Disclaimer: Apparently, I forgot to post this one. My bad.
Yang was home when it started. Dad came back from Signal sick, said he'd gotten Qrow to take over his classes in the meantime, but he needed to get better soon because half the staff had come down with some sort of bug. They'd had to break up a fight between students- students who'd just come back from break and were hotheaded, scratching and biting at each other and whoever got close enough- but no one thought the events were related. Beacon's break was offset by a week, so Yang had missed Ruby, but thought spending her time away from school tending to Dad would be fine. She could still call her sister. It all seemed so mundane.
But then things got bad. Like something out of a horror flick, it went from bad to worst case scenario in a hurry. The students and staff that had gone home to recoup? They weren't sick from some bug; they were infected. People figured out that pretty quick but word didn't spread fast enough.
Really, Yang was lucky. She'd just come into the room to check on him, seen the look in Dad's eyes, and just knew- she had to run. And she did, because the thing chasing her wasn't her Dad anymore, and it was relentless. All through the house, down the stairs, out the front door- she came around the corner of the house, cutting through her Dad's garden, and it just happened to stumble on a hoe he'd left out the week before.
She didn't have to do anything. Just a freak accident that could've happened to anyone managed to bring it down and she could breath a sigh of relief.
"To the left, yellow sweatshirt."
She glanced over and made a disgusted noise, adjusting the rifle strap over her shoulder. "Come on, too easy. If we're going to do this, then let's do this."
Eventually, she learned, though. Her hands had to get dirty if she wanted to stay alive.
It hadn't been easy the first few times but Yang made peace with it. Even if it was possible to reverse the process, most people by this point had turned and ripped apart their loved ones. Friends, family, even pets- if any bit of humanity remained in them, they were just along for the ride and forced to watch as their body did unspeakable things.
Were the roles reversed, she'd want to be put out of that misery, too.
So she became good at it- killing zombies. She got on her motorcycle, grabbed one of the boats abandoned by people too freaked out by the rapidly spreading disease to notice, and made a bee line for Signal Academy. At the very least, she could link up with Ruby, and the sisters could worry about what came next. At the very least, they'd have each other.
"Fine," the woman beside her replied, scanning even further beyond. "That one, with the green coat." Lilac eyes searched but failed to find anyone matching that description. "Use your scope. Eleven o'clock, five hundred meters out."
Pulling the rifle around to bear, Yang took a peek through the scope and found the poor bastard, shuffling around behind the dilapidated remains of a car. A smile pulled at the corners of her lips. "Now that is a challenge."
By the time Yang had gotten to Signal, all of Remnant had succumbed. She'd listened to the frantic radio traffic the whole way there. Attempts to quarantine the outbreak failed; reports came out that it had spread to every continent before the reports stopped coming at all. The CCT went down. Society fell.
And in the rubble, she found her little sister, battered and bruised but carrying a bloody sickle and a sniper rifle strapped to her back.
Ruby was a survivor, above all else.
"Headshots only." Yang glanced at her companion again, noting the unusual tension in the woman's shoulders, the sharpness in blue eyes. On the worst of days, Mistral could be a terse, demanding, outright pain in the ass of a woman, but recently they'd become rather good friends. Or so she thought, at any rate. "Winner goes first."
The sisters weren't exactly what anyone would think of when it came to the ideal duo to beat the apocalypse. Yang had her strength, sure, and she could win a fist fight, and she could operate anything with a gas pedal, but she wasn't the best shot; she used a shotgun for the first few years. Ruby, though, despite being smaller, all wiry muscle and speed, now she had the sharpshooter knack, and her accuracy didn't diminish just because she had a cutting blade rather than a firearm. Pinpoint precision- that was one of the best skills to have when facing down hordes of mindless zombies, apparently. Conserve ammo, clear out a way through before even moving forward- it helped a lot.
If it wasn't for Ruby, they'd never have stumbled across Menagerie in the ruins of Vale.
"Should I apologize now or later for kicking your ass?" She flashed a smile before settling down in a comfortable firing position, pushing back blonde bangs.
It was Yang's idea to go to there- a vain hope that maybe someone she'd known had survived the chaos. Patch, being an island, hadn't stood much of a chance; there was nowhere to run, if you didn't fight your way through, and a lot of people didn't know how to fight. Or maybe it just didn't occur to them. Or maybe they just couldn't bring themselves to do it.
At any rate, they didn't find anyone Yang found familiar, but they found a survivor- a cat Faunus with suspicious amber eyes, cautious around them in such a deeply ingrained way. A habit born of years, not the months since everything fell apart. She called herself Menagerie, for the homeland she'd left before any of this started- for the life she'd left behind without realizing she could never go back.
It… made it easier, Yang thought back then, to leave their names out of it. People have names but it was hard to kill people, harder to watch them die.
So, the sisters took their new names from the places where they were when it all came crashing down. She took Patch, and Ruby took Signal, and that seemed all well and good for Menagerie. She kept them at arms' length, though, and earning her trust was like taming a panther- no pun intended.
But, the three of them made it work. And then, they set out again, because for all that Vale had to offer, they could only watch the city descend so far before it started making them lose hope.
And none of them had ever gone to Vacuo, so might as well make a world tour of it, right?
It seemed like a good idea.
