Ruby's lungs burned as she entered the hall. The paint was melting. The tiles were hot underfoot. The thought crossed her mind: maybe this was a bad idea.
But it was Yang and Blake. She had to do something.
So she left Weiss with Pyrrha and gimped down the hall on her half-healed leg, breathing the familiar-but-way-more-intense-than-usual heat of her sister's semblance as she made her way to the pair of figures nearest the fire.
"Professors? What's going on?" she swiped her hair out of her face and leaned on one of the monitors near Glynda's barrier, shielding her eyes from the brightness of the flames beyond the swirling shield.
Green eyes darted back to Ruby in surprise, narrowing once more as they returned to focus on the glowing purple rings keeping the flames at bay.
"Miss Rose, it's good to see you up and well." Glynda glanced at Ozpin, searching him for a brief moment before answering the young team leader's question.
"There is a high probability that your sister has turned," she stated flatly, forgoing delicacy in favor of directness. "And yet," she continued in a slightly softer tone, "as we have no visual confirmation, I'm giving miss Xiao Long the benefit of the doubt and maintaining this position for the time being." Heat pulsed through the barrier in relentless waves, making the professor's scowl deepen. "Though, I can't just stand here and hold it forever."
"I could go in," Ruby volunteered, putting more weight on her bandaged leg so it didn't look as much like she was favoring it. "Yang's semblance doesn't burn me."
Ozpin remained silent, braced on his cane as he watched the flames lick around the edges of Glynda's barrier. There was no denying that the Xiao Long girl was in peril of becoming, or had already become a creature of Grimm. The presence of her semblance was encouraging, but ultimately an imprecise indicator of her current state. Ruby Rose had just recovered herself, due to a monumental effort on the part of her companion. Could he justify asking- well, in this case allowing- her to risk her safety again?
"Please, she's my sister," the teen was leaning heavily on one of the fried monitors mounted along the wall.
The Headmaster was a sucker for heroics and family ties, and he knew it. He looked to Glynda over the edge of his spectacles.
Glynda scowled at the inferno before them. She could feel it rising in intensity with each passing second. Ruby's offer to scope out the scene was tempting to say the very least. If she could simply walk through this mess of flames and give them a visual it would provide them with the confirmation they needed to act accordingly.
But sending their youngest student in the entire school to deal with the unknown complications of an affliction that hadn't been seen in decades would be nothing short of negligent. Not to mention, she didn't quite trust the heroically-inclined girl not to intervene if her sister had indeed turned.
Expression stern, she stared straight ahead for what felt like an eternity. They were waiting for her to say something. If Ozpin was going to leave the decision to her, she would play it by the book. He knew this – so she could only assume he was allowing her to stop him from making another potential mistake. Glynda sighed.
"I'm sorry Miss Rose," she said softy, "It's too great a risk."
Ruby began to protest, but Ozpin held up his hand to cut her off.
"I'm afraid Glynda is correct," he said. She probably hadn't forgiven him for the time he sent the girl after her partner inside the rat's ear. Now wasn't the time to worry about that, however.
"But there's Blake-" even if Ruby couldn't be burned, the heat was terrible. She cringed away from the shifting barrier as it pulsed again. "I could use my aura."
"Ah. And how much aura do you have at your disposal?" Ozpin inquired, keeping an eye on Goodwitch's barrier.
Ruby didn't answer. Her silver gaze dropped to the floor.
The Grimm dragon paid no heed to its relentless pursuers or their terrible puns, intent on flying as high as possible, as quickly as possible, smashing through any and all pipes in its way.
Yang refused to let it escape. She dogged it relentlessly, leaping from pipe to pipe, clipping the furious beast with the occasional right hook to keep it distracted.
Blake did her best to keep pace, but everything - her chest and back especially - had started to ache, slowing her ascent to no small degree. Her lips parted in a small sigh. It wasn't something she liked doing, but she realized she would have to resort to using her semblance to catch up. And so she did, darting upwards as close to vertically as possible.
Moving this way, it took her very little time to close the distance. They were now higher in the latticework structure of pipes than she'd been yet, directly over the mountain, which, looking down at it now, she noted was indeed actually a volcano, just as she had suspected.
