A/N: Defenestrator, I'm not going to kill you- but I am going to PUNish you.
... yeah, that hurt to type. Read on, fearless readers.
- Fiercesomest
Weiss drifted in and out of consciousness. Her white combat gear was soaked with water, streaked with grime and blood.
Ruby had fallen silent, wherever she was. Probably dead. The heiress tried to tell herself that the younger girl's death was a good thing.
For a handful of moments, she wished that she had let her partner finish strangling her. The thought was fleeting, though. After all, if she'd allowed herself to be killed, Ruby would have been stuck as a monster on her own. It was better this way, Weiss's vision blurred. She was used to being alone.
She closed her eyes. She was done. Spent. Aware of nothing but the fire in her arm as the poison crept towards her heart, or her brain, or wherever it needed to get to really take root. She couldn't lift her head, couldn't move, couldn't understand why she kept breathing. All she wanted was for this to end. Weiss let herself drift into a daze of pain and sickness, her consciousness fading again.
Something touched her shoulder. Weiss became aware of it by degrees. She wasn't sure how long she had been out. A distant voice was talking to her, like someone speaking to her underwater. Like she was at the bottom of the sea, too exhausted to really listen.
As abruptly as if someone had grabbed her by the collar and dragged her to the surface, she woke.
She sucked a breath in through her teeth and found herself on her side, staring at a puddle of muddy red fabric.
"Come on," a voice said. Weiss felt a pressure on her hand and looked up to see Ruby, leaning over her. The girl's eyes were like quicksilver, anxious and bright; her face streaked with dirt and black. Half of it was red and raw, like it had been scrubbed with sandpaper. Her brows were knit with concentration. As soon as she saw that Weiss had opened her eyes, the look broke and she brushed the heiress's white bangs out of her face.
"Hey, Weiss," she greeted her, voice gentle.
Weiss blinked slowly this time, unable to comprehend what she was seeing. Birds flitted among the trees behind her partner, and a bright sun cast dappled patterns across her red cloak. Surprisingly vivid for a dream, which this most certainly was. She remained passive, waiting for it to turn sour as her dreams often did.
Ruby didn't say anything else, but Weiss felt her squeeze her bitten hand. The younger girl's hand was warm. Their fingers were intertwined.
"No," Weiss mustered her energy, trying to pull away. She didn't know if she would still turn Grimm in a dream or not. "You have to go- I... I can't..."
"Wait, it's okay. You're fine, see?" Ruby gripped her hand harder and lifted it up.
Weiss stared, confused. The skin of her bitten hand was pale, unblemished but for the shadow of the bite mark at her wrist. Her eyes drifted from her bare arm to her partner. She swallowed several times, mumbling thickly, "Ruby, you're dead."
"Uh... that's news to me," she grinned that stupid grin. That beautiful grin. And she laughed a little, helping the heiress sit up.
Weiss tried to focus. This was a dream. It was a dream, and any second now she'd wake up and Ruby would be gone and she would be wearing a mask. Or she would really wake up, back at Beacon, as a Grimm, and... and...
"Weiss," Ruby interrupted her thoughts, silver eyes earnest, "Relax. It's okay."
"It's not. This is... Ruby..." Weiss lifted her free hand, as if to touch her partner's face. Her ice blue eyes traced the faded lines that had once glowed Grimm-red. They looked like they hurt, badly. "I'm so sorry."
"What, this?" Ruby motioned to the angry patch of raw skin across her right cheek and eye, grimacing a little, "Well, it kind of stings, but that mask was keeping my aura from working on all that black junk. Besides, it's not deep," she dipped her head, trying to catch Weiss's eyes with her own, "Hey. Hey, what's wrong?"
Weiss had closed a fist in Ruby's cloak, trying to anchor herself. The crimson fabric looked real. It felt real, still wet from when Ruby had sprawled on the brick after the rain of leaves. It smelled real, like dirt and sweat and rose petals.
Somehow she ended up with her face hidden in Ruby's shoulder- she wasn't sure how, exactly, but she held on, shutting her eyes, willing herself to wake up if this was a dream because if it was she wanted it to end before it got to be too much for her to bear. Her other hand gripped Ruby's, desperate for this to be real.
After a while, Ruby put her free arm around her, her voice small, "Are you still hurt? I can try that healing thing again if you want. I mean, I wasn't exactly sure what I was doing before so if it didn't work just tell me, okay?"
"You dolt," Weiss choked, gripping her harder. She'd tried aura healing without really knowing how? She was an idiot. You couldn't dream up someone who was such an idiot. "I can't believe you did that. I can't believe you. The toxin could have- You're so-" she stalled and tried again, "You're such a complete dunce. Do you have any idea how scared I was?"
"But you're okay now?"
"I hate you so much," the words were muffled in Ruby's cloak.
Relieved, the scythe-wielder rested her dark head against the heiress's snowy white one, chuckling into her hair, "I love you too, Weiss."
