"So... let me get this straight. There are Grimm flying around over the school, but Amity Colosseum is nowhere to be seen, there are visible signs of smoke coming from the city, no Atlas airships, Beacon's tower is missing... and you let Ruby go ahead to check things out all by herself?"
Blake sighed, looking from Yang, who stood with her arms crossed, eyes halfway to red, down to Robin, who had come over to quietly cling to her leg to escape the burning heat coming from the brawler, then briefly to Weiss, who looked nearly as angry as Yang, in her own silently disapproving way.
It had seemed like a fair enough plan when Ruby spelled it out to her in a rush of concern for the city and their school, but she was feeling less and less confident about her choices in the face of her remaining teammates. Cringing, Blake nodded.
"Blake Belladonna so help me I am going to-"
"She didn't give me much of a choice, Yang." Blake held both hands up, trying to mollify her partner before she literally exploded into flames. "She took two flares. Two means all clear, one means anything otherwise."
"She's an idiot! You're an idiot!" Weiss flung a hand to the sheer cliff face that rose over them high enough to block out stars, "If something goes wrong-and it always goes wrong- how are we even supposed to get up to her?! How?"
Robin, apparently too anxious to simply cling, bit Blake in the leg.
Blake flinched both from the bite of Weiss's tone, and the actual teeth now sinking into her leg - at least the fabric of her pants offered a sort of barrier. "I don't know, I-" Blake's words halted in a stifled yelp when Robin began to bite down harder.
Wrangling the output of her semblance under control, Yang took pity on her partner and gently pried the little Faunus away from Blake and up into a hug, hiding her frustration and reddened gaze in the girl's hair.
"You deserved that," Weiss shot at Blake, already taking another breath to continue her tirade when Ruby vaulted over the fallen column at her back, landing right next to her in the few inches of snow with Crescent Rose in full scythe mode. Weiss flailed sideways, almost tumbling into the sled.
Ruby's red cloak pooled on the thin crust of ice atop the snow as she straightened up, determination in her silver eyes. She scrubbed them with her sleeve, only managing to highlight how red they looked around the edges.
"I found a way up the cliff," she reported to her team.
"Ruby?!" Blake and Yang shouted in unison, the former looking utterly baffled, while the latter brightened in an instant.
The brawler spared one of her arms around Robin to immediately grab and crush her sister to her side as she continued, "What were you thinking running off like that?!"
Blake only needed a moment to gather herself, tilting her head, ears lowering in confusion (and to avoid the loud barking from Drei as he pranced around his favorite person's feet). While she was beyond relieved to be off the hook, she'd obviously missed some critical aspect of the rapidfire instructions Ruby had thrown at her before zipping away. "Wait, what happened to checking things out?"
"I, uh..." Ruby scrambled to get loose from Yang and remember what she'd told Blake. She'd felt empty, and her eyes had burned like she was going to cry, and she recalled repeating 'I'll check it out, let me- I'll check it out.' and giving some excuse about the flares. After Blake had gone, Ruby had just stared at the school, tears dripping down her face and off her chin. She had to be the leader, though, so she brought up Crescent Rose and looked through her scope- she could see broken windows and Grimm, even in the deepening twilight. So many Grimm.
What had happened to Beacon?
What had happened to their home?
She snapped out of it as Weiss smacked her in the head.
"Ouch!" Ruby yelped, squirming more in Yang's grip.
"How dare you leave us behind. Especially after all the times you told us that we're a team, and that we should always stay together," Weiss clenched her fists at her side, glaring at Ruby.
"I'm sorry, I just- I needed a second, and I wasn't going to go," the sharp blow seemed to have knocked the toughness right out of her. She quit trying to keep the tears back and looked at Blake, "I didn't mean- I was coming right after you. Just, it's bad. It looks really bad."
Blake's heart sank to her feet. The tears sliding down Ruby's face served as a gut-wrenching warning that something was very, very wrong.
Yang's grip on Ruby loosened, but she kept hold of one of her hands. Blake's description of Vale's condition was finally starting to sink in, and her sister's small hiccuping sobs stirred up a deep sense of dread she hadn't felt since the day their father had sat them down to talk about Summer. "Like... how bad?"