Instinct told her to grab as many of the decent-sized lengths of broken pipe falling through the air as she could on her way up, their numbers dwindling to none as she overtook Yang and the thrashing Grimm dragon. The pipes were much farther apart this high up, giving the dragon more room to avoid them altogether. Blake wasn't exactly sure what she would do with her armful of pipes, but she at least had a small arsenal now if she decided to go on another stabbing spree.
"Blake!"
Amber eyes darted downward, past the Grimm dragon snaking towards her, to meet amethyst, backed by the glowing mouth of the volcano beneath them.
"Throw me one of those!"
Blake tossed one of the pipes in her arms down to her partner without a second thought. It was a strange request, considering she'd never seen the brawler use any weapon other than her fists, but she'd learned by now to just roll with it.
Yang tracked the falling pipe with a sharp eye, pulling an arm back and taking careful aim. In a flash, she leapt towards it and punched it as hard as she could, aura at full blast. The pipe shot through the air, straight and true, right through the Grimm dragon.
Muffled guttural shrieking and oily blood poured from the writhing soulless beast, its snout smoking in rage as it desperately tried in vain to shoot flames at either one of its assailants.
Blake simply stared in awe. This was infinitely better than a stabbing spree.
"Yeah! Nailed it! Send me another!"
Blake didn't need to be told twice. She dodged the Grimm's blind rage-fueled charges, tossing pipe after pipe to her partner, Yang smashing each one up through the air with her fists, riddling their enemy with holes.
The Grimm dragon's movements were becoming more sluggish and erratic with each gaping wound it took on. Unfortunately, Blake could feel herself slowing down as well. Using her semblance so heavily was wearing her down more quickly than she had anticipated. Still, a smile dared to work its way across Blake's features as yet another pipe shot straight through the Grimm dragon, this time impaling its neck.
This could work. Working together like this, they might actually be able to kill this thing. Though, she was starting to run low on 'ammunition'.
Blake tossed one of her last few pipes down to her partner-turned-railgun as she barely avoided a sloppy swipe from the Grimm's claws with a sloppy dodge of her own. She jumped towards a pipe off to her left to put some distance between herself and the oozing dragon that was currently circling around for another attack.
"Yang - I might need to get m-" pain flared in Blake's chest mid-jump, radiating down her spine and through her bones. Thrown off kilter by a sudden fit of coughing, she hit her landing at an awkward angle and slipped off the pipe's rounded surface, tumbling through the air as she hacked up more blackness. Though dazed, she could clearly make out the sound of her partner desperately calling for her.
Through the jumble of the world spinning around her, Blake caught sight of the Grimm dragon charging at her. A quick spin removed her from the path of its claws... directly into the path of its tail.
She braced for impact. Familiar hands shoved her out of the way. The resounding SMACK that followed rang in Blake's ears and flooded her with adrenaline once more, helping her grab hold of a long pipe that nearly clotheslined her as she fell.
She watched in horror as Yang plummeted through an area devoid of pipes, straight towards the volcano below. No Ember Celica meant no landing strategy - no way to change her fall's trajectory - no way to avoid what was coming.
"Yang!"
The brawler disappeared beneath a molten lake of gold.
Glynda lost track of time as the flames pressing against her barrier continued to blaze. A sudden spike in intensity caught her by surprise. The force was still manageable, but it wouldn't be for much longer. She furrowed her brows in concentration once more, ready to order Ruby to evacuate, when the pressure on her barrier vanished.
In the blink of an eye, the flames of her student's semblance snuffed out, leaving a singed smoking hallway in their wake. Glynda stood frozen for a moment, hands slowly lowering to dissipate her barrier. She cast a sidelong glance at Ozpin. This was either a very good sign, or a very bad sign.
"Yang," Ruby scanned the stretch of blackened corridor for any sign of her sister. Had her semblance stopped because she'd woken up and was fine, or because...?
Professor Ozpin stepped in front of her, smooth, focused on the blown open doorway towards the end of the hall. "Miss Rose, I suggest you remain behind me for the time being."