"Don't say that," Weiss drew back a little, scrubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. She fought a smirk and lost, "Really. Half of Beacon already has us engaged."
Ruby blinked. "Engaged as in getting married?"
"Well, maybe the rumors said 'dating'. Who cares," Weiss generally did, but not right now. Ruby's grin was contagious. So right now, for these few precious seconds, she and her partner sat in the forest, soaking wet and giggling like kids.
With Ruby's aura restored, the wilted and damaged trees nearby grew strong and green again. Even the lampposts sprouted, growing tiny splints of steel and glass from their severed stumps.
The darkness was gathering, though. All of the traces in the water, all the oozing slashes in buildings. It crept together, solidifying just beyond the treeline.
This pool of toxin, this essence of the Grimm that had spawned out of the Rat King's very flesh existed to snuff out humanity's light. Mindless as it was, it sensed that now was the time to strike, while the two huntresses-in-training were exhausted and weak. It rose, black and thick like tar- a formless remnant of some forgotten nightmare. Sludge dripped from jaws sporting jagged teeth; red eyes surfaced, unblinking in the shifting mass of blackness.
The world came to it in an indistinct wash. It saw in shades of crimson that pulsed with that particular brand of human light it so abhorred. The sources of this light were small, together just ahead through the twisted stalks of iron.
The creature of Grimm, the dregs of concentrated poison, seethed, stretching its body out and over them. A wave of darkness, heavy as night, silent as death. It would suffocate them both.
Then one of the humans looked up.
"Ruby, what-" Weiss started when her partner lunged past her.
Crescent Rose appeared in Ruby's grip, flashing through the air.
The razor sharp blade and candy-apple steel parted the wave of darkness that had, sending it crashing to either side of the two like angry waters from a black sea.
Ruby's eyes were hard as she watched it seethe and roil across the bricks, gathering itself. She turned, speaking to Weiss over her shoulder, "Up for one more fight?"
The heiress gaped at Crescent Rose, "How-!?"
Ruby looked down at her scythe in surprise, as if she hadn't realized that her weapon had just materialized out of thin air. "Um."
"Nevermind," the heiress put her arm back through the sleeve of her bolero. The two partners were filthy, streaked with street grime, their hair a sopping, mess. Ruby's stuck out everywhere. Weiss's clung to her clothes. She rose to one knee and straightened her collar as the toxin surged its way around them. "Let's just take care of this and go home."
"Roger that," Ruby chambered a round, taking in the position and movements of their liquid enemy as it swarmed over the fallen logs and iron posts, collecting itself into a semi-solid form near the edge of the demolished patch of forest. The red eyes resurfaced.
Weiss braced herself and stood shakily as the black creature swelled in size, "So what's the plan?"
"Can you do that gold-glowy thing to me?" The Grimm poison sprouted limbs and claws. Its torso- or what could have passed for a torso- split down the center, parting in a full-body grin. Ruby lowered her center of balance and brought Crescent Rose around, holding the scythe low on her right, "I want to try something."
"'Trying something' doesn't count as a plan," Weiss readied the glyph, envying her partner's stance, her rock-steady grip on her scythe. The way the sun caught in her dark hair, highlighting streaks of red, spilled across her cloak, vibrant, alive—it was as if the surroundings themselves were lending her strength.
"It is too a plan." Ruby whined, unconscious of the power she was drawing. Her eyes never left the black maw opening before her. She gripped Crescent Rose a little harder. "... on the off chance it doesn't work, you can have Crescent Rose. I told you that before, kind of, I think"
Weiss pinched the bridge of her nose with her free hand. "Ruby, if this doesn't work, I'll be dead too."
"Oh yeah." Ruby's cape billowed out behind her as Weiss's glyph sprung up beneath her feet. Her eyes reflected the white-gold glow of her partner's focused semblance, "Well, it's the thought that counts, right?"
Weiss gave a short derisive laugh as the rush of energy from her semblance drained out of her. She caught herself on the brick as her knees buckled.
Her partner's cloak shimmered before her eyes, her rose petals almost white with the energy from Weiss's semblance. Crescent Rose shone like a piece of the sun, its blade suddenly broader than it had been; wider, too, and doubled in length.
How was Ruby still able to lift it? It was bigger than she was. Physically impossible, even with Weiss's glyph backing her leader's natural strength.
The black and red of the Grimm had gathered into a malignant mass as tall as the windowless buildings. It kept sprouting mouths and limbs and eyes. The trees around it withered, dying, showering the two huntresses-in-training with water like heavy rain.
Weiss braced her hands against the brick. If she had Myrtenaster maybe she could help... maybe she could do something... something...
Her vision faded to white as her partner kicked off the ground to meet the Grimm monster as it crashed down over them in a torrent of jagged teeth and claws.
Quiet. Then the soft whirrs and chirps of medical apparatus. The lights were low.
With a great effort, Weiss lifted her head from the paper-covered examination table. She was still clutching Ruby's hand with both of hers. Her partner lay full-length, breathing deep in sleep.
