A/N: GUYS WE MISSED YOUUUUUUUUU

It's a bit late in the day but we are back! So did you guys enjoy that season of RWBY? Now that it's ended, so has our Hiatus, so it's back to posting chapters! Yay~!

On that note, Search is a bit of a beast, so we may update this one at a slightly slower rate than Catnip, since writing it is, well slower. Sorry in advance!

Also we were bad and left off in like, the middle of all sorts of insanity so uh, going back and reading like, the past chapter or two might help this one make a bit more sense~

Gosh it's nice to be back. Enjoy the chapter!

Hugs all around,
D

A sudden stream of apologies floated up from the coliseum grounds where Pyrrha, Sage, and Yang stood a few steps away from Neptune.

Electricity crackled and danced in small arcs from Pyrrha's fingertips - the same fingertips she had brushed Neptune's shoulder with while passing around him, sending a live current cascading down the copious amounts of metal adorning his outfit and setting off several of the spare rounds in his belt.

"I'm sorry!" One of his legs was encased in ice from one of his dust-filled rounds, but he seemed otherwise unharmed, "Oh- Neptune, I'm sorry- I- Sage, Yang, help him," Pyrrha pleaded, fleeing to the medical tent.

Sage watched the frost-encrusted warrior vanish through the tent flap. He drew his greatsword and crossed to Neptune in two giant strides.

Weiss emerged from the supply tent just in time to see him bring the sword down on Neptune's leg.

She went white as a sheet, certain for an instant that she'd just witnessed an amputation. Fortunately, he'd used the flat of it and all that had been removed was the casing of ice. It lay shattered around Neptune's entirely intact leg.

"What on Remnant is going on?" she looked from Sage and Neptune to Yang. Robin was still perched on the blonde's shoulders, whimpering into her hair.

"Hey!" Ruby called, jogging up to camp. She'd broken away from Qrow back at the stairs, and he didn't seem to be in a hurry to catch up. Weiss scowled as she approached the group and bent over, hands on her knees to catch her breath. "Where... where'd Pyrrha...?"

Wow, breathing was a lot harder than she remembered.

"Where have you been?" Weiss grabbed the back of her hood to pull her upright, making her grimace and cough, "You're supposed to be resting."

"And what were you saying about Jaune?" Neptune asked with furrowed brows, standing on one leg as he brushed stray bits of ice from the other.

Yang didn't even notice Neptune speaking to her, skipping right past him, Sage, and Weiss to grab Ruby by the shoulders. "So, don't freak out or anything, but Jaune is looking really bad."

Ruby squinted at Yang. Her voice sounded funny, like it was coming through a tin can phone. That was strange. Ruby had a split second to think about that before her knees buckled. She caught her sister's sleeve to steady herself and ended up dropping her full weight into her arms. She tried to get her feet back under her, protesting quickly, "I'm okay. I'm..."

Pyrrha was in trouble. And Jaune. Running from the edge of the coliseum had been a bad idea. Eating those crackers had been a bad idea. Her mouth watered like she was going to be sick, and everything threatened to slide out of focus, like she'd stepped off some kind of path and was fighting not to slide down a steep, dark incline.

"Stop talking," Weiss snapped at her, forcibly loosening the collar of her cloak overtop of Yang's support. "Yang, make her sit and put her head down."

Robin started whimpering and squirming, trying to get off Yang's shoulders.

Yang didn't exactly put Ruby down, but she did swing her up into a bridal carry, eyes wide with worry as she held her baby sister close. She looked... absolutely terrible, for lack of a nicer description. "Okay, all right, uh -" she turned to face Neptune and Sage, masking her rising panic with an attempt at a cool exterior, "So could one of you maybe check on Pyrrha and one of you grab this little rascal?"

"Yeah! Yeah uh, sure I've got her," channeling the nervous energy coursing through the group, Neptune sprang into action, plucking the little girl from Yang's shoulders and just kind of... holding her at arms length.

