"When your time comes to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home."
-Tecumseh
Chapter 19-
As the evening turned into night the four women were all sat around the fire as Ruby was above them keeping watch for the night while they themselves relaxed and got some food.
"How could we not find anything?" Yang asked.
"We've been lucky at being in the right place at the right time, or with Ruby leading us to where somethings happening, I guess we're not always lucky." Blake explained.
"Ruby knows exactly where to go, but she's holding off for whatever reason." Winter answered.
"That's not what I meant." Weiss stated, her mind somewhere else.
"What do you mean?" Yang asked.
"What I said earlier, about upholding the legacy. There's more to it than that but I just don't know." Weiss said.
"Yeah…No, I mean me too, I just don't know." Yang said, changing her answer as she thought back to the questions that Ruby asked.
"I don't know either. I know what I want to do but I don't know how to do it in the long run, I always thought to take it one step at a time with perhaps Ruby helping as we fight for the same reason." Blake said, her voice drifting off.
"Well it doesn't matter, we know why we're here. Right?" Yang asked before Weiss spoke up.
"Winter, did she ask you?" Weiss asked to her sister.
"She didn't, I don't want to become a Huntress but rather I know what I want to do and how I'm going to do it. Perhaps that's why she didn't ask me." Winter suggested.
No one was able to ask any more questions as Ruby jumped down and threw out MRE bags to the four women, "Heat them up, that's dinner for tonight. I'll keep watch so eat up and get some rest." Ruby informed them all before taking up her perch again.
"What are these?" Weiss asked, looking at the silver bag.
"MRE's or meals ready to eat, basically contains all the nutrients you need but not very pleasant." Blake informed her.
The girls eat their food with mild disgust except for Blake who seemed used to the taste of the horrible food.
As they were settling down to sleep in sleeping bags they brought with them they all heard Aria speak rather loudly.
"Mother, the beacon is active." Aria stated so the others could hear as well.
"That's ahead of the timeline. They must know we're here." Ruby said. Climbing out of her perch to meet the girls by the fire.
"The White Fang are getting ready to start something here, I don't know what but it's something to do with the old underground train lines. We need to get down there and stop them before it's too late." Ruby informed them all.
"But where is it?" Yang asked.
"There's an access way near here, we're going to go in there and just fight through the guards and stop them. Roman is somewhere so we must capture him." Ruby impressed onto them, "Grab your weapons and let's go." Ruby said, making sure to rush them.
Ruby led them at jogging pace towards a doorway with two White Fang guards just inside the doorway but Ruby easily dealt with them with two hits.
When they got to the underground train station they discovered a large operation going on where there was a large amount of White Fang around and a train waiting at the station alongside Roman who was directing them.
"Red." Roman stated, spotting the group of women as he turned and shouted, "Stop them and get the train going. Now!" Roman shouted rushing towards the train to climb aboard as it started leaving. "Ignore the guards, get on that train!" Aria shouted as Ruby started taking out the guards in their way.
The four women followed the order as they ran towards the train, trusting Ruby to handle anyone in their way.
As they all climbed aboard they watched as Ruby broke away from her fight with the guards and within a blink of the eye she was right next to them.
"Door?" Aria asked.
"Locked manually." Blake informed her.
"No time to get through, go over the top hatch." Aria said, now speaking in place of Ruby.
Climbing over the top they went to the middle of the last train cart where they heard a loud ticking sound. Yang opened up the hatch where it was coming from to discover a bomb ticking down.
"Run. Now!" Aria shouted, seeing the countdown close to zero.
They all ran over to the next cart as the one they were just standing on detached itself and blew up in the tunnel. However they had no time to debate the reasoning as they quickly discovered another bomb.
"Keep running until I say stop." Aria said, prompting the women to keep running across the top of the train until they reached five carts ahead of the last one, which were slowly detaching and exploding in the tunnel.
"Why are they doing this?" Weiss asked, trying to work out the point of the explosives.
"Grimm. They're blowing holes in the roof to allow Grimm through into the tunnels and leading them through with their negative feelings." Ruby answered, "Aria where does this end?" Ruby asked.
"The town centre, its night time but it'll still be busy. They're attempting to lead them into the city." Aria informed them, coming to her own conclusion.
"Aria, deactivate the bombs." Ruby ordered, before looking behind her. "You four get inside the train and stop it. Do not let it reach the city." Ruby said.
"What about you?" Winter asked, feeling that Ruby wasn't joining them.