Headmaster Ozpin stood over Ruby, eyes hard. His hand hovered a few inches from her temple, fingers rigid, perhaps in preparation to utilize his semblance- perhaps as an efficient means of dispatching a student gone Grimm.
"No!" Weiss's folding chair clanged on the tile as she abandoned it, ducking over her partner, shielding the girl's head and shoulders, "She's... she's okay."
Ozpin withdrew his hand. He was silent for a moment, observing his student. She shook with fatigue as she protected her young partner.
"Welcome back, Miss Schnee," he greeted her then, gently. He placed both hands on top of his cane, withdrawing all threat of action, "I gather you were successful."
Weiss kept her forehead ducked against Ruby's sweat-plastered hair while the small room deep in the special-cases ward spun.
"I..." she started. What had happened? What kind of world had that been, full of liquid leaves and a sprawling, empty city. She tried to remember what happened after the... the poison? had turned into a monster and attacked them.
Had Ruby won?
Ruby had to have won. But then why wasn't she awake? Weiss shut her eyes, willing the room to stay still.
At that point, Ruby stirred. She gave a small groan, almost a whimper, and Weiss sat up quickly, checking her for fever even though she was being monitored by at least five different machines.
When Ruby blinked her eyes open, they were a bleary silver.
"Mmnng," she said.
Weiss sank, sliding till her knees hit the floor. She crossed her arms and put her head down on the edge of the examination table.
"Hey," Ruby's hand touched her hair, her words were slurred. "You okay?"
"Shut up," Weiss's voice trembled. A distant sound, like thunder, shook the room. The heiress lifted her head again, scowling, "What was that?"
Ozpin closed his scroll and looked up at the rush of doctors and nurses passing the window to their current position. He spoke gravely, "I'm afraid your teammates may be encountering some difficulty."
Blake moved on instinct, dropping her pipe and descending with rushed fervor to grasp the searching hand in both of her own, bracing her feet below the cracked leaking bone of the Grimm's fractured eye socket. The hand gripped her for dear life and she pulled with all her might, holding fast even as the Grimm dragon began to thrash anew.
Each twist and jerk nearly sent her flying, but Blake refused to let go.
"Yang," she growled, her entire body quaking with effort, "Keep. Fighting."
In complete opposition to her request, the hand released her, pulling back slightly.
Blake practically snarled in worry. "No. What are you-"
CRACK
A hairline fracture appeared just above the wrecked eye socket, eliciting a new wave of agonized screeching from the Grimm dragon, deafening in such close proximity. Vehemently ignoring the ringing in her ears, Blake threw all of her weight in to one more full-bodied pull.
The left side of the Grimm dragon's bone mask exploded in a shower of red and white fragments, another fist driving straight through, followed by Yang herself. The wild-eyed brawler latched on to her startled partner as they tumbled through the air and crashed unceremoniously into the side of the mountain, inches from one of the cave openings. Blake struggled to sit up first, hearing Yang groan beside her.
Guttural howls of fury and pain ripped from the half-shattered face of the Grimm dragon currently spiraling towards them, its mouth hanging open. Though, whether it was charging them or simply falling, Blake couldn't tell. Just as her partner began to rise, Blake's Faunus ears picked up the telltale crackling of sparks, invisible from this distance.
Blake gripped Yang's arm, whispering harshly. "The caves."
With a quick nod from Yang, the pair bolted, stumbling their way into the relative safety of the glowing stone walls just as waves of black fire rushed past the opening. A resounding CRASH knocked them both to the ground as the dragon smashed headlong into the mountainside right above the cave's entrance. Rocks and debris crumbled around them, plunging the area into darkness as their only exit disappeared in a smoldering pile of blackened rubble.
Silence descended upon the cave. Mutually exhausted, neither of them moved from the ground for a full minute.
It was Blake who stirred first, pushing herself up onto her elbows and twisting around to prop herself up against a frighteningly large chunk of ceiling sitting right beside her. She opened her mouth to call to her partner, but instead broke the silence with a sudden volley of violent coughs.
The sharp bursts of sound roused Yang, a long low moan emanating from the brawler as she rolled over to face the direction of the coughs just as they ceased. She blindly stretched an arm out.
"Blake?"
"Over here."
Yang dragged herself over towards the sound of her partner's voice, eyes finally starting to adjust to the gently diffused light afforded by the glowing rocks around them. She plopped herself down right next to Blake, offering her a winning. albeit tired, smile.
"Hey."
"...Hey." An intense stare accompanied Blake's easy reply.
Yang blinked at the shining amber eyes boring into her own, one golden eyebrow arching as Blake's heated gaze slowly swept over her entire body, methodically inspecting every inch. A smirk crawled across the brawler's face.
"Like what you see?"
Blake could see no traces of the strange, oily-black invasive substance anywhere on the cheeky brawler. Yang was OK. She was right here, and she was fine. Blake offered the smirking blonde a small smirk of her own.
"Yes."
