A/N: So, looks like the current plan is to go ahead and post chapters weekly up until we catch up to ourselves... and then do once every other week! Hopefully that's all right! Annnnd hopefully Ruby and Weiss are all right! Jeeze!

Hugs,
D

The medical tent was finally quiet again.

Sage had somehow managed to pry Robin's teeth out of Neptune's sleeve, and put the scrambling little girl in an empty crate of packing peanuts, where she immediately burrowed in, growling at the boys as they exchanged glances near the edge of the crate.

Pyrrha slumped over Jaune, who had finally stabilized on his own. While the same could be said for her maiden's powers, the same could not be said for her heart. It beat like a bird trying to escape its cage. Jaune hadn't had an episode like this in at least three... maybe even four days. She'd lost count.

Sighing quietly to herself, Pyrrha ground the heels of her palms into her eyes as she called a few scraps of metal towards her with her polarity. The pieces wrapped around her frost-covered arm, where the previous piece of armor had shattered. She'd been foolish to think he'd been getting better...

"Hey, Pyrrha?"

Pyrrha blinked, looking up at the medical tent's entrance. Neptune and Sage stood just inside, both looking worried in their own ways. Somewhere in the corner, a box with fox ears poking out of it snarled.

Neptune, who had called to her, lifted a hand, his eyes flicking back and forth between Pyrrha and Jaune, "Is he... well, I guess asking if he's okay is stupid-"

Pyrrha held a hand up to stop him. "He... probably just needs more rest-"

"Pyrrha!"

Neptune had all of one second to look confused before Yang suddenly bull-rushed her way into the tent, bowling him over in the process. Her eyes burned a wild, desperate red as she stepped over him into the ten's middle. Under one arm she held Ruby, and under the other, she held Weiss. "Pyrrha they are not waking up."

Why are you here?

The circle of light grew smaller by degrees, allowing the crimson eyes all around to draw nearer as Weiss struggled to come up with something. Panic spread in her slowly, like the dark patterns creeping across the snow. But she was here to protect Ruby, though, not answer some... thing's... questions.

She maintained her glyph and at length managed a shaky, "Stay away from her."

The woman moved towards Weiss without moving, the world simply shifting around her to bring her close - practically right up against the enormous glyph separating her from Weiss. Her gaze dipped down to Ruby, then fixed once more on the wide-eyed ice-blue staring up at her in dying defiance. Even hiding behind her impressive family sigil, the girl was an open book.

You can't protect her.

Those burning red eyes briefly flicked to the glowing glyph that spun between them. Looking Weiss dead in the eye, the woman reached out with a single hand, gently taking hold of the glyph's edge and halting its lazy spin. Its light began to drain away, up into her arm.

You can't even protect yourself...

Weiss watched in horror as her glyph came apart. It didn't shatter- it just... dissolved. The remnants were absorbed by the woman whose words seemed to sink directly into her mind.

Maybe if she could get Ruby off the ground, she could glyph them to safety. Or at least out of this clearing. That would involve possibly turning her back on this woman, and every fiber of Weiss's being rejected that idea. They also rejected the idea of standing between her and Ruby, who she was obviously more interested in, but Weiss stood there anyway. Her fists shook as she tried to square her shoulders.

On the ground, Ruby started coughing. It made the light in the clearing expand and contract in choking spasms.

One expansion briefly illuminated the circle of eyes around them - Grimm, an endless sea of Grimm, every shape and every size, growing more and more agitated with the flickering light of each cough. The woman watched Ruby silently, her passive expression slowly dipping into a deeper and deeper frown. Something divided her attention for half a second, her focus then returning to Weiss.

Leave.

All the breath left Weiss's lungs in a rush, knocked out by the power in that word. The clearing vanished and she made a grab for something, anything solid as she toppled backwards into darkness.

Sage stepped forward, brow creased but arms out to relieve Yang of one of the unconscious girls.

Yang offered him Weiss, dragging him along with her over to the cot she'd been using just this morning. She laid Ruby down, then helped him maneuver Weiss onto the cot as well. There was hardly any room, and they'd resorted to sort of... half draping Weiss atop Ruby, but it was the best they could manage.

Pyrrha came to their side in and instant, pressing her hands to their foreheads. She brushed Ruby's hair back, biting her lip at the younger girl's creased brows. She had seemed fine just a short while ago... if a bit tired... "What happened?"

"I don't know!" Yang threw her arms up, nearly smacking Sage in the face. "I mean- she came down from the wall to see Jaune and just, dropped, and then Weiss tried to heal her and-" Yang put her face in her hands, breathing deep and exhaling slowly. "I can't reach either of them. I keep trying the- the aura thing but it's not... I can't..."

Empathy cut Pyrrha to her core, and she laid both hands on the brawler's shoulders, wishing she knew how to console her. "Yang-"

A mournful howl rose up in the distance. It sounded close - just outside the coliseum walls.

Neptune sighed from his place on the floor, pushing himself to his feet. "I'll take care of it."

As Neptune stepped towards the tent flap, Weiss's body jerked on the cot. Her eyes snapped open and she gasped, gripping onto the cot edge and part of Ruby's shirt, blue eyes full of wild panic as she scrambled to get up.

"Woah jeeze-" Startled to within an inch of her life, Yang scrambled as well, and with Pyrrha's help they helped Weiss sit up on the cot's edge. They stood on either side of her, bracing her as gently as they were able.

Though her heart was racing a mile a minute, Pyrrha managed to spare a composed, quiet look of thanks at Neptune and Sage as they quietly exited the tent.

