A/N: Hey all! So Fiercesomest probably already told you all about my trip, which I'll be leaving for next week! I fully expect to return by the month's end, hopefully unscathed by the mountains, and once I'm back posting will start back up as usual! Also I'll be in school again? ? Aaahahah ah. Yeah it's gonna be awesome. Also RWBY in October is happening. gOSH
So anyway, thanks for being supremely patient and no worries, this is only a temporary hiatus for sure. RWBY and co will be back on their misadventures soon enough ;3
ALSO a very HAPPY BIRTHDAY to one of our extreme-long-time readers The Unplanner!
HUGS,
D
Ren found Ruby and co just as they exited the maintenance tunnel, and in short order Ruby was off climbing the lopsided stairs to the rim of the coliseum. Weiss, meanwhile, found herself being 'escorted' back to the medical tent by Ruby's uncle, cursing the way she'd been outvoted by the others.
"This is ridiculous," Weiss grumbled, "Ruby shouldn't be climbing alone at night. She's your niece- you know how much of a klutz she is. She'll probably fall out into the Grimm infested woods."
"You're one to talk," Qrow's footsteps were heavy next to her, and a little uneven. He was drunk. "Practically asleep on your feet. In the middle of my story, no less."
"Shut up," they had spent weeks getting back here and as soon as they did Ruby went comatose trying to aura heal a dog. Weiss had better things to do than sleep, though it was taking an inordinate amount of concentration to keep her footing in the dark.
Qrow stumbled into her.
"Hey!" Weiss snapped as his flailing arm knocked Myrtenaster from her belt. The sword clanged on the stony ground.
"Whoops," he stood between her and her weapon, his footing suddenly rock solid.
They hadn't reached the first tent yet, so it was dark and the air was still. The hair prickled up on the back of Weiss's neck as she faced Ruby's uncle, who suddenly didn't seem so much like a drunk old man. Her hand itched to form a glyph, but between her lack of sleep and aura sharing with Ruby… besides, this was Ruby's uncle. Ruby, who was gawky and reckless and wielded one of the most ridiculous, dangerous combat weapons she'd ever seen.
Weiss masked the sudden misgivings that thought brought on.
"By the way," the wiry, possibly not-so-drunk man came a step closer, casually cutting her off from her sword, "you heard the part about all those Atlas robots going haywire on us, right?" When he stood at his full height, he was a full head taller than Weiss.
Weiss stood her ground, noticing that his eyes were red, like Ruby's now. "Excuse me?"
Qrow held her gaze for a few beats, searching... for what? "A lot of your daddy's money went into those. You don't seem like the type to call home often, but if he comes looking for you..."
The heiress's eyes flickered to her sword, still out of reach, "If he comes looking for me, I'm going to find out exactly what's going on here."
The faced each other a moment, until Qrow seemed satisfied. He shrugged.
"Just keep track of who the good guys are. And I don't necessarily mean me, if that's what you're worried about." he said, stooping to pick up her weapon. He gave it a deft twirl, spinning the chamber to check for dust, and offered it to her hilt first, "Just stick with Ruby. If you don't, I know where you live."
Weiss snatched her rapier from him. "Don't touch me or my weapon ever again."
"There's the old ice queen spirit," he chuckled.
She gripped her sword and kept a few extra feet of distance between herself and Ruby's uncle the rest of the way across the debris littered ground to the tents.
Qrow stopped before they reached the medical tent. "Stay out of trouble."
The heiress watched him turn and walk back off into the darkness, still bristling over the exchange and glad to see him leaving. She entered alone, squinting as her eyes adjusted to the lamplight.
Blake was at her side in an instant, amber eyes bright with worry. At Ren's request, the others had disbanded to their own tents to rest after Pyrrha's departure, leaving Blake alone in the medical tent with Jaune, Yang, and Robin. None of the three were currently awake, so she kept her voice low, "Weiss..." her eyes lingered on the tent opening behind the heiress, "...where is everyone else?"
