Hello everyone and welcome to the latest chapter. So the breach was countered and the evil White Fang were foiled. Where now will our story go? Read on to find out. Enjoy.
Darkness engulfed Blake for what must have been hours before she finally came to again. At first she became aware of a monotonous beeping sound which came at a steady rhythm in tune with the beating of her heart a sound which quickly told her that both sets of her ears were now working once more. The second thing that she became aware of was the throbbing pain within her skull, the most mammoth headache that she had ever experienced. The light blasting down on her closed eyelid was painfully bright, only serving to aggravate her migraine further. Still, there was no rush. She waited a long while for her eyes to adjust to the light coming through her closed eyes and instead contented herself with listening to her surroundings and trying, to the best of her ability, to piece together the events of the past few days in the right order.
She remembered the long flight out to the failed expansion of Mountain Glen, the hundreds of Grimm which they had seen along the way and the shattered state of the city itself, with its broken, battered and abandoned buildings, once so full of life but now eerily silent, rising from the ground like worn and grey teeth. She recalled their long days trekking through the city and fighting off Grimm as they searched for the White Fang and her excitement at finding their hideout, her fear as they snuck in and through yet another abandoned city in the vast caverns beneath the first. Yet perhaps most harrowing, she remembered the long and drawn out fight atop the moving train as they desperately tried to bring the dastardly Roman Torchwick's plan's to a grinding halt. Finally, after a great deal of thought as she scoured her memories, she remembered waking up to a vicious horde of Grimm, their desperate fight and rescue at the hands of their friends in Team JSPR, the Vale military and even fully qualified hunters and huntresses before she had finally succumbed to exhaustion and collapsed.
Certainly, the previous few days had been incredibly difficult indeed and had taken their toll upon her. The fact that her limbs still felt sore and heavy was only a testament to the fact. It would undoubtedly be some time before she was fully recovered. One positive was that the pain from her ears had more or less subsided and she couldn't feel the cracked, dried blood within. She was drawn from her self assessment by a collection of voices around her. Despite the hushed nature of their conversation, Blake identified them as the voices of her friends. Groggily she opened her eyes slowly giving them a chance to adapt to the sudden increase in light levels. Turning her head slowly, she looked around for them and found them huddled just inside the doorway, not only the members of her own team, team JSPR were there too. They looked a little worse for wear, bandages wrapped in a patchwork fashion around their arms, legs and heads.
Allowing her eyes to scan around, Blake took a few moments to take in the details of her surroundings. It was a standard hospital room, a single bed made up with sterile, and incredibly itchy, white sheets. Around her bed was a curtain rail upon which was hung a greeny-blue curtain which, at the behest of the patient, might be drawn to grant a little privacy but where drawn right back. Opposite Blake's own bed was an identical one against the far wall leaving a slight aisle in between the foot of both beds. Laid up in the other bed was a young looking girl with brilliant violet hair, both her right leg and left arm were in casts and elevated. Blake couldn't help but wonder just how she had never before seen this girl, judging by her age and the slightly extreme injuries the faunus could only assume that she was another student of Beacon Academy. There was a large medical cabinet pushed up against the left hand wall and off to the right was the door to the room. In all it was incredibly dull with little more of interest than the other patient's hair and the heart rate monitor at the young faunus leader's bedside from which numerous wires came and attached to Blake's arm.
"W-why are you whispering?" Blake asked weakly, her voice felt rough almost as though her throat were lined with sandpaper. Presumably because of all the shouting in the past few days. All at once, seven pairs of eyes all shot over to Blake making the poor girl blush under her new found attention. They switched their attention to Yang who nodded to them all. One by one team JSPR and the RN of BRNY gave Blake a smile and filtered out of the room.
"We didn't want to wake you, the nurses said that you needed all the rest you could get after the fight yesterday. You gave us all quite the fright when you fainted." Yang explained with a certain warmth to her voice which only made her wounded girlfriend blush more. Blake froze in shock, a whole day? Had she really been asleep for so long? Seemingly she was far more exhausted after her mission than she had first thought.
"Well... I'm awake now. What has happened since I... y'know... fainted." She continued, finding it oddly difficult to admit to having fainted. Simply saying it brought back memories from her childhood which she had long since repressed. Back in her younger days after having first joined the White Fang, she had fainted fairly often under her former partner's harsh training regimen. The fact that she had done so stripped away her personal defences and left her feeling just as vulnerable and weak as she had all that time ago.
