"She was still on the ship."
Ruby's attention snapped from Ren to the edge of the cliff and in a split second she was next to Blake, lying flat on the ground to see over the edge. The bottom of the chasm smoldered like a heap of embers- the red-orange light wasn't sufficient to light the rock walls. Hadn't she—she'd had another strip of incendiaries, right? High impact something? If she hadn't, Ruby wouldn't have-
But this was Yang. She had to be alright. Ruby's hand stayed locked around Crescent Rose. She had to.
"Yang!" She yelled, searching the shadows on the cliff face for any sign of her sister. Nora added her voice to the chorus of shouts.
Weiss stood back, torn between joining her teammates at the cliffside and watching the treeline for signs of stray Grimm. Ren seemed unharmed, and the Faunus child was with him. Where was Drei? Her partner's yells drew her attention back to the cliff again. Where was Yang?
As if to answer Weiss, a shaky voice drifted up from the chasm wall. "Hey uh, guys? Are you up there?"
"Yang!" Blake's voice cracked with relief. She gripped one of Ruby's arms, "Are you okay!? Where-"
"Guys?"
Blake's ears flattened, her eyes flicking to Ruby and back. "Yang?" She tried to peer over the edge, but was forced to shuffle back when a section of dirt and rock gave way beneath one of her hands.
"I dunno if you can hear me but-" a small yelp of surprise followed by a few coughs cut Yang's sentence short, but only for a moment, "Ow, ouch, stupid rocks - okay so, that explosion was really loud and I think my ears are bleeding? But dang did it look awesome."
Their rope was officially gone. Ruby felt a rush of relief and dread and guilt all at once-Yang was fine! Yang was stuck on the cliffside. Yang was hurt and it was her fault. She jumped into action.
"We'll need Gambol Shroud. Guys," Ruby called the others as she assessed the distance from the cliff's edge to the nearest tree. It might be too far. She caught Blake's sleeve, "We'll anchor the line. Are you okay going down after her?"
Blake nodded at once, already unsheathing her blade and reverting it to pistol form. She quickly secured the end of the ribbon to Magnhild's shaft, winding the end that connected to her weapon around her arm and gripping the pistol backwards so that she could use its short jutting blade to slow her descent or help them climb back up if need be.
"I bet you guys are still wrecking Grimm up there huh. Lucky."
One of Blake's ears swiveled to listen to Yang's nervous rambling as she waited for Ren and Ruby and even Robin to assist in bracing Nora. Weiss seemed keen on keeping a lookout for now, but Blake wondered if the heiress would need to jump in once they had Yang's weight on the line as well...
"You know, this little ledge is bigger than I thought!"
Blake spun around at the distant sound of rocks crumbling, her miniature heart attack averted when rather than hearing a gasp of terror, she heard only a nonchalant, "Oh, uh, well now it's smaller. Mmm. A lot smaller."
A loose smattering of swears murmured low enough that Blake only barely caught them brought an odd warmth to her chest, but her expression was all business as she tested the strength of her collective anchor. The instant Ruby gave her the go-ahead, Blake slipped over the cliff's edge.
"I can't believe we found you!" Nora crowed, her grip rock steady on her massive war hammer. The ribbon attached to it thrummed with tension, "Not that the ginormous Beowolf didn't lead us straight here, but still. Where have you been? Everyone thought you were dead but I said you weren't, and Ren did too, and we tried to tell you to come back but you took so long."
Ruby, her arms locked around Nora's waist, spoke with a face-full of the other girl's puffy winter jacket, "Uh-maybe we can talk about it- later?"
Robin wasn't helping so much as refusing to get out from under Ruby's legs. Weiss took the liberty of treading carefully to the edge of the cliff to call down to Blake in the dying light of the fire below, "Do you need more line?"
Blake had just spotted her target, standing wedged inside the bottom of what looked like an enormous claw mark scored into the rock wall's face. "Yes," she called up to Weiss, her tone warmed by the rush of relief washing over her. After a brief mental calculation she added, "All of it."
A minute later, Nora hung over the edge of the cliff upside down, hands gripping Magnhild on either side of the ribbon tied to his handle. She chattered away like dangling off the edge of a cliff supporting one, soon to be two girls who were both bigger than her was nothing. "This would make a great circus act. Ren, remember that time I almost got us a job at that circus?"
Ren gently hummed an affirmative.
All the blood was rushing to Ruby's head, but she'd used her belt to practically tie her wrists to Nora's ankles so there was no chance of her slipping. She felt like she might be a few inches taller by the end of the ordeal, however, strung between Ren and Nora. The dark-haired boy held her legs, knees bent to the top of the cliff, anchored by one of Weiss's black glyphs.
The heiress stood to the side, one hand maintaining the glyph, the other a fist twisted in the back of Robin's coat and shirt collar to keep her out of the way. The tiny Faunus whimpered and tried to slip out of her coat, but Weiss just twisted harder, refusing to break focus.
