All Fall Down
It was never supposed to be like this.
Weiss wasn't supposed to be slumped against the wall barely conscious with a wound in her neck that would have been fatal if Blake had been a split-second faster. And Blake wasn't supposed to be crouched on the other side of the room next to the broken window with a cut on her shoulder from Ruby's scythe. If Ruby hadn't hesitated, Blake would have lost her arm.
"Don't do this, Blake." Ruby stepped between the woman she loved and the woman that she'd once considered one of her closest friends. Her hands tightened around her scythe. Once upon a time, she would have been happy to lower her weapon. But Blake was different now – they all were. If she let her guard down for even a moment, Blake would knock her out of the way and finish what she'd started.
Smashed up furniture was scattered around the room. Weiss must have put up a hell of a fight. But Blake had always been stealthy. She must have caught Weiss off-guard. It was the only way that Blake could have hurt her so badly without taking so much as a scratch.
"You know what she is." Blake bared her teeth. Blood trickled from the cut on her shoulder and dripped onto the floor. "You know what she's done. She's a monster, Ruby. She's even worse than her father. Now get out of the way."
Ruby flinched. The worst thing was that she couldn't tell Blake that she was wrong. Weiss had become a monster. But it wasn't her fault. Everything had been so good for a while. Weiss had succeeded her father as head of her family's company. She'd made sweeping changes to try and bring about more equality for the Faunus.
And then everything had changed.
The White Fang had bombed a ship carrying Weiss and her family. Weiss had survived the attack, but it had taken her more than a year to get back on her feet. The rest of her family had not been so lucky. After that, Weiss hadn't given a damn about equality. The only thing she'd cared about was getting even, and Ruby couldn't blame her. If someone hurt Yang, she wasn't sure what she'd do.
Weiss had worked hard to grow her company and cultivate her influence. And then, when she'd finally secured enough power, she'd turned on the Faunus with ruthless determination. Laws were passed that vastly reduced the rights of the Faunus. There was dissent, of course, but the authorities crushed it without mercy. Weiss was even kind enough to let them borrow her private security forces.
The whole thing sickened Ruby. But she couldn't – wouldn't – leave Weiss. How could she? As cruel was Weiss could be to the Faunus, she had never been anything but loving with Ruby. And it was Ruby who held Weiss and comforted her when nightmares of the bombing made it impossible for her to sleep, or when old aches and pains had her almost in tears. Ruby loved Weiss, and Weiss loved her. It was stupid, and it was selfish, but for Ruby it was enough. As long as she lived, no one would ever hurt Weiss again. Not even Blake.
When Weiss had first started taking action against the Faunus, Blake had tried to reason with her. She'd failed, and she hadn't loved Weiss enough to ignore what she was doing. Now Blake was working with the Faunus again, fighting to destroy Weiss and her company. It was almost funny how history had come to repeat itself.
"I won't let your hurt her, Blake." Ruby took one step forward. Crescent Rose's edge gleamed in the dim light. How fitting for Blake to attack at night. The Faunus had always seemed more comfortable in the shadows. "Please don't make me hurt you."
"Why do you fight for her?" Blake held Gambol Shroud so tightly that her hands shook. The air around her thickened and became a nest of brooding shadows. It was her aura. Like Ruby, Blake had grown much, much stronger in the seven years since they'd left Beacon.
"Because I love her." Ruby glanced at the window. "Leave. Now. I won't follow you." Behind her, Weiss groaned and tried to rise only to slump back against the wall. Ruby's jaw clenched. She couldn't afford to worry about Weiss now. Until Blake was gone, she needed to give the Faunus her complete attention. "Please, Blake, just go."
"No." Blake's amber eyes narrowed into little more than slits. "Not until she's dead." She growled. "One life, Ruby, that's all I'm asking – one life for all the lives she and her company have taken."
"If you want her life, you'll have to kill me first." Ruby took a deep breath. Her own aura stirred as it sensed the battle at hand. Neither of them could afford to hold back anymore.
"Fine." Blake shifted into a fighting stance. She held the sheath of Gambol Shroud in one hand and the blade in the other. "If that's what it takes, then so be it."
They moved.
There was nothing childish or hesitant about their movements now. Both of them were fighting to kill. Their weapons met in a shower of sparks. Ruby twisted and fired Crescent Rose to add extra weight to her next swing. The blow knocked Blake back into the wall of the office with enough force to break the plaster.
The Faunus shoved away from the wall and rolled clear as Ruby fired twice more, the large calibre rounds tearing through the wall like tissue paper. Blake's aura surged, and her Semblance flared to life. Ten clones of her appeared around Ruby. They struck together, each of their weapons aimed to either cripple or kill. Ruby dove to one side to avoid a slash aimed at her throat and then jerked out of the way as one of the clones stomped down with enough force to crack the floor.