"…..wh-?" Yang spluttered, quickly mumbling something about being unable to see very well as she called upon her semblance, essentially setting herself on fire to hide the blush creeping up her neck. That was not the response she'd been expecting. The burning blonde's face fell when the bright light of her flames afforded her a better look at her partner. Cuts, scratches, bruises, burns - and was that a puncture wound in her side?
Tentative fingers reached out to touch Blake's hand. "Wow, I... I really did a number on you huh?" Yang's voice cracked with guilt. She managed a half-hearted grin. "Sorry for... drag'n you around out there."
Blake's smirk vanished, and for a moment, she simply stared. Yang watched in horror as those bright amber eyes, still locked on her own, began to mist over. She grasped her partner's arms and squeezed.
"Blake, I'm sorry, you probably don't want to hear jokes right now and-" Blake's arms slid from her grasp, suddenly wrapping around her and forcefully pulling the startled brawler into a close embrace. Yang's own arms hung frozen in the air, shocked into motionlessness for a second. Blake almost never initiated hugs.
Guilt stabbed the brawler in the chest as her partner's shoulders began to shake, the motion finally spurring her into movement herself as she squeezed back with all her might.
Just as she was about to apologize again, she heard a very distinct sound.
Laughter.
Blake was laughing.
The heartwarming tone occasionally mixed with sobs - Yang could feel wetness on her back and shoulder - but Blake was laughing nonetheless.
A huge smile split Yang's face. "So... are those tears of joy, or are my jokes just that bad?"
After a few moments, Blake finally pulled back, briefly wiping her eyes as she quietly regarded the grinning blonde before her.
That grin faltered as Blake slowly leaned forward, gently rubbing her tear-streaked face against her partner's cheek before pulling back again with a small smile of her own.
"I'll let you decide."
Yang stared, wide-eyed and motionless until something finally clicked. Her grin returned full-force, brighter even than her own semblance. "Tears of joy it is," she laughed, throwing an arm around her partner.
The pair smiled at each other, once Blake was finished rolling her eyes anyway.
"Hey Blake," Yang spoke softly, barely meeting her partner's eyes in a sidelong glance.
"Yes?"
"Would it be all right if I-"
An ear-splitting roar drowned out the brawler's request. Two pairs of eyes turned to the haphazard jumble of stone blocking the cave entrance. Flickers of black flame wriggled through the cracks in the rocks - the display backed by the sounds of angry thrashing and scratching coming from the outside.
In unspoken synchronization, the pair stood, Yang flexing her fists as Blake quickly took stock of their surroundings with her superior darkvision. There wasn't much to see other than a dead end and a single branching path leading off to the right.
Yang punched her fists together, sincerely wishing she were in proper combat attire, rather than pajamas. "So, I'm thinking we need to kill that thing."
Blake nodded, motioning for Yang to follow as she headed towards the branching path. "Yes, but first we need to g-hhgk" her words caught in her throat, overtaken by a sudden coughing spat. Hands grasping a stalagmite for support, Blake felt something slick and oily churning in her lungs as she coughed, her chest heaving with each breath.
Yang was at her partner's side in an instant, pressing a hand to her back. "Blake, woah, are you alright? You sound like you just chain-smoked an entire box of cigars."
"I'm. Fine-" the shaking Faunus replied, her words halting, forced out through a brief respite in-between coughs.
It was an incredibly unconvincing lie. Yang threw an incredulous look at the girl currently trying to hack up her lungs. "You don't sound fine."
"It-" one last violent cough wrenched itself from Blake's chest before the fit finally began to subside. She brushed Yang's hand from her back and stepped away. "It's probably just smoke inhalation from all those black flames."
For a brief instant Blake swore she saw a flicker of dread darken the amethyst eyes currently trained on her, but it was gone as quickly as it appeared.
Yang extended a hand towards her partner. "Blake. Let me do that aura healing thing on you."
Blake shook her head, brows furrowing in confusion at her partner's dead-serious tone. "No, save it. We're going to need everything we have to kill that thing out there," she pointed to the cave-in as she spoke, the pile of rocks shifting slightly as the muffled sounds of enraged thrashing and snarling outside grew more frantic.
"No, really, come here right now," the brawler insisted, advancing on her partner with outstretched arms. "It's not going to take that much aura to punch a Grimm in the face," she added with a smile.
Blake stepped back, silently declining the embrace she was being offered. "Yang, no, we're going to need some kind of plan a bit more detailed than 'punch it to death'."
Yang rolled her eyes, torn between smiling and stamping her foot in frustration. "What is it with you guys and plans. Just. Come. Here-"
Blake dodged the hands that swiped out to grab her with another quick step backwards. "Yang listen to me. That Grimm has ranged attacks. We do not. In fact, we don't have anything at all. Even if we get up close and personal we have no weapons outside of your bare fists and maybe a jagged pipe or something."