"Blake, have you got her yet?" Ruby gritted out, her back scraping the wall of the cliff as Nora shifted in some imitation of the flying trapeze.
"I'm nearly..." Blake kept shimmying sideways as best she could, until finally she reached her free hand into the lip of the rocky alcove that held her partner.
"Woah jeeze," Yang jerked away from the mysterious fingers, then leaned her head out as far as she could without losing balance, catching Blake's eye. "Blake!"
Blake bit back a grimace at the singe marks scorching Yang's hair and face, the trails of red running down from her ears and nose - the brawler's aura was completely spent, and she looked like she was seconds from weeping with relief. Rolling her eyes, Blake smiled and pulled herself a bit closer. It took a good deal of careful maneuvering, but after a few seconds Yang had wrapped herself around Blake as tightly as she dared.
"Okay!" Blake called to the others above, "I have her!"
"She got her!" Ruby and Nora echoed up to the others. Ruby squeaked and tensed as one of Weiss's pale blue 'pull' glyphs hauled her up. Once Nora had her feet on the ground, she and Ruby and Ren took over, heaving the line back towards the trees while Weiss bent at the waist to catch her breath.
Blake tried to help, walking up the cliff as best she could with roughly two-hundred pounds of brawler wrapped around her, legs shaking with the effort of each step. Thankfully, by the time the line was starting to cut off circulation to her arm, they made it to the top, clambering over the cliff's crumbly edge and collapsing in a heap on solid ground, where Yang promptly rolled flat onto her back and blinked blearily up at the sky. "For the record, explosions are way less cool up close."
"You're just noticing this... how?" Weiss picked herself up enough to look skeptical, "You realize you practically have shotguns strapped to your wrists."
The tiny Faunus emitted an increasingly high pitched series of whines, straining against her coat collar until the heiress finally threw up her hands, releasing her. She shot to Blake's lap, clinging fiercely and hiding her face against her ribcage.
Blake checked her over for injuries, running fingers through her hair, over her ears, her arms, pulling back just enough to look at her face. Nothing worse than a few streaks of tears. Relieved beyond measure, Blake clutched the little girl to her chest and looked to Ren. "I can't thank you enough."
He inclined his head.
Yang followed Blake's line of sight, sitting up on her elbows in surprise (and wincing as she did), "Nora! Ren! Fancy meeting you two here."
Nora laughed and rolled her eyes, plopping down at Yang's side, "Wow, like you're surprised."
Ruby, watching perplexed, scratched her head, "Um, but we are surprised. What..." the question seemed inadequate, too simple to communicate the gravity of her asking given the degree of destruction lying beyond the forest. Ruby had to swallow and try again to get the words out. "What happened?"
"Wait, what?" Nora stopped poking Yang in the shoulder. "Didn't you get any of our messages?"
At that moment, a bone-rending shriek filled the air. Something huge blotted out the stars. Ruby clutched Crescent Rose, still holstered behind her back. For a moment, no one breathed, and then the monstrous dark thing had passed overhead, a silent shadow sweeping on towards Vale.
"... maybe we should go back to camp," Nora glanced at her partner, "Ren?"
Ren nodded, but he otherwise kept still, his sight fixed on a point just inside the treeline. He squinted, trying to make sense of the slow lumbering thing making its way towards them. His weapons were in hand the second it shambled into a patch of moonlight.
A Beowolf, mostly, though one of its front legs was decidedly smaller and canine in appearance - a splash of white that led up to a muzzle that was already almost completely covered by bone, open wide in a silent howl, dripping blackness. One deep brown eye remained intact underneath a flattened white ear, and it was fixed on Ruby as it tried its hardest to stumble over to her, seemingly unsure whether it needed to stand on two legs or four.
Ruby stared, forgetting to even breathe. There was no way. But that white fur...
Weiss, bristling and ready to fight off one last Grimm, stepped forward, sword in hand. The monster's bone mask shone hideously in Myrtenaster's icy blue light.
"Wait," Ruby choked, unable to tear her gaze away from the black ooze splattering the snow, "Wait, is that... Drei?"
The beast's head snapped around, both ears straining towards the sound of the name, but the sudden movement overbalanced it and it stumbled, landing muzzle-first in the dirt and rolling onto its back.
One of Blake's ears twitched towards the light clicks of Ren chambering two rounds, both pistols trained on the writhing… thing. The tiny Faunus in her arms had started shaking again, so she pressed her close, covering her ears to help block the beast's guttural growling.
Yang finally turned to look as well, uttering a low curse of surprise. Drei. It had to be Drei. His remaining brown eye flickered red, wide with rage. She had never considered the possibility of a Grimm feeling pain until she had become one herself, and she winced with bleak empathy, unable to hear his agonized whine, but unable to look away, completely at a loss for what to do or how to help as he thrashed and tore at himself, biting his own leg, practically trying to rip the encroaching darkness from what remained of the fluffy dog beneath.
Nora had her hammer in her hands, taking her cue from Ren and waiting. She glanced at Ruby in complete bafflement, "You want us to wait because it's dry?"