Sage meanwhile turned to the medical tent, where Pyrrha had disappeared. He swept aside the tent flap and ducked through.

Robin scrabbled at Neptune's wrists, trying to get her teeth into them.

"Woah hey uh," Neptune shifted his grip in the most awkward manner possible, now holding the wild little girl by her ankles.

Neptune would soon regret his shift of grip. Tiny and light as she was, Robin curled up almost into a ball, grabbed onto the tall boy's arm, and bit as hard as she could.

"Ow ow ow oW OW Sage! Sage she's trying to kill me! I think I'm bleeding! Sage!" Neptune's cries for help quieted as he ran into the medical tent still holding Robin.

Ruby tried to grab Yang's jacket to help stave off the dizzy, sick feeling, but she ended up with a handful of her own cloak, and then someone's hand caught hers. It was ice cold. Weiss was yelling somewhere far off, and Yang shifted so Ruby's head was resting right over her heart. She shut her eyes and listened to that warm, steady sound as her consciousness slipped away.

This is a dream. Ruby had the thought dimly as she opened her eyes. She was lying on her face, and at first all she saw was white. She propped herself up on her elbows and snow fell off her head and down the neck of her cloak. The cold wasn't the sharp bite of the real world, though. It was a distant, feathery feeling. She blinked and looked around at the frozen trees and frost covered brambles.

Was this the forest back on Patch? Ruby thought maybe she should get up, but she was tired, so she just stayed, propped up on her elbows, lying on her stomach in the snow. The cold didn't bother her at all, probably because this was a dream. She breathed out slowly and watched as her breath hung in the air. It was a realistic dream.

The nearby thorns twined up the trunks of the trees. They were roses, she knew. All the buds were closed tight, waiting for the frost to go. The light dimmed after only a few yards, as if there was a single pale Dust lamp lit above her head somewhere whose light didn't reach far into the woods.

Something shifted out beyond the edge of the light.

Ruby waited. She had a passing thought that maybe this was going to be a nightmare, but she didn't feel afraid. Just curious to see what was there.

Somewhere far overhead, a bird cawed.

The light's edge shimmered and shook, shrinking in and expanding further with each of Ruby's breaths. Eventually, it reached something solid. Elegant white tails - the light revealed six of them - gently flowed as if through water. Another expansion, and light spilled over the body of a strange white creature sitting in the snow, its back turned to Ruby as it looked up through the treetops at the shattered moon.

Ruby watched the tails and tried to make out the shape of the creature's head. Its fur was thick and white. It looked kind of like... Drei?

As if it could sense it was being watched, the creature turned, fixing Ruby with a burning red stare, shining from pitch black eyes. Curious, it stood, shook itself off, and began crossing the snowy expanse towards her.

That creeping, nightmare feeling closed around Ruby's chest a little more tightly. Her limbs felt like lead, and the circle of light shrank around them as her breathing became more shallow. All she could hear was the soft crunch of snow under the creature's paws as it approached.

It stopped barely a hair's breadth away, watching Ruby's every move... or lack thereof. A low breeze swept up small swirls of snow. Leaves fell soundlessly around them, never touching. A light flutter of wings rustled overhead. Nothing could pull its gaze from her.

Tall, pointed ears flattened against its skull as its angular jaws split apart, revealing pristine razor-sharp teeth opened wide... in a yawn.

The snow seemed to make way for it as it effortlessly laid down, head cocked the barest millimeter to one side as it studied Ruby up close, scarlet searching crimson.

Ruby tried to swallow, but it didn't get rid of the cottony feeling in her mouth. The creature- was it a dog? Was it a huge fox?- didn't seem like it was going to attack. If this was a dream, she might as well try talking, right? Her voice came out in a soft squeak, "Um. Hi?"

The creature's eyes slid shut, and it almost seemed to smile.

I see. One of mine.

The voice seeped into Ruby's mind like thick tar through a white cloth. It was old- older than old, and full of power and something else... something dark. She shrank down in the snow, shivering. The dread in her chest dug its claws in and tears pricked at the corners of her eyes- she wanted to go home.