A long time ago, Blake's clones had been barely more than shadows. Oh, they'd had some physical substance, but they were fragile at best. They were much more substantial now. Ruby slashed through two of the clones – it was almost like cutting through a normal person – and then shot another three out of the air as she retreated to give herself more room. The others darted forward to close the gap, and she bit back a curse. Blake's clones had gotten much better at working together.
Rose petals filled the room as Ruby finally called upon her own Semblance. The petals weren't just for show – they were a critical part of her Semblance. Each petal contained a fragment of her aura that helped her navigate when she moved at her full speed – a speed so fast that her other senses couldn't keep up. The rose petals functioned as beacons, letting her orient herself in the room without having to rely on her sight.
Ruby vanished, and the clones in front of her came apart in shower of liquid shadow. She'd cut them apart before they'd even realised that she'd moved. But Blake was a different story. The clones weren't quite as strong or as fast as the original, and they had nothing even remotely resembling Blake's instincts.
Blake wasn't as fast as her – no one was – but she made up for that with her Semblance and her uncanny ability to predict where and when Ruby would strike, even when Ruby was moving too fast for her to follow with her eyes. Ruby aimed a slash at Blake's side, but the Faunus blocked the blow with her sheath and then aimed her blade right at Ruby's chest. Ruby's Semblance snatched her out of harm's way, and she attacked again from the other side.
For a heartbeat, she thought her attack would land. But at the last second, Blake created a clone to intercept the strike while she lunged forward and attacked at close range. Ruby shot the copy before it could grab hold of Crest Rose, but Blake had already closed the gap between them. It was idiocy to try and fight Blake at this range – her scythe was too big to be effective at close range. Instead, Ruby backed off, using her Semblance to vanish in a blur of motion. She stopped on the opposite side of the room, not far from Weiss.
"Your clones have gotten better," Ruby murmured.
"And you've gotten faster." Blake strode forward. Her footsteps didn't make so much as a sound on the polished stone floor.
Ruby shifted her weight onto the balls of her feet. She had gotten faster, but she hadn't shown Blake exactly how much faster. The rose petals scattered around the room stirred and formed a cloud around the Faunus. This was Ruby's strongest attack. It pushed her Semblance beyond mere speed and into the realm of actual instantaneous teleportation. And those rose petals would help guide her.
There was a brief moment of stillness, and then Ruby vanished. She reappeared in seemingly a hundred different places at once, all of them around Blake. Crescent Rose lashed out from a hundred different angles, each one of them designed to force an opening in Blake's defence. This was the pinnacle of Rose's skill: instantaneous teleportation that allowed her to teleport, strike, and then teleport again all in the tiniest fraction of a second. Used like this, it made it seem like a hundred attacks all coming from different directions at the same time.
But Blake wasn't considered one of the most dangerous Faunus in the world for nothing. No normal person could have blocked the hundreds of strikes that Rose unleashed in a matter of seconds – no one except Blake. The Faunus summoned hundreds of clones one after the other, using them to defend her blind spots, take hits for her, and counter attack.
Ruby was vaguely aware of the damage they were doing to the room, but there was no time to worry about it. The cloud of rose petals expanded, following Blake as she moved across the room, using her clones to fend off attack after attack after attack. Ruby struck from five different angles at once: a strike at Blake's thigh, another at her ankles, another at her shoulder, one at her throat, and another at her hip. The real Blake blocked one strike, clones blocked another two, and she swapped places with yet another clone to avoid two more strikes.
It was almost beautiful how evenly matched they were, but Ruby could not afford to lose. She dug deeper into the well of power inside her, increasing her speed even more until the air around Blake was just one big blur of red and silver from Ruby's cloak and Crescent Rose's blade. But now Blake was mixing in illusionary clones with her more solid clones, and Ruby was moving so fast that she had a hard time keeping track of the real Blake as the other woman ducked and dove through her blows and performed switch after switch with her clones.
And that was when Ruby realised she'd made a big mistake. She'd been so focused on killing Blake that she'd taken her eyes off Weiss. And now that Blake was creating so many clones to fend off her attacks, she'd lost track of the real Blake as well. It had only been for a heartbeat, but in a battle like this a heartbeat was an eternity. She stopped and turned, just barely ducking under a clone that would have cut her head off.
The real Blake was there, standing over Weiss.
Ruby moved faster than she thought she could. She reappeared between Weiss and Blake, and Gambol Shroud clattered into Crescent Rose. An instant later, and Blake would have buried the weapon in Weiss's chest. Ruby snarled and shoved the other woman back. Blake flipped through the air, and Ruby's Semblance flared to life as she reappeared behind the other woman, ready to cut her in half –
She never got the chance.