Ruby nodded and stuck close as they proceeded down the hallway to investigate.
Glynda followed no less than a step behind, riding crop up and at the ready if they needed another barrier. As they neared the charred door frame she placed a hand on Ruby's shoulder and slowed her to a stop. She briefly caught the headmaster's eyes as he walked into the room, right through the ashes of what used to be the door, streaking the floor and the opposite wall.
Ozpin's eyes narrowed.
The partners lay in a heap in the middle of the scorched floor.
Blake Belladonna's fire-resistant gear had mostly burned away, but she appeared unharmed. She lay with her entire body curled around her partner's hand.
Yang Xiao Long, meanwhile, seemed to breathe easy where she had collapsed next to her partner. Her tangle of golden hair had spilled every which way, and her face was peaceful.
Still. It paid to be cautious. Ozpin observed the pair, waiting for them to wake.
Time slowed to a crawl and ultimately seemed to freeze as Blake stared down at the lava, waiting for her partner to resurface. Any second now the wily brawler would break the surface with a laugh, or a choice swear, or possibly both.
Any second now.
Soon.
Maybe the fall sent her pretty deep down. Maybe it would take a while for her to swim back up through the lava.
Blake refused to acknowledge how ridiculous the phrase "swim through lava" probably sounded to anyone sane.
Pain radiating from her back clouded her thoughts. She didn't understand many of the finer points of aura, and barely knew anything about dreamscapes, but she'd never heard of anyone being harmed by their own aura, so... So why wasn't Yang surfacing. The brawler most definitely should have surfaced by now… but there was nothing. No sign of even a single ripple on the golden surface below.
The molten lake of fire remained smooth and still, which was odd in its own right, as what little Blake remembered of geology told her that lava like that should be bubbling and churning. The unbidden thought occurred to her that it could be because her partner, the dreamscape's source, was gone. Had the Grimm dragon hit her that hard? But then, if that were the case, wouldn't the entire world itself vanish as well? Blake hung her head. Nothing made sense, everything hurt, and a strange numbness overtook her at even considering the possibility of having lost her partner for a second time.
Senses dulled by confusion and pain, she didn't notice the Grimm dragon speeding towards her.
Blake started, eyes flying wide when she felt claws close around her, plucking her from the air in a crushing grip. A calm sense of detachment spread through her as she pushed with all her might against the bony talons pinning her arms to her body, but she stopped when she realized the grip was ironclad. It didn't help that her own strength had been ebbing away the entire fight.
The black lines creeping down her hands flared and stretched, winding down her arms at a quickened pace, as if invigorated by such close proximity to the Grimm dragon that was currently using its other arm to claw at the ribbons around its jaws to no avail - the sturdy black fabric had caught on the jagged bony plates of its snout. Blake almost smiled as the impatient beast pressed her repeatedly to its bound face, hissing all the while in sheer frustration at being denied the chance to swallow her whole.
That desire to smile vanished when the dragon spiked her downwards in a fit of rage, straight into the volcano below.
Three quick dashes to the side sent Blake careening in to the inner wall of the volcano where she scrambled for purchase, finally latching onto a small outcrop of rock about halfway down. She watched her shadow clones fall, incinerating before they even touched the placid golden surface waiting beneath her.
A muffled roar brought her gaze back to the sky. The Grimm dragon loomed above, speeding ever closer, and the lava loomed below. There was nowhere to run.
The Grimm dragon was mere feet away now, snaking over the lava with a murderous glint in those blood red orbs. Blake closed her eyes and waited, muttering a silent apology to her team.
A deafening blast shocked her eyes right back open. The lava below erupted, surging upwards in the vague form of a great beast's head with crimson eyes trailing fire, its wide open mouth engulfing the Grimm dragon as it tried to pass by. Blake watched in stunned silence as the molten jaws snapped shut, dragging the Grimm dragon writhing and twisting in agony down into the lava below. The soulless beast dissolved with a final hideous shriek, leaving behind nothing more than a dark oily streak of black.