"Not a lot really... after you fainted the professional hunters and huntresses split up and spread out to eradicate the last of the Grimm in the city. Goodwitch fixed some of the damage and dragged us all of for a kind of interrogation. The way she was glaring I honestly thought that we might of died. Even Port and Oobleck looked terrified of her and followed like a pair of lost puppies. We got taken to see Ozpin and he asked us what happened in Mountain Glen so we told him, Oobleck corroborated the story and we were sent here to get treated. You were the only one that was brought straight here since you were in no state for anything else." Yang continued, filling her partner in on the events of the past twenty four hours. Blake listened closely, nodding occasionally but for the most part she maintained her usual stoical visage. As the brawler finished her account the faunus spoke up again, raising the only point which had yet to be covered.
"What about Torchwick? Did they find him?"
"Nothing... They found his hat and cane but that's all. The official report was that he died in the crash."
"I don't believe it... Not without a body. He escaped, I can feel it."
"Blake that is for the police and the military to deal with, not us. Right now you should try and relax. You've gotta get better before anything else."
"But how can I relax? He's out there probably concocting another plan to bring Vale to its knees!" she cried, dragging herself to a sitting position.
As night fell across Vale and the shattered moon rose high into the sky, a lone figure stalked the streets, staggering as he made his way. His footfalls echoed across the empty street with each and every step. He froze as police sirens sounded in the distance, every muscle in his body tensing up as he strained his ears to hear them until they faded into nothingness. He continued along his way until he reached a medium sized terraced house in the middle of the street where he turned up the path. He looked from side to side, a single deep green eye catching the moonlight as it peered through long orange bangs. Contented that the coast was clear he reached into his pants pocket and produced a small set of keys. Leaning against the cold, hard wood of the door he slid the key into the lock with a shaking hand and unlocked it. Giving one final glance up and down the street he slipped into the house and closed the door behind him, sealing out the night.
With a sigh, Torchwick leant back against the door and allowed himself a few deep breaths. He took a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the total darkness of the house's interior before shuffling down the hall and into the house's kitchen. The place was nothing fancy, pretty empty really, only containing the bare essentials for a safe house. He moved with shuffling steps over to the counter and took up the single solitary bottle. Once again his shoes shuffled against the carpets as he made his way through into the bare living room where he sank against the wall, sliding against it until he sat in a heap on the floor. Unscrewing the cap he raised the bottle and drank a mouthful of the strong liquid within. His face contorted slightly at its bitter taste but he soon began to relax, the alcohol within steadying his trembling hands and numbing his nerves. His hands tightened back up around the bottle however as the lights flicked on, blinding him.
"Hello Roman." It was a voice he knew well, one which filled him with dread. It was a smooth and sultry one belonging to the one and only Cinder Fall. Just how had she known where to find him?
"Now Cinder... I know what you're gonna say but it wasn't my fault I-"
"Silence." She snapped, her voice was icy as she interrupted him. "You're lucky that your little fiasco didn't ruin my plans entirely. Fortunately, it worked as was intended and all unfriendly eyes have been taken off of us and fixed firmly onto the incapable shoulders of the White Fang, of course those fools are only too happy to claim credit."
"But I thought-"
"You thought what? That they were our partners in full for our venture? Hardly. Those... animals are just a means to an end, tools to be used and then disposed of when we are finished with them. Useless ingrates such as them have no place in the new world that we are seeking to create. You know how our...investor... despises them." Roman drank again, his hands beginning to tremble once more. Her explanation of the role that the White Fang were to play was so matter of fact and ruthless that it sent chills racing up and down his spine.
"So... what do we do now?" The clockwork criminal asked, almost afraid of her answer.
"Now, we wait. Even as we speak our virus is spreading through the Vale computer network, those fools will be too preoccupied with their renewed fight against the White Fang to even care about us, they think you're dead so we're in a very powerful position. All eyes will be turned away from us during the upcoming tournament and that will be when we strike. All is coming together just as planned, despite your little slip up today. The board has been set, the pieces are moving and we are all primed to take their queen when she arrives. In that moment, all of our hard work shall be rewarded and we shall stand victorious in the cinders of a bygone society." Her golden eyes lit up and burned brightly as she explained the next stage of their plan, he didn't know the exacts and he certainly didn't know who this 'Queen' was that she was referring to, in truth he wasn't sure that he even wanted to know. Raising his bottle he toasted.