"How should I know?" Weiss threw up her arms, "Ruby and her psychotic uncle decided that I-"
She noticed the others asleep in the cots at the edges of the tent. They were just sheets over bare cots, but they looked like the most luxurious beds in the world. Dust, even the ground looked comfortable at this point. She ran a hand over her face, grumbling, "... nevermind. They're somewhere, probably doing something stupid. Did anything happen here after we left?"
Blake shook her head, "Ren went to find you and everyone else went back to their tents to... rest..." she raised a brow at Weiss. The heiress looked positively dead on her feet. "Which... we should probably do as well."
Weiss shook her head, fussing with the cuffs of her coat sleeves, "You go ahead. I'll wait for Ruby."
"Weiss," Blake didn't move, "you should get some sleep."
"Don't tell me what to do," Weiss huffed with a little less vitriol than usual. She moved to shoulder past Blake and get to the map in the middle of the room. She would get a better look at the state Vale was in while she waited for Ruby to get back.
Blake dared to stop Weiss with a hand on her arm. "You're acting irrationally," she hissed, dipping her head to better look the stubborn heiress in the face, "I know you haven't slept since we arrived."
Weiss stopped. She looked at Blake's hand on her coat sleeve.
"Did you also know that Pyrrha has a Grimm caged in the maintenance tunnels?" her eyes met Blake's briefly before she scowled at the walls of the tent, shrugging her arm to get Blake to let go, "Neptune is convinced it's his partner."
"You... you saw Sun?..." Blake's voice dropped to a harsh whisper, her grip on Weiss's coat loosening. She'd wondered where they'd taken him... if that really was him...
"I saw a Grimm," Weiss repeated, her gaze hard as she barred memories of the black, clawed hands and red eyes she'd seen through the dark grate. She had more trouble with the older memories- the white bone over her partner's face. The blood red of her cloak. The flicker of the dark scythe in her hands.
Weiss clenched her fists as icy panic started to seep into her chest. The lamplight made the shadows waver against the canvas walls of the tent. She'd been regretting letting Ruby out of her sight all the way here, and now that anxiety came to a peak. She turned back towards the entrance, "I need to go find Ruby."
"Weiss," Blake snatched Weiss's hand, firmly holding her back. She pushed thoughts of Sun to the back of her mind in favor of dealing with the very real problem trying to stumble out into the night on her watch. "You need rest. What good are you to Ruby dead on your feet like this?"
Instead of pulling to get away, Weiss rounded on Blake so they were inches apart. She pointed at her chest with her captured hand as she hissed, "Her eyes are red. You would be doing exactly the same thing if it was Yang."
Ears flat against her skull, it took a full moment for Blake to compose herself, feeling wildly irate after having to stamp down the nightmares of that other world - smoke, black fire, the bones sprouting from her partner's back... Blake shook her head. "Of course I would," she snarled back, staring Weiss dead in the eyes and finding a very familiar fear, "But in that scenario, you would be the one stopping me from being an idiot about it."
They stood like that for a second, locked in a contest of wills. Blake had been eating properly, though- as properly as one could out of what amounted to a refugee camp comprised entirely of ten or so teenagers- and had hours more sleep on Weiss.
Besides, she was right, and the logical part of Weiss knew it.
At last, the heiress let her hand drop, growling, "I'm not being an idiot."
Blake relaxed her grip as well, sensing Weiss's shift in mood. "Well good..." she cracked a half-smile, "Because we really don't need a Yang 2.0 on our hands," she glanced at the brawler, dead to the world on her cot, as she had been for almost three days now.
Releasing Weiss altogether, Blake loosely folded her arms, fixing the heiress with an almost pleading look. "If I promise to check up on Ruby, will you go get some sleep?"
Weiss tossed her hair a little and with a sleep-clumsy hand combed the stray strands that clung to her coat. Much to her chagrin, she was human and needed to rest. Mustering a last glare, she said, "Fine. If anything happens, I expect you to take full responsibility," she turned to lift the flap of canvas that served as the medical tent's door, "I'll be with our gear in the supply tent."
