Disclaimer:I own nothing but the plot. The wonderful characters and settings of the RWBY universe belong to Monty Oum and RoosterTeeth.
A/N: Here we are, chapter two! This is my first fanfiction so constructive criticism is always appreciated. I hope you enjoy reading this fic as much as I enjoy writing it. I will try and update at least once a week. Unbeta'd.
Chasing Shadows
Chapter Two: A New Flame
The next morning was different. It was different because Yang felt something other than the emptiness she had been experiencing these past few weeks. It was like life had been reborn into her. She could feel her blood pound through her veins, she could feel the fire burn once more in her gut, and the slowly simmering pot of rage was now in full overflow.
The fire was different now however. It was difficult to describe, as if the flames in her stomach were made of ice. A slow, more controlled fury now resided in her. Yet her blood still boiled, she could feel the flames, hotter than ever before aching to burst from her very soul into existence to enact their revenge on a world that had abandoned the girl who had done nothing but give.
Yang was furious, but this was a new kind of rage. This was not the blinding anger she had felt before; this was not the consummate fear that drove her to attack Adam like she did. This was what her mother had been trying to tell her. This was vengeance. She did not need anything to drive her; in that moment Yang did not need anyone to fight for. Yang would fight because she could, because the universe didn't want her to fight. She would get up off the ground, bloodied and bruised and dust herself off for no other reason than to say 'fuck you' to whatever power was pulling the strings.
Her flames burned and she thought of Penny, the innocent girl who wanted nothing more than to live as normal a life as possible. She was ready to burn a kingdom to the ground as she remember her friend Pyrrha, the girl who died to save a world in which she had not truly lived. Yang was ready to fight for nothing more vengeance itself. She was ready to fight for herself.
Her father brought her breakfast in bed as usually, noticing with a pleased grin that she ate more than ever since her return nearly a month ago. He missed the cold fury hidden in her bright lilac irises. He could have no idea of the change that had been sparked in his eldest daughter.
Soon after he had taken Yang's empty plates down to the kitchen with a smile he left the house to collect more firewood and supplies from the nearby towns. He would be gone most of the day. Yang jumped out of bed, actually jumped, for the first time in so long that her knees creaked and cracked at the tiniest athletic action. She dressed herself as best she could, not bothering with long trousers or a jumper, she wouldn't need them for the short walk to the garage regardless of the temperature outside.
Slowly she trudged her way down the stairs. She felt wobbly, her balance was all wrong and the weight of Ember on her left wrist felt foreign without the matching weight of Celica on her right. She hadn't seen her right gauntlet since that night. Was it still in the grounds of beacon perhaps? She doubted Blake had taken the time to recover the weapon as she pulled the unconscious blonde from the building, and it would be of no use for him to keep it. Perhaps she could return, one day, to collect the missing piece of her.
For now she carried on down the stairs, stopping only to grab the keys to the workshop before throwing open the doors and venturing headfirst into the snowstorm that had developed outside.
Beneath her feet the snow crackled and crunched. The wind whipped her long blonde hair violently around her face but she did not care. The path to the workshop was familiar enough she traversed the low visibility with little issue and jammed the key into the lock on the third try of asking. Every movement felt wrong, and she found herself reaching more than once to steady the lock with her right hand.
This would take some getting used to.
Finally she opened the lock and flicked on the lights to the old workshop, closing the door firmly against the howling winds outside. The workshop was unchanged from the last visit the girls had made back home, before even starting beacon, during one of the longer holidays from signal. On the long desk pressed against the farthest wall was a collection of spanners and screwdrivers, scattered haphazardly across the metal surface. Yang remembered that day; she had helped Ruby make some modification to Crescent Rose's war scythe form. She had also put a new set of tires of bumblebee, have burnt through the previous ones the week before pulling stunts along one of the more abandoned roads near signal.
Yang sat down at a small desk, tucked away in the corner of the room as far as possible from any of the workbenches or areas of noise. On the small desk was an assortment of stationary; rulers, protractors, pens, pencil, rubbers a calculator and measuring tape all sat neatly to one side of a blue drawing mat. On the shelf above the table was a wad of gridded paper, perfect for drawing blueprints and schematics. Apart from the paper the shelf was full of some of the most advanced mechanical and electrical engineering books available to both the general public and huntress' in training.
In these books was the knowledge that had led to Yang building Ember Celica. Contained within these pages was every tip and trick the sisters used when designing and building Crescent Rose's first incantation, which now held pride of place above the main door to the workshop. These were the books the blonde used to build bumblebee, long before she could afford a whole bike. At age 14, two years before the legal driving age Yang had been zooming around the country roads and paths that made up the island of Patch on her home made motorbike. The same motorbike that now sat as an unrecognizable scrap of black and yellow metal on the workshop floor, recovered only a few days ago at her fathers personal request from the ruins of Vale.