"To the New World. May there be order." Cinder watched with a smirk as he drank before she too took the bottle and took a long sip.
"To the New World."
The following days passed relatively quickly and before long, Blake was back on her feet again. With a satisfied sigh, she stepped out of the infirmary with her team and into the summer sun shining down onto the Beacon Academy campus. She smiled and stretched herself out, basking in the warmth of the sun and feeling thoroughly glad to be out and about once again instead of cooped up in her infirmary room.
"It feels good to be able to move about freely again. The nurses in there went crazy if I so much as sat up on my own. It was horrible. I get that they are there to look after us and help us get better but I do not appreciate being treated like I'm made of glass and they don't take no for an answer! I swear I was 'this' close to losing it." She explained with a frown and a hand gesture, it was true, she had once told them that she didn't want a drink and they had practically forced the fluids down her neck.
"Looks like this kitty has claws~" Yang teased, though her grin was only met with a scathing glare from the faunus. If looks could kill, Yang would likely have died right then and there, yet the brawler wasn't put off, far from it as she leant in to whisper into her girlfriend's ear. "Sorry kitty-cat, if you'd like I can always make it up to you later~"
At the mere idea, Blake's entire face flew a deep shade of red. She lashed out and weakly punched her partner on the arm as though it were the only thing that she could possibly have done in that situation though Yang didn't seem to mind, if anything a look of satisfaction bloomed across her features as though she had somehow 'one-upped' the faunus. Blake glared again, determined to get her own back. She had read plenty of books involving revenge and so was not short of ideas, one way or another the blonde bombshell would pay. Before she could put any of her plans into action however, her stomach growled sounding like a pack of very hungry Ursai.
"Wow! You sound super hungry! We should get you some food!" Nora cried in her usual exuberance.
"Please yes!" Blake replied almost immediately, seeing the surprised looks on her teammates' faces she blushed once more. "The food in the infirmary was awful, it was all so bland and tasteless. I am just really looking forward to getting some good food into me again okay?" Her teammates nodded in agreement and together the four of them made their way off to the cafeteria for what Blake was certain would be some of the greatest food that she had ever tasted.
Across the campus, in his team dorm rooms Jaune sat alone at the room's lone desk, his teammates having all gone off to the training hall to get a workout in. His sword was laid out on a soft cloth on the table top as he slowly worked his way along the blade with a whetstone, freshening the blade's edge again after all of the stresses that it had endured over the course of the last few days. Its bit alone had signalled the doom of more monsters than he might have ever imagined meeting in the flesh. Even when he was little and had imagined himself as a mighty hunter and hero, he had never imagined that he would kill so many. In reality he considered it a miracle that he was still alive and had made it out in one piece. First the Night-Fury and then the swarm during the breach. The chances of anyone making it through both of those events were minuscule and yet here he was.
He looked up from polishing Crocea Mors as the door opened and Ruby entered the room. Just the sight of her was enough to catapult him back to the events of that one night before the Grimm had attacked. In the gloom after a particularly bad nightmare she had comforted him and the two had shared a tender yet passionate kiss which had left him confused about his feelings for the little rose. It was clear that he harboured some affection for her but to what extent exactly that was remained a mystery.
"Is everything alright Jaune? You've been staring at me for a little while now... have I got something on my face?" The soft sound of her voice brought Jaune out of his daydream and crashing back down to Earth with a bang. Standing, he made his way over to her.
"I was thinking, about everything that's happened lately. I'm sorry I kinda drifted away after our... y'know, kiss. I guess I was just confused about it and how I felt about you. I kinda came up with an idea though. I though that we could m-maybe y'know... hang out as a kind of date... if you wanted to I mean." Ruby listened as he spoke and at the very mention of a date with him, her face lit up with a brilliant smile. She shot forward in a puff of rose petals and hugged him tightly, her little arms like bands of steel around him.
"I would love to!" she chirped in her excitement before pulling back with a suspicious expression, one eyebrow raised at him. "What about Pyrrha though? She kissed you too..."