Flame roared to life behind her, and she turned just in time to block a crushing blow from a gauntlet. The attack launched her away from Blake and back toward Weiss. Her arms ached as the shock of the strike shuddered through Crescent Rose. Embers filled the air.
"Yang…" Ruby blinked back tears as her older sister appeared next to Blake. Ruby had stayed by Weiss's side out of love. Yang refused to leave Blake's for the same reason. But this was the first time in more than two years that they'd seen each other. "Are you going to try and kill Weiss too?"
For a moment, Yang's expression softened. Then she spoke, and her voice was harder than Ruby had ever heard it. "Blake, we're leaving. Now."
"No." Blake growled. "We can take her together."
Yang shook her head, her gaze never leaving Ruby. "The only way we're getting past my sister is if we kill her. I know how much killing Weiss means to you, Blake, but don't ask me to choose between you and my sister."
"Fine." Blake's jaw clenched. "But this is the last time, Yang. Don't make me choose between you and my people." And with that Blake leapt out of the window and into the darkness.
Yang turned and then stopped. She looked back at Ruby. "It's… it's nice to see you, little sister."
"Yang…"
"I know why you're protecting her, Ruby. I'd do the same if it were Blake in her place. But next time, I won't stop Blake. I'll be right there beside her." Yang went over to the window. "For what it's worth, I still love you, even if you're an idiot for loving someone like Weiss." Then she was gone as well, lost in the night.
"I love you too, big sister." Ruby wiped away the tear that had trickled down her cheek and then hurried back to Weiss. To her relief, the other woman's breathing and pulse were steady.
"Ruby…" Weiss's eyes opened slowly. "You saved my life. Again."
"I love you. I'll always save your life." Ruby helped Weiss up onto her feet. "We need to get you to a medic."
"Blake got the jump on me," Weiss muttered. She stumbled and would have fallen if not for Ruby. "I got careless, and she made me pay." She clutched at her side. "I think she broke my ribs. I'm going to kill my security. They should have been here to help you."
"I think that's where Yang was." Ruby bit her lip. Weiss could barely stand. Damn it. She sighed and then lifted Weiss into her arms.
"What are you doing?" Weiss's face was pressed against Ruby's body.
"You can't walk. So I'll carry you."
"But –"
"Just let me do this." It was easier this way. With Weiss in her arms, Ruby didn't have to think about what Yang had said, didn't have to think about the fact that the next time she met her sister, they'd be trying to kill each other.
"Ruby, do you think that I've become a monster?"
Ruby looked down at Weiss. Gone was the cold, bitter company leader. In her place was the girl Ruby had fallen in love with, the one who'd been shy and a little scared under all the pride and bluster. She could lie to Weiss the company leader, but she could never lie to the woman she'd fallen in love with.
"Yes." Ruby's heart clenched as Weiss's expression fell. "But I love you anyway. I always will."
X X X
Author's Notes
As always, I do not own RWBY, and I am not making any money off of this.
So, I don't know exactly where this came from. But I was tossing around ideas for another RWBY story when I started wondering what it would be like if an older Ruby fought an older Blake. Then I started wondering why they would fight in the first place, and this chapter is what happened.
As I alluded to in the story, this chapter is set in a much darker future than the others I've imagined. In it, the White Fang have killed the rest of Weiss's family, driving her to take a much more radical approach to the Faunus. Naturally, this drives a wedge between her and the others. Unable to accept Weiss's actions, Blake sets out to try and stop her by any means necessary. Out of love, Yang follows Blake. Love, however, drives Ruby to stay with Weiss. Weiss might have become a monster, but she is still, at least in part, the woman that Ruby loves, and for that reason Ruby won't let anything happen to her. The title of this story is a reference to what is happening – the team, everything they've worked for, is falling apart. It's all falling down.
Now that I think about it, this whole darker future thing could be expanded into a longer story in its own right, rather than being kind of glossed over in this chapter. Hmm… that's definitely something for me to think about it.
I also write original fiction. My newest original story, Durendal, is now available on Amazon! It runs to ~80,000 words, making it the first novel-length original story that I've made available to the public! It's a coming-of-age story and a Western with elements of science fiction. If you've enjoyed my other stories, I know you'll love this one. You can find links to it in my profile.
If you're not into Westerns, you don't have to worry (although you can always have a look at The Gunslinger and the Necromancer if you're after a paranormal Western with a good sense of humour). Most of my other original stuff is fantasy. If you like fantasy with plenty of atmosphere and action, check out The Last Huntress, I'm sure you'll love it. If you're in the mood for fantasy with a more 'old-fashioned' feel, then take a look at The Burning Mountains.
As always, I appreciate feedback. Reviews and comments are welcome.