Alright, a mistake on my part. In chapter 29 I accidentally typed one of my older ideas instead of the fancanon one. I stated that Yang was 5 and Ruby 3 when their parents met, implying that they are step-sisters, while in fact Ruby had yet to be born before their parents met, implying that they are half-sisters. A stupid mistake. Blame stress and sleepless nights.
Nightraze: oh yes, LACG can be dangerous people if they wanted to. Luckily, the bomb-maker just got unlucky with his timing. I am glad to see that you still like it so much; I really appreciate all your reviews :)
Tuutje07: you know me, ever the mystery. Now…I'm not a girl working with Onyx, but I'd wager that mundane skills like working with your hair wouldn't be very easy to learn. That and piloting a ship with both hands leaves little room to fix hair.
I like Will too! But it's not my fault that he always gets himself in trouble…well, not entirely.
I also wanted to thank everyone who was reviewed, faved or followed thus far. This is the 30th chapter and in my head, that is a pretty big deal. So here goes!
"An important and very probable cause of trigger-events for Operatives Greystone and Mantis has been located in Vale. It is imperative that this woman is taken care of ASAP, or she WILL compromise both assets within minutes of them meeting up."
Radio conversation between code-name "Yale" and Lima Two-Three, 08:54
All around them people were screaming in panic, running around frantically without any clear indication as to where they should be going. Even though Yang, Blake and Ruby were doing their best to guide the civilians to the place they needed to go, there were still many more that were simply oblivious to their help. Why was it that, when faced with terror and danger, humans turned into sheep? It was really, really frustrating and it only made their position that much worse!
The gunfire in the distance had lost its rhythmic quality and was turning more frantic; the constant rattling would alternate between single-fire shots and long, uninterrupted bursts of sustained fire. Occasional explosions caused the ground to shudder and it did little to calm the panicking civilian population.
"Hey! This way," Weiss yelled at a family that seemed to be clueless as to where they were supposed to go. The man that looked like the father yelled something back and the entire family promptly turned around and ran back the way they were supposed to go. Finally, some sense!
The major bulk of the village was heading towards the grounded airship, but Weiss had her doubts whether it would fit all those people. It was not nearly as large as the Beacon ships had been and it looked as ancient as some of the ruins back at the Academy.
But there was another problem. A problem that might be worse than a lack of space on the airship, mainly because she didn't even understand just why it was a problem. It was a feeling; as plain and simple as that. Weiss had a churning, nagging feeling in her stomach that just didn't leave her alone. It constantly tugged at the back of her mind and prevented her from thinking about the more important problems at hand. She knew that she shouldn't give it any thought but…but it just felt so bad. It had appeared shortly after Will had opened fire on the approaching Grimm, but over the evacuation it had grown worse. And now she couldn't ignore it anymore.
"Ruby!" she exclaimed when she saw a certain redheaded girl guide a lost child back to the group of civilians.
"Weiss?"
"I need your brain!"
Ruby grew pale. "Ehm…what?"
Weiss sighed, realizing that her choice of words had been rather poor. "I need you to think with me!"
"We're sort of busy here, Weiss!"
"I-I know that," she replied. It was just that the annoying feeling in her stomach wouldn't leave her alone and she needed to talk to someone about it. The timing might be bad but…things could grow a lot worse if she didn't solve where it was coming from. Something was deeply wrong; something very bad was going to happen and she couldn't help but think that it would happen very soon. "Just…trust me with this!"
Much to Weiss' relief, Ruby didn't question her anymore and nodded, giving the girl a soft push towards the people that would know where her family was.
"Thank you!" the child hesitantly told Ruby and then ran off.
"What's wrong?" the teamleader then asked Weiss, a serious expression on her face. "Did you see something?"
"No, it…I…it's just a feeling, but…I think something is wrong. Very wrong," she awkwardly told her partner. She knew that she wasn't making a lot of sense, but if there was anyone that could understand her, it would be Ruby.
"I know," the redhead then replied with a frown, much to Weiss' surprise. "I've been feeling it too…right at the back of my head, someone is telling me something. Or so I think…it doesn't make much sense."
"I know!" she exclaimed. Ruby had addressed it perfectly; something was wrong in a way that you couldn't put your finger on it. "How long have you been feeling it?"
"Ever since we have touched down, really," the girl awkwardly explained. "I didn't want you guys to think that I was being paranoid but…it just doesn't add up."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean this, this situation. A large group of monsters heading out to massacre a village…Cal and Lily telling us just in time and, instead of heading out themselves, they take us. Then Will appears out of nowhere…and has just the thing he needs to keep the Grimm busy."
"It sounds like a set-up?"
"It sounds like someone out there knows more about this," Ruby then told her. "But we can't really stop to find out, can we?"
"No," Weiss replied. She saw Blake guiding two groups towards the town-center, where the airship was slowly filling with people. The sky was sill gloomy and dark and the occasional droplets of rain were growing less occasional and more frequent. The distant gunfire shifted to an all-out barrage of single-shots, roughly two every second. Ruby tensed up when she heard that, no doubt formulating her own suspicions about the sound.
After seven seconds of nonstop shots, the sounds ceased. No more gunfire, no more explosions. One long, ragged howl and then everything was silent.
"Move!" Yang's loud voice shattered the silence a second later and they both turned towards the village, where almost everyone was on the ship. "Get your stuff later, get on!"
Weiss was about to say something when a new sensation hit her mind with the force of a sledgehammer. All of her doubts, fears and troubles that had accumulated and grown over the course of the past month all intensified into a frenzied whirlpool, sending shivers down her spine. Blake's allegiance with the White Fang…Will's allegiance with Onyx…her self-conscious image…her feelings towards her teammates, more importantly Ruby…all of the thoughts she had been suppressing for weeks came right back up, resurfacing in the form of doubt.
Bout and a severe lack of confidence. She simply lost her ability to reason beyond what her mind told her; every single thought that slipped into her head made her doubt herself even more. And right at the top of the rampaging tower of burning feelings, the most ominous sensation she had ever felt in her entire life was taunting her. It felt heavy and just…dark. Evil. It was a feeling that she could not even begin to understand, let alone describe. It almost felt like it was laughing at her.
She felt her eyes sting and water and soon, the warm traces of fluids running down her cheeks hurt her confidence even more. I'm crying, she realized. It was insulting and degrading. Why? Why was this…this thing hurting her? What was even happening? Why am I crying?
Weiss gathered what little courage she had left and looked up, meeting Ruby's gaze. Just recently, Ruby had had an emotional breakdown and, in a moment of vulnerability, had sought refuge and help with the person she seemed to trust the most with that.