"Well... I uh... I know. I don't really know how I feel about either of you, I mean you're both my best friends and that matters the most to me. I thought that taking you both out separately would give me a better chance to get to know you both and hopefully work out how I feel. I-is that alright? Do you still want to hang out with me?" He asked nervously, unsure of how his explanation would make her feel.
"Of course I do silly!" She giggled "I get that you want to be totally fair about it all and want to work out how you really feel."Jaune smiled and wrapped her up in his arms.
"So shall we say, Saturday night by the big statue in the courtyard at seven?" He suggested hopefully. Relief washed over him as she nodded and the arrangements for their date were made.
"I can't wait, now, how about we go get some food? I'm starving~" The little rose whined, pouting in the most adorable way and giving Jaune a look which melted his heart. How could he possibly say no? With a grin he opened the door to their dorm for her and the two of them made their way down to the school's cafeteria to fill their bellies. It was of course a weight off of Jaune's mind that she had accepted his plan so willingly. He knew that certainly it wouldn't be that simple and that he would soon enough have to explain the situation to Pyrrha, he could only hope that the champion would agree to it as easily as the little rose had, yet only time would tell.
Time passed quickly over the remaining days before the day of their date arrived. Jaune was nervous, perhaps the most nervous that he had ever been. The blonde knight had stood toe to toe with some of, if not the most terrifying creatures on the face of remnant and had hardly batted an eyelid, yet when faced with the prospect of taking a girl out on a date, his knees turned to the wobbliest of jelly.
It had been a long day of preparation and he still didn't have the faintest idea of just where it was that he was going to take her. He had been racking his brain for hours trying to come up with some form of solution that would ensure that his date with Ruby would be a thoroughly enjoyable night for the two of them. He had spent a long time just trying to work out what it was that she might like to actually do and had finally settled on a movie. That was the classical choice right? At least, that was all that the movies had ever shown...
Yet at last after hours of worrying, he had finally finished planning and worrying. His solution for the most enjoyable evening still eluded him yet what else could he possibly do? He had to wing it which only served to make him yet more nervous. He retreated back to the dorm, content that he had a fairly decent plan for their evening. Reaching into his wardrobe he grabbed out his best clothes, these being his least torn pair of jeans and a flannelette shirt in a shade of blue that his Mom had always told him brought out the colour of his eyes. One final thing, he grabbed a small glass bottle filled with a clear liquid, it was the only cologne that he owned, and one which he only wore for extra-special occasions. He looked at the bottle and its contents for a long moment, wondering whether or not his date qualified for its use, with one final nod, he gave himself three quick sprays of the liquid. It was a fairly light fragrance, a pleasant one which reminded the blonde of warm summer evenings back home where he would sit in the sun and enjoy the light breeze.
Contented with his appearance and confident that he wasn't either too casual or too smartly dressed, the blonde left the dorm room and casually walked his way down the long hallways of Beacon academy and off towards the main courtyard to meet the little Rose. He hadn't seen her all day since Yang had found out about the date and had effectively abducted Ruby for the purposes of getting her ready. Truthfully, he had no idea what he was to expect that night, nor any clues as to what Yang would have done to her little sister in preparation for the date. The brawler was always far to unpredictable for Jaune... She reminded him a scary amount of his own sisters a thought which sent chills and shivers running up and down his spine.
Deciding not to dwell on it, Jaune passed out of the illustrious residential wing of Beacon Academy and down the smoothly paved pathways towards the main courtyard where he was die to meet the rose. Checking his scroll, he smiled with satisfaction at seeing that he was right on schedule and due to arrive five minutes early for the Rose. His father had always told him that it was better to arrive five minutes early rather than five minutes late, and that was a mantra which Jaune had always striven to live by.
Had he been paying any attention to his surroundings, he might have seen his partner as she made her way out of the academy's main building and began to head across the campus to her team's dorm room. Her viridian eyes locked onto him immediately and twinkled sadly as they caught the light of the broken moon. A soft sigh passed her lips as her heart sank, she had of course heard about his date with the little reaper but a part of her still held out, pleading for it not to be true. Even when he had explained his plans to her and promised her her own date in time, she had refused to believe that it was true, that there was even any kind of choice at all. None of the romance novels which the champion had borrowed from Blake had ever suggested that love could ever be so complicated, or so confusing. They had all been so simple, cut and dry cases of; 'boy meets girl and falls in love' or vice versa. Yet here she was, tears welling up ever so slightly in her eyes as she watched the subject of her affections heading off to go onto a date with a literal walking complication.