Yang did her best with one had, she ignored the need for straight lines for the most part, choosing instead to draw very slow and methodical copies of the pre-drawn lines on the paper as best she could. It was a stark contrast to the usual speed with which either sister mapped their plans, but it would have to do. Time and again she would pull a tome from the shelf only to flick to a page about electrical resistors, shake her head and scribble on here hard drawn plans.
It was nearing four in the afternoon before Yang left the 'design bench' as it had been so affectionately named by ten-year-old Ruby. She had yet to finish many of the more detailed aspects of her plan but the basic outline had been done and that was all she needed as an excuse to jump into the wreckage of bumblebee in search of salvageable parts. The bike was beyond repair; it would be easier to build it again from scratch but much of materials remained more than useful for her purpose.
Yang Xiao Long was going to build herself a new arm.
She tore into the wreckage of her bike with gusto, holding no sentiment to what was just a few weeks previous perhaps one of the more precious things she owned, a brilliant black and gold testament to her mechanical skill and prowess. Now it was little more than means to a greater end, a way that she could show the world that Yang Xiao Long would not simply follow the path she had been put on.
It was nearly nine o'clock in the evening when her father found her tearing sheets of scrap metal and other assorted parts from the wreckage of her bike with nothing more than a crowbar and her semblance.
"Yang! What are you doing in here? You need to be resting. The doctors said no strenuous activity for two months whilst your aura regenerates the nerve endings and cartilage in your arm!"
She ignored him, tearing at the new piece of scrap with renewed vigor.
"Yang" he sighed, walking over the design bench and picking up the carefully drawn scribbles that would be the basis of her new limb. "You can't build yourself a new arm… especially with only one arm"
Again she ignored him.
"Yang!" he shouted, so loud she could've sworn some snow feel from the workshop roof.
"What?" She bit.
"What are you doing?" he asked gently.
"Don't be stupid dad. You can see very well what I'm doing. You're holding the plans for dust's sake."
He sighed, bright blue eyes glancing sadly at the sheets held delicately in his right palm. "Perhaps the better question is why Yang? You've been laid up in bed all this time. You've barely spoken to me or to Ruby whilst she was here and yet I come home one day to find you're not only feeling well enough to get out of bed, but well enough to build your own arm? What brought this on?"
She sighed. There was no way he could know the truth, and to tell him would result in nothing but her being confined to her room for the rest of her natural life, Taiyang had made it very clear in the past Raven was not a woman Yang should go looking for, and until a few months ago she had respected that rule.
"I was sick of being useless. Mopping around the house like that! That's not me Dad! I don't really know who I am, but it certainly isn't that thing I've been since I came home all those weeks ago. I just…. I had to do something."
Her father stopped for a moment. She stared back at him. His bright blue eyes were downcast, both contemplative and sad. His bright yellow hair, only a shade or two duller than Yang's own yellow locks seemed to sit heavy on his head, dropping far lower than normal and shading his face in ways Yang had never seen before. Finally, he met her gaze.
"Can I at least help before you open your wounds again?" he finally asked.
For the first time in what seemed like years Yang allowed herself to smile. An actual, honest to dust smile. Of joy, or happiness, was there a difference? It was a fond smile, born of a time far removed from what they had now. His words had brought back a memory from her childhood, when, at age nine Yang had been forced to fix the toaster after her father had electrocuted himself trying to fix it the day before. He had been not paying attention during his 'slump' as Ruby had always called it.
"I thought we agreed to leave the mechanics to me and Ruby after the toaster incident" she smirked.
Taiyang laughed. It was a glorious sound, born more of joy that his daughter had cracked a joke than the joke itself. A slight tear watered his eye as he remembered that day and took in the sight before him of a once more smiling Yang.
"Ha ha ha" chuckled the man, "Yes I do remember getting the shock of my life when I came downstairs the next day and you'd made everyone toast for breakfast… again. You had such a proud look about you for the rest of the day"
Yang groaned at her fathers pun. It was good to hear him getting back in the flow of things. For all his faults she still loved her father, very much so. She would never entirely forgive him for some things, but that didn't mean she couldn't appreciate the times he had been around.
"I think I'm done for the day anyways. Let's go back inside… you can make me some tea."
"Oh, I can can I?"
"Yes. Yes you can."
Yang exited the workshop first, leaving her father smiling brightly in the old building. He was happy to see the first signs of Yang peaking out from under the clouds.
He couldn't know how wrong he was.