A particularly large CRASH shook the ground under their feet as the pile of rocks forming the cave in began to shift more easily. Blake sent a quick glower at the cave entrance, edging away from it and towards the lone branching path behind them. "And judging by how energetically it's trying to get in here, stabbing it doesn't seem to do much other than make it angry."
Yang opened her mouth to argue further, but she never got the chance. Another resounding CRASH sent rocks and debris flying past them, dragging two pairs of eyes to the cave entrance, now partially open again thanks to the Grimm dragon's head and part of its hulking frame trying to push through. Its body was slightly too big for the small tunnel, but the beast forced itself farther inside anyway.
Black sparks began to fly from its mouth.
With one split second glance at each other, the pair bolted, diving into the branching path just as the tunnel behind them exploded into black flames. Yang was on her feet in an instant, naturally slipping into a fighting stance as she eyed the smoldering ground they had been standing on moments earlier.
"OK, yeah, that fire breath is a real problem." Beside her, Blake shook her head to clear it a bit, placing a hand to her head. Her eyes landed on the long ribbon around her arm.
A slightly ridiculous idea came to her.
Blake tried to get to her feet. "I think I have an idea-" her throat caught on the final vowel and she halted, sinking to her knees in another coughing fit.
Not many things could pull Yang away from a fight, but the sight of her partner on the ground, shaking and heaving was certainly one of them. She dropped her stance in an instant, kneeling at Blake's side and reaching out to pull her partner's hand away from her face after a particularly violent cough. Dread pooled in her gut - Blake's hands and mouth were streaked with shimmering black.
Blake tried to push her away. "I'm ok," she insisted, wiping her face with the back of her free hand and forcing herself to her feet as the coughing subsided once more.
Yang rose with her, trying to focus on sending healing through to the blackened hand in her own even as the walls around them shook with tremors from the Grimm dragon squeezing its way towards their tunnel. "No. No you are not ok."
Blake pulled her hand away, quickly unwrapping the ribbon from her arm as the sounds of their oversized pursuer drew nearer. "Worry about it later. Right now, I need you to do me a favor."
The brawler hesitated, eyes darting back and forth between Blake and the still-smoking path behind them, ringing with the sounds of a very large, very angry Grimm coming closer by the second. They were running out of time. Finally, she nodded. "Anything."
Blake gripped her ribbon. "As soon as that Grimm rounds the corner," her lips quirked in a small smirk, "punch it in the face."
Amethyst eyes blinked in surprise for only a second before Yang's face broke into a lopsided grin. "Consider it done!" She turned and fell back into her fighting stance, ready and waiting. "Do you have any preferences? I have an entire repertoire of punches you know."
Beside her, Blake stood at ready as well, ears zeroed in on the scratching and grinding of bone against rock, almost right around the corner now. "Yes, actually. An uppercut should do nicely."
"Roger that!"
Pebbles and dust fell from above as the tip of a nose peeked out from around the corner. With another lurching twist, the Grimm's head followed by its long neck finally came into view as it yanked itself forward, the jumble of bones that comprised its body grinding into the surrounding stone. It snaked its half-shattered head around the corner.
The Grimm snarled, jaws parting as sparks began to fly. That snarl was cut short as Yang shot forward, leaping straight up into a flying uppercut. The dragon's teeth snapped back together with a resounding clack matched in force and sound only by its head smashing up into the ceiling. Blake sprang forward next, darting around the Grimm dragon's snout as it fell back down, wrapping it shut with her ribbon and tying it securely in a flash. Together the pair jumped back, ready and waiting.
Startled and dazed by the sudden onslaught, the muzzled beast whipped its head from side to side, trying to shake off the ribbon holding its mouth shut. A low hiss of frustration seeped through its smoking teeth. The ribbon wouldn't budge. With a furious growl the Grimm dragon retreated, its sheer size giving it no room to properly turn around, resulting in awkward backwards scuttle that was much swifter than seemed possible.
Blake ran after it, Yang close behind. "We have to attack it while it's disarmed. We can't give it a chance to claw my ribbon off of its face."
Yang's eyes flicked from her partner's hands, streaked with black that was beginning to crawl up her arms, over to the Grimm dragon bursting out of the cave entrance and snaking away into the sky. Even with Professor Goodwitch's crash course, she didn't really know how this dream world stuff worked, but it stood to reason that even if she helped Blake now, if that dragon blasted them with flames again it would all be for nothing. It wasn't ideal, but it made sense. Relatively assured by her logic, she nodded. "All right."
Blake watched her partner sprint past her out of the cave in a burst of speed, leaping straight into the fray of pipes beyond, hot in pursuit of the Grimm fleeing only a few feet ahead.
"HEY DRAGON," the brawler shouted, grinning ear to ear. Blake knew that smile. She knew what was coming. "I've got a bone to pick with you!"
Blake rolled her eyes and followed close behind with a smirk, pointedly ignoring the heated pain creeping down her spine.
Jaune paled. "Pyrrha, quick, go to the far side of Ren's forcefield."
