had been reduced to a scorched, charred remnant of her former self, but the Faunus scrunched her eyes shut, willing away the image of the shellshocked miner carrying the elderly woman's sill-smoldering body towards the mines. "She didn't make it."
Ruby hadn't realized how quiet the room had gotten when Cyan had asked about the town's guardian until after Blake's pronouncement. The man on the table propped himself on his elbow, swearing softly under his breath. Several people broke down in quiet tears.
Curtis returned to the table, refusing to look at anyone. Cyan was suddenly very busy cleaning blood off her hands and arms, "... she's been standing between us and the Grimm for a long time now."
Blake nodded, reaching for the steaming cup of tea that had been set out for her. She wanted to say something... Maybe something respectful or uplifting. But in the end, all she could muster was a quiet, "I'm sorry."
Ruby swallowed, trying to clear the thick feeling in her mouth. If the hope of the injured townsfolk huddled in the kitchen was a light, it was flickering badly. She broke away from the group at the table to peer out a narrow gap in the shutters at the wind-driven snow outside. It was only a couple of days before Chuck was supposed to come back. Would he even be able to? She pulled out her scroll. Its battery was running low, and it still didn't have a signal. She slipped back to her place at the table.
"Is there a plan for this kind of thing? Like, an emergency back-up?" Ruby kept her voice low in case there wasn't.
Cyan sat down, resting her hands in her lap while Curtis helped the recently-stitched man out of the kitchen, maybe to rest on the couch in the small front room or something. "We have stores of food and water, and hand radios to call out for assistance. The mines are probably the easiest to fortify. Barring attacks of enormous Grimm- Goliaths or well... anything the size of a house- our homes are... were supposed to be able to hold up. We're well equipped for beowulf packs, or even ursai, just..." she paused to take a shaky breath, "Now that it's daylight, they'll organize parties to find any more injured or missing. I expect, well, if there are more of those things..."
Ruby couldn't fathom there being more Liliac. There had been hundreds. Thousands. But they'd kept coming. She glanced at Blake, who she figured had seen their cave, or nest, or whatever. Was another attack like last night's possible? Or had Gale's lightning wiped out most of the bats?
Blake frowned at the unspoken question as she nursed her tea, hating her unending role as the bearer of bad news. "If the branching paths we saw in their den was any indication... we may have only seen a fraction of their total number."
"... but we don't really know, right? I mean..." Ruby trailed off. They knew. They were Grimm. There were always more than you thought. They always got in where you thought they wouldn't. The only way to fight them was to be ready all the time. She and Blake and Weiss and Yang were huntresses-in-training, meant to step into the gap and defend the defenseless. They had to be ready.
"We'll watch for them," Ruby pushed off the chair, straightening her cloak, "Blake, you should rest for a while. Do you need anything from the cabin? I'm going to pick up more ammo."
"I could use more ammunition as well," Blake glanced back at Gambol Shroud - she had run out of rounds towards the end of the night, and though her blades had worked just as well, the close range attacks had led to some close calls. Fatigue hadn't been helping either. Ruby's offer to get rest was sorely tempting, but the tea was waking her up a bit and... Blake's gaze drifted back to Weiss, then settled on her partner. They were both so still.
She couldn't stay here. She needed a distraction. "Are you sure you don't want company?" Blake tried to keep the desperation from her voice as she scrambled to think of some logic she could use to back up her offer, "I haven't been as far as the cabin yet. I don't know what it's like out there."
Ruby's stoic leader act slipped at once and she whispered, "I mean, actually if you want to and you're not too tired and," to Cyan and Curtis, "we'll send someone right back here to keep a lookout in case there's any sign of any-"
"Ruby," Cyan's tone was fatigued, but fond, "We'll be fine."
Ruby took a deep breath, "Okay. Can we... tell us if you want us to bring you anything."
"Blankets," the other woman said. There were only a few heavy flannel sheets left in the stack by the door, "If it's no trouble."
