Her legs scrapped against the floor, rough as sandpaper, yet strong as diamonds. Her two "escorts" kept their talons firmly implanted in her arm, and rarely gave each other a few quiet chirps of acknowledgement.
Blake imagined this must be hard for them. She is, after all, fairly heavy, and with her body wrapped up in Adam's silver serpent, she can't exactly walk. Or breathe. Or see, for that matter. Her eyes might as well be plucked out, torn from their sockets, crushed and eaten in a stew.
Around her, she could hear the gentle murmuring of the innocent's the White Fang came to "save". There was a few jeering taunts, a few whispered questions towards why a faunus is being held captive by their hero's. Blake wished she could tell them what their heroes were like. What kind of horrible tragedies they caused in their wake.
But she can't speak. Can't run. Can't do anything but let herself be dragged forward, like a kid who ran away from her parents.
Eventually the quiet murmurs of the crowd faded away to the angry roaring of a wounded bull. Adam was yelling at someone, his words full of rage, hate, and pride. "This is it! This is what we fight for! No more suffering! No more work! You are no longer slaves of the Schnee Dust Company! You! Are! Free!"
A wave of sound, full of joy and gratitude washed over her. She could their feet hitting the ground, people clapping, hugging, actually happy with what changed.
"Unfortunately…" Adam begins, his words crashing into their joy and stamping it into the ground. "Many of us, many of our brothers and sisters will never see this day. They are gone, dead, or locked up in a human prison." He pauses, and although she can't see him, Blake can feel his anger, his hatred turn to her, crashing into her chest and ripping through her heart.
"And some, some of our own, have betrayed us! Fought against us!" She's pushed forward, like garbage in a trash compactor, towards Adam. The crowd jeered at her, and she was sure that they would start throwing garbage if they could.
Something crashed into her head, snapping her neck to the left. Something wet and sticky flees her skull, dropping to the floor before it drips away.
A rock is a kind of garbage, especially in a mine.
"This is Blake Belladonna. Once, she was one of us, a girl with an incredible future." Of killing innocent people. "Now… now she is our enemy." The cloth covering her eyes was ripped off, light rushing in to reclaim its space. Her eyes fill with razor-sharp needles; first blinding white, then other colours slowly fade into view. Adam stood in front of her, his arms wide, bathing in the adoration.
"There will be no mercy!" He roared. "No regret! Today, she faces what she's done!" Turning on her, he ripped off the gag around her mouth, avoiding her skin like she would burn him. Her eyes darted up to his, locked within the gaze of a predator.
He crouched down, bringing his eyes down to look at her, in some parody of equality. "Of course," he whispered, a gentle breeze to the storm brewing behind him. "If you, perhaps, could offer some information… I'm not a stupid man, Blake."
It takes her a second to realise what he meant, but when she does, it strikes her with all the subtlety of a missile. Her mind flashed back to her words in the warehouse, tossed out without any care towards their impact. She supressed a shiver.
He gripped her chin, hard, like it would run away if it wasn't held down. "I'm giving you a chance here," he said. "A chance to stay breathing."
"I haven't done anything," Blake rasps, her throat dry from lack of water. Some small, most likely mad part of her mind wonders when she last drank. Two days ago? Three? Four? What does it matter?
"Haven't…?" Adam said, his face matching a four-year-old trying to understand algebra. "Haven't done anything?" Fast as Ruby, he hauls her to her feet, subjecting her to the full brunt of the crowd as they throw their invisible daggers at her. "She says she's done nothing wrong!" He shouted, eliciting a crowd-wide gasp. (When did he get so good at this?) "She says she is blameless! Perhaps she has forgotten what she has done!"
There's an undeniable Tenergy in the air now. Adam, somehow, has turned himself from a violent, unstable man into some kind of performer. The crowd followed his every word, lapping it up like they were dogs on a hot day. There still is a few dissenters, she noted, a few people, women mostly, all child-bearing age, hanging around the edges of the crowd. Several turn away, sickened by the spectacle, but unable to bring themselves to stop it.
"Blake Belladonna," he said, his voice crawling up her skin, tunneling through her ears. Every fibre in her body, every particle that made up her skin, was focused on him. The roaring sea of people around them quieted, the tide of emotions ceding to a gentle sprinkle over their skin.
He spoke, "You are guilty, of murdering two of our own. Two members of the White Fang, all those years ago, when you betrayed us for her."
It took her a minute to realise he was being literal. Once she did, the floor fell out from under her. Her stomach climbed up her throat, ripping through any muscle that dared get in its way, and forced up a weak croak. "…What?"
"You heard me," he spat, and suddenly her hair was screaming out in pain as he pulled on it, forcing her neck back like an anvil was tied to her head. He lowered his lips to her ear, close enough that his breath could invade her inner ear and make her skin crawl with maggots. "You murdered two of our best men," he whispered. "Two of my friends. You. Will. Pay."