Blake nodded, waiting a moment before peering outside the tent after Weiss to make sure she was actually heading to the right tent... and she was. After taking another moment to confirm the three in the tent were still sleeping, she quietly set out into the night to find Ruby.
Weiss entered the dark supply tent, carefully making her way past boxes of ammunition and emergency rations to the pile of sleeping bags and extra blankets they'd used for Ruby's bed. She growled at herself under her breath for letting Blake talk her into trying to rest. Obviously she wasn't going to be able to. Ruby would be back any minute, probably.
She activated Myrtenaster's Dust chamber, casting a pale blue light over the tangle of bedding so she could see to straighten it out.
Fatigue dogged her as she smoothed the last wrinkles out of the sleeping bag and she arranged herself on top of it, still in her coat and boots and gloves. There was no sense in taking them off. It was freezing, and she'd be up again soon anyway. She lay on her side, watching the light fade from her deactivated sword.
The darkness crept in, and with it came a heavy dread. It worked its icy fingers into her chest. Weiss's hand strayed to the place on her shoulder, near her neck, where she'd been bitten. There was no pain. There hadn't been then either, as the cold crept in on her, her breath and the shift of settling ice the only sound in her ears.
The smell of Ruby's hair lingered on the fabric of the makeshift pillow. Weiss breathed it and gripped the spot on her shoulder and told herself she wasn't alone as the dark caught up with her and she slid slowly into a fitful sleep.
Unbeknownst to her, a pair of mismatched eyes watched from among the stacks of motley supplies.
Ruby levered herself up to the rim of the coliseum. Up this high, the wind played with her hair and her cloak, snatched at her breath. She tugged the shoulder of her cloak a little closer around herself as she picked her way across the sloped sheet metal to where Pyrrha sat.
"Hey," she greeted her friend, straightening up and scooting over to sit with her. The forest beyond the walls was a sea of black. The smoke from Vale blotted out the stars- at least the ones that weren't already blotted by the remains of the clouds from that freak storm earlier... which according to her uncle hadn't been a freak storm at all.
Pyrrha barely masked her surprise behind a gentle smile. Looking Ruby in the eyes was... difficult, to say the least. Not because of her new eye color eerily matching her namesake, but for the hint of trepidation she caught in the younger girl's tone. "I... heard you were looking for me?"
Ruby suddenly wasn't sure of what to do with her hands. She rubbed the back of her neck.
"Yeah, I kind of was, huh?" What could she even say? Unfortunately, she'd already opened her mouth and words were coming out, "So... I hear you've got superpowers now. I mean, um, more super than polarity? Which is still really cool."
Turning her head with a small huff of laughter, Pyrrha rested her chin on her free hand. "Superpowers? Is that what he calls it now?" Her gaze traveled to the night sky, frowning for the stars still partially obscured by the smoke that seemed to rise endlessly from the ruins of Vale. "What did he tell you?"
Ruby sat with her legs over the edge of the wall, dangling in the open air.
"He told us about Amber," she fidgeted with her hands. Her uncle had told her and Weiss a lot of stuff. She's got two auras now, he'd said. Two souls. Something along those lines. The Atlas tech specialists hadn't been sure of what would happen when they set this up. Pyrrha still seemed like Pyrrha to Ruby, though. At least she did now, sitting with her on top of the coliseum wall after a long day.
A wry smile briefly pulled at Pyrrha's lips. "What a terrible old man... Didn't even let me tell you my own story." She sighed, leaning back and pulling her javelin close. She wondered if this meant Weiss had been there to hear things as well.
"No one else knows," she said quietly, eyes lingering in a sidelong glance at Ruby, "Except..." Pyrrha shook her head and took a deep breath, her shoulders drooping heavily as she exhaled. "Except Jaune."