Her.
It was that night that had turned their friendship into something more…and it was that memory –the memory of sheer gladness and happiness at Ruby's closeness- that enabled Weiss to push past the dark pain in her mind and turn to face her friend. She wouldn't have dared otherwise.
But Ruby wasn't looking at her in concern. She wasn't reaching out to touch or comfort her. Ruby hadn't even moved an inch, as she was still standing right where she stood before. Her face was even paler than normal and her fists were clenched, even trembling at some uncertain emotions. She too had tears running down her face and she too looked like she was going through horrors.
But the moment Weiss had looked up to check up on her, Ruby's head moved and she looked back at her.
Then the girl nodded and Weiss was able to increase the mental resistance that had been building up due to her memories. It hadn't been just her; Ruby had felt the same thing. Something had just tried to mentally attack them and whatever it was, it had almost been successful in breaking her will.
And just as suddenly as that malignant force had invaded their minds, it withdrew. Weiss could feel it leaving her thoughts, second after second. It felt like dark, wet coils and tentacles were letting her memories and thoughts go, sliding out of her mind and leaving her alone.
"What," Ruby whispered and swallowed, wrapping her hands around her chest, "was that?"
So that…thing…had left Ruby alone too?
"I don't know…" Weiss replied and wiped her cheeks with the sleeve of her shirt, trying to wipe her tears. "But whatever it was…I'm going to kill it."
The words left her mouth before her brain had even considered them and the very moment it did, Weiss regretted them. The invading force might have left her mind, but it had left chaos in its wake. Self-doubt, uncertainty and a nagging feeling of…well, it had left her feeling worthless. Unwanted. Hurt.
And those feelings had made her aggressive. She didn't want that.
"I…" Ruby replied, visibly trying to recompose herself. "I think it came from the forest…"
Weiss looked over her shoulder. Yang and Blake were still working with the airship, getting as many people onboard as possible. They hadn't noticed anything…the mental effect hadn't hit them. "How do you know?"
"I just do," Ruby replied more forcefully than she had ever sounded. "I felt it returning…it's in the forest, there-"
The girl pointed at the direction of the clearing that they had crossed right before encountering Greystone. The clearing where he had been stalling the wolves. Had something happened there?
"-it came from over there."
"Ruby," Weiss gently called. The little Rose sounded a little bit too angry for her likings. "Are you…are you alright?"
Ruby shivered and readied her scythe. "Whatever it was…it made me feel terrible. Worse than I have ever felt…and I knew you felt the same."
It shouldn't have come as a shock to her, but it still did. Weiss realized that she was still trembling herself, which had probably been picked up by Ruby. "I did…but go after it? Without Yang and Blake?"
"It would take too long," Ruby boldly stated. She assumed a stance of false confidence and added: "We'll go after it ourselves."
She didn't want to. She was…she didn't want to go after the thing that had violated her mind like that. But she also didn't want to let Ruby down…and Weiss knew that Ruby would go on without her should she refuse. This reckless boldness…it was similar to Ruby's previous boldness during the Initiation, only much worse. There was a certain aggressiveness that seemed to overrule her rational thoughts.
"Only if you calm down, Ruby," she told her friend and carefully stepped closer. "I don't want to see you getting hurt because of a mistake…" She gently placed two fingers at Ruby's cheek and looked her in her deep, silver eyes. "Please?"
Ruby held their contact for a little while longer and then averted her gaze, pulling away from Weiss' touch. "let's go…it already hurt me…and you. I don't want it going after Yang."
Yang? Wasn't Blake the one who had more pain in her heart? Or…was she wrong to assume that?
Weiss looked over her shoulder one more time and then turned to follow Ruby. The girl was more reckless than ever and it was because of the mental assault that they had endured. She didn't want to see someone so important to her get hurt because of recklessness… not like that.
Together with her partner, Weiss walked towards the treeline, feeling her boots getting wet with the fallen rain. The grass and bushes made way for trees, then for larger trees. And then, sooner than she had thought the initial journey to have been, they stumbled upon the clearing.
Ruby inhaled sharply and Weiss quickly put her hands against her mouth. The ground was littered with bodies, empty rounds and scorch marks. Two dozen Grimm lay bloodied and broken around the clearing, their bodies mangled by shrapnel, blown to pieces by explosives and even punctured with long, sharp spikes. Black blood and gore clung to the few pieces of vegetation that grew in the area and the ground was slick was the dark fluids. The occasional patches of red were highly visible in the gloomy rain.
The Operative was nowhere to be seen.
"Where is Will?" Ruby asked the most obvious question.
"Where is the rest of the Grimm?" Weiss asked the most important question. If Will had been dragged off by the Beowolves, there was nobody left to stop them from converging on the village.
Yang and Blake had better get their things moving.
"I…wait, do you hear that?" Ruby replied and unfolded her weapon, changing it from the rifle-form to the scythe-form.
"No, what-" her words stalled in her throat as the ground suddenly quaked. It wasn't as violent or jerky as an earthquake would have been, but it was still very noticeable. Something was causing the ground to shake.
Small birds flew up from a row of trees directly across of the clearing and Weiss readied her rapier, channeling the red Dust into its canister. "What is that?"
"Weiss," Ruby breathed and pointed. "Look!"
Two dark, long claws emerged from the cover of the trees, barely visible in the dark cover of the rain. Were it not for the sudden shift in the environment, Weiss would have missed it. The talons wrapped themselves around the trunks of the trees and effortlessly pulled them aside.
From the newly created gap in the treeline, a figure appeared. Weiss could feel her heart jumping up to her throat and Ruby took a step backwards. The horrifying effects that had been playing with her mind returned, more intense than ever before. She had to bite her lip from shrieking out in pain and her knees started to tremble. Ruby gasped –a weak, high-pitched noise that only served to increase Weiss' fears.
The creature was at least thirty feet tall, covered with a black skin that seemed to gleam in the rain. It looked vaguely humanoid at first, but then it stepped clear of the trees and entered the large open grove, shaking the ground with its powerful yet fluid steps. A long tail, almost as long as its body, whipped around behind the thing and snapped a tree wider than Cardin clean in half.
Its hands had three fingers and one thumb, all four of them ending in sharp talons that were longer than the respective digits were. Its arms, muscled and lean. Its legs, long and powerful. The knees bended the wrong way –backwards- and gave the creature a hunching appearance.