"What are you… what are you going to do to me?"
His lips curled upwards.
"Oh, we'll be putting you exactly where you belong."
Ozpin watched the elevator door swing shut, and let out a long, exhausted sigh. His stiff stance melted away, oozing into his chair. A hand came up to his forehead, trying to pull out the sudden pounding within it. Yang has quite the set of lungs on her.
He ground his teeth. His little showdown with team RWBY—or at least what was left of it—went about as well as he expected. Which is to say, poorly. Yang had, quite understandably, not taken his orders particularly kindly, and was undoubtedly wondering why he would act so slowly.
Indeed, he himself would be questioning his decision, were it not for the photos currently making rounds within the reporting community, showing faunus's being abused within what looked like a mine, and the sudden lack of communication from a mine just outside of Vale. There was no official statement yet, but the writing on the wall was clear.
The White Fang.
Ozpin wasn't sure what their game was, although the timing of all these events had Torchwick's fingerprints all over it. Under most circumstances, he'd simply send in Qrow, or one of the graduated teams in the vicinity. However, not only was Qrow missing, but judging from the rumbling he had heard from his sources within the government, any rescue attempt would be met with enough red tape to stop a rocket.
A thin, lithe smile grew on his face, reflecting off the surface of his coffee as he brought it upwards.
Of course, if a certain team were to go off on their own, explicitly against his instructions, well, there was little he could do. Oh yes, they'd have to be punished when they returned, but not with legal consequences. A simple, short stay in Glynda's classroom for a week should suffice.
Suffice indeed.
A few taps on the desk later, and Ozpin was in contact with Glynda, informing her that there had been a break-in at the tower, and if she wouldn't mind sending someone over to handle it.
Couldn't make it too easy on them.
The elevator continued on its slow descent, carrying the three trainee huntresses farther and farther within its depths. Ruby's heart was eager, it seemed, and was falling through her body and to the ground floor faster than a rocket. Her hands remained locked on Crescent Rose, and her eyes kept darting towards her two teammates. Yang, standing against the wall, hand holding herself up, eyes burning with the promise of pain to whatever tried to stop her, and Weiss, eyes shut, hands wringing out every drop of colour from each other.
Shortly after Yang's proposition, she smashed her hand into the controls and set their destination to the public computers—the same floor Ruby had fought Cinder in all those months ago… or, the months in the future, or—whatever. Now they were almost there, and Ruby was… conflicted.
The desire to help Blake, to do everything she could to save her teammate, was roaring within her like a raging fire, but Ozpin… Ozpin said he had a plan, and he had a lot more experience than they did. At the same time, they had time traveled, knew more about Adam than he ever could. All she wanted was a clear answer, an obvious sign showing which path was correct, but there wasn't one.
"Ruby?" Weiss said, knocking her from her thoughts. "Are you ready?"
Her mind felt like it was stuck in molasses, but Ruby shook her head in the affirmative. "Yeah, yeah I'm good, just… thinking."
"About…?" Weiss jerked her head. "This?"
"Yeah, just… you know, wondering if this is right."
"Course it is," Yang said, pushing herself off the wall. "Blake's in danger, and Ozpin isn't doing a damn thing. We're all she's got."
"But what if he is?" Ruby argued. "What if there is a plan, and we're messing it up?"
"Surely he would have told us?" Weiss countered, her words smashing into her resolve and blowing apart the mortar holding it together. "He must know that we would do this."
It was a fair point. Ozpin wasn't stupid, Ruby knew that much, and to think he wouldn't expect this was… insulting, to say the least. However, doubt remained firm, supporting her resolve with iron bars.
Yang provided the final blow. "Besides, he doesn't know Adam like we do. We've… we've seen the future, Rubes. We all know what he's capable of if he's not stopped." She finished with a long, hard look at her arm, tracing every hair on its surface.
"…Okay," Ruby breathed, pulling out her sweetheart and chambering a round. "What's the plan?" she asked, gesturing towards her sister. "It's kinda your show now."
"Right, right," Yang said, a few nervous chuckles falling from her lips. "Right, I—I guess it is now, isn't it?"
"You do have a plan, right?" Weiss asked, glancing over at the grey clad brawler like she had just admitted to drinking toilet water.
"Yeah, I… sort of."
A sigh broke free of Weiss's lips, tumbling around the metal interior of the elevator. "And this is why Ruby's the leader."
"Thanks Weiss!"
"Don't mention it. Please don't."
"Look, I do have a plan," Yang said, holding up her hands to block any further conversation. "It's just… kinda based on a movie I saw when I was six. I mean, it was a documentary, so…"
"Oh fantastic," Weiss moaned. "What's next, we base a plan on a cartoon?"
