Down in camp, Ruby had been poking the embers with a piece of thin pipe that probably came from part of an air conditioning unit or sink or something. She glimpsed the flying hunk of metal out of the corner of her eye and squeaked, tumbling off her chair to avoid getting clocked.
Instead of hitting the ground (or her face), the metal circled around her as if tracing a halo over her head.
Ruby propped herself up on her elbows, staring at the floating chunk like it was some sort of alien. Her legs were still sprawled across the chair. "Um."
A low rumble of laughter came from Sage. He had his head down, his hand covering part of his face as he tried not to lose his composure.
The commotion roused Neptune from where he'd been dozing on a slightly misshapen chair of cobbled together metal. He cracked a smile as well, sharing an amused glance with Sage. "Ruby, up there." He pointed up to the top edge of the coliseum wall where Pyrrha stood.
Ruby looked up at her friend's silhouette, squinting to pick her out far up on the rim. Her usual morning energy had abandoned her. Maybe she just needed a solid breakfast. Or maybe it had been a bad idea to eat that open tin of preserved meat. She put a hand to her stomach, unable to decide if she felt hungry or sick. Mostly it was hungry.
Grumbling in mild complaint, she swatted at the circling metal and pushed herself up and getting to her feet, "Why is she always all the way up there?"
The supply tent was still quiet. Weiss slept, lying flat on her back with her arms folded neatly across her stomach amid the tangle of blankets Ruby had left behind. Her white hair lay in a tumble across the pillow, pooling near her shoulder like a frozen waterfall. She looked like she could have slept there forever, pristine amid the chaos of the camp's supplies, and maybe she would have if something- or someone, rather- didn't land on her stomach, knocking the wind out of her.
Several things happened at once. Weiss snapped awake, gasping and scrambling as a hand drove down on her mouth, forcing her head back into the pillow. One arm went for Myrtenaster (only to find that her sword wasn't beside her where she'd left it the previous night), the other was pinned under her assailant. Something smacked her in the face. By the time she could inhale again, she realized it was a cardboard sign with the word TRUCE in black marker.
She stopped struggling and blinked at the sign. Around its edge sat a small, serious-faced girl with pink and brown hair. She looked familiar.
Weiss bit her. A slight scuffle ensued, the heiress giving muffled protest and swatting at the girl as she smacked her in the face with the cardboard again. It didn't hurt, but it was beyond annoying and Weiss struggled to sit up, gripping a handful of the other girl's white jacket.
"Fine!" Weiss became significantly more intelligible when the girl gave in to the biting and pulled her hand back. "Now get off!"
Neo (because of course it was Neo) obliged, sitting on the corner of the sleeping bag, holding her sign while Weiss huffed and fixed her hair.
"What is wrong with you? Jumping on someone who's asleep like that," Weiss snatched Myrtenaster from the top of the crate beside her bed (where she had not left it) and glared at the other girl, wary and appraising. They were in a similar state- fashionable but unkempt, probably because they'd been on the road for weeks and living out of a wrecked city respectively. She definitely recognized her. Her brow furrowed in the half light of the tent, "Wait a minute, aren't you-"
Neo pointed to her sign emphatically.
Weiss hesitated, her hand not leaving her sword. The girl was Neo, henchman to that Roman Torchwick person. She didn't seem to be armed, but that didn't mean anything considering the trouble she'd given Yang. "Why should I listen to you?"
At this, the other girl rummaged behind her and produced a full size chocolate bar. She held it out to the heiress as she white-knuckled her sign.
Weiss felt her stomach twist with all the ferocity of a creature that had a) not eaten properly in days and b) not seen candy in weeks. If anyone else had been there to witness the exchange, Weiss might have refused on principle, but she'd had dry crackers the night before and honestly if she'd thrown a hot shower into the mix Weiss would have been just about ready to add her to the team, much less accept a cease fire.
"Fine. You want a truce?" Weiss relieved Neo of the candy with one hand and shook gingerly with the other. "Truce. But you had better have more of these."