But that appearance changed drastically when it stood, raising itself to appear more intimidating. Its face was the worst; Weiss had never seen anything like it among the Grimm she had fought. It was as black as its skin was and there was no visible mouth; no visible nostrils and no ears. Instead, it had four vertical slits in the middle of its face that had to be its eyes. One row of eyes on the left and one row on the right. Even though its head was dark as the night, it still appeared bony and rigid, as if it was heavily armoured in its face.
She could only imagine what dark and foul eyes lay hidden behind that bony exterior. The pressure and pain in her mind increased even more as the streamlined monstrosity moved forwards. The ground no longer shook with its steps and instead, the air grew still and quiet. For all the freezing wet effects that the weather might have had before, all the noise and sounds had disappeared. Everything had grown still around the enormous scourge of nature, that mercilessly closed in on their location.
Ruby moaned weakly and rose to her feet, folding her weapon into its sniper form.
"Wait!" Weiss yelled, but she didn't know why. Something in her head had forced her to tell her partner to stop, but the girl didn't listen to her. She opened fire on what had to be a new monster of Grimm and roughly half of the high-caliber rounds impacted on the monster.
The other half missed clearly, even though the target was so big. Why had Ruby missed those shots? And even more important than that: why didn't Weiss open fire? Why didn't she use the weapon in her hands to attack the clearly evil being?
The creature took another two steps forward, the holes in its black body already beginning to heal. What was this thing?
"Weiss, attack!" Ruby called her name, but the Heiress couldn't focus. The throbbing presence in her mind was too powerful; too unyielding for her to fight. She couldn't concentrate…couldn't break free.
Ruby yelled once more, but by then the creature had gotten close enough to start an offense of its own. With its disproportionately long arms –they reached to his knees! - it swung at her.
Someone shot out towards her. Small and tender arms wrapped around her torso and she felt her body being pulled away from its rigid position.
Two seconds later, she and Ruby tumbled across the wet ground and came to a stop mere meters from their previous position. Large gashes were visible in the dirt where she had been standing mere moments before –they reached more than a meter deep.
"Weiss!"
The Schnee Heiress shook her head and cleared the fog that had been obscuring her rational thoughts. Then she tested her legs and found that they still worked, be it a bit sluggish. "Y-yes…what…"
"Why didn't you move?" Ruby exclaimed.
"I couldn't," she weakly replied. Her legs were so weak…and the cold bite of the freezing rain had never been as pronounced as it was now. "I couldn't move."
Ruby gave her a brief hug and then turned to face the Grimm, which was now simply staring at them, as if interested by their behaviour. "It's alright, we can take it! Stick close to me!"
Weiss nodded and unleashed a fire-based attack on the monster, while Ruby charged off to its left flank.
The flames struck its body unopposed, tearing through its flesh and burning its tissues without mercy while Ruby hit it from the side, flinging her scythe in her hands and creating large gashes in its body. But when the flames cleared, there was no damage. No holes, no stripes and no smoke. Nothing. It was still intact.
"Ruby, watch out!" Weiss screamed at her close friend, watching how the wounds were already regenerating. "It heals!"
Ruby heeded her warning and tried to back off, but the Grimm was fast. Too fast. Its head snapped at the girl to stare at her and for a painful second, Ruby flinched to stare back. Then the monster's arm snapped out and tore at the hooded girl.
The redhead blocked the strike with her scythe, but the sheer power and momentum that lay behind it tore the weapon from her grip and separated it from its wielder. Ruby smashed to the ground and her weapon followed a second later, clattering into the dirt a few meters away from her.
Weiss activated one of her physics-defying glyphs and increased her own movement speed, allowing her to close in the distance between her and her target within mere seconds. Her rapier –sharp and accurate- would be deadly at these speeds. She would puncture this monster's skull and penetrate its brain, killing it with one strike and ending the unyielding tormenting in her mind.
But the Grimm was faster than she could anticipate. It closed in on Ruby and raised one hand, forming a crude but lethal drill by placing its talons together. It would kill her if she didn't act soon!
In her haste to save Ruby's life, Weiss failed to take the Grimm's tail into account. It snapped out again, cracking through the air like a whip and she could feel the hard tip smashing into her side. Something cracked and a sharp, all-consuming pain shot through her entire spine. Her forwards momentum had been annihilated and she tumbled to the floor, impacting with a dull 'thud' onto the soft mud. It most likely saved her life, but she still screamed in pain as fresh lances of pain shot through her chest. The pain was too intense; it consumed all her senses until she was left with nothing but the cold agony in her chest. She tried to take a deep breath and calm herself, but the moment she breathed in her body forced her to scream again. Her chest was killing her and she knew that she was going to die. What else could this pain be but death?
A distanced voice screamed her name and Weiss slowly opened her eyes, taking in the blurry scene with a frighteningly slow pace. She saw a red figure dancing around a giant, black one…shots cracked through the air and helped her clear her ears, but the only sensations that really mattered were the ravishing lances of pain.
More screaming and this time, she recognized the voice as Ruby's. Ruby was screaming…
A jolt ran through her body and she opened her eyes farther. Tears were blocking her sight and she struggled to blink those away. Ruby had retrieved her weapon and was busy keeping the monster off of her, all the while defending the prone form of her fallen teammate…which would be her.
She tried to speak, but found herself unable to. There was no blood and no coughing, so her lungs were still intact.
The monster brought its head closer and widened his arms, as if taunting Ruby. The girl faltered again, most likely due to the intense pressure on her mind that was exerted by the monster.
But then something happened that drove the fog in Weiss' mind away, allowing her to think and see with perfect clarity. Ruby had stumbled and in that brief moment, the Grimm had struck. Its razor-sharp talons shot out and smashed into the redheaded girl, separating her from her weapon and sending her flying five meters through the air.
Ruby smacked into the ground, blood pouring from a deep gash in her side. Four talons…one gash…Ruby's Aura had protected her from the worst of the blow, but if the blow was heavy enough to kill her ten times over with one hot it wouldn't do her much good if she did.
Weiss screamed again, this time not for her own agony but for that of her teammate. She couldn't move, the pain made that impossible. She was forced to watch as Ruby stopped moving, lying weak and limp on the cold ground. The mind-raping Grimm advanced towards the fallen girl, forming that drill-gesture with its claw once more.
"Please…" Weiss breathed and fresh tears flowed down her cheeks. "Don't…"
Her pleading fell on deaf ears. The monster continued to move towards the fallen girl with exaggerated slowness, as if reveling in Weiss' misery.