Ruby bit her lip and brought Crescent Rose around to her lap. She found the chips in her red paint job with her fingertips, "I'll listen too, if you want."
Silence fell between the two as Pyrrha watched Ruby for a long while. In the end, she covered her eyes with her hand in a failed attempt to hide her embarrassment. "All this time to prepare and I still don't know where to start..."
"How about that giant Grimm we fought?" Ruby asked. It felt like ages ago, fighting the eyeless monster on the top of the cliffs. That wasn't too far in the past, but she would definitely like to know where it came from. She couldn't help but think of the Grimm Rat King- that had been some time ago, but still. You didn't see Grimm that big every day.
Pyrrha's pained look of embarrassment shifted to one of surprise, which then fractured, a smile blossoming in its stead. "You ask me about the one thing I know next to nothing about," she laughed lightly, shaking her head. The others had told her about their sightings of it. "I never saw it up close, myself. All I know is that it appeared..." she paused, trying to pin down a timeline, but smoke had blotted out the sky for so many days... "...Sometime after the attack."
Ruby scooted a little closer. She had brightened when Pyrrha had laughed, but now she quieted. "... and what happened to Sun?"
The temperature around them dropped, leaving the breath between them visible as Pyrrha tried to find her voice. She gripped her weapon a little too hard. "Cinder," she eventually said as evenly as she was able. An uncomfortable heat rose in Pyrrha's chest. "Cinder happened."
The arrow gleamed like black glass in the sickly green light of the vault beneath Beacon's tower.
"Cinder?" Ruby frowned, trying to remember stuff about the dark-haired woman. She remembered her gold eyes, and her voice from when she'd first run into the new student in the dorm hallways. Or at least she'd thought Cinder was new.
Visiting from Haven, actually.
That was the only time Ruby recalled talking with her. The wind picked up, snatching at the edges of her cloak, "Wasn't she one of Emerald's teammates?"
One of Pyrrha's hands left her weapon, closing instead just over her heart. "I don't know who... or what she was." Her chest still ached where the arrow had pierced... her? Amber? She shook her head. "Somehow, she knew exactly where to find us… Did you know there's a vault hidden beneath the school? That's where they were holding Amber..." Shame still nipped at her heels for having agreed to go through with something so... unnatural. Head dipped, Pyrrha looked at Ruby through her lashes. "Did your uncle tell you about that..." the hand over her chest unclenched and clenched again as she searched for the right phrase, "...experimental technology?"
"Not really," Ruby kicked her feet a little. "Just that it was from Atlas."
His face had darkened, though, like Zwei had gotten kicked and he knew who was to blame.
Pyrrha's face darkened similarly. "They didn't tell me much either. Just that it would... transfer Amber to me somehow," she laughed low, unable to keep from sounding bitter, "but we were interrupted. Halfway through, Cinder appeared and..." Pyrrha's hands clenched into fists, twitching at the muscle memory of feeling a brand new extension of her aura, a new extension of herself, ripped to pieces in a single excruciating instant. "She killed her."
The vast row of Dust-green lamps set high in the wall to illuminate the length of the vault went out, as if extinguished by the maiden's last breath.
The rising hum of sheer, unadulterated power filled the air and flickers of firelight seemingly lifted the murderer's feet from the floor. Her bow gleamed black in her hand. Her eyes shone with fire.
"Stay back!" came Ozpin's shout as Jaune flung himself at Cinder, sword and white shield at the ready.
They did exactly that - though it took Pyrrha throwing down a wave of magnetism and dragging Jaune back by his sword and shield. She felt Cinder's eyes burning holes into her back as they fled. Part of Amber, and by proxy Amber's power, resided in each of them now, and Pyrrha knew she had to get Jaune to safety in case that woman came to finish the job. She had no idea how long Ozpin would be able to hold her off.
Fire and rockets and neon-green beams of light flared and flashed in the distance as Pyrrha pleaded with Jaune - stop Penny, protect the city, protect the innocent civilians of Vale. While he did that - she would go back to help Ozpin.
