A/N: Sorry again about this being so late at night! Of course right after we decided to post this on tuesdays my brilliant self decided to sign up for a tuesday thursday summer class that goes until 9:30pm aahahaHAh good job me.
Oh and last chapter was a cliffhanger yikes, ahhh, ah man sorry about that guys. OK enough of my rambling, have fun with the chapter!
HUGS,
D
The sky was bright blue overhead.
A pair of miners dragged Weiss up the stairs and out through the window to the roof, throwing her in a drift of partially packed snow. The fencer struggled to push herself up, but fell forward, exhausted. Snow clung to her thin undershirt and pants.
"I don't like this," one of the miners standing over her said. His voice sounded tinny, far away.
The heavy click of a round being chambered came, followed by the other man's voice "Just shut up."
Weiss shut her eyes and set her jaw, waiting for them to pull the trigger.
Had the heiress's eyes been open, she would have seen a towering inferno rise up behind the line of five miners, partially hidden by the slope of the roof - an inferno that sprinted forward and barreled straight into the back of the center gunman just as he fired, throwing his bullet's trajectory wide to the left, where it disappeared in a harmless burst of snow.
For a split second it was clear the inferno was actually a person. One gunman caught sight of crimson eyes flashing with unbridled rage. Another saw nothing but a blazing mane of yellow, but the third caught sight of their assailant's face the moment it whipped by - the brawler Gregor had just banished.
Her features, so often relaxed and smiling, had twisted into a fierce snarl as she used her charge's momentum to leap from the gunman's shoulders up into the air, landing with explosive force directly in the middle of their line of fire.
A mountain of snow erupted from her point of impact, obscuring everything in sight with an all encompassing wall of powdery white, rattling the clinic's window and flinging heavy chunks of ice in every direction.
Confused and frightened shouts filled the air. Hidden in the midst of the chaos, Yang scrambled to Weiss's side and hefted the fallen heiress into a bridal carry, grimacing when she felt herself begin to sink even further into the snow with their combined weight.
"I knew he would try something. I knew it. Weiss, I'm so sorry."
The brawler was beside herself, repeating those same three phrases seemingly at random as she pushed through the snow, nearly waist deep in the slush created by the unfortunate heat of her semblance. She was soaked, Weiss was soaked, wild gunshots tore through the air, one of which whizzed just past the brawler's ear.
Somehow, the cloud of snow held just long enough for Yang to reach the corner of the nearest house and haul the both of them up onto the blessedly solid surface of shingles.
Escape was in sight. Crouched and ready to sprint across the tops of the houses to any safe place she could find, Yang gripped Weiss a little closer to herself as she stepped forward - and fell straight through the roof.
They landed in the middle of a modest bedroom. The rug was rough with ice that had spilled in through a Grimm-chewed hole in the eaves. The sound of men shouting from the other rooftop barely reached them.
For a moment, everything was caught in a fragile peace. Powdery snow sparkled in the shaft of light from above.
Weiss coughed and shivered in Yang's arms. Blood dripped from her nose and her voice shook, "Let's not do that again."
Yang choked back a laugh that was more of a sob, gripping the smaller girl as if she were a lifeline. "Let's not."
Bits and pieces of roof clattered to the floor as she struggled to her feet without the use of her arms, but she paid it no mind, only half-listening for signs of the miner's voices growing closer. The path left behind by her semblance was going to be obvious either way. If Gregor's men really wanted to chase them down, she would deal with them accordingly. Either way, they needed to keep moving.
The brawler's steps were light and searching as she moved carefully through the darkened space. Even still, she banged her shin on a stray piece of furniture, probably a nightstand, then stepped on something sharp, biting back a choice curse as she dragged her foot along the carpet to dislodge whatever it was. She dearly wished for her boots, left by the side of the cot she and Weiss had been resting in less than thirty minutes ago.
She found the stairs before too long, and glanced warily down into the pitch darkness below. Her rage had largely passed, but a cursory check on the shivering girl in her arms sparked a healthy resurgence.
"Oh my god, Weiss, what did he do to you."