"Ruby…" she muttered. "Get up! Please!" She raised her voice as hard as her body would allow her and spots of black appeared on her vision as her ribs churned in protest.
Nothing. She was forced to see the Grimm advance towards her beloved friend, unyielding and mercilessly dragging the process out until it was standing right in front of her. It had even made sure that Weiss could see what was happening, as it had positioned itself in such a way that everything was clearly visible.
"Don't!" She screamed, her voice breaking. "Please!"
The Grimm raised its talon high in the air, glimmering with light for the first time since they had encountered it, before plunging it down towards the prone form of the fallen Rose. It moved so fast that it was more of a blur than a movement…and there was nothing that she could do about it.
Blood splattered darkly across the ground and Weiss screamed, the pain intensifying tenfold as she overexerted her limits. Her vision blacked out and the only breaths that her body could manage were forced and painful sobs.
Gunshots. Screams. More gunshots.
Weiss slowly opened her eyes and gritted her teeth. The Grimm was moving left and right, trying to circle around as a small, lone figure that was constantly backing up and shooting at it with a large rifle. The shots echoed heavily through her head and worsened the already terrible headache that she was suffering through. Ruby's body lay on the ground, still intact. Not mangled, not torn to pieces, but still at the place where she had fallen.
The dark form that was fighting the Grimm had somehow rescued her…but how? The blood…Weiss could remember the blood. What had happened?
She blinked a few times and gasped when the pain returned. The tears cleared and she was able to see more clearly than before, perhaps guided by the hope that Ruby was still alive. The ground was coloured a deep crimson with blood and the figure that was circling around the Grimm was bleeding profoundly from multiple breaches in its…her…his…suit. Limping, struggling, but moving.
This person had jumped in-between Ruby and the attacking claw…there was no other explanation. Was it Blake? Yang? No, they would have used other weaponry…and Weiss would have recognized them. Who was it? Did she know how?
The person was starting to falter; he fell to his knees several times, flinching and backing up from the attacks that inevitably followed up on his weaknesses. The Grimm lashed out with its tail and the figure was too slow to dodge it. But the long appendage hadn't been aimed at killing, as the sharp tip missed the dark helmet that obscured his head by mere inches. But the follow-up strike was aimed at killing –killing Ruby, that was. The monster had realized that the figure trying to distract it wasn't going to harm it and it turned its impossible-determined focus right back at Ruby.
The Grimm never made a sound, never changed its posture. It shifted its attention to Ruby as if she was the most important target in the world to it. And perhaps she was. But she was also the most important thing in the world to her and even as the Grimm lashed out at the unconscious girl, Weiss attempted to get to her feet and fight it. But she was too slow…and the pain made her even slower.
But the dark figure with his helmet wasn't too slow. Despite the previous blow –despite the amount of blood that he had to have lost due to dancing around with such holes in his body- he still burst into a sprint and jumped in-between Ruby and the attacking Grimm, taking the brunt of the attack with his own body.
Even form her prone position, Weiss could hear the crack of breaking bone. The figure got knocked half a dozen meters back, landing not too far away from the fallen Heiress. His suit splintered; large pieces of armour and clothing had been torn right off and his helmet had been sheared right off.
She exhaled softly and felt the strength that had allowed her to rise to her feet drain right out of her body. She had solved the mystery of Will's disappearance; the boy was now lying on the ground, completely crushed by the two heavy blows. His suit had been reduced to rags; his helmet had been knocked off and blood was flowing freely from his mouth.
And he still got to his feet.
It was the same strange display that he had shown off when Yang had pummeled him to near-death the last time they encountered him in the field, back when he still had his Saboteur-thing going. He should have gotten knocked out back then and here, for all intents and purposes, he should have been killed. No man could survive such a blow.
Will slowly and groggily rose to his feet, bleeding from almost every place on his body. He was clutching his chest with his hands and from the looks of it, he had a back injury that prevented him from fully raising.
And still the Grimm moved to kill Ruby. It hadn't been enough; for all of Will's tenacity and death-defying stunts, he couldn't prevent the monster from moving to kill Ruby again.
"Hey!" Will hoarsely shouted at the Grimm, distracting it for the third time. The boy coughed violently and more blood hit the ground. The creature looked up–did she imagine it, or did the monster look annoyed? "Over here!" he was actually defying death itself to save Ruby? After everything that had happened? "Come on! Come get me! I'm over here! Come on then, kill me!" He sounded…off. And not just because of a ruined chest-cavity, but also with the intonation. He was severely emotional…was that because of his wound?
Then, Weiss gasped. She realized that it worked. The Grimm was actually stepping away from Ruby and walking towards the swaying Operative. Perhaps it was more interested in live prey than in apparently-dead prey? Because Weiss wouldn't believe that Ruby was dead. She couldn't be. Ruby was still alive…but now her savior was in mortal danger. She needed to work to save the soldier now, but she could barely stand without collapsing from the pain. How? How was she going to work her way out of this and save both Ruby and Will? Could Yang and Blake possibly come to their aid in time?
Will was standing a few meters away from Weiss and he probably thought about the implications of that, because he started limping away from her. He seemed to have understood that the Grimm was chasing him now and with small, wavering steps he led the thing away from her.
With a sudden burst of speed, the monster charged towards the lone boy, swiping with both of its arms to the middle with the clear intention of, crushing him.
The lone Operative pulled a knife out of a sheath on his chest and faced down the approaching beast, his knees nearly giving away and his body on the verge of collapsing.
Then, multiple things happened at once. A figure darted in front of Will and the Grimm was rebounded, its claws battered aside with ease and its balance completely destroyed. As the monstrosity stumbled backwards, trying desperately to regain what was lost, Weiss felt a pair of arms grab her underneath her shoulders, carefully avoiding her chest.
Nevertheless, it hurt. And she uttered a cry if pain when her body told her just how much it hurt.
"Hang on," a reassuring voice told her. She nodded without caring who it was that was saving them. She saw the blonde lady that had saved Will from a gruesome death and she saw how that lady was currently fending off the large Grimm, tearing large chunks out of its body with weather-based abilities. The rain droplets turned into large, bullet-like projectiles that forced the monster to step back from all the humans that had converged on it. Behind her, the Operative collapsed completely.
Weiss groaned as she felt herself being set upright, but she didn't care for the pain anymore. They were being helped…Glynda Goodwitch had appeared so save them in the nick of time and the man who was helping her had to be Matt Adamant..
"Ruby! Weiss!" A loud voice rang out and she recognized it as Yang's.
"Over there!" Blake's voice soon followed and the two girls came sprinting towards them from the treeline, firing their own weapons at the stumbling Grimm.