Lacking an actual weapon, he grabbed a folding chair, brandishing it like a lion tamer might as he crept to the door to peer through the glass and get an idea of what was going on.
Pyrrha ignored her team leader's command, her desire to stand beside him and fight overriding all else as she went to look through the door with him. Her eyes widened at the sight before her. She threw the door open, stepping into the hallway to get a better view of Professor Goodwitch, holding a bright purple barrier in place, the only obstacle between them and a wild wall of flames pushing to get past the professor's defenses.
"Professor Goodwitch! What's going on?"
Glynda's eyes remained locked on her barrier, maintaining focus as she replied. "Miss Nikos, if the medical staff hasn't already, please do me a favor and fetch Professor Ozpin." She widened her stance as the flames tried to push through the corners of the hall where her circling rings didn't sit flush with the surrounding walls. "We may need to evacuate... again."
"Right, we can do that," Jaune gulped, dropping his chair against the hall wall. He tried not to imagine what had happened to Yang and Blake as he sprinted to find the headmaster, Pyrrha right behind him.
The door to the room Ruby and Weiss had been situated in opened before his hand touched the knob, revealing Ozpin himself.
"Headmaster! Professor Goodwitch needs you, and we might be evacuating," Jaune flailed his arm towards the inferno at the end of the hall. "Uh... as in I think we're definitely evacuating."
Ozpin leaned around the doorframe to see, his sharp eyes taking in the situation at a glance.
"Admirable timing, Mr. Arc, Miss Nikos. Would you escort these two upstairs?" He indicated the prone Ruby and semi-collapsed Weiss with a nod as he brushed passed the young man and began the long walk down the hall towards what looked very much like a doorway to the surface of the sun, held shut only by virtue of Glynda's expertise.
He supposed that he should talk to his staff about evacuating while students were still in the wards, but the possibility of being roasted alive wasn't exactly a prospect they faced on a regular basis, so he would be lenient. Or simply pen a memo to Glynda. Hm. Now there was an idea.
With the professor out of the room, Pyrrha smiled gently at the pair resting on the far side of the room, both of whom seemed very much alive and well. "Jaune," she spoke quietly, eyes darting back down the hall after the headmaster, "one of us should stay with Ren and Nora."
"Right. I'm on it," Jaune stumbled into a run back down the hall, following Ozpin without waiting for an answer.
Ruby struggled to prop herself up on her elbows, rubbing her eyes.
Weiss had given up trying to stand and just knelt with her head down, breathing hard and trying not to pass out.
Pyrrha strode over to the first half of team RWBY. One look at Weiss was all it took to know she would have to carry her. "Ruby, do you think you can walk? You can lean on me for support if you need to," her eyes darted to the door and back, "but we'll need to move with alacrity. Professor Goodwitch is currently blocking a great inferno from consuming the area."
"Inferno?" the young scythe-wielder looked up from her partner, "Inferno as in Yang?"
Pyrrha nodded.
Ruby's eyes widened and she sat up, more by virtue of willpower than actual strength to do so, "I have to go down there- maybe I can help."
"Ruby, just..." Weiss was out. Finished. Done. She searched for words and came up empty, so she finished in an unintelligible you're-so-stupid-just-let-someone-else-deal-with-it sort of growl.
Pyrrha knelt down to pick up the exhausted heiress, gently hefting her up bridal style.
The white-haired girl made a weak sound of protest at being lifted off the ground, but was too wiped out with fatigue to do anything more than shut her eyes and rest her head against Pyrrha's shoulder.
Ruby edged herself off the examination table in her pajamas and bare feet. The room tilted and she had to catch herself. She had a sour taste in her mouth like she'd been throwing up.
Yang was her big sister, though, and if her big sister was in trouble, Ruby was either going to fix it or join her in the middle of it.
Pyrrha fixed a cautious gaze on team RWBY's leader. The young girl was known for her determination - unparalleled when it came to helping others. "Ruby, I won't stop you from doing what you feel is right," she said, pausing as she thought back on the literal wall of flames, barely being held back by one of the school's most powerful huntresses. "Just… be careful, for your own sake," her gaze flicked down to Weiss and back, "and for the sake of your loved ones," she finished with a soft smile.
"Right," the dark-haired girl noted Pyrrha's glance and gave the red-head a grin, promptly losing her balance and almost toppling over. She caught herself on the edge of the examination table, "Whoa, there's the floor. Okay. You go upstairs. I'll catch up if things are too bad."
Pyrrha nodded, watching closely as Ruby somehow stumbled her way out the door without falling on her face. "You certainly picked a winner, Weiss," she said warmly, beaming down at the listless girl in her arms as she headed for the door herself.
Weiss rallied at Pyrrha's words, closing her fists on the lapels of the warrior's school jacket, pushing with one hand and pulling with the other in an attempt to strangle her.
Green eyes blinked at the sudden contact, mistaking the gesture of murderous intent for one of seeking reassurance. Pyrrha wasn't normally one to offer hugs, but she would always oblige when requested - even silent requests such as these. As such, she gently crushed Weiss to her chest, offering her an encouraging smile as she stepped into the overheated hall and began to head towards the elevator.