The surface of the lava returned to its previous placid state. Silence fell heavy upon the exhausted Faunus hanging from her rocky outcrop. Blake stared down at the lava in shock, trying to make sense of what just happened. The Grimm was gone, that much was apparent, but nothing was happening. Was... something supposed to happen? Was she stuck here? Searing pain stabbing through her back interrupted her thoughts. She craned her neck around to inspect herself, eyes widening in shock.
Bony spires jutted from her spine.
Blake stared off into space, her thoughts slowing to a crawl as reality sank in. She was turning. She was going to become a Grimm, and she had no idea how to stop it.
Would she wake up and attack the school? Would her teammates be forced to watch Beacon's staff take her down? Would she be stuck here? Maybe that strange lava beast would return to finish her off.
Blake's gaze dropped back to said lava, the one substance here that she'd seen capable of destroying a Grimm. A quiet sense of resolve overrode the pain searing her from the inside out.
She would save them all the trouble.
Blake released her hold on the outcrop, closing her eyes as she dropped into the motionless lake of gold.
Scorching heat encompassed her on all sides, eating away at the streaks of black on her arms. It was incredibly uncomfortable, but not the immediate end she had been expecting. Before she could ponder this, another surprise round of coughing stripped her of whatever breath she had been holding, and the molten liquid around her filled her lungs, sending fresh waves of pain through her system. Slowly, she sank, losing awareness. In a fit of what she assumed was delirious wishful thinking, she felt a pair of arms encircle her from behind.
"I've got you."
A familiar voice drifted through her thoughts.
"You're going to be fine."
Blake wanted to respond, but she had already slipped away.
A horrible acrid smell permeated the air. Smoke, ashes, lingering heat. Golden eyebrows twitched slightly, followed by a low moan. Yang's eyes cracked open, blazing crimson as they swept the room. In a single blink, they were back to amethyst, focused on the motionless form beside her.
"Blake..." She reached out, instinctively pulling the dark haired girl towards her and into a tight hug. Her partner didn't stir. "You can wake up now," Yang slurred, allowing her eyes to slide shut again. Keeping them open was hard. Maybe Blake had the right idea - keep sleeping...
The headmaster called the others in.
Ruby was at Yang's side in a second, rose petals tumbling off her as she skidded to a halt, glancing at the charred remains of whatever furniture had been in the room and then up at the headmaster. "Is she okay?"
A smile tugged the edge of Ozpin's mouth and he gave her a go-ahead motion.
"Yang," Ruby crouched at her side, poking her shoulder, "Yaaaaaaang. Wake up."
Sharp green eyes watched from the doorway, gradually softening in relief. Glynda crossed her arms, casting her usual sideways glance at Ozpin. "We're going to need more wheelchairs, aren't we."
Ozpin chuckled at Glynda's comment. "Quite possibly. Then again, a night in the infirmary should do a lot towards setting them right. Perhaps we'll discuss arrangements up in the recovery ward."
Glynda nodded in agreement, keeping an eye on her students for the time being.
The arm being poked lifted, searching out its target. Yang's hand found Ruby's - target acquired. Smiling widely, she yanked her little sister down for a hug, right on top of both herself and Blake. "Hey sis~"
"Gah, Yang, okay, let go," Ruby laughed, struggling to get up.
Yang laughed as well, gave Ruby a squeeze, and opened one eye to look around the room, fully expecting to see Weiss huffing in frustration somewhere. Yang frowned at their final teammate's absence. "Why is it that our hugpiles are always missing a certain white-haired ice princess."
Finally, Blake stirred, her words slow and muffled from being buried under both sisters. "It's heiress, actually."
Ruby's grin dropped when her teammates mentioned her partner, "Oh, guys, Pyrrha took her upstairs. We should go so she knows everything's okay. Is everything okay? You guys look kind of wiped out. What happened?"
Blake groaned at the onslaught of words, curling tighter around the warm hand in her grip. Sensing that her partner was in no mood to explain anything, Yang slid her arm off of Ruby and brought a hand to her chin, trying her best to think back.
"Well..." she frowned slightly, "there was volcano, a whole lot of fire, and I got to punch things, which is always great," a sudden grimace, "and also I ate a Grimm dragon. It tasted terrible."