"B-blake, I'm r-really glad you came," Ruby kept her head down against the wind and snow, but her hood blew back and the cold got down her collar and cut through even her thick cloak.
The townsfolk they crossed paths with were bundled in their thick, bright colored coats. They dug through the ruins of houses too riddled with holes to stand, looking for neighbors or family. They cast looks at the huntresses but didn't question them. Some of the looks were darker than others.
Ruby pulled her crimson garment closer around herself, squinting through the swirls of white, "Think we're almost there?"
Blake almost didn't hear her, with her Faunus ears flattened flush against her skull in a feeble attempt to shield them from the biting wind. She dearly wished for her bow, if only for the slight bit of insulation it would have provided.
Her eyes, however, were wide open, and even through the unforgiving swirls of white, she could recognize some of the landmarks that were still in one piece. "Yes, I think so." It took everything she had to get the words out clearly through her chattering teeth.
The blanket Curtis had thrown at her before they left was certainly better than nothing, but as she tightened it around her shoulders, all she could think was how it paled in comparison to the warmth of her partner she was accustomed to. She wanted that warmth back more than anything.
A sharp gust of wind nearly pushed her into Ruby, but she held fast, glaring at the path ahead. "...I think I see it."
Ruby squinted through the stinging snow. The dark outline of their cabin stood out in front of them, not fifty yards off.
"C'mon, let's run," she said, putting on a burst of speed to get down the last bit of road and up the porch steps.
She burst through the front door.
The dim interior of the cabin was just as they'd left it. Weiss's luggage was next to the door. There was a spill of pillows next to the couch, and a couple of hot-chocolate crusted mugs by the fireplace. Everything was quiet and cold.
Ruby held the door open a little for Blake, bracing it against the wind that wanted to fling it against the backstop. "Hurry up, it's freezing!"
Blake did not need to be told twice - she shot forward, spawning shadow clones in her wake as she slipped inside and helped Ruby push the door shut. Only once the cabin was closed to the howling winds did she let her ears unfold. She bit back a wince at their stiffness and tentatively brought a hand up to try rubbing a bit of feeling back into the icy black velvet.
"If this weather keeps up, we'll probably need to change into warmer clothes." Even as she spoke, she glanced down at her current outfit, streaked with grime and blood. "...Actually, I'm going to change right now." The second the words left her mouth she disappeared up the stairs, followed by the sound of the loft's bathroom door shutting.
Mere minutes later she emerged in her black pants, long-sleeve blouse, and black winter coat, left unbuttoned in case it proved too cumbersome and needed to be shed during battle. Grabbing the beanie hanging on her bedpost - the one she had woken up in after her drunken stupor - Blake crossed to the edge of the loft to peer down into the cabin's lower floor. "Ruby?"
The younger girl sat cross legged on the rag rug in front of the fire, fitting Crescent Rose with a fresh cartridge from her backpack, which appeared to contain nothing but carefully packed ammunition, "Did you say something? Wow, that looks way warmer."
"It is," Blake glanced between Ruby and the beanie in her hand, suddenly overrun with memories of all the times Yang made her promise to take care of the younger girl in her stead. The requests had been joking at times, dead-serious at others, but each time Blake had agreed. She hadn't expected to be taken up on that promise so soon. She also hadn't expected to be without Weiss's help in keeping it.
Tearing her eyes from the beanie and the pessimistic thoughts it was inducing, Blake tossed it down to Ruby with a sad smile. "Here, keep your head warm at least." She then followed Ruby's lead and left the loft's edge to gather ammunition for herself and her partner, who would need it when she woke up.
Ruby caught and set the red hat on the side of the couch. She'd put it on when they were ready to go. For now, she popped into the kitchen to grab some supplies- a loaf of bread, some cans of chicken soup shoved way back in the cupboard. Realizing she hadn't eaten at all that morning, and probably neither had Blake, Ruby dug around and found a jar of peanut butter and some spoons and filled a couple of glasses with milk.