Mountain Glenn. The description stuck in Ruby's throat. The offshoot of Vale was all broken concrete and bare steel beams. The bones of a dead city. "I didn't see any lights. Except some of the city where it looked like it was-" It looked like it was still burning. Her tears dripped onto Ember Celica.
Weiss's glare wavered. She looked from Ruby to Yang and Blake, and back again. "You said there's a way up the cliff?"
"Yeah," Ruby choked out, using her free hand to wipe her face and nose.
Blake took Weiss's cue, tried to shift her focus to something immediate, like how Yang had gone eerily silent. She was still holding Robin to her side, but her eyes were clearly somewhere else, distant even as Drei licked at her and Ruby's fingers. Blake placed a hand on her partner's shoulder, but spoke to Ruby. "Are we going by sled or by foot?"
It was an airship.
One of the big, flashy Atlas ships brought in to look after the Colosseum. In the dark, it took twenty minutes to hike along the rift to where the ruined hunk of metal lay wedged tip to tail between the sheer rock walls.
The rising moon shone off the crumpled metal.
"It's slippery," Ruby said, folding Crescent Rose so she could use her hands on the way up. They were definitely not going to take the sled.
Weiss stared at the wreck, white as a sheet. This was an Atlas ship. What had happened to it? She swallowed. "Is it sturdy enough to cross?"
The wind picked up, causing the metal to groan. Ruby studied her teammates and then the steep climb. The immediate danger of plunging off a slick metal tube into the depths of the earth made it easier to think somehow. "I made it down before, but we might want to go one at a time. I'll take a guide rope up."
They used Drei's harness to the sled, which was actually just a single line of rope that Blake had looped and knotted around the dog in lieu of an actual harness.
Even though Blake considered herself the team expert with ropes and knots, Weiss took up the task of securing the guideline around Ruby without prompting, likely trusting no one's standards of inspection but her own, which Blake couldn't fault her for - this was their team leader's life on the line... literally.
Her own internal almost-pun drew Blake's gaze to Yang, who was standing the closest to her, but was arguably the farthest away, eyes still searching some distant place, completely spaced out, probably still beating herself up for something stupid - "Yang," she whispered, harsher than she'd intended. When her partner didn't respond, Blake took hold of her chin and pulled her face around, forcing their eyes to meet, speaking low and close, "Yang, please... we need you here right now."
The gentle plea seemed to bring the brawler back to her senses. She blinked a few times, shook her head, and took a deep breath, breathing a short, "Right." With a quick pass of her hand over her face, Yang's smile was back in place, and she turned to Ruby and Weiss. "So, dogs and kids first, right? I can hold the line taut."
"It's two hundred feet," Weiss finished fussing over the knot in the rope around Ruby's waist and let her cloak fall back into its normal position, "If it's not enough we'll add on the rest."
"Alright. I'll shout when I've got it secure at the top," Ruby noticed Yang's look, "Blake, you've got Robin?"
The tiny Faunus girl had slept most of the day and now watched the preparations with wide eyes from the edge of a tiny nest in the snow next to Drei. It was just deep enough that she could curl up and hide, camouflaged like a bit of round rock with the snow blown off.
Blake quietly took a seat beside the pair, smiling at Drei's look of utter contentment, his head resting in Robin's lap, twisting ever so slightly to meet the tiny Faunus's lazy ear scratches. The simple domestic scene, while sweet at first glance, struck a dissonant chord in Blake's heart when it suddenly dawned on her that they now had nothing even close to resembling a home to offer them.
She did her best to swallow down the heavy lump that had formed in her throat, her reply coming out thickly regardless, "Yes, I've got her."
"That means you've got Drei," Ruby nudged Weiss with her shoulder.
"Naturally," Weiss acknowledged the task with a toss of her off center ponytail. In the moonlight, the dog's fur was a soft silver that almost matched the heiress's hair.
Ruby had no idea how Weiss would get a dog as big as she was up the side of a wrecked airship, but she had every confidence that it would happen. She stood at the edge of the lower cliff and leaned her hands onto the cold metal hull of the ship, giving Yang an attempt at a grin, "Okay. I'm going up. See you guys in a minute."