Blake pushed back an inch, eyes finally opening to stare up at Yang with a curious gleam. "So that was you."
"Whoa, that sounds crazy," Ruby lay in the middle of the other two, eyes bright with admiration for her sister. She dodged her gaze away, realizing that she didn't really want to talk about what had happened with her and Weiss.
She'd tried to hurt her- had hurt her (had healed her too, but well, that didn't quite even things out)- and they'd been awesome at the end but geez Ruby had still kind of abandoned her to come check on Yang. Wracked with sudden guilt, she pushed herself up, "I need to go and find Weiss. Are you guys... going to stay here a while?"
Yang blinked, threw a quick glance at Blake, then gazed around at the charred, blackened room. She couldn't shake a sense of foreboding at the sight of the damage her semblance was capable of. "You know, as much as I would love to sleep for a week, I'd rather not sleep here." In one fluid motion, the brawler dragged herself into a sitting position, pulling a very reluctant, very sleepy Blake up along with her. Yang winked at her little sister, trademark grin in place. "Let's all go find Weiss."
The dreamscape was ending.
"Nora." Pink eyes locked with teal, shining with something warm through heavy exhaustion. "It's time we left."
"Do we have to?" Nora slid down off the tree trunk, splashing in the glass-turned-water. Magnhild vanished from her hands. She clasped her hands behind her back, scuffing her shoes on the dissolving glass, "If the lake stayed solid long enough we could have a bonfire and roast marshmallows. It's been forever since we've had dream marshmallows. Days and days."
Ren's eyes lit up in thought. "When we wake up... we should make marshmallow pancakes."
"Yes-okay-let's-wake-up-right-now," Nora threw her arms around his shoulders, hauling him down to touch foreheads.
A brief sensation of falling overtook them as the glass melted away beneath their feet, and their surroundings blurred away to nothing. Nora shut her eyes, and when the world quit tumbling, she lifted her head back in the special cases ward.
Professor Port was watching over them. Jaune was texting on his scroll, his brow creased with anxiety. Nora looked down at Ren, whom she was still lying on top of. She sat up on his stomach, "Wake up, sleepyhead. It's pancake time!"
Ren's eyes flew open as the breath was crushed out of him by the sudden force that was Nora's bodyweight. He stared up at the ceiling, keeping as still as possible as he gingerly flexed his hands, testing each finger. That searing pain he'd become so familiar with in the past few days - the one that came with each minuscule movement - was finally gone. His eyes landed on the source of his recovery, who was still sitting on his stomach with a bright smile.
With a quiet sigh of relief he pushed himself to his elbows, resting for only a second before finally pushing the rest of the way up into a proper sitting position, causing Nora to slide off of him and onto the bed. Too tired to really pay attention to anything else in the room, Ren simply leaned towards his partner, resting his head on her shoulder with a small smile.
At this point, he felt he would probably bury the world in pancakes if she asked.
"I'm up."
Jaune noticed his recovered teammates and dropped his scroll in surprise, "You're okay!"
"We're better than okay," Nora grinned, setting her chin on the top of Ren's head and giving their team leader a thumb's up. "Well, we will be once food is involved."
Weiss lay on the couch in the waiting room, her eyes shut and her forehead against the hideous flower print upholstery as she performed rudimentary breathing exercises in an effort to rest and stay calm while her teammates fought for their lives. She'd managed to shift onto her side, facing the back cushions so that Pyrrha would stop trying to reassure her.
The crimson-haired warrior kept pacing to the elevator and back, as if torn between going back for the rest of JNPR and staying to watch over her, which Weiss appreciated somewhat. Deep down, anyway. Past the hazy indignation and embarrassment at having been carried bodily through the halls of the infirmary.
Anxious. Useless. Frustrated. Ruby had just left her. Weiss understood, of course: Ruby had to check on Yang. She was her sister, after all, and Weiss had been too weak to go with her. The heiress crossed her arms over her middle.
Ding.
The elevator doors slid open. She heard the happy voices of her team greeting Pyrrha. Another batch of mixed-up emotions hit Weiss when the girls laughed. Relief was one. Loneliness was another. She curled a little more on her side, pretending to be asleep.