It was the most heroic she'd ever seen him, sword drawn, the setting sunlight catching the edges of his armor as he rushed off towards the airship docks.
Light no longer poured from Beacon's tower. Ozpin was nowhere to be found, but Pyrrha could feel Cinder somewhere high above. The tower creaked and groaned - a Grimm dragon had coiled around it. Cinder's silhouette stood unmoving, watching her from the dragon's back.
Pyrrha saw little sense in keeping her waiting.
The frigid air at the tower's top bit into her lungs, despite the fires rampaging through the school and fairgrounds below.
In past tournaments, Pyrrha occasionally crossed swords with an opponent who actually presented a fair challenge... but this was the first battle where she felt pushed to her very limits. A foreign power bubbled beneath Pyrrha's skin, restless to aid her, but the small frail force proved to be a mere fraction of what Cinder started throwing at her.
Searing fire, arcs of electricity, blustering winds that changed direction in an instant - wielded with the wild abandon of someone who had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Coupled with Cinder's glass - endless, endless shards of glass - it was only technique, the piles of scrap metal from Ozpin's shattered tower, and sheer force of will that kept Pyrrha on equal footing.
Of course, equal footing meant nothing when the opposition cheated.
Cinder's glass arrow should have been the end of her- its head and shaft alike shattering upon meeting her shield mid-throw, then reforming and continuing its trajectory as if nothing had ever been in its way- that is, until a familiar figured flipped onto the scene, deftly snatching the arrow right out of the air.
Sun, grinning a mile wide.
A bright pink barrier flashed to life around them both. Ren leaped into view and landed beside Pyrrha, pink eyes flashing as Cinder's wicked arcs of lightning lashed against his wall of aura.
Following shortly behind him, Velvet and Coco crested the tower's edge, flashing her smiles as they gunned for Cinder in tandem.
Pyrrha didn't even need Ren's brief explanation to know - Jaune had sent them. She had never felt so grateful.
Together they held Cinder back, wore her down, and chased her when she fled, weakened, up to the coliseum, pushed her to her very limits.
Those limits, however, proved to be unfathomably cruel.
Cinder finally fell, held against the broken floor of the grounded coliseum under threat of the point of Pyrrha's spear. The others looked on as she hesitated. Hands that had so swiftly destroyed countless Grimm shook at the prospect of ending a human life.
In Pyrrha's moment of indecision, Cinder's eyes clouded over, inky blackness overtaking burning gold in a matter of seconds. A voice that did not belong whispered in Pyrrha's ear.
Ashes to ashes...
Cinder was smiling. Could she hear it too?
Dust to dust...
The inky blackness exploded out of Cinder without warning, dripping arcs striking and swirling around everyone present. Blinding pain lanced through Pyrrha's body, her skin burned, her eyes felt like they were about to burst, her very aura twisted and writhed, but worst of all were the anguished screams of her classmates - her friends. In her final moment of clarity, she made her choice.
Tears welled at the corners of Pyrrha's eyes. "Cinder killed her. And I..." Her voice cracked, and with it went her composure. Tentatively, she reached out and grasped Ruby's hand, looking imploringly at the younger girl as the tears she'd been holding back since that night finally streamed freely down her face. "I killed Cinder."
Ruby took her friend's hand in both of hers and just held on. She tried to swallow.
People had died. A lot of people. At James Point, at Beacon. Had Ozpin? Had Professor Goodwitch, even? Between her uncle's story and Pyrrha's, everything was pretty wrecked. She tried to match the time this had been happening to what had happened on their away mission. No wonder their messages hadn't been going through. No wonder the robots that showed up were crazy.
That had been weeks ago, before they left the valley for their winter trek through the mountains.
"Pyrrha," she managed, trying to support her through the sheer grip on her hands. The taller girl looked like she was being crushed by the weight of it all, "have you talked to the others about any of this?"