The heiress's aura, weakened as it was, seemed to be having trouble taking care of the cut that had opened up close to her hairline, both it and her nose gushing the very blood Weiss had been working so hard to recover. Licks of livid flame rose from Yang's hair and shoulders, but the brawler focused her anger, channeled it, forced the excess energy to flood through her aura in a desperate attempt to help Weiss patch herself up.
Armed with the gentle glow that surrounded them both, Yang crept down the stairs.
She halted abruptly at the bottom step.
Amethyst eyes widened in disbelief, reflecting thousands of glittering dots of red, a sea of watchful eyes hanging from the ceiling.
So much for Gale's lightning wiping them all out.
Weiss was in and out of consciousness. The glints of nightmare red blurred before her eyes. Even hurt this badly, her left hand slid to her hip, but her weapon wasn't there.
"Yang, put me down," she breathed. Maybe her teammate would stand a chance if she didn't have to look after her.
Footsteps thudded on the roof.
Time seemed to slow down as the pocket of surviving Grimm shifted, their fathomless appetites aroused by the hurt and the hatred of those nearby. Several of them stretched their wings and opened their mouths. Their fangs showed gold and patterned black in the light of Yang's aura.
The entire ceiling was packed, in this room and the hall beyond, it looked like. Even if Yang dropped Weiss to fight, in her current half-recovered, mostly-exhausted state, there was no way she could handle them all.
The sound of splintering of wood came from upstairs, distant, irrelevant now as the first of the Liliac uttered its deadly cry, as it prepared to leap for Yang and Weiss.
Something hit the landing behind and above them, and a different cry rang out- a familiar one. A red blur slammed Yang aside as time sped up. The dark room came alive with Grimm, their screeches filling the forsaken space as Ruby Rose whirled her massive scythe, shearing black flesh and bone.
For that handful of seconds, she was everywhere: standing over her sister, launching off the floor, the wall, off what used to be a dining room table, Crescent Rose cutting through the dark until the Liliac were reduced to sifts of ash.
"Oh no oh no oh no," Ruby dove to Yang and Weiss, frantically switching from trying to help and trying to give them space, words tumbling out of her a mile a minute, "you're bleeding, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to shove you into the wall so hard I just needed to get past, I'm so sorry, there are guys on the roof shooting at us and-"
"Shut up, Ruby," Weiss snapped as she tried and failed to untangle herself from Yang. If it was possible to shout, cry, and throw up all at the same time, she was going to do it. Her face was a mess of blood and snot and now tears, she made a clumsy swipe to clear her vision, "Shut up and—and-"
"Right, sorry," Ruby grabbed Yang's arm to help her up, "Blake's upstairs. We've gotta go."
Before she could really process what was happening, Yang was being half-dragged back up the stairs she'd just descended. Ruby was here - that much she was aware of - her little sister was fine and well. And Blake. A smile flitted across the brawler's face at the familiar bark of Gambol Shroud's pistol rounds sounding from the rooftop above, only to be replaced by a frown when four quick shots interspersed with four separate shouts of pain, followed by four heavy thuds.
The subsequent shocked cries of filthy Faunus, dirty animal, and a slew of similarly vulgar phrases that carried down the stairwell assured Yang that her partner hadn't become a murderer for their sakes, but the slurs made her blood boil all the same, and her face dropped right back into a snarl when they reached the top of the stairs.
The second story's floor looked like swiss cheese, riddled with bullets embedded where they had torn through countless shadow clones, never quick enough to hit their original target. They had tried to shoot Blake. They had tried to shoot her sister. They had tried to execute Weiss.
Blake's head poked through the hole in the roof, Faunus eyes searching through the dark. She took in the sight of Yang and Weiss, and held her hands out, "Yang. Give her to me," to Ruby she reported, "One of the miners ran back to the clinic, I think he went to get-" A thunderous explosion cut off the tail end of her sentence. Shrapnel flew in every direction from the brand-new gaping hole in the roof. Blake looked at something over her shoulder, eyes wide. "Gregor."
Ruby's heart dropped as the bits of stone and shingle from the hole settled. She gripped Crescent Rose, leaping up to Blake's side in a flurry of red rose petals.