A faint whirring noise distracted her and the Professor behind her then said: "You have two broken ribs and some minor lacerations. You're going to be fine. Blake! Help your teammate, keep her upright!"
If Blake agreed with words or gestures, Weiss couldn't tell. But she soon felt softer and smaller hands reach out to help her, so in the end it didn't matter. The pain and pressure on her mind had disappeared almost completely and she saw Yang running towards the prone form of her sister, firing black-coloured projectiles at the monster. Despite everything, Weiss smiled. The blonde had taken the special shotgun-rounds in the dropship and inserted them in her gauntlets. Long, smooth flechettes were blasted right into the Grimm's body and roughly one second after the four-inch nails had been inserted into the black flesh with enough force to bury them completely, they exploded violently.
The monster reared backwards, still without making a single sound. One patch of the bonelike structure on its face had been blown clear and Weiss could see a large, yellow orb shifting left and right underneath the dark mess. A single, black dot on the yellow thing indicated that it was an eye, but she didn't get to see more before the flesh and bones knitted back together.
"Can you stand?" Blake softly asked her.
She tried to do what her teammate asked her and with tenacious amount of willpower, she was capable of standing upright once more.
"Why didn't you use your Aura?" the Faunus then asked.
"I did," she softly replied. Talking hurt. Breathing hurt. She needed to do both. "It blew straight through."
"What were you two even doing here? Why did you leave the village to scout this clearing?" Blake questioned her, sounding upset. The girl had grabbed one of her arms and wrapped it around her shoulders, supporting her and guiding her towards the place where one of the Professors had dumped some medical supplies. Weiss really hoped that she sounded upset because of their injuries and not because of their recklessness.
"Something attacked Ruby and me…mentally. We chased after it…and it ambushed us here."
Blake nodded and focused her gaze back to the battlefield, where Professor Adamant had joined Professor Goodwitch in the fight against the Grimm. After Yang had disoriented the monster, she had hailed the unconscious Ruby on one shoulder and brought her to the same place as Weiss and Blake were sitting..
"What the hell happened!" Yang yelled once she arrived, gently placing Ruby down on the ground. Her eyes were red and the air around them was already growing hot.
"Something attacked Weiss and Ruby…mentally," Blake started to explain and shot Weiss a sideways glance. "They moved to engage, but got overwhelmed by the new Grimm species. "
"That…thing… " she added, "Attacked our minds. Ruby felt it, too. She-" Weiss then paused. It had been Ruby who had wanted to find and attack that thing…the girl had been reckless and bold, but she hadn't stopped her. In a way, Weiss was responsible. "We wanted to go after it…but it ambushed us."
Yang glanced at the prone form of the fallen Operative. Professor Adamant was moving towards the boy as they spoke, grabbing a can of white fluid. Glynda Goodwitch joined him and a spark of panic shot through Weiss. She looked around, trying to spot the Grimm, but she couldn't immediately see it. Had the two professors driven it off? So soon?
…she had been delirious; unable to think and see clearly. She must have missed the fight or something.
Yang tenderly rubbed Ruby's head and then moved towards the two whispering Professors. Will was weakly convulsing on the ground, his limbs bloodied and weak. He was gurgling and making choking sounds, like he was drowning on the land. What was wrong with him? What had happened? She and Ruby had both been hit –perhaps not as hard or often- but they were still in one piece. Broken ribs and unconsciousness perhaps, but still. Hadn't his Aura protected him?
"He can't breathe," Goodwitch hurried to tell Adamant. "He's got a punctured lung."
Oh. Damn.
"I noticed. Gimme the tip, will you?"
The blonde Professor handed some metal item to the other Professor, who then placed it on top of the white can and plunged it in the choking soldier's chest. It bought him a moment of reprieve though and the first thing Will did when he could breathe again was reach out to the person that was the nearest to him, which would be Yang. The blonde was surprised to see him reach for her, but she didn't pull away. For a few seconds, peace returned to the clearing.
But that didn't last long. The trees behind Weiss started to rumble and Professor Adamant basically exploded into movement, aiming what to be his weapon at the treeline and yelling for them to move.
"Professor Adamant, this would be a very good time for your new assistant to show up!" Glynda yelled and created a force-field to prevent the mental Grimm from bisecting her and Blake. It had reappeared too fast; too sudden. It had disappeared from the area just minutes ago; had it circled around so fast?
And its movements were faster now too. Its swings were frenzied and wild, but the sheer overpowered strength behind them made it nearly impossible for the Huntress to keep on the defensive.
"Johnson? ETA?" Matt yelled, seemingly into nothing. But the obvious reply came mere seconds later, in the form of a Beacon dropship. The design however, was completely different than what Weiss knew. Despite her pain and the gravity of the situation she could see that the craft had been completely redesigned; it was more streamlined and clad in a different colour. Its aesthetics were completely reworked and two rocket-pods were mounted on its sides.
And that wasn't the only thing that had changed. The remastered ship turned its flank to them and a hatch opened up. Normally that was the hatch where the students could enter the craft, but something else entirely was now visible.
"ETA DAMN QUICK!" Sergeant-Professor Johnson yelled, holding an enormous mounted…cannon…in his arms. Two metal bars connected the weapon to the right side of the open hatch, making it look like a turret. Weiss was pretty sure that this ship had never had a turret before…not that she complained.
"Hasta la vista, baby!" the Braunschweiger standing next to him yelled. He had…obviously gotten acquainted with Johnson. He was wearing sunglasses, a leather coat and two really big guns. They looked different than other rifles she had seen; the magazines were clearly visible and the stocks were long enough for the man to hold them one-handed.
Weiss silently thanked whatever deity in the skies had granted men their testosterone levels and flashed a look at the two combating Professors. The Grimm was much faster than it had been before and it was slowly growing more eloquent; more fluid in its movements.
Four figures jumped out of the large dropship and it took her a few moments to realize that they were the four members of team JNPR. Jaune swung his sword in the air and his entire team opened fire. But whatever noise the combined shots would have made got drowned out completely when the two large men joined firing. Braunschweiger emptied both rifles at once at the large Grimm, while Johnson's gun fired shots so large that a single cartridge falling from the ship –hovering roughly a meter above the ground- easily reached a size of eight to ten inches. The relentless barrage of fire was enough to drive the monster backwards and Goodwitch took that moment to order them all back.
"Get to the dropship! Team JNPR, help the wounded get aboard," the blonde told them. Yang moved towards Ruby, but Jaune got there first and gently lifted the girl from the ground. He shot a look at the blonde sister, who nodded at him and then moved towards Will.