Oh.

The creature opened its eyes once more. Six blood-red irises focused on Ruby where there had once been two.

But you have no home to return to.

"Yeah, I do," Ruby protested, her words thick in her mouth. She said it more in a hazy, half-blind attempt to bear the sticky feeling of that voice in her head than out of any sort of conviction.

Oh?

The creature stood, first to all fours, then up onto two, growing in size and shifting form as it grew in height.

Where?

Where was her home? Silence blanketed the pair, thicker than the snow around them. Ruby saw the creature standing, its form changing as it moved. The red eyes, the white skin... the hair prickled up at the back of her neck way worse than it had been before as a childhood of fairytales and patchwork parental advice reminded her, clear as crystal in her terrified haze, that you never, ever tell strange creatures where you're from or what your name is.

"Yang, stop moving, I can't concentrate," Weiss snarled, trying to focus her aura enough to heal her partner.

"I'm trying not to drop her, so if you could just-" Yang fumed at Weiss, stopping short when an enormous figure rounded the corner of the medical tent.

Yatsuhashi stood tall as always, one brow quirked at the group as he lightly shifted his grip on the equally-enormous dead stag draped across his shoulders. He frowned upon seeing Ruby's small, limp form cradled in her older sister's arms. "Is she all right?"

"I'm... gonna have to go with no on that one," Yang gritted out, trying to hold her sister as still as possible so that Weiss could focus.

His frown deepened. "Then, which of you is second in command?"

"That's really not important right now-"

"I have news to report, concerning your final team member."

That got Yang's attention. "Blake?" She tried her best to look up at him without moving the rest of her body. "What about Blake?"

Yatsuhashi seemed content to address Yang, considering Weiss's preoccupation with healing her partner. "We ran across a strange Beowolf on our way back from the hunt, and she went after it."

"Could you all please shut. Up." Weiss clenched her teeth, eyes shut as she refused to let the pale glow of her aura, which spread to Ruby, flicker out. "Also I'm clearly second in command, Yang."

Yang ignored Weiss's prickles, laser-focused on Yatsuhashi. "What kind of strange Beowolf?"

"It looked average, but it had silver eyes," he stated as plainly as if he were describing the weather. He turned his attention to Weiss, self-proclaimed second in command, "She requested backup."

Qrow, who had been following Ruby down the stairs at a more leisurely pace until she'd collapsed, pulled up short next to Yatsuhashi, going pale as his gaze fixed on his unconscious niece and Weiss.

"What do you think you're doing?" he demanded, moving to yank Weiss away from Ruby but hesitating at the last second, as if afraid to touch them..

The heiress kept her eyes shut, reserving all her concentration for the task at hand.

Yang stared, mouth agape at her uncle who had just appeared literally out of nowhere. Not that she wasn't used to him dropping by unannounced - when had he even arrived? She had spent most of the last couple of days sleeping...

She didn't bother asking, it wasn't the time. Jaune was in trouble, Blake needed help, Ruby was quite literally out cold and getting colder by the second in her very arms, and Qrow decides to just randomly show up and scold them? Yang's eyes briefly flashed red at her own uncle. "She's trying to heal her."

"Ah, so this is that technique that Ren and Nora have been using?" Yatsuhashi looked on in great interest, turning so he could better see past the antlers of the stag on his shoulders. "I've never seen it up close."

"You've all been sharing auras?" Qrow shook his head, but not before the others might have spotted the flicker of fear in his eyes. "You know what? Forget it. Just don't join in till I get back." He turned to Yatsuhashi, "I'm your backup, big guy. You said this Grimm's got silver eyes?"

Yatsuhashi nodded, seeing no need to question the older newcomer about his identity if he was already willing to help. Shifting his hips, he let the stag he was carrying slip from his shoulders and gently set it on the ground, motioning for Qrow to follow him to the side entrance he'd used. "She followed it north."