Pyrrha bowed her head, wrestling her voice under just enough control to answer, "Ren. Only Ren... which means Nora probably knows as well." Her halfhearted laugh dissolved into jagged hiccups, which she took a second to wrestle under control as well.
"He was there when Cinder..." Pyrrha shook her head, drawing strength from Ruby's grip on her hands, "I don't know what she did to us. She hit us with… something, and... Thankfully, Ren seems unharmed, but... you saw what happened to Sun." Pyrrha shifted her gaze, green eyes searching the distant horizon beyond the crumbling stadium wall. "Coco and Velvet are still out there..."
Ruby stared out at the dark swath of forest. Velvet and Coco were... whatever Sun was? The memory of the cold, metal clash of Sun- their friend- snarling and shaking the metal grate down in the dark maintenance corridors made her blood run cold. Cinder, the student from Haven, turned into a bunch of black stuff? Did it have anything to do with the huge Grimm they'd been seeing- the blind Beowolf and the Deathstalker they'd avoided?
"They're... sorry, Pyrrha, I just..." Ruby felt tears prickle at the corner of her eyes. After everything that had happened on their end, after the Liliac swarm, and Weiss getting hurt, and the whole town turning on them... this was so much worse. Maybe not worse, but bigger. Crying wasn't going to help anyone, though, so she took a deep breath. "It's just a lot. Are any of the professors...? And what about Vale?"
A little below the horizon, they could see the red glow from still burning fires. The smoke still blotted out a wide stripe of stars.
Pyrrha shook her head, pulling one of her hands away to scrub at her eyes, "I'm sorry, Ruby, I'm not..." she paused, raising her head and looking to the horizon.
A low hum drifted through the air.
"Oh no." Still holding Ruby's hands, Pyrrha slowly got to her feet, using their vantage point to scan the skies.
A small airship dipped below the haze of smoke at Vale's farthest edge.
The orange glow from the smoldering fires below reflected off its hull. By the time Ruby got Crescent Rose's scope up, the ship had vanished behind the buildings.
She leapt up, circling her weapon back into its compact form, "They might need help."
Slowly shaking her head, Pyrrha lifted her arm, gently barring Ruby's path, her face twisting into a grimace as an all-too-familiar unearthly roar split the skies.
Far too silently for something of its size, a massive dark form dropped from the clouds to the ground and reared back. A Grimm Dragon, larger even than a Goliath, towering over the city ruins with its mouth open wide in a nightmare smile of jagged teeth that stretched straight down its long spined neck.
Pyrrha had to look away.
Ruby's mouth hung partway open as the Grimm plucked the fallen airship from the rubble and devoured it in a few swift bites. The creature's teeth tore through the metal effortlessly. At this distance, it was like watching a silent film of someone eating a burrito with the foil wrapper still on, but in this case the foil was reinforced steel and the burrito was probably some people inside the ship.
The thought of the horrible death of those survivors galvanized the feeling already taking root in her chest. The feeling that fighting that giant, flying, neck-fanged Grimm would be awesome.
"Pyrrha," Ruby's hands moved on their own to adjust her weapon and chamber a round. "Let's go kill it."
Pyrrha blinked. She almost laughed- she had truly missed Ruby's particular brand of enthusiasm. The Grimm took to the skies once more, slipping back into the smoky haze blanketing the city. Nevertheless, a smile cracked Pyrrha's face as turned to look at the smaller girl standing as tall and fierce as an Alpha Beowolf. "I would love to... but, I doubt I'd be able to make it."
Ruby took her eyes away from the black sky where the Grimm had disappeared and looked at her friend. She noticed how beat up Pyrrha looked- her pieced together armor, the circles under her eyes. Ruby probably looked pretty beat up herself after making it through the mountains. Still, that Grimm was so big.
"We could," she put Crescent Rose away, though her hands were reluctant to leave the metal at her back. She used her shoulder to nudge Pyrrha's arm, "Unless you mean 'make it' as in 'make it over there before it flies away' because..." she motioned to the night sky, unable to keep her shoulders from slumping a bit, "... well... it did kind of fly away."