"No, that's not-" Ruby's throat closed. She started to get up to- to at least try to help. Last time he had been mostly dog, though, and she'd been rested and well fed. Now... Yang was hurt. Everyone was hurting. Her chest ached and her knees threatened to give out under her.
Weiss had paled, paper white. She took one glance at Ruby and steeled her gaze. Myrtenaster took on a more intense glow, and she thrust the sword into the frozen ground. Ice bristled across the short distance between her and the dog, ending as it locked the miserable creature in its grasp from its torso to as near its neck as she could get it.
"If you're going to try, do it before he breaks free," the heiress said, hiding the shake in her voice.
Yang struggled to stand when her sister began to approach the snarling frozen monstrosity. "Ruby what-" she made it to her knees before she had to stop and wait for her head to stop spinning, "what are you doing?"
Ren motioned for Nora to stay put, then moved to follow close behind Ruby. He stowed one of his guns now that the threat was immobilized, but kept the other in hand, finger resting securely on the trigger.
Ruby knelt close to the near-Grimm, just out of reach of his teeth. The cold felt like needles in her lungs.
"Hey, friend," she greeted him thickly, looking for a good place to lay her hands on him without getting torn up. The moon reflected off the ice, but seemed to be absorbed by Grimm-Drei's fur.
Ren stood directly behind her, watching in fascination as the Grimm seemed to calm down at the sound of Ruby's voice. Though, when he leaned in for a better look and caught its gaze, it went right back to snarling and struggling, howling in a wild rage that didn't cease until he backed off a few steps. More than a little perturbed at the recognition shining in the creature's eyes as it stared up at Ruby, Ren held his position, confident he would still be quick enough to call up a barrier from his current distance if need be.
Nora edged forward , standing at Ren's elbow, fascinated. Weiss took measured breaths, more than aware that if something went wrong it was her fault for not putting the miserable creature down. Really, just because it was a dog-their dog-and Ruby had told her how she'd fixed him before didn't mean she should have to do it again.
Ruby waited till Grimm-Drei quieted down.
"Hey, lemme fix you up, okay? Good boy?" Cautiously she reached, fingertips brushing the stiff black fur at his neck as she felt for his collar.
The half-grimm bristled, growling low, but the sound was punctuated with pitiful hiccuped whimpers. Even as he bared his teeth on one side, he nuzzled the still-dog half of his face into Ruby's arm.
Ruby's hands found and closed over the too tight collar.
Here goes... she took a deep breath, trying to focus her aura into Drei. Sweat broke out on her brow as the crimson glow surrounded her.
His growling weakened in the face of Ruby's aura, ears and eyelids drooping as though he'd been hit with a tranquilizer. The parts of his body that hadn't been frozen went slack as the slow wave of crimson washed over his muzzle, flowed up over his brow, and pooled around where his neck met Weiss's ice, sluggishly sinking straight down into his inky black fur. Slowly, the remaining canine half of his head began to glow as well, a soft grayed-out white that reached out to mingle with Ruby's red.
His paw twitched.
The strip of white fur that led from his head to his one remaining dog paw began to darken, his aura slowly flaking away like chaff in an invisible wind. The line of disintegration took a sudden turn, running into one of the small rivers of Ruby's crimson and scattering it to pieces.
Ruby couldn't let go, couldn't catch her breath. Her aura burned bright, but it still flecked away as the darkness crept forward.
Come on. Come on... Sweat stung in her eyes, or maybe not sweat... something-her eyes burned.
Weiss saw Ruby's aura scattering and immediately shifted her grip on Myrtenaster. Focusing on the ice trapping the Grimm, she summoned another layer, thickening the trap. The air filled with the crackle of ice under pressure. Her blue gaze flickered back to her partner, watching for the instant Ruby needed help.
Nora bounced anxiously at Ren's side, the material of her gloves creaking against Magnhild's metal grip.
Ren had lifted one of his hands, ready to raise a barrier at a moment's notice, but as he waited... and waited... the moment never seemed to come. His brow arched in curiosity over the way Ruby's aura continued to sink into the creature's fur, just barely breaking even against the disintegration attempting to eat it away.
For a wild moment, it actually seemed to be working.
Then Drei's remaining eye snapped open, wide with silent terror as he stared up at Ruby.
"Ruby." Yang was able to get to her feet this time, watching in horror as the bone mask rapidly began to spread across the rest of Drei's face. "Ruby let go!"
The small remaining patch of his grayish-white aura shattered all at once. A blinding flash of light followed, and with an earsplitting roar, Drei wrenched himself free of the ice binding him and lunged for Ren and Nora, only to be met with a solid barrier of pink. For a split second the Grimm pressed his face against the barrier, bright silver eyes locked on Ruby.
The instant Nora shifted a muscle, he vanished in a blur, leaving black petals in his wake.
A/N: Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek
That is all. Stay tuned! (Also props to our reviewer for the chapter name, I might have snorted out loud at work)
HUGS,
D