Yang didn't spare a single glance as Yatsuhashi and Qrow left, she didn't even wish them luck, there was no need to. If anyone could take that monster down it was uncle Qrow. She simply clutched Ruby a bit closer, keeping a close eye on Weiss as well.

Weiss knelt, still clutching Ruby's hand as she tried to extend her aura to heal her from whatever had happened to her. Probably she should have asked- she'd assumed it was some kind of residual effect from aura sharing with a non-human species, but something could have happened in the time before she'd woken up. Dust, how could this have happened? Ruby was supposed to get her if she started feeling strange at all.

Barely aware of her surroundings, she kept her eyes shut and bent her head over her partner, concentrating. Ruby was still breathing, but her breaths were coming faster and was it just Weiss or did her hand feel colder than it had before?

Yang felt it as well, furious that the heat she was pouring out seemed to have no effect. She was so far beyond wondering about the hows and whys of the situation - all she needed to know was how to make it better. "Come on sis," she pressed her face to the top of Ruby's head and spoke low, so as not to disturb Weiss, "We haven't even had breakfast yet…" she eyed the enormous stag Yatsuhashi had left behind, "we've got all this nice venison here..." Even Ruby's hair was cooling down. Was her warmth and Weiss's aura just not enough? There had to be something more she could do.

Setting her jaw, Yang closed her eyes and focused, tossing aside her uncle's warning not to join in as she reached out with her aura. The warning didn't even make sense, two was always going to be stronger than one. Unless it had something to do with the vague warning the professors had given when they first taught them the technique, something about reserving the use of aura sharing for extreme emergencies only... which this definitely counted as.

Reddish gold built around Yang, slowly extending around the trio huddled on the ground... but something was off. The closer she reached, the more resistance she met. The gentle pink of Ruby and Weiss's combined auras seemed to roil against her, absolutely unyielding wherever she tried to connect.

Desperation drove her to try to connecting anyway. The resulting shock shattered her concentration and left her reeling.

Weiss felt the sharp jab of Yang trying to connect her aura to hers and whatever fraction of Ruby's they were dealing with. It was like a jolt from an electrical outlet, and should have completely broken off her own efforts because it darn well broke her concentration. She was about to snap at Yang for interrupting when she found that she... couldn't. In fact, she couldn't move at all. There was a hazy, liquid sort of pull, like her aura was draining down her arms, into Ruby...

With growing alarm, she realized that she'd felt this once before, back when she had first tried aura healing her partner. That hadn't gone spectacularly well (i.e. it still ranked very highly on her list of most traumatizing life experiences to date) so she dug in her heels- or whatever the aura equivalent to that was.

Dust, Dust, Dust, Dust, she did not need a trip to Ruby's nightmare dreamscape. Was this the same as back then? The red pattern in her partner's bone mask burned hot in her mind's eye- the hiss of that black scythe, the hands around her throat, the scream when she'd torn the mask off. She wasn't prepared to fight Ruby like that again.

Helpless, she knelt there, trying not to lose her grip, trying to think of what to do as she lost it bit by bit anyway.

"Ugh," Yang shook her head, trying to clear her swimming vision. "Jeeze, sorry Weiss." When her vision finally cleared, she squinted at Weiss, wary of the fact that she hadn't immediately snapped at her for the interruption. "...Weiss?" Yang reached out with her free arm to gently shake the heiress's shoulder, inhaling a sharp breath when she slumped forward atop Ruby, unresponsive. "No... Oh no-"

A/N: Just because we were left off in the midst of chaos before DOESN'T MEAN WE WON'T END A CHAPTER IN THAT SAME MIDST.

Seriously, guys, we've had a great break, and we've got a bunch of great chapters lined up. Eventually we'll catch up with ourselves and have to slow down to posting maybe twice a month, just to keep the chapters coherent, but until then, enjoy!

Leave a review if you feel like it! We're interested to hear what folks thought of Volume 5. Also we just threw Ruby into some deep trouble here. Good times.

Stay tuned!

- Fiercesomest