Sharp amber eyes caught the slight movement from across the room. Still hanging heavily on Yang's side, Blake gently nudged her partner, motioning to the couch with a slight inclination of her head. Yang paused mid laugh, followed Blake's eyes to the couch, and grinned. The smile never left her face as she looked over the girl responsible for bringing her sister back to the world of the living, safe and sound.
Twice now, the supposedly-icy heiress had brought Ruby back to her – essentially proving that she was someone who could be trusted to take care of her little sister. Whatever qualms she might have had with Weiss before were water under the bridge. In fact, she was going to march right over there and-
"Did you happen to see my teammates on your way up here?"
Yang blinked, thoughts broken by Pyrrha's quiet statement.
Pyrrha continued, eyes downcast, "... Are they... are they all right?"
"They seemed fine." Blake cut in, "The Professors told us to wait up here, so they'll probably be up soon too."
Every bit of tension seemed to slip from the warrior's expression, replaced with a winning smile. "Good. That's good."
"So, how is our resident ice princess?" Yang motioned with a thumb towards the other side of the room.
"She's well, just very tired."
"Well enough for... hugs?"
"I... I believe so?"
"Well then, you heard her!" Yang gave Ruby a light shove. The younger girl had been fidgeting the entire time, clearly anxious to check on her partner. "Go get her, sis," she winked, "we'll be right behind you." Still leaning heavily on the smiley brawler, Blake managed a sleepy nod of agreement.
"Yang, she looks like she's sleeping. I don't want to-" Ruby whispered as she stumbled towards the couch, propelled by her sister. The bandage on her leg had come partially loose and her tank top was crooked, and she was just a mess in general. She rubbed the back of her neck, glaring daggers at her sister as she crossed the rest of the way to the couch and crouched beside the armrest near her partner's head.
"Hey, Weiss. Are you awake?" When the heiress didn't answer, Ruby poked her shoulder a little, "Weiss?"
Weiss kept up the act for a couple more pokes before she finally sighed, "I'm trying to rest."
Ruby cringed, dropping her hand to join the one braced on her ankle as she sat cross-legged on the floor next to the couch, "... are you okay? You sound kind of mad."
Weiss kept her arms crossed, "I'm not mad."
"You sound mad," Ruby peeked up through her bangs, "and you're hiding against the couch cushions."
"Don't be ridiculous. I just got back from that... whatever that was down in the ward, and I..." Weiss's voice cracked a little. She swallowed, trying for a snarl, "... I'm too tired for this."
"I'm sorry I bit you."
"What?" Great. Now she had to sit up. With some effort, Weiss got herself turned around, propped up against the armrest. She frowned at her downcast partner, "That wasn't you."
"It felt like me," Ruby dodged her eyes, "I mean, I didn't want to do it, but I couldn't stop it. And I could still feel it."
"Well... I hardly think biting me is worse than... than..." Weiss remembered the sickening give, the clatter of the bone mask on the sullied bricks. It was too real, too recent. She fell silent, blinking to clear her vision as she searched Ruby's un-injured face. "Anyway. You could have asked if I was okay before you left me with Pyrrha."
"Huh?" the younger girl looked up, "You said you were fine, didn't you?"
Weiss turned away, hands clenched on the hem of her shirt, "I said 'shut up'. That's not the same thing as 'I'm fine'."
Ruby wilted with confused remorse, "Oh." Then she said, "Thank you. For back there."
Weiss flushed, "Well, it wasn't like I knew how to leave, or anything."
She stole a glance at her partner. Ruby had a shy smile; her dark hair stood out in weird directions, and she had soot streaked on her cheeks. Slowly Weiss relaxed a little.
Ding.
"That was almost longer coming up than going down," Nora proclaimed as she stepped off the elevator. "Anyone have a camp stove?"
Yang sidestepped to avoid a collision as Pyrrha rushed to greet her team. She then eyed Weiss and Ruby before meeting Blake's eyes with a conspiratorial grin. "I think it's time." Once she had Blake's nod of agreement, Yang dragged them over to the couch, picked up Ruby without warning, and dropped her on top of Weiss.