Weiss couldn't see how the boy was faring, as Blake wrapped an arm around her shoulder and guided her towards the hovering ship. The rain was intensifying and the mist was steadily returning into the grove.
"Matt!" Professor Goodwitch shouted. "The airship needs time to lift off, the engine's not yet ready!"
The Adamant wasted no time with replying. "I see. Regroup with the civilians and get medical attention for Will and Weiss as soon as possible!"
Glynda did hesitate, but only for a slight moment. Then she seemed to steel herself, nodding at her colleague's offer. "Yes…it is for the best. Good luck mister Adamant; we will be back for you as soon as we can."
What? Was another person going to stay behind for them? That wasn't going to work! "Blake," she weakly muttered as the Faunus-girl placed her inside of the ship. It had been completely redesigned; even the interior was larger and padded chairs were embedded into the walls, allowing at least a dozen people to sit comfortably instead of standing awkwardly. "Professor Adamant is going to stay behind."
"He knows what he is doing," Blake replied.
You don't understand.
"But this thing…it reads your mind."
"What?" Blake replied with a frown and took her place next to Weiss. The Heiress could see how Jaune carefully placed Ruby near the cockpit and then strapped her in. Pyrrha and Yang were working together to get the ruined frame of the Operative onboard. He was still bleeding profoundly and in the dim light of the dropship, his wounds seemed that much more horrifying.
Why? His behaviour had been clear suicidal. He had already gotten messed up in the Battle for Beacon, during which he had refused to back down with fighting a fellow Operative and he had also been beaten up pretty badly during the whole Saboteur thing. And now this…what was it with him and getting himself hurt? Had it truly been to save Ruby? She was infinitely grateful for his interference and she would let him know that but…he had almost died doing so.
"Move out people!" Jaune exclaimed once he and Ren had gotten aboard- Ren had to drag a trigger-happy Nora aboard the ship- followed closely by Glynda Goodwitch. The Professor was covering their retreat by creating mist so dense that it completely obscured Matt Adamant.
The hatch closed again, Johnson and Braunschweiger took their turns sitting down and then the ship grew quiet again.
Well, not completely silent. The grievously hurt Will was still taking deep, shuddering breaths and Ruby was slowly reaching consciousness again, moaning softly as she tried to take her surroundings in.
"My head…" she complained and reached for her forehead. "What happened?"
Weiss quickly looked the other direction. She was blushing deeply, she was that glad that Ruby didn't sound weird or strange. It would mean that she had a concussion and that would be really, really bad.
"Ehm…" she softly replied. She didn't really know what to say. "It's complicated."
The black monstrosity stood at least thirty feet tall, with a face that only possessed four eye-slits and nothing else. Its long tail whipped around behind it and all the chunks of body that had been blasted off by previous attacks had already been regenerated. Its physical prowess was only matched by the sheer wrongness that the thing radiated; it didn't make a sound. It was completely dead-silent and that was the worst aspect about it.
Well, not the worst. Matt Adamant considered himself a man with considerable mental prowess; he was very intelligent, had a powerful memory and a very good eye for details. All in all, he was completely capable of analyzing his enemy's each and every little weak spot and exploiting it to the fullest capacity. But that wasn't his best ability in combat. No, not by a long shot. It was his mental discipline that set him apart from other Hunters and warriors. He had spent years honing his mind to the fullest capacity, because mental skills were useless if you couldn't use them. A dull blade was as useless as a gun with a messed-up loading mechanism and both of those things were equally useless as an untrained mind. As such, small things like a good eye for detail and the ability to analyze an opponent's traits were deemed inferior to the ability to use them, in a sense.
At least to him. And that was exactly where he stumbled upon a huge, huge problem. A problem that had consequences for the very-near future as well as the very-distant future. Because of his honed mind, he could feel things that attempted to disturb him more easily than untrained people. He had encountered at least two or three people that he had deemed mindbreakers in the past; people who used their Aura to break into the heads of others. Philosophers and scientists weren't really sure how that was possible, as Aura was still a very vague subject at best, but he had his own theory. Souls were nothing more than the personification of you: every single thing that made a person who he or she was, every little trait and every little feeling. Every little memory, too. Memories were the most important things when it came to defining a person, as they were both past deeds as past feelings. Memories defined a person's actions as much as a person as a whole. In a strange but understandable way, memories could be seen as the soul.
The problem with this? Requirements. The defender needed a well-honed mind and the attacker needed…well, a soul. If a person used their Aura to break into the mind of another person, they were striking at memories as the soul was also used to defend. And at the moment, Matt Adamant could feel something invading his mind more forcefully and twisted than any mindbreaker had done before in the past. Gripping hungrily at the memories that made up his life, something was making its way to his deepest core. Something was mentally attacking him by attempting to get to his memories.
Poor Weiss…poor Ruby. Young, moderately undisciplined when it came to steeling their minds…and probably in possession of nasty memories or feelings that made it easier for a mindbreaker to hurt them. No wonder they had gotten beaten just like that; he was having trouble keeping the invading force at bay himself. And if he had problems with defending himself, how could the two girls have defended themselves?
It was wrong. Akin to violation. And as Matt stared at the powerful Grimm approaching him with elegant, liquid footsteps that made no sound, he knew just what would happen. Glynda had known what would happen too. This monster had probably driven those Beowolves to that single-minded frenzy and judging by its movements, it wanted to finish what it had started. It was going to head to the village and slaughter everyone there, as they had no hopes of escaping. The river cut them off to the north and the airship was still grounded, requiring more time to take off.
Engaging with this thing in close-combat would be a death-sentence. He could attempt to twist the blade to the monster and mess right back with its mind, but that wouldn't be enough. Its mind was probably too alien and messed-up to work with in such a sense…and all it took was one failed strategy for the thing to set off towards the village and destroy the airship.
He had to somehow stall this thing without fighting it. He had to prevent himself from falling to the mental skills of the Grimm while dishing out something so strong…so powerful…that teams RWBY and JNPR had the time they needed to evacuate the village.
But the Grimm was so strong…he could already feel it tap into his memories and trying to figure out how best to hurt him.
Memories…
"Alright then," he said. "That's what you want? That's what I will do."
The Grimm cocked its head when Matt spoke.
"Perhaps you think yourself a hunter; a predator with the abilities granted only to the most powerful of hunters. You attack people's minds –their souls- by forcing yourself upon their memories and watching them squirm!"