She spoke freely, offering the tired heiress whatever words of comfort came to mind. "Don't worry, you have an incredibly capable team that cares for you, and a team leader who obviously loves you very much. There's no way they'll leave you behind. They'll be all right." She glanced down the hall at the blinding inferno behind them as she nudged the button to the elevator, desperately hoping her reassurances wouldn't end up as hollow lies.
"H…e…l…p…"
That word, whispered through the raging storm, was enough for Nora. She grinned, "Coming right up!"
Ren had said- or indicated. Whatever- that the dark tree was the source of the problem. So she'd start there and get to his shadow-dream-self in a minute.
With a running leap, she sailed through the air, hailstones pinging off her shield as she closed the distance between herself and the monster tree trunk. Halfway there, she brought Magnhild around in a majestic swing fit to flatten a mountain. Well, if Magnhild had been bigger, it would have flattened a mountain anyway. As it was, she just wanted to see about making a dent in this tree.
Just as Magnhild neared the twisted black bark, Ren's shadowy figure appeared directly in the way, head lowered and arm out, blocking the full force of the swing with an explosive red barrier of aura. The world around them darkened further as he slowly lifted his head.
For a brief moment, he looked completely normal. Then he spoke. A growling, unearthly voice rumbled up through his chest.
"Nora..."
His face split, literally, ear-to-ear in a toothy smile.
Nora's eyes went wide as she skidded back on the choppy surface of the lake. Lightning flashed overhead as the storm raged. She brought her silver hammer around for another swing. "You're not helping, Dream-Ren."
"You're... not... helping..."
The low reply drifted languidly in the air, clear and unhindered in the slightest by the din of the storm raging all around. Expression neutral once more, Ren's shadowy figure stepped forward, posture loose, calming advancing on the hammer wielder in his sights.
"You're not helping me not helping," Nora countered, bringing Magnhild up in a high arc and slamming it down on the surface of the lake, creating a blinding shockwave of broken glass to add to the rain and hail pouring down from overhead. Following the shower of glass, she attempted dive past her partner and get to the source of all this un-fun-ness. Namely the massive, oozing tree, which she was so going to blow to smithereens.
Unprepared for the sudden onslaught of glass, Ren's shadowy figure growled as a flash of pink sped by him. He sank into the water, emerging directly in front of the tree, arms outstretched, fingers pointed at Nora's charging form. Something flashed behind his eyes.
Whatever he tried to say was drowned out by a deafening peal of thunder as lighting shot from the sky, headed directly for Magnhild.
There wasn't time to see it. Of course there wasn't- it was lightning for Dust's sake- and it hit Magnhild with a blinding flash that started green and ended pink.
Nora surged forward, her insignia, the hammer and bolt of lightning embroidered across the back of her vest, blazing like a star. Silly Shadow-Ren. The red-head grinned. This was her element. Her feet barely touched the ground; her weapon shone in her hand.
"Take this!" Electricity ripped across the war hammer's surface as she swung for the base of the tree.
The shadowy figure was there in an instant, standing directly in the hammer's path and throwing up a barrier just as Magnhild approached. The barrier shattered, Magnhild delivering the full force of its blow directly into the surprisingly solid shadowy figure standing in its way. In a blinding flash of light, it pushed through the shadowy figure, knocking a second, far less shadowy Ren clear off into the distance.
Stripped of its hostage, Shadow-Ren toppled to the ground. The water below began to churn as a low keening hiss emanated from the now far less solid figure kneeling in front the gnarled tree from whence it came. All at once, a legion of countless shadowy copies of Ren emerged from the water, their glowing red eyes trained directly on Nora from all around.
Nora skipped back from the tree to get a better go at it. She tapped her dreamscape-strength, her aura bold and shining amid the bleakness of the lake.
The hammer-wielder was a cannon. A freight train. A force of nature. Ren possessed many skills, among which was his ability to direct (or more often redirect) Nora's focus.
Shadow-Ren did not possess this ability.
"Hey everybody!" she greeted the shades, "Want to watch?" The glass shield on Nora's arm crumbled away, leaving her unhindered as she sprang at the tree with tenacious furor. It was going down.
Each and every one of the dark flickering copies hissed, their swirling faces splitting into sharp-toothed ear-to-ear grimaces as they moved in unison, converging around the tree and springing up to meet the persistent assailant headed their way. At the same time, the tree itself jerked and shuddered in a futile effort to twist out of the way, straining against the roots it had buried deep within the reflection of the lake.
If the tree thought it was going to up and walk away from Nora Valkyrie, it was sorely mistaken. The toothy shades converging on its cracked and oozing visage did nothing to dim the manic light in Nora's eyes as she whooped and fired her hammer into a devastating sweep- hailstones were pulverized, the Shadow-Rens it encountered dissolved into a thin vapor, and finally, with a resounding CRACK, the tree itself took a blow that shivered its very splinters.