The chief miner stood braced on the steep pitch of the clinic's roof, not even thirty yards away. He rammed black powder and another fist-sized ball of metal into the barrel of his claymore cannon. His rough shaven jaw was set, the muscles in it working as he hefted the weapon to his shoulder for another shot. Behind him, his men were strapping on snowshoes.
"Get in the sled," Ruby's cloak swirled at her heels as she flailed one arm back towards the far edge of the roof.
A patchwork assemblage of wooden bedframe components lay tucked up behind the stone chimney. The contraption was fronted by a curved piece of metal that appeared to have been beaten into the role with a sledgehammer, which melded the result into a hack-job toboggan just big enough to fit the team.
Crescent Rose flashed in the sun, and the two halves of Gregor's cannon ball ripped through the shingles on either side of Blake and Weiss. Ruby shoved them towards the sled, "Go! Go, Yang, hurry!"
Yang pushed, and Blake pulled, and between the two of them they lifted Weiss free of the roof in seconds flat, Blake vanishing with Weiss an instant later, carting her injured teammate to their sled in a singular burst of speed. The brawler followed suit, but the height of her jump left much to be desired, powered as it was by drained limbs. She grabbed the splintered edge of the hole in the roof, hoisting herself up to stand beside her sister.
"Come on!" Blake shouted from the sled, crouching low over Weiss to shield her from any stray shots or shrapnel.
"Ruby," Yang grabbed her sister's forearm, trying to break her silver gaze from its laser-like focus on Gregor.
He was yelling to his men for another piece of ammunition. Ruby thanked her weapon-designing younger self for sticking with a reasonable caliber.
The other miners started shooting again- no one was jumping to charge the full team of huntresses-in-training- and Ruby turned and leapt into the sled, planting her feet and bracing Crescent Rose on the metal stop at the back, "Hang on tight, guys."
Weiss, still disoriented and bleeding, tried to sit up in Blake's arms, "What?"
Ruby pulled the trigger.
The kick from Crescent Rose's round sent the sled shooting across the snow.
The wind whipped through Ruby's hair and billowed her cloak out as she gripped Crescent Rose, prepared to fire again if they needed more speed. Rooftops raced past, stone icebergs in a sea of powdery white.
The trip up from the cabin had given Ruby ample time to regret not adding a way to steer, but as long as the sled kept to the roads, they wouldn't have a problem.
Unfortunately, the roads didn't run quite straight through town.
A particularly steep-pitched roof jutted from the snow like a tooth, directly in their path.
Ruby grabbed the edge of the toboggan, "Everyone lean left!"
Yang threw her weight to the side, but the sled barely budged, even when Blake joined in. The Faunus quickly scanned the area, and locked onto a building off to their side. "Yang!" She handed Weiss off to her partner, then stood, Gambol shroud shrinking into pistol form as she cranked her arm back and threw it as hard as she could. When the weapon caught on the edge of the building's low, blackened roof, she braced herself against the sled's side and pulled. The cracked and weathered shingles splintered and snapped into pieces, but she'd gained just enough leverage. The steep pitched roof flew by their side, a hair's breadth away.
"Thanks Blake!" Ruby yelled over the rush of wind as they shot through town.
"Ruby Rose you're going to get us all killed," Weiss fought Yang's grip, striving for a hold on the side of the sled, "Stop passing me back and forth- I'm not a piece of luggage."
Ruby kept an eye behind them, but the only sign from the miners far off up the street had been them shaking their fists and pointing their weapons. They hadn't giving chase. To the others, she called, "Looks like we're in the clear. What happened back there?"
Having finally relinquished her hold on Weiss, Yang's hands found their way to her face, and she seemed to slowly shut down.
"I told the truth..."
The words were barely a whisper, too quiet for human ears, but Blake frowned, throwing Ruby a look that begged her to wait until they weren't careening down the mountainside to start asking questions.
Weiss groaned from the floor of the sled, her head down almost in Yang's lap.
Ruby cringed at the other girls' responses, "...alright, team meeting back at the cabin then."
She turned to gaze back up at the snow-topped cliffs that rose over the town before a bump nearly threw her off balance. Refocusing, she set her jaw and watched for obstacles.