She dashed up the stairs, appearing in the loft in a flurry of rose petals, peanut butter and bread in hand.
"Time to refuel," she announced, setting the food on the end of Yang's bed and disappearing back down the stairs. She reappeared with the milk and handed Blake a glass, her solemn silver gaze brooking no arguments.
The Faunus paused in the middle of reloading Gambol Shroud, staring at the offered drink with a barely concealed smile. Had this come from anyone but Ruby, she might have thought it was a crack at her more feline features. Without further hesitation, she accepted the milk and downed half of it in one shot before setting it on the floor to finish with her weapon, relaxing a bit with the familiar click of the fresh cartridge of rounds locking into place.
With Gambol shroud secured on her back, and her bag stuffed with blankets and further ammunition packed and ready to go, Blake forgot about her drink and got to her feet. "I'm ready to go when you are."
Her stomach refuted this statement with a growl that was closer to a roar. Blake's ears flattened slightly, belying the embarrassment she hid with a thoughtful expression as she caught Ruby's stern expression and eyed the food she had set out. "But... refueling first sounds sensible."
It wasn't exactly a picnic, but it got the job done. Ruby wolfed down sliced bread spread with thick layers of peanut butter and washed it down with her mug of milk, and Blake ate hers, and then they finished packing up and headed back into the snow.
If anything, the storm had gotten worse. Ice crystals stung across Ruby's cheek as she ducked out into the howling wind, burdened with supplies.
"At least this will probably keep the bats away," she yelled to Blake, shielding her eyes to try and figure out where the path was.
Blake nodded, realizing a second later that Ruby probably wasn't even able to see the gesture. The snowstorm- no, the blizzard, was unrelenting, and she could barely see anything other than Ruby's bright red cloak, even with the girl standing right beside her. Blake threw her hand out to catch her fearless leader's arm when the younger girl tried to step out into the arms of the storm.
"Ruby, hang on," she shouted, glaring out at the snow. She thought Ruby might have said something back, but wasn't really able to make it out over the storm, so she simply took Gambol Shroud's ribbon and tied one end around Ruby's wrist before pulling her close enough to speak directly into her ear. "Stay here a second - let me see if I can find the road."
With the other girl as her lifeline, Blake pushed out into the snow, immediately regretting her decision as she was battered by needle-like waves of icy winds. No matter how far she ventured, or which direction she turned, everything was white. Everywhere the same looming, taunting, unforgiving wall of white. A bleak pit of frustration and sadness settled in her gut when she reached the end of the ribbon's length but still hadn't seen a scrap of anything other than snow. There was no way they could trek through this on foot.
Blake allowed herself a disappointed growl as she followed her ribbon back to Ruby, stopping frequently to brace herself against relentless gusts of wind that threatened to take her the ground. When she finally made it back to Ruby's side, a scowl darkened her features as she realized she'd returned from a completely different direction than she'd started out from. She gripped Ruby's arms, leaning forward to speak into her ear once more, "It's no good."
Ruby had wrapped one arm around the porch railing while Blake was searching.
"Yeah," she had to yell over the wind. It felt like giving up, but she repeated, "Yeah," and turned, fighting her way up the steps.
She and Blake shut the door. Ruby slumped against the smooth wood in the relative stillness of the cabin. Unless they came up with a way to beat white-out blizzard conditions, they were stuck. Out of habit, or maybe just misplaced optimism, she checked her scroll.
Still no signal.
Outside, the storm continued to howl.
A/N: Surely nothing bad will happen while the team is separated, right? Riiiiiight.
In other news, I'm in Florida! My first tropical storm experience was somewhat underwhelming- I didn't know it was happening and accidentally wound up biking in it. Whoops. (These things do come in sort of quickly, I hear.) A big tree fell down, though, so that was cool.
Anyway, complete opposite weather from writing a blizzard. Ha. Tune in next time and we'll check on Team Freezerburn.
- Fiercesomest