"I'm going to make sure the Grimm don't make it past this point, now go!" Ruby ordered, jumping down and off the train with still two carts filed with explosives.
Ruby deployed her scythe, burying the blade into the ground as she took out her long sword and short sword burying those both into the ground next to her as well.
"Darkness has come to the Roses. The fire is reaching the end…" Ruby said softly to herself as she sent a message to Aria. "Tell Neo I'm clearing the top of the train." Ruby sent to her as the first Grimm sprinted towards her.
Back on the train the four women just watched as Ruby jumped off the train before they were shocked back into action by another explosion.
"Let's go." Yang said, pushing the team along and back down into the carriages themselves as they took out the couple brave guards trying to stop them.
As they got through into the second carriage they found Neo standing in the middle of the cart waiting for them.
"Hello girls, a White Fang lieutenant is in the next carriage and the head of the train is after, that's where Roman is. We don't have long so let's go." Neo stated, turning her back on the women as she started walking to the next carriage.
She quickly teleported when she heard the sound of Yang's weapon firing a round. "What the fuck are you doing?" Neo asked as she turned around.
"You three go. I'll handle Neo." Yang said coldly, walking forward with her weapons deploying.
"Yang she's on our side." Winter said, annoyed at Yang's attitude.
"No, you three go. I'll sort this out." Neo said, seeing an ample opportunity to sort this issue out between them.
"But…" Blake tried to say before Neo interrupted.
"It'll be quick, just stop the train. Where's Ruby?" Neo asked.
Before any of the girls could answer Aria quickly informed her, "She's clearing the top, the bombs are all disabled but we haven't got long left." Aria said.
"Come on girls." Weiss said, getting the team to carry on moving through.
Neo let them go, watching out of the corner of her eye as they entered the next cart as she focused her attention onto Yang, "This is pointless and you know it. Whatever you believe is clearly wrong about me, so why not settle it with hundreds if not thousands of people's lives are at stake." Neo stated harshly, annoyed at Yang's attitude.
Yang didn't answer verbally but instead charged towards Neo only to have the smaller woman dodge out of the way of the first attack, "Why is it you believe I abuse Ruby? Is it perhaps some misguided attempt at protecting someone you believe needs it?" Neo said harshly while dodging the woman's attacks which only got more violent.
"Is it perhaps that you think I'm evil? That you believe I would actually hurt Ruby even though I love her and am her intended." Neo stated, keeping up her dodging tactic.
"So what is it Yang? Why do you not trust me but you trust Ruby who hides much more then you even realise?" Neo asked.
"You'll only hurt Ruby more. I can see it, she was vulnerable without her mother and you took advantage of that, of her." Yang said through gritted teeth.
"So that's what it is." Neo said calmly, quickly and efficiently locking up Yang's arms to stop her from attacking, "Someone tried to take advantage of you and you don't want to see it happen again. I admire that protection you have over Ruby but you must know that I'm not like that person. I've known Ruby for over seven years and throughout that time I've never done something to make her uncomfortable. Trust her to make the right decisions, and trust me to want the best for her." Neo said, realising her hold on Yang as she felt the woman's tense body relax.
"Now let's stop this fucking train and get home." Neo said to Yang, extending her arm out to the woman.
After a moment's hesitation Yang took Neo's wrist into her hand for a few seconds before breaking it apart.
They went into the next carriage to see Weiss and Winter over the unconscious body of a White Fang lieutenant with a large chainsaw blade lying next to him.
"Where's Blake?" Neo asked.
"She went on to take down Roman." Weiss informed her.
"Shit, come on." Neo urged them along to the next carriage only to see Blake on top of Roman's prone body with the blade of her weapon against his neck.
"Blake, stop!" Neo shouted out, seeing what Blake was contemplating doing.
"Stop this train." Neo ordered as she approached Blake to gently move her weapon away from his neck, "Killing him won't change anything, he's just one part of a chest board but we need the queen and to do that we need him." Neo told Blake as she herself took her weapon away.
"Uh guys got an issue here." Yang called out, "The brakes aren't working and that looks like a dead end." Yang said.
"Ok, Aria jump to me and everyone up onto the roof." Neo ordered, making sure the others got on top first.
"Hold on." Weiss said, getting everyone to gather around before slamming her rapier into the ground creating an ice shell around all of them as the train made impact on the end of the line.
The ice managed to protect them from the majority of injuries but they were still thrown around on the ground but what they all saw shocked them.