The Grimm stopped moving and it was now standing still, staring him down as he spoke.
"But you will never experience the real deal! You will never deal will love and loss and birth and death and sorrow! You're just a hitchhiker, forced by your own nature to hunt down that which you will not EVER have!" The invading force in his head intensified and he was starting to hear voices, calling him out on failure and death and guilt. He knew where it came from. "But you won't get past me. I have witnessed the beginning and the end of the last Death-War. I have marked the passing of the Great Agony. I have seen the lives of hundreds of souls unfold in a single, freezing moment. I have fought on battlefields where the rules of engagement were devised by the mind of a madman! I have done and seen things you wouldn't believe. So come on then! You want my memories? Come and TAKE THEM!"
The Grimm didn't move. It was standing perfectly still, unwavering and motionless. Its face was unreadable and its stance was off. It just stared at him with its four slitted eyes and Matt stared right back at it. In his mind, the creature had stopped battering him for information. It was silent. Like the easy moment before a storm unleashed itself upon an unwitting world, the Grimm stood still before him.
But that didn't last long. After two minutes of nonstop tension and staring, the monster burst into motion. Its movements turned erratic and chaotic, but they made the creature much faster for it. Matt was forced to jump backwards and then take even more evasive maneuvers and the enemy's attacks only increased in pace. For more than twenty minutes nonstop, the young Professor jumped and ran all over the place, occasionally getting a good shot into the scene by blasting the Grimm of-balance with his Aura device. His job was not to kill but to stall, but that didn't mean he was going easy on the monster. While Glynda Goodwitch could orchestrate destruction on a wide scale, he could inflect devastating damage on a single target. With his focused Aura, he destroyed at least three out of four of the eye-organs, which were the most obvious targets. They continued to grow back however and each time he managed to pull a small victory out of the fight, the creature adapted and surprised him by growing increasingly resilient.
On his fourth time of destroying the yes, only one of the orbs was damaged and that one immediately grew back. He was beginning to suspect that his attacks were only making the thing stronger…what kind of twisted form of evolution could have possibly come up with that one? Of course he had been expecting the Grimm to evolve; hell he was even writing a thesis on it, but this? This was one of the familiar cases of 'I knew I was right but I wish I was wrong' scenarios.
"Alright, change of plans," he muttered when he heard the sounds of momentary salvation. When you were fighting a battle that you could not possibly win –a battle where each and every brief victory meant a long-term defeat- you had a few choices. You could keep fighting and dying, something that Onyx seemed to be a fan of. You could surrender and get tortured and killed, which was something that he wasn't really keen on doing.
And you could retreat. Fall back, regroup and retaliate later. And now, after he had stalled the Grimm for more than half an hour and reduced the once pretty clearing to a hole filled with craters and gauges, he felt like it was time to do just that. And what better way of falling back than escaping inside of a circling dropship that really shouldn't be there but still was?
He didn't know of one. Well, he knew of three but those weren't important. He looked over the shoulder of the monstrous Grimm and was satisfied to see that it was the same dropship that team LACG had been tinkering with over the course of the past few days. The same dropship that was outfitted with an impressive amount of weaponry.
He laughed, despite his exhaustion and wounds, bringing his Aura device to bear on the mental Grimm. Alessa was a pretty damned good mechanic and the only pilot that could be skilled enough to pilot such a craft would be the same lovable woman who had been fatefully carrying the teams all over Vale for the past month. "Locus, you beauty!" He yelled and concentrated his Aura into a thin beam, originating from his weapon. The beam itself didn't maim, didn't harm and didn't kill. But it was very good at signaling air-strikes.
And the ship unleashed hell down on the Grimm. The heavy missiles had been loaded with red Dust; the burned and uncut type. It made for one hell of an explosion and through the fire and flames he dashed towards the dropship. Over the burning Grimm, avoiding falling debris and aiming for the hatch in the side that would be opening very soon.
Very soon. Any moment now.
"Damnit," he muttered and slammed into the still-closed side of the ship. He still managed to grab a metal bar that was hanging underneath the craft though and the doors opened up practically a second later.
Time hated him.
"Professor Adamant!" the voice of Jaune Arc sounded. "Where are you?"
Pyrrha, Ren and Nora all ran to the edge of the ship and started firing down on the Grimm. Locus the pilot was circling around to get a better view on the smoking crater that had been their battlefield and her awesome sky-tricks were making it really hard for him to not get into the firing lines of team JNPR. Once one of Pyrrha's carbine shots singed his hair, he decided that enough was enough.
"Do you see Professor Adamant?" Locus asked from the cockpit.
"I do!" he replied loudly and mentally winced as one of his hands was starting to slip.
Jaune's head appeared over the edge, looking around the exterior of the ship. "Can he fly? I don't see him! Please tell me we didn't kill the Professor Adamant!"
"Jaune!" Pyrrha exclaimed when she looked down, carefully backing up. "Down there!"
"Less babbling more helping!" Matt told the students with something that was akin to light panic. Jaune and Pyrrha both reached down to grab him, but their hands accidentally touched during their movement and they shared a brief but awkward little moment where they both stared at each other with a light blush. It was one of those classic romantic movie-scenes and he would have gladly set up a cute little dinner-scene with candles by moonlight, had he not been hanging on the underside of a fast-moving dropship a dozen meters above a burning ground and a severely pissed-off Grimm monster.
But he had patience. And once Jaune and Pyrrha's moment had passed –didn't really take more than a few seconds anyway- they helped him aboard the ship.
"What is that thing Professor?" the blonde boy asked him. Jaune had neatly grown into his position as a leader the past days. He had already developed the much-needed mental skills of level-headed thinking and the making of quick decisions in a pinch. Ozpin really hadn't made a mistake in appointing Jaune as JNPR's leader.
The Adamant hurried to straighten his new and thankfully fireproof bowtie and then scraped his throat for good measure. "That…was trouble. Really big trouble. Were the civilians evacuated?"
"Yes Professor," Pyrrha told him with a grave expression. "They have taken the skies and for the moment, we are operating from the airship. It was large enough to accommodate them all."
He nodded. While he carefully passed the four students that had most likely saved his can, he decided to dub the new Grimm the 'Mental Grimm', reviewed the succession of past events and calculated the likeliness of another such encounter. The name didn't fit. The battle had been started by the mental Grimm who had lashed out against Ruby and Weiss who in turn had fought and lost against it, getting temporarily aided by Will and then saved by Goodwitch and him and the likeliness of another such monster appearing was increasingly likely.