"Weiss," Ruby warned, before turning to her sister. "What are we doing?"
"Well, uh, there's a program," Yang explained, scratching the back of her head. "I can put the numbers in, and then it'll track down Viola's scroll, and then…" A shadow fell across her face, draping Ruby in a waft of chilled air. "Then, we go after her."
Weiss let out a breath, and pulled Myrtenaster from its sheath.
"I suppose it's better than nothing," she said, and then the gentle ding of the elevator arriving rang through their ears.
Yang hurried to the nearest computer, the ten-digit number ringing in her head like a gum jangle. Every step she took shouted it out into her mind, drilling it straight through her spine and into her soul. A hundred years from now, she was sure she would still remember.
Behind her, Weiss and Ruby watched the sides, checking for any sign of an intrusion. Yang tried to do the same, but found the green ocean situated on the monitors a far more alluring sight, drawing her in like a moth to a flame.
"Give me a few minutes," she said, placing herself down on the ragged stools placed in front of each computer. "I'll need time to find this stupid thing…"
"Got it," Ruby said, walking over to the windows and peering out into the night. Stars winked back at her, communicating in a language no mortal had any hope of understanding.
Yang heard Weiss take up position beside her, but did not avert her gaze from the screen before her. Within seconds, she was in the main menu of the CCT operating system, scrolling through lists upon lists of different contacts and file sharing options. Some she recognised, used during the rare occasions Uncle Qrow had something to send them. Others less so, but none matched the program she needed.
A few scattered clicks, like shells raining down from a machine gun, broke her out of her thoughts and brought her eyes to Weiss's hand, hovering over the desk.
"I was working with our weapons earlier," she said, pulling away her hands and revealing a small pile of shells for Ember Celica, only they were glowing a soft, raspberry blue. "I thought these would be… useful."
"What are they?" Yang asked, even as she picked them up and started slotting them into her weapon.
"Ice, mostly. A little fire, to give them some kick," Weiss explained, rotating Myrtenaster cylinder as she spoke.
Yang blinked, and brought her hands back to the keyboard. "Thanks," she offered, before losing herself once again.
What felt like days but was surely minutes later, Yang's eyes fell upon the correct program, and she felt a wave of joy wash over her heart and send it into dance. Her lips tugged upwards, and before she knew it, the entry code for the scroll number was awaiting her input.
"Got you now, you little bitch," she whispered, typing in Viola's number with a force usually reserved for fighting.
"Got what?" Weiss asked, turning around with the grace of a figure skater. Ruby glided over as well, stopping just next to her shoulder.
"I got the program, and now all we have to do is…" Yang said, smashing the last number on the keyboard in front of her. "Got it! Come on, come on, find her…"
The three of them stared at the screen with bated breath, awaiting its judgement as a box in the center shouted, "Processing request." None of them dared move, and for the briefest of moments, the room was perfectly silent once again. No breath was taken. No heartbeat took place.
Finally, a small box rose above the original, blaring orange and red. The trio devoured its words, like it was the last scrap of food before a famine.
"Please input authorization code," Ruby read, each word placing a stone in the pit of Yang's stomach. "No no no no no…"
"This… this isn't the end," Yang said, bringing her hand to the lettered surface once more. "We've still got that code, right? From before?"
"Well, yes," Weiss said, her eyes narrowing. "But is that—"
"Access denied," the computer silently said, earning a spider web of cracks after Yang smashed her hand into it.
"You have got to be fucking kidding me!" she yelled, continuing her beat down like it would somehow assist them. "Needs a code? Of course it needs a code!"
Yang's assault never ended, turning the computer into a modern art exhibit, but it continued to display that same, mocking message, burrowing into their skulls.
Suddenly, a voice rang out from the elevator, Yang's anger crashing into it with the force of a semi-truck. "I don't know if you've realised, but that's government crap you're breaking."
Team RWY sprung to action, Weiss flying to Ruby's side, Yang throwing herself over the computer monitor, weapons burning hot. Her eyes glanced over the quartet, catching sight of some kind of weird beanie, an ammo belt…
Her heart rapidly reaching superhuman speed, she turned her gaze to the other intruders. Giant man with green armor and a huge sword, shorter guy with red hair and a red vest, and a bunny girl with brown and yellow armor and fearful eyes.
Yang felt her mouth drop open, and her arms dangled at her sides, sensing the danger their human was now in. Her legs turned to quivering jelly, refusing to cooperate.
Team CFVY, standing right in front of them, all pulling out weapons. (Except Velvet, because she can kick like a freaking ninja)
Yang brought her arms upwards, but cast a glance towards her sister, staring at the team with the same mix of awe and fear she was.
Please, please tell me you have a plan, little sis…
'Cause I sure as hell don't.
AN: Hope this wasn't too short. My other story has spoiled me...