Pyrrha hadn't meant either of those things. She absentmindedly rubbed her arm where Ruby had nudged her.
Ruby searched her friend's face, noticing the way Pyrrha avoided her eyes.
"Want to stay up here a little longer?" She sat back down on the edge of the wall so Pyrrha would have space to talk if she wanted. Ruby sat back and stretched her legs out over the drop off, tilting her head to the small glow of the fire far down behind them, "Everyone's probably just sleeping down in camp."
Pyrrha rubbed the back of her neck, where her makeshift armor was the most bent out of shape. It almost seemed like she hadn't heard Ruby, until she finally sighed and put on a smile. "We should probably head back... I'd like to check on Jaune."
"Yeah," Ruby grimaced as she hopped back up. She was pretty tired, and she'd been gone a while- Weiss was probably throwing a fit. "So... Jaune's been like that since the fight with Cinder...?"
She was still turning the events over in her mind. Had the black stuff Cinder shot out had something to do with her semblance? A knot in her stomach told her it was probably something worse. Pyrrha had fairytale good-guy magic (that she was not going to beg her to show off right now), so there was probably bad-guy magic out there too. And that's probably what Cinder had used.
The knot tightened and her mood dropped because all this had happened and she'd missed it. She hadn't been able to even help.
Magnetically pulling her shield and javelin to rest across her back, Pyrrha beckoned Ruby to follow her. "I'm... actually not certain. All I know is what Ren has told me." She chose her steps down the narrow path of broken concrete with practiced care. All of the metal rebar had already been meticulously bent out of the way. "Apparently... he tried to heal me..." she glanced back at Ruby, "the way Weiss healed you."
So he'd been okay in the Vault, but afterwards... Ruby hopped and balanced her way down behind her, "He just... didn't wake up?"
Pyrrha returned her eyes to the path. "That's right. No doubt because I was... much farther gone when he attempted it." If she understood what Ren had told her, she'd been closer to the state Sun was currently in. That thought made her stomach turn, but the most she could remember after the oily darkness had overtaken her was... chaos.
The temperature around them began to drop, but Pyrrha paid no mind. "Reckless," she huffed, but there was no room for anger past the sheer regret, "He had no idea what he was doing but he did it anyway and... We're not sure what it's done to him."
Ruby swallowed, stepping carefully on the wrecked metal and concrete of the walls. Much farther gone. Much farther gone than when?
Reflecting on bad times didn't take up much of Ruby's days. Things could always get better, and if she focused on the bad she might not be able to move forward. Pyrrha's words brought back a lot of bad memories, though. She remembered seeing red. She remembered her hands closing around her partner's throat. Everyone had told her that her eyes were red now. She stopped walking.
"This is like that poison," she looked up at Pyrrha, "From the Grimm rats?"
Pyrrha stopped as well. Slowly, she turned to face Ruby, searching the younger girl's eyes. "You came to the same conclusion I did, then." Not that she was certain, but the symptoms matched alarmingly well.
"If it is, we can aura heal them, right?" Ruby knew Pyrrha had to have thought of that if she'd thought of the poison. Last time it had been her and Ren and Yang, and their combat partners had risked their lives- and possibly their souls- to help them. The logistics were hazy. Weiss and Blake didn't really talk much about what had happened beforehand. Even Nora had a tendency to change the subject to crazy dreams, or fighting Grimm. "I guess... did you already try?"
Pyrrha bowed her head. "...I did."
Ruby's cloak shifted a little in the soft breeze that snuck down past the high walls. "We should get back."
She would have to talk to the others about aura healing.
Pyrrha nodded and allowed Ruby to pass her on the path. She watched Ruby's back, her hands idly rubbing over the patchwork metal covering her arms. Head still bowed, Pyrrha followed Ruby back down the wall.