Grimm were inside the city, there was even a Nevermore in the air above them attacking the civilians in the town centre.
Yang and Neo were the first to recover with the others slowly behind them but it was Yang to say, "I thought Ruby was stopping the Grimm?" She asked aloud.
"What do you mean?" Neo asked with a deadly calm.
"No time." Winter shouted as she charged forward with her sword to kill a Grimm about to kill someone.
The five women all sprang into action as they started clearing out the Grimm, there didn't seem to be as many but found there not to be as many but the Nevermore in the sky would be some trouble to take out.
"Inbound twenty seconds." Naomi's voice entered Neo's ear, having turned on her comm. Piece since joining with the other women.
True to her word Naomi came in twenty seconds later, hovering a few feet off the ground as she dropped off team CVFY, Professors Port and Goodwitch who went straight into action with Glynda sealing up the other breaches that Grimm were coming from except for the one in the middle.
It was Coco who dealt with the Nevermore, her large weapon ripping the creature in half and if there was a Deathstalker it was clear it could rip that apart as well.
Neo also spotted Emerald, her two revolvers in her hands as she killed a pair of Beowolves attacking a couple cowering in the street.
With the area clear of Grimm the teachers went to help out the civilians around the area, with the Atlas military dropping their androids into the area but it was too late for them to do anything.
While this was all happening Neo met up with the other students as she asked, "Where's Ruby?"
"She uh, she stayed behind in the tunnel to stop the Grimm from getting through, but clear some managed to get through." Yang said, unsure the response.
"Fuck. You let her go alone?" Neo almost shouted, annoyance and worry seeping into her voice.
"She didn't leave us much choice and she was ranking Huntress." Weiss stated.
"Fuck. Coco how did you get here so fast?" Neo asked, turning to the other woman.
"Naomi said she received Ruby's beacon calling for support…" Coco started to explain but was quickly cut off.
"Naomi where did that beacon originate from?" Neo asked not allowing Coco to finish, hand to her ear.
"In the train tunnels, about three clicks back but it went dark just before we arrived." Naomi informed her.
"Fuck." Neo shouted as she ran straight through to where the train went through, heading through the interior of the broken train with everyone else following shortly after seeing how distressed Neo looked.
They were unable to keep up with Neo as she seemed to jump along the tunnel as she sprinted with the use of her semblance to teleport short distances over obstacles in her way.
Neo had disappeared from view from the other students for barely a minute where they heard a strangled scream of pain causing them to full out sprint the last bit.
The students all arrived to a scene of carnage. Grimm laid dismembered or in some cases completely destroyed around the whole tunnel, there were even multiply Deathstalker corpses that hadn't had time to dissolve yet either.
The floor was littered with empty bullet casings though they seemed to change in size from sniper bullets to pistol bullets. They saw the discarded pistols on the floor alongside throwing knives used to kill other Grimm at long range and even two swords that lay on the ground covered in blood, broken.
The most surprising piece or rather the second was Ruby's beloved Scythe, it laid on the ground some ten metres away from where Ruby was broken in half and the barrel still smoking from the amount of bullets pushed through it.
The scary part of this all was the woman who dealt all this destruction to the Grimm was laying on the floor peacefully looking as if she was just sleeping as Neo held her head in her lap crying. Above them a hole in the roof allowed light from the moon to filter through however it seemed the moons light only shone on Ruby, who was clutching a small dagger bathed in blood in her hands, held against her chest and her broken mask that laid on the floor next to her.
A single raven sat perched on the edge of the hole, looking down at Ruby's prone body shining from the moonlight.
The moon will proudly watch the roses die.
A/N
So that new episode, am I right? Well because of some of that I'm actually changing some of my plans for certain things in the story.
Also where to start? I've got a few different things I'm writing, varying ideas from different thoughts and stuff. Like a star wars one-shot because I played this fucking amazing arcade game for it. But I'm working on a couple other pieces.
As I said certain things will be changing, like how a certain character becomes in the end or rather what it is they do. Can you guess who?
Oh yeah I almost forgot, yeah that ending huh? Didn't see that coming did you? I've given enough hints throughout of my plans that I'm sure some of you guessed it.
Lastly is about Paris. I'm sure you've all heard what has happened by now, and it's horrible that this is a world we live in where humans do this to other humans. My thoughts are with the victims who have passed on, and their families who are dealing with them passing on. I hope you do the same.
That's all for now, until next time.