Up on the rim, Qrow watched his niece drag her feet across the yard to the lopsided stairs that led up through the remaining stadium seating and to the ladders that gave access to their current perch.
"Say, where'd they get sent again? Before all this." Qrow asked to keep Pyrrha talking. James Point wasn't exactly an international hot spot. It was hardly a spot period- you'd be hard pressed to pick it out on a map, considering it was so small it didn't show up on most of them these days. He leaned on his chair, watching Ruby mount the steps below. "Some backwater, right?"
"James Point," she answered without missing a beat, watching Ruby's uncharacteristically sluggish ascent towards their aerial lookout spot. "They were sent on a Search and Destroy mission, but ran into some trouble." While Pyrrha shared Ozpin's certainty that team RWBY was strong enough to tackle whatever was thrown their way, Jaune had been so worried, especially after Ozpin eventually announced their extended delay and unavoidable removal from the tournament. He pestered Ozpin for updates so often Pyrrha had all but memorized the headmaster's response. "A heavy snowstorm trapped them there and cut off all communication."
"Hm." The seat creaked as Qrow settled back into it.
Eventually, Ruby made it up. By the time she mounted the last stairs and climbed up to the rim, what felt like a bottomless pit had opened up in her stomach. She really should have eaten breakfast.
"Pyrrha, is there a schedule for eating breakfast or...?" she noticed her uncle, "Oh, hey Uncle Qrow."
He smirked at her bed-head, "Hey."
Ruby looked between him and Pyrrha, who stood some distance away. "Are you guys... not fighting?
That would be good. Ruby was way too tired and hungry to deal with her friend and her uncle fighting.
Pyrrha blinked, caught off guard by the blunt question. She glanced at Qrow, emerald briefly meeting crimson, sparking a prickle of irritation that cascaded from her head to her toes, just beneath her skin. She pushed the sensation aside.
"No quarrels here," Pyrrha answered softly, trying her best to give Ruby a smile. Mindful of the younger girl's original topic of food, Pyrrha pulled a small pack of crackers from one of her pouches and offered it to her. "Your uncle was just about to give us an update."
Ruby took the package of crackers. They were mostly smashed. She resigned herself to a dry and crumbly breakfast.
"Yeah, about that," Qrow got to his feet, rotating one shoulder like he was working out a kink. Clouds slid across the sun, casting everything in pale shadows. "This might come across as less of an update and more of a 'you need to leave as soon as possible'."
Pyrrha's lips pursed in a thin line, her eyes shifting to linger on the medical tent far below. "That may be... difficult, for some of us."
Down in the medical tent, a tiny pair of ears pricked up. Robin peeked over the edge of sleeping Yang. The rest of the tent was quiet except for the sound of Jaune's troubled breathing on the cot across from theirs. The tiny Faunus whimpered and squirmed up to nuzzle under Yang's chin.
Yang groaned and shifted just enough to bury her face between Robin's Faunus ears, muttering a slurred request for five more minutes.
Robin stayed still for a minute. When Yang didn't get up, she whimpered again, hanging onto and biting Yang's shirt collar.
The light warning scrape of teeth finally spurred the brawler into action. Groaning again, Yang cracked one eye open, peering down at the tiny Faunus in her arms. "You're a persistent one, you know that?" With a great, heaving sigh, she pushed herself up into a sitting position as best she could with Robin's tenacious grip dragging her already-tattered shirt collar down her shoulder.
Robin whined again, clinging onto Yang's shirt.
On the other side of the tent, Jaune's labored breathing seized.
"I don't mean 'some of you'. I mean you in particular," Qrow said, his gaze steady on Pyrrha. "No one cares about a bunch of half-trained huntsmen and huntresses camping out in the ruins. A half-trained Maiden, on the other hand, is an opportunity a lot of people won't chance passing up."