She made most of the climb on all fours, the frozen metal cold even through her gloves. The wind had whipped the loose snow from the smooth metal, leaving only the more stubborn patches of ice, but these were easy to see and (mostly) avoid by the light of the moon. The metal creaked and groaned as the wind picked up. Ruby's cloak flared out to the side, but it didn't distract her from her goal. The way the tail was wedged against the cliff left her with a ten foot climb- that was a little dicey in the dark, but at last she rolled herself up onto the solid stone of the upper cliff.
Once Ruby had her end of the line secured around the nearest tree, Blake looked around their immediate area, ears flattening when she realized, "No trees. Great."
"You could use me?"
Blake side-eyed Yang, "You're hardly a tree," but she would likely be more stable than the sled, and there was literally nothing else around to anchor the rope... "But you'll do," she sighed, a smile ghosting across her features as she beckoned Yang to her side. Once she'd secured the rope around the brawler's waist, Blake paused a moment to glance at Robin and Drei.
"Weiss," Blake looked to the heiress, "Do you want me to..." her eyes pointedly tracked to Drei. She had carried the dog before, and though she would much rather carry across their tiny Faunus charge, she was also well aware of just how heavy their four legged companion was.
Weiss finished tying a loop of their extra rope to Drei's collar, "Do I want you to watch while I take this extremely tractable, well mannered-"
Drei let out a deep, booming bark, beyond excited at having something so incredibly leash-like being attached to him. He leaped up and began bounding in joyous circles around Weiss, wrapping the rope around her with each pass.
"-moderately- behaved- hey!" Weiss tried to turn in circles to keep up with Drei but the leash pulled her legs together and, on the next bound, out from under her, "Oof!"
Next to Blake, Robin hid her mouth in her gloves, giggling as Weiss struggled to get untangled in the snow.
"Woah there boy," Yang pulled Drei away from his mission to lavish the fallen heiress with licks, pushing his rump to the ground and giving his ears a quick ruffle before grabbing the ropes around Weiss and lifting her back to her feet. "This one's more of a cuddler, not a kisser," she winked at Drei. The dog tilted his head, but stayed where he was put, tail thumping against the ground.
Eyes rolling, Blake motioned to the dog, "Weiss, really, I can-"
"You guys make it sound like he even needs help," Yang interjected, unwinding Drei's makeshift leash from Weiss and loosely looping it around the rope that led up the fallen aircraft. "Go on boy! Go to Ruby!"
Ears perked, Drei turned, caught sight of the tiny red speck that was Ruby on the other side of the valley, and took off after her. His pace slowed to a cautious trot when he neared some of the narrower, caved-in sections of the ship's hull. He made it to the ship's end in no time at all, but stopped where the ship's tail fins jammed up into the opposing cliff side. Unable to really scale the ten foot climb, he started barking up at Ruby, tail wagging.
"Uh... well, he might need help with that part."
Weiss had barely finished spitting in the snow and scrubbing her mouth on her sleeve. Levering herself back to her feet, she deadpanned, "Thank you for volunteering to take care of that, Yang."
Yang groaned, shoulders slumping. "Yep. Okay. Be right back." Slamming her fists together, Yang cranked her semblance and followed after Drei, taking care to melt and evaporate as many of the iced patches as she could on her way over to their stranded canine companion. It took a combined effort between Ruby and Yang with basically no help at all from Drei, who squirmed the entire way up, but the sisters eventually pushed and pulled the dog to the top of the ridge.
Panting by this point, Yang picked her way back across the airship to Weiss and Blake, and promptly sat on the ground. "Right... yeah... I'm gonna rest for a minute or two..."
The heiress, after watching Yang's dangerous display, crossed her arms while the brawler sat in the snow, "You could have left us your end of the line, you realize."
Yang stared off into space for a full three seconds. "Oh yeah." She shrugged, leaning against the sled, but even in the dimming light of the evening, Blake was able to see an embarrassed flush brightening the brawler's ears, ruining her air of nonchalance.