Yang however looked about two seconds from crying with relief. "Weiss? What-"

"No!" Weiss's breathing was jagged and her voice broke as she struck out at her friends and turned to find Ruby lying still on the cot behind her. Her white hair fell in a tangle across her partner as she fumbled blindly for her hand, "No, I can't-"

She felt sick, and she clutched Ruby's hand, trying to summon up her aura enough to get back to that place.

Pyrrha held back in the face of Weiss's panic, but Yang lunged for her, dragging her away from her sister and off the cot entirely. "Weiss!" Yang held her from behind, both arms locked securely around Weiss's arms and middle. It felt like she was supporting her weight as much as she was holding her back from Ruby. "What's gotten into you?"

"Let go of me!" Weiss kicked out and tried to pry Yang's arms from around her stomach, but they were like steel cables holding her back. Worse, her mouth watered like she was going to throw up. "There's something- it's in there. Ruby's hurt and I can't- I have to go. Let go!"

If anything, Weiss's words had the exact opposite effect, freezing Yang in her tracks. She barely noticed as the heiress's nails scraped against her aura, focused instead on what she'd been able to parse from Weiss's smattering of words.

"Something is... in Ruby?" Dread pooled in the brawler's stomach. Flashes of oily black and bone-white streaked with angry red filled her vision, but she stamped the memories back, absolutely refusing to believe there was any connection between... whatever was happening to Ruby now, and what had happened before. Sure her eyes had gone red, but she'd been fine just yesterday and there were none of those giant rats around and... and...

"Yang, you're crushing her-"

Yang snapped back to her senses at Pyrrha's firm hand on her arm, and she immediately loosened her death-grip on Weiss. "I'm sorry- I'm-"

"Weiss," Pyrrha interrupted Yang's stammered apologies, taking the coughing, choking heiress's hands in her own and trying to catch her gaze. "Weiss, even if Ruby is hurt, you are in no condition to..." Pyrrha's voice trailed off as another sound grew in the distance. It sounded like... a scream? And it was getting closer- fast-

Even Yang could hear it now. "What the..."

CRASH

Neptune flew bodily through the side of the medical tent, through several crates, and straight through out the other side, rolling to a stop on the ground, face-first. A blurred streak of black surged through the new holes in the tent after him. Black rose petals fell in its wake.

Just visible through the gaping tear in the ten's side, Neptune lay in a heap with his face in the dirt. Above him, a Beowolf rose to stand on its hind legs. Bright silver eyes landed on Ruby, then the three girls next to her. Dipping its head, it snarled.

Weiss gaped at the Grimm. Her knees buckled and she sat down hard, her back to Ruby's cot.

"Is that..." Pyrrha kept her voice low, as though even the slightest noise might send the strange Beowolf into a frenzy, "the silver-eyed Grimm Ren and Nora mentioned?" She never took her eyes off of it, couldn't take her eyes off of it. The stolen silver was just so bright. "The one that used to be your dog?"

Yang stood stock still, her hands balled into trembling fists. Drei was long gone, and even though she wasn't sure exactly how, or why, somehow she knew that this... this semblance-stealing thing was the reason Ruby couldn't wake up. It had to be. Her own eyes flared crimson when she caught the Beowolf's silver-eyed gaze bouncing to Ruby every few seconds.

"Pyrrha." Yang spoke low as well, keeping her gazed trained on the Beowolf, who had locked eyes with her. In her peripheral vision, green eyes darted her way, confirming she had Pyrrha's attention. "Can you guard Ruby and Weiss?"

Pyrrha took stock of the surrounding area in record time, noting a teetering pile of scrap just beyond the snarling Grimm. "...Yes. I'll need a distraction."

"Oh, I'll distract it," Yang made the first move, cracking her knuckles and extending her gauntlets as she stepped up to the hole in the tent. "Hey dog-breath," she sank into a fighting stance, "if you think-"

The Beowolf responded before Yang even finished speaking, blasting forward in burst of unearthly speed, blind-siding her with a full-body tackle that sent them both flying into the distance.

Not even sparing a moment to cringe at the distinct crash of two bodies colliding with what was presumably the coliseum wall, Pyrrha dropped to the ground, sending a black pulse of polarity through the surrounding area. Forcing all of her focus into this one task, she dragged the entire nearby pile of scrap metal towards the tent, squinting against the screech and whine of metal twisting and tearing as she wrenched each piece to fit the form she needed - a sealed piecemeal dome, growing more secure by the second as she added every bit of metal within her reach to the exterior.

Weiss got one arm on the edge of the cot and levered herself up enough to find Ruby's hands and grip them as hard as she could. Pyrrha could do her thing- Weiss was going to get back into Ruby's dream/nightmare/whatever-it-was and help- try to help. She had to help. She closed her eyes, trying to shut out the storm of metal forming around them.

In the midst of trying to summon up enough of her aura to share, she had a nagging feeling... it couldn't be true, because naturally the Beowolf had torn in and was actively fighting with Yang... still, she had the faint, insane impression that behind the snarling and the throwing Yang and Neptune around, the silver eyed Beowolf wasn't there to hurt any of them.

Weiss didn't have time for this. Obviously it must have seemed safe because one lousy Beowolf ranked so low on her list of concerns. Freakish red-eyed woman standing over her now defenseless partner vs. a single Grimm? It was no contest. She shoved the thoughts from her mind and doubled down, trying to extend her aura to Ruby.