Ruby stood to the side, crunching a mouthful of crumbs. On one hand, this was really bad. On the other, she knew how these stories went. She had the biggest collection of fairy tale books on Patch, as far as she knew, and after weeks in the mountains fighting Grimm with her teammates, heroes and monsters were her daily routine. Well, heroes, monsters, and the stress of a small town depending on them to get help. "If someone's after Pyrrha, we can stop them, though, right?"
She turned to Pyrrha as she spoke, seeking her friend's agreement in her earnest belief.
Pyrrha, who had bridled at Qrow's outright dismissal of her newly-extended team - her friends - mustered the will to hold her anger at bay in Ruby's presence. She couldn't manage a smile, but she did nod, fully sharing in the younger girl's confidence. "I have to ask though," her brows furrowed a fraction of an inch as she studied the lines of Qrow's face, "when you call me a half-trained Maiden... half-trained for what exactly?"
Ruby jumped in before her uncle could answer, "To use your powers to help people. I mean, I guess that's kind of vague, but that's how the Four Maidens ends. They help the wizard, and he gives them magic so they can help other people too."
How having powers that related to the seasons would help people was never explained, exactly, but Ruby was one hundred percent certain that they would be a huge help, especially now that she'd heard her uncle's story about an actual Maiden being able to use electricity and ice and stuff.
That ran through her head while she watched her friend's brow furrow. Ruby blinked a couple of times to make sure she wasn't just seeing things. Did Pyrrha seem a little paler than usual?
"Sure," Qrow ran a hand over his hair, content to shrug in the face of his niece's enthusiasm, "I was thinking more along the lines of you being able to use them to stay alive, but yeah, that's how the story goes."
He paused, noticing what Ruby was noticing.
"Hey, it's not like that was a big reveal or anything," he put a hand up, as if Pyrrha might lose her footing. "You need to sit down?"
Yang stifled a huge yawn.
The subtle change in her fellow patient's breathing slipped right past her damaged ears as she rolled her shoulders, stretched out her back and neck... She also missed the soft sound of stitches popping from the small Faunus still hanging from her shirt. Her collar bit into the back of her neck though, dragging her gaze down to Robin.
"You're gonna have to let go eventually you know... Or… actually, how about this!" She wrapped an arm around the little girl, hoisting her up a bit and swinging her around so she was in high-riding piggy-back mode. "Ta-daa! All aboard the Xiao-Long Express-..."
Yang's enthusiasm died in her throat upon catching sight of Jaune - his face contorted in anguish. He had not looked like that earlier. "Woah, hey, hey now..." Adrenaline seeped into her limbs, putting an urgent spring in her step as she hopped down from her own cot and padded barefoot over to his. "Hey there sleeping beauty," she gingerly placed a hand on his shoulder, "you okay?" She shook him a little. "You finally waking up or something?"
Jaune's hair stuck to his forehead, plastered by a sheen of cold sweat. He seemed a lot paler than usual. His breathing came in short, painful gasps.
Robin gripped tiny fistfuls of Yang's hair, resting her chin on top of her head and whining softly, her ears pinned flat.
"Ohhhh not good not good very bad very very bad-" Yang chanted lightly to herself as she briefly wrestled over staying to keep an eye on him and leaving for help - ultimately deciding that sticking around while someone was potentially dying was probably a terrible idea and not something that Robin needed to see. Getting help shot to priority one.
Yang spared a second to thank the stars that she felt well rested enough to even be up and moving as she searched wildly for her boots- ah, there, under her own cot. "Hang on tight kiddo," she said to Robin as she stuffed her socks in her pocket for later, jammed her bare feet into her boots, and bolted out of the tent.
A light breeze played across the coliseum's wall. Qrow's concern seemed genuine… but Pyrrha turned her head and waved him off. "I'm all right," she insisted, despite swaying just slightly. "I'm just..." the temperature around her suddenly plummeted - a snap of cold that lasted just long enough for airy puffs of white to give away her quick shallow breaths. "I think I'm tired," she put a hand to her forehead, closing her eyes and grimacing as the cold vanished in an eruption of heat not unlike Yang's. Clouds swirled in and out of existence far over their heads. Pyrrha's shoulders caved and she held her head in both hands. "But... perhaps I should sit down..."