"HUGPILE," was their only warning before the brawler proceeded to crush them both to the couch in a hug, pulling a not-entirely-reluctant Blake down with her as well. "Yeah!" Yang squeezed them together with all her might. "Now this is more like it."
Weiss was too slow to get out from under the avalanche that was the rest of her team and immediately shoved at and lit into them, "You-! Get off. How am I supposed to breathe with you all on top of me? Get off."
Ruby started laughing, attempting to hold herself up so she wasn't smashing her partner, but her arm just slipped down between the couch cushions and Yang's hair was tickling the back of her neck and none of them were hurt or Grimm or anything, so she just kept laughing and trying to push her sister off and not crush her partner all at the same time. None of it worked very well.
Her laugh was contagious, and even Weiss caught it, breathlessly from the bottom of the pile. For a handful of seconds anyway.
They were all okay. Maybe a little tired, definitely a little dirty- Yang and Blake in particular smelled like a burnt-out locker room; Ruby always had an undercurrent scent of roses, but it didn't help this time. They had been beaten up, poisoned, and almost transformed into their worst nightmares, but now they were all okay, tumbled in a heap, laughing like idiots on the beat up waiting-room couch.
This time, they'd recover for real. No more antitoxin. No more crazy painkillers. No more wild dreamscapes or twisted versions of each other.
Yang was doing something ticklish to her sister and Ruby had long since collapsed into a helpless fit of giggles, her face buried in Weiss's shirt. The heiress scowled as convincingly as she could, the backs of her ears beginning to burn, "Okay. Really, get off now."
The display did not go unnoticed by the members of Team JNPR. Jaune was stuck somewhere between ignoring everything, glancing at Pyrrha to see if he should be ignoring everything, and laughing. Nora, however, joined the celebratory spirit of things without reserve.
"Guys, let's do that too!" Nora hopped onto Ren's back, calling, "Pancakes are on hold in favor of a hugpile on Ren!"
Ren staggered backwards, nearly toppling over until Jaune and Pyrrha caught his elbows. He threw his teammates a quiet look of thanks. Pyrrha broke into peals of genuine laughter, happy to see her team back in one piece. "Perhaps we should hug pile on someone who isn't still recovering," she suggested with a pointed smile at Nora.
Nora tugged at the back of Ren's collar, "Ren, Ren, jump on Jaune, quick!"
"Wait, what? Why me?" Jaune flailed an arm at his partner, "Pyrrha suggested it!"
Meanwhile, Professor Ozpin emerged from the staff break area, mug of coffee in hand. He took a long sip, observing the happy scene from the back of the room. Glynda, at his side, was busy with a clipboard, arranging for beds in the recovery ward for the students.
Not all of them needed to stay, of course, but cots could be found if they wished to remain with their teammates. After all, the presence of a friendly face could go a long way after an event such as this.
"Fascinating," Professor Oobleck emerged from the break room as well, rolls of paper jutting from his back pocket, "Simply fascinating that they were all successful. I shall have to interview them, it seems. Such an archaic technique. Very few accounts of modern day usage. Truly remarkable. You don't suppose they would be interested in contributing to a scholarly article or two?"
"I'm sure they would be happy to oblige," Ozpin smiled over the rim of his cup as Miss Valkyrie released her partner and tackled her team leader. The blond swordsman lost his balance and sprawled across the tile. "But perhaps let's give them a chance to get back on their feet first. What do you think, Glynda?"
Glynda glanced up from her clipboard, arrangements all in place, and offered the headmaster a rare smile. "I think... you're right."
"Hm," Ozpin said, reflecting that even a broken timepiece could be correct twice a day. He refrained from making any further comment on the matter, however, contenting himself with watching over his students, all of whom were laughing and bickering, all very much alive and well.
A/N: It's hard to believe... but with this, we have the ending of the story proper... thank you all SO MUCH for taking this crazy ride with us! We can't thank you enough for all the messages, reviews, likes, follows - the whole nine yards. You guys are amazing and FABULOUS.
Stick around though! There are epilogues. You're going to be stuck with us for a little while yet. Ahaha~
Bearhugs,
Defenestrator