"I guess it's our turn then," Blake said to Weiss as she took hold of Robin's hand. "Yang, do you think that thing could support the three of us at once?"
"Yeah, it felt all right," the brawler looked to the opposing ridge, struggling to see Ruby, but easily able to see Drei's pinkish-white coat soaking up the rising moonlight as he pranced in circles around his favorite person. "If it can hold me and monsterdog, you guys should be a-ok. Just avoid that big see-through patch of glass - I saw some huge cracks."
Blake nodded, turning to Weiss again, "Want to take point?"
"Let's just hurry up," the heiress took hold of the rope, following the line onto the downed ship.
Ruby waited up above with Drei, Crescent Rose extended. The scythe's blade gleamed while she waited, alert to any sounds from the darkened forest. Hauling Drei up had made quite a bit of noise, after all. Her cape stirred in the stiff breeze.
A twig snapped someplace not too far off. Ruby glanced behind her to check on the others' progress. Her grip tightened on Crescent Rose as she watched for the telltale red-glow of a Grimm's eyes.
On the other side of the ridge, Yang watched Blake follow after Weiss. Or at least, she tried to. They were losing daylight quick, and while Weiss's alabaster hair reflected any speck of starlight falling upon it, Blake and Robin blended almost seamlessly into the shadows. Currently, as far as she could tell, the trio was skirting around the larger windowed section near the ship's front, headed towards the ship's center, the same path Ruby had taken. Yang wished she'd taken that path as well.
Instead, like Drei, she'd taken the most direct path, straight over the air ship's bridge, the reinforced glass holding strong despite the deep cracks and fissures running through it. However, unlike Drei, she'd looked down in a moment of curiosity she wished she could take back, anything to forget the battered and broken bodies of far too many atlas soldiers scattered within.
She'd only glimpsed them for a few seconds, but that had been enough to twist the brawler's stomach into a permanent knot. She'd seen death before - dead animals, dead Grimm, but people... Had they died in the crash? Some of them had injuries that looked far too violent... Had something killed them before the crash? Would there be more like them in the city? Ruby had seemed torn up enough just from a distant view of Beacon. What was waiting for them in the town proper?
Yang shivered, and she was 99.9 percent sure it was not the weather. A small outlier town in the middle of nowhere like James Point could fall without warning. That was par for the course. But Vale? One of the four great Kingdoms of the world? If the CCT had gone down, that would explain their scrolls cutting out. What could have happened to -
A distant flash of light interrupted Yang's meandering thoughts. Not too long after the sharp crack of Crescent Roses's sniper rifle firing off a round cut through the air.
Lightning exploded behind her seconds later, setting her ears ringing. Yang was on her feet in an instant, whirling around to see the bright beady red eyes of more Ursas than she wanted to count bearing down on her. The brawler smirked. Bearing... But this wasn't quite the time for puns.
Ruby's lightning dust powered round had taken out a chain of three Ursas, buying Yang just enough time to whip her head around to check on Blake and Weiss's progress - right in the midst of helping Robin with that ten foot climb up one of the airship's spindly tail pieces, of course.
Trying not to dwell on just how poorly her hearing had recovered if an entire pack of lumbering bear-sized Grimm had been able to sneak up on her, Yang spun back around just in time to uppercut the lead Ursa of the next wave right in its face, sending it head over heels into its snarling companion right behind it. Another crack sounded from across the rift, a regular round this time, and in the next second an Ursa lunging in from her right lost its head. Ruby's work was always a beautiful thing to witness up close.
Smashing her fists together, Yang dropped back into a low fighting stance and flashed a feral grin at the Grimm that were close enough to see. Not a single Ursa was going to set foot on that airship. She would hold this ground. "Bring it."
A/N: Wow, we got a batch of reviews last chapter- lots of questions too. Questions that will eventually be answered.
Big thumbs-up for dragoncraftertex who has decided to employ our 'make it worse' motto. It works like a charm!
MewShadowFang: THANK YOU for noticing my Frozen reference!
The Unplanner: "Or, knowing you two, it could be something worse." You definitely know us too well.
Everyone else, you're always awesome. Stay tuned!
- Fiercesomest