"Just take your shot," Mistral said, crossing her arms over her chest. Without another word, Yang channeled all the tips Ruby had given her, steadying her breathing and adjusting for the distance, the wind.
Somewhere- in some small town she couldn't remember the name of- they found another survivor. She called herself Atlas and looked half crazed when they found her, caustic and almost impossible to put up with, but when faced with the three washing their hands of her, she calmed down. She'd been on an airship when the pilot succumbed and had barely survived the crash that followed. Then, when she got back to civilization, she'd found that it had all crumbled to dust, too.
No wonder she was a little crazy.
But she had a plan: find her sister. It was all she'd been clinging to for weeks and Yang could feel nothing but sympathy. So, the three became four, and they headed for the coast again. Another boat ride, and they'd be in Mistral; might as well see if they could track the woman down.
What was the worst that could happen?
Yang let out a breath while smoothly pulling back on the trigger, the shock of the shot hardly noticeable after years of the monotony. They'd set themselves up rather nicely in what was once a nice hotel, the ground floor boobytrapped all to hell so the zombies wouldn't get very far if they did get in, and the fire escapes modified to allow the rest of them easy access. It wasn't a perfect set up but it had a killer view.
In a blink, she saw that she'd just barely missed the shot, whizzing past the zombie's ear and making it turn around, search for the cause of the sound- the promise of another meal. "Damnit."
"It was a good try."
"Yeah, yeah."
Against all odds, they'd found the woman, too. Atlas talked about her often enough- military, with a distinct distaste for imperfections, high standards and a sharp tongue. The woman they found, though, had dried mud in her hair and dried blood under her nails, outfitted with half an armory's worth of weaponry and more than willing to use every inch of it.
Her unit was out in the field when the outbreak occurred; by the time they'd returned, their base was compromised, and in the chaos that followed, she took what she could and started heading for the coast, thinking the same as her sister.
Mistral settled down into a firing position of her own, using her rifle to take a shot at the designated target. Unsurprisingly, her round found its mark, and the zombie dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes. "I do possess the training for this sort of thing."
"One of these days, I'll beat you. Just you wait." She got up, leaning back against the air conditioning unit and sighing. "Alright, so you go first. Truth or dare?"
It should probably be funny- who plays truth or dare when the world's come to an end?- but there really were only a handful of things to occupy their time. The five of them had played board games, watched movies, played video games, and any and everything else they could find to make the hours to past. But video games and movies required using electricity, and it was better to save that for night time, and board games usually meant leaving someone out so they could watch the perimeter or trying to fight the wind so they could all play together or just losing interest because, seriously, how many times can you play Monopoly?
So, it was back to basics. Things like Truth or Dare or Two Lies One Truth or something dumb and silly that let them… at least pretend. That they were still people, beneath the pseudonyms.
"No; going first means I ask first." Mistral sat beside her, legs crossed and rifle cradled in her arms. "So, truth or dare?"
"Truth," she said, because she'd learned the hard way that the woman could come up with some seriously wicked dares, and while she'd normally indulge just to see how far they could push each other, today didn't seem like that sort of day. Not with the crease to the woman's brow speaking of distracted thoughts.
"What's your name? Your real name?"
Yang blinked, glancing at the woman as her heart clenched painfully. "Why do you want to know?"
"I understand why all of you haven't just used your names." Mistral looked away, scanning the horizon. "I understand the need to keep that little bit of distance. To be detached." Then her gaze returned. "But… I find myself becoming attached. I know it's not ideal but… well, the world's already coming to an end. When I lose this fight, I'd like to go with the knowledge that… I learned a beautiful woman's name before the end of it."
She nodded, trying to hide the smile on her lips. "Yang. Yang Xiao Long."
"Yang." It was the first time she'd heard her name from someone's lips other than her sister's in years. And it was said with both affection and reverence. "It's a beautiful name. Very apt."
Since the five of them started traveling together, she'd grown… attached would be one way of putting it. Fond, yet another. She liked Mistral- liked teasing her at first when it became apparent that the former soldier took just as much amusement from the mundane task of dispatching zombies as she did, but hid it beneath a stoic expression. She liked that the woman seemed incapable of relaxing, but when she did, she did it in the most undignified way imaginable. She liked that they could talk or sit in silence and it never felt awkward or strained.
She liked to think that, were things different, she'd have gotten along with Mistral rather well. Maybe even more than that- and why should now be any different?
"What about you?" She looked at the woman again. "What's your name?"
"Winter Schnee."
"Winter?" A laugh. "Well, guess I'm just the kinda girl you need to warm up, huh?"
And Mistral- no, Winter, laughed at her jokes, enjoyed them, genuinely enjoyed them, and tried making a few of her own. They were terrible, most of the time, but still funny, and they all needed more laughter. "I suppose you are."
"Then, my turn. Truth or dare?"
Blue eyes narrowed, suspicious, because Yang could never hide it when she wanted something badly enough, and right now she wanted something very badly. "Dare."
And that was exactly it. "I dare you to go on a date with me."
"Done."
Yeah, the world had ended. Yeah, they might be the only people left. And, yeah, they might lose this fight along the way. But until then?
They didn't have to be miserable.
They didn't have to be afraid.
They might not have a lot of hope but they had love and they had each other.
And that could be enough.