That was absolutely not normal. Ruby and Qrow exchanged glances.
"Think you're okay to get back down to camp?" Ruby asked, moving to take one of Pyrrha's arms over her shoulders even though that might mean risking a little heat. All the medical supplies were down there, plus it would be bad if Pyrrha fell off the rim and out into the woods. Qrow moved to support her if it became necessary.
Pyrrha nodded, trying to cool herself down before accepting Ruby's support. Granted, with a sister like Yang, perhaps Ruby was use to intolerable levels of heat, but she had to at least try to control this strange outburst. She focused, dispelling the clouds and heat as best she could... but something backfired. Pyrrha's entire body frosted over, a soft coating of rime spreading over her from head to toe.
Oddly enough, she didn't notice the cold at first, resting a hand on Ruby's shoulder. She immediately jerked her hand away when that same frost spread over where she'd touched Ruby's cloak. Pyrrha's armor creaked in protest over her sudden movements, fractures spidering all throughout the weakened metal. "I'm- I'm sorry. I'll just-" she turned to head down the path, trailing frost as she went.
"Eep, okay," Ruby jumped in front of Pyrrha, "maybe you can just wait here?"
After the quick dash, Ruby's knees threatened to buckle, and despite the frost she grabbed onto Pyrrha both to stop her and to keep herself steady.
"Alright, both of you," risk of frostbite or no, Qrow caught both of their collars before anyone could fall over, intending to lower them to the ground, "sit down."
Pyrrha didn't have the strength or desire to resist, allowing Qrow to push her into a sitting position beside Ruby. She glared down at the trails of frost spiraling out from where her body touched the metal beneath her. These ridiculous, confusing Maiden powers - just when she thought she was getting the hang of them, here they went spiraling out of control and making her sick to her stomach-
A distant flash of yellow pulled Pyrrha's gaze over to the floor of the coliseum. It was Yang, running towards Neptune and Sage. Whatever relief Pyrrha felt over seeing her friend well enough to be up and about twisted into terror over the way the brawler was frantically gesturing to the medical tent.
"Jaune-" Pyrrha jumped right back to feet and took off at a sprint, not even missing a step when she clipped her arm on a jutting piece of rebar and shattered one of her cobbled-together gauntlets.
Long tendrils of solid inky black wrapped around her bare forearm, vanishing a moment later beneath a fresh coating of rime.
Ruby shared a glance with her uncle, who put a firm hand over her head to stop her when she tried to look back after Pyrrha.
"So that's probably not good," he jerked his chin towards the warrior's haphazard flight down the stairs towards the huddle of tents near the center of the arena. He leaned in and squinted at her, "But why are your eyes red?"
"Oh, uh, I," Ruby immediately avoided her uncle's eyes, even though they were red too. Red eyes weren't weird. Yang's eyes turned red when her semblance activated. It was totally a normal thing to have red eyes, though maybe probably not when your eyes had been silver your whole life until a day ago. "I kind of... I... don't know?"
"As in you don't know, or you don't want to say?" Qrow let her head go and settled down cross-legged on the metal walkway next to her.
"Um... both?" Ruby brushed her hand over her hair self-consciously. Being pretty much totally self-sufficient (or team-sufficient, at least) in the mountains for weeks didn't really make her feel like any less of a kid compared to her uncle. She didn't feel... well, she felt tired, but she didn't feel bad, so maybe it was nothing? "... I tried to aura heal a dog we rescued in James Point."
Qrow stared at her. He wasn't an easy guy to surprise, but he looked taken off guard.
Ruby gave him an uncertain grin, kind of shrugging into her cloak. Probably she was fine, right?
Down below, there came a sound like a muffled explosion.
Qrow ran a hand over his face.
"Let's go see what the new crisis is." He planted his hands on his knees and levered himself up, "but after that, we're gonna have a talk."
A/N: Pssst, it's late at night, but have this chapter!
- Fiercesomest