But the tree still stood. Albeit with a very large Magnhild-shaped dent in its trunk.
Nora took the impact all the way through her arms, into her entire body, and dropped back, hands smarting.
"Yowch," she re-settled her grip and poked the end of her tongue out of her mouth, considering the task before her, "Tougher than you look."
The tree shuddered and twisted in on itself, emitting a low rumble halfway between a growl and rolling thunder. The deep vibration rippled through the air, freezing each of the swirling flickering red-eyed figures in place.
In the blink of an eye, they melted down to shadow in unison, sweeping along the ground and back up into the tree from whence they came, covering it in a slick shimmering coat of black. The low rumble returned, shifting in pitch and tone until it formed into barely coherent words.
"Tougher... than... you."
Oily black tendrils shot from the base of the tree en masse, gunning for Nora's arms and legs.
Nora pulled back, throwing up Magnhild as a shield, only to get it entangled with the black roots as well.
"Rrrrrg," she growled, wrestling to get it and her legs free. Her aura burned bright and hot, resisting the close contact with the enemy.
High pitched keening filled the air, almost as if the dark tethers dragging Nora high up overhead were cheering at their apparent victory. The shimmering tree they connected to twisted and quivered beneath her, unable work its infection through its new captive's robust defenses, but perfectly content to slowly drain the abundant aura positively radiating from the super-energized hammer wielder. Slowly but surely, fueled by this new source of energy, the tree began to pull its roots free from the lake's reflection.
"Whoa!" the roots twisted Nora so she was upside down, hanging onto Magnhild as the blood rushed to her head. She could feel the massive plant leeching at her aura as it pulled its thousand tendrils free of the lake, but she just laughed and started in with her not-yet-patented super-secret sloth call.
It was faint, distant, but a response call drifted down from above. Seconds later, a volley of shots ripped through the tendrils holding Nora in place, sending them recoiling back into the base of the tree. Ren dropped from the sky, flipping Nora around to her feet so that they landed together, side by side. He calmly reloaded StormFlower as the tree shuddered and pulled the last of its roots free of the lake's reflection.
A bright white and red bone-plated head emerged from the trunk underneath the writhing branches as the roots quickly twisted around forming a hideous makeshift body of obsidian wood. It slowly rose up, a dark mockery of a stately stag, and hissed.
Ren ignored it, and instead turned to Nora. "You can walk on those," he motioned upwards to the clouds above.
Nora tipped her head back so far she bumped her head into Ren's shoulder. She was also ignoring the enormous Grimm tree stag creature rearing up over them. "When did we get clouds? Wasn't it all just mist and junk before?"
A hint of a smile pulled at Ren's features. "I figured we could use the high ground," he replied, glancing up at the towering Grimm. In one swift motion he quickly stowed StormFlower in his sleeves and offered his hands to his partner. "Let's move."
Nora motioned with her index finger, "I like the way you think, mister." Then, gripping Magnhild, she jumped, turning and planting her feet on his open palms, "One rain of pain coming up!"
Ren smiled, launching Nora up into his clouds with every bit of force he could muster. One more swift movement and he had StormFlower back at the ready, firing up at the red eyes that had locked onto Nora during her ascent. The Grimm stag snorted, slowly lifting an enormous foot to stamp at the green one shooting it in the face, but the small creature was too quick.
The Grimm lowered its head, its long vine-like horns following closely as Ren darted between its legs, firing two full clips into those angry red eyes all the while. He would do whatever it took to draw the Grimm's attention away from the much larger threat looming above - his powerhouse of a partner, currently ensconced inside clouds riddled with lightning.
He needn't have worried about distracting the Grimm stag at all, of course. It was doomed the moment he rejoined his partner. More accurately, the very moment the toxin invaded his dreamscape had spelled out its annihilation.
And now that annihilation came, flashing down from the semi-solid clouds overhead in a jagged streak of white-hot pink. All capital letters.
CRACK!
The bolt of lightning that was Nora split the tree-stag Grimm in two from its crown, through its face, clear to the base of its roots. The break was charred, half of it instantly in flames despite the lingering maelstrom as it toppled to the surface of the glass lake in pieces.
Nora climbed from the wreckage of the monster, perching on half of its trunk and bracing one hand on her hip. The rain and hail abated as she shielded her eyes with one hand to survey the damages. Satisfied that the Grimm stag tree was in fact dead, Nora remarked to no one in particular: "Don't stand under a tree during a lightning storm, kids. It's dangerous."
Ren brushed dust and ash off his sleeves on his way to stand beside the half-trunk his partner had commandeered to deliver an imaginary PSA. He felt his feet begin to sink as the glass shielding the lake melted back into water, slowly dragging the scattered pieces of shattered Grimm down into the lake bed. His eyes were elsewhere, watching quietly as the mountains in the distance disappeared.
The very horizon itself slowly dragged downwards into gentle nothingness.