Internally she chastised herself for losing her rationality and allowing her emotions to take over. After all, it wasn't as though she had lost was it? Far from it, Ruby may have acquired the first date but the champion was by no means out of the race. Rather, the true race for Jaune's affections was about to begin. And just as she had promised before every one of her tournaments; she would not lose.
Jaune stood by the statue, under the very shadows of the great heroes and heroines of old, awed by the sheer ferocity that the sculptor had managed to encapsulate on their faces. Even the Grimm seemed to be trembling in fear before their mighty onslaught, it was just like the stories that his Mom and Dad had read to him when he was little. Everything about the statue resonated within Jaune's own ambition, within his very desires to be the hero and stand tall among the ranks of these mighty warriors.
With a smile, he turned back away from the statue and brought himself back into reality, once more feeling his nerves grow and threaten to consume him at the idea of his impending date. His mind ran in circles as he worried over whether he had dressed right or if the aftershave was too much after all. He could feel his stomach beginning to knot itself tightly as more and more of these thought spiralled around in his head. Butterflies bloomed in his stomach and seemed to be holding some kind of insect air show within him as they fluttered about. His heart was running a million miles a minute and felt like it might just leap right out of his chest.
Every part of him seemed on edge as he began to check his scroll more and more, remembering why he had turned his attentions to the statue in the first place. In fact he was so nervous, and so preoccupied with his own nerves that he failed to hear the footsteps heading straight for him. They tapped softly against the paved pathways as they moved ever closer to the blonde knight whom was near enough in a full on panic as he muttered to himself about how he 'ought to have gotten flowers'. It was only when a familiar voice piped up at his side that he was brought out of his nerve induced rambling.
"So uh... Be honest, how silly do I look?"
Jaune turned immediately in surprise to face this newcomer and as he did, his cerulean eyes grew wide, and his jaw hung slack. For there stood his date, there stood Ruby Rose. Though not in any way that he had seen her before, this was an entirely different side from the usually shy reaper that he had been teamed up with all those months ago.
She was dressed in a pale red summer dress which contrasted fantastically with her soft, pale skin. Her familiar red cloak was gone and replaced instead with a shawl of a similar colour. Her hair had been tamed, presumably by the inescapably firm hand of Yang. In all she looked fantastic and it was a long, awkwardly quiet few minutes before Jaune finally remembered to actually say something. He wasn't sure what to say or what words would do her justice, Yang had worked magic on the little huntress and brought out the very best of her attributes right down to the flat shoes the little rose wore. Everything made her seem so sweet and innocent.
"R-Ruby... you look incredible~" He said at last, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Y-you really think so? It was mostly Yang I mean, I didn't really have much of a say in it all but she usually knows best y'know?"
"Don't you worry about it Rubes... You look amazing~" He said with a smile, growing in confidence, he reached out and softly took her hand. She recoiled from his touch at first, seemingly as unfamiliar with these kinds of events as he was but she soon relaxed and slid her tiny hand into his.
"So... What are we gonna do tonight? I don't think you ever told me?" She asked with her signature sweet smile as she looked up to fix him with her deep silvery eyes.
"Well, there's this new Spruce Willis movie in town and I thought that maybe you and I could go see it, that is if you wanna?" At this suggestion, her eyes lit up.
"I would love to~!" She giggled. With a smile, Jaune led her by her little hand off towards the sky docks and onwards to Vale. With a slight sigh he began to relax. Their date had begun.
Come in big bird! Fluff inbound! That's right. Place your bets now as the shipping war begins. One way or the other some of you will likely get upset/annoyed with me but I cannot put this off any longer it must happen. As for this chapter, I hope you all enjoyed it. I wanted to give a little more insight into Roman's life and his relationship with Cinder. I kind of imagine it to be like one of the old bond movies where the villain is always waiting in a swivel chair.
If you enjoyed this chapter please do favourite and follow, I update weekly. If you have any suggestions then drop me a message or review and I will get back to you I promise. Thank you all for reading, I have been TheFlagshipArkos, you have been my wonderful readers and I will see you all in the next chapter.