He turned around, saw Jaune and Pyrrha have another romantic moment together and smiled. Kids…
"Thanks for the ride," he told Locus. The woman was sitting in the cockpit with the standard aviator helmet; round, dark and a pretty big visor coupled with a rebreather unit on her mouth. He would never misinterpret her as a male pilot though, as her leather outfit was perfectly tailored to …fit her curvy body. It was a tad awkward how most of the females on the Academy tended to wear clothes that could trick a man into staring.
Not that he ever stared.
"Stop staring at the screens," Locus snapped. "It's annoying. And it was Arc's idea; he said that you would need the help."
Good old Jaune. "We're going back to the airship, right?"
"Right."
"How are things there?"
Locus hesitated and Matt immediately took a step backwards. This was a woman who had flown inside of a hole that was smaller than her own ship had been and come out unscathed. She never hesitated. That was bad. "Rose's woken up during the ride, but things are still blurry to her. The Schnee girl's got two broken ribs and some internal damage, but a doctor is currently fixing both of them. Greystone's…a different case. The doc's doing all he can to keep him alive. He doesn't think the kid will make it through the next hour."
"I heard that before," Matt's mouth spoke. It was a partial truth once again; the Operative had gotten messed up bad during his fight with Mantis and while it hadn't been as bad later on, Yang had beaten him around pretty heavy too. He would pull through...he always seemed to do.
"I hope you're right," Locus replied. "So what happened? From the beginning, why did you wake me up so early this morning?"
"Ozpin warned the Professors that he had received a tip. A village was going to get attacked pretty soon by a bunch of hypnotized or frenzied wolves and if we didn't hurry up, innocents would die. So team Lima flew team RWBY over and soon, Ozpin ordered me and Glynda to take JNPR and go after them. We took one of the modified dropships, but we still arrived a tad too late. But there's a thing…"
"Oh no! A thing!" Locus replied not entirely without sarcasm.
"Yeah, a thing," he told the woman. "Just a thing that will rework all our theories on Aura and Grimm in general and specific details."
"…that sort of thing huh?"
"That sort of thing."
. "Well," the pilot then stated with a sense of finality, "all in a day's work."
It seemed that the list of events that belonged in a day's work needed to be remastered. Getting slashed in half or mentally raped by a new sort of Grimm didn't really seem like one of those things that were supposed to happen to you a lot…
…unless you were with Beacon.
Day 48 – Monday, 8:56 –civilian-class Airship
"Good day Miss Rose," an old woman with a wrinkled face said after entering the room. The first thing that Ruby noticed about her was the spatters of blood on her clothes, even though she was wearing a clean lab coat. The second thing was the weary, worried expression on her face. "I will be examining you today."
Ruby made a face, electing a small chuckle from the lady.
"Don't worry little one, it won't hurt. I promise."
Good. She already felt like she had been used as a chew-toy by an Ursa and she didn't want to be poked at by a doctor, as capable and kind-looking as she might be. She had been briefed for a bit on the dropship, where Weiss had tried to explain what had happened since she had lost consciousness. Poor Weiss hadn't really looked good and she had collapsed halfway their trip from the dropship to the medical bay on the civilian airship. So the few people that had medical training –which, for some strange unearthly reason, included Braunschweiger as well- had immediately volunteered to help those that had risked their lives saving them. Weiss, Will and Ruby had been escorted to the medical bay and…well, here she was. Eagerly waiting to get cleared so that she could visit Weiss.
The doctor told her to stand up and she did. Then, she carefully removed her cloak and then her black blouse. The doctor winced and immediately grabbed a towel and started to douse it in cold water.
"What's wrong?" Ruby cautiously asked. She didn't really hurt that much, but…her head was killing her and her side felt wrong. As if she had pulled a muscle.
"Well, we gave you some painkillers upon arriving and form the looks of it, you clearly needed them," the doctor explained and gently rubbed Ruby's side with the wet towel.
It came off red.
She felt her stomach turn over upon seeing her own blood and she involuntarily gasped. Then she brought her hands down to the place in question and felt a few rigid bumps, that ran across her side all the way from the front to the back. Claw-marks. The Grimm had slashed her across her flank with its sharp claws and despite her Aura protecting her, it had still broken through and drawn blood.
"You have already partially healed with your Aura," the doctor explained, "but the wounds are still bleeding. I don't think I will have to stitch them, but I am still going to bandage your side."
She nodded and the next five minutes were spent with the doctor patching her up on all fronts. She had received quite some handling at the hands of that new Grimm species….that awful monster with its mind-breaking attacks.
She had been unable to handle it. Not just the headaches, but the whispering…the awful whispering in the back of her head, telling her awful things…it had been too much. She had wanted to root out the source of not only her, but also Weiss' pains and the rest was history.
She hated history.
"This is going to sting," the doctor warned her and then brushed past a nasty cut on her leg with a freezing cold napkin. Ruby yelped in surprise and jerked her leg back, but the lady only laughed.
"You have a mild concussion. That is the worst of your injuries, thankfully. You may experience occasional headaches and dizziness. Just prevent other blows to your head and you should be fine."
"Thank you doctor," she asked the woman. But when the kind medic turned around to reach for some document, Ruby jumped to her feet in grabbed all of her gear in one fleeting movement. In that same fleeting moment, she blurred out of the room and escaped further treatment. She had better things to do than getting probed at by a doctor!
She had to find Weiss. Weiss was important.
Ruby didn't need to wander far though. The very first door she peeked through she already spotted the Heiress; she was sitting in a small three-by-three room without windows. The poor girl was sitting on a white bed, staring at the floor. Aside from a bra, she was naked from the waist up, with white bandages wrapped around her waist all the way up to her chest. She didn't look remotely happy.
Ruby intended to change that. She knocked on the door once and then immediately entered, smiling at her dear friend while she closed the door behind her.
Weiss looked up with an angry scowl on her face, but that changed the very second she realized that it was not some scary doctor that had entered her room.
"Ruby!" she exclaimed. Ruby placed a finger at her lips and then joined Weiss on the bed, deciding to allow her brain a day off and speak with her heart instead. Brains never really worked when it came to talking with people and Weiss always seemed to trigger something in her heart, so that was that. She had been struggling with her feelings for Weiss –for she was certain that they were that kind of feelings- for a while now and she hoped to work that out now.
It was obvious to her. She liked Weiss. Not in the 'like' way of liking, but more in the 'like' way of liking. She had been too comfortable lying in her arms and she had given it a lot of thought lately, but there was only one conclusion to reach with that knowledge. She had never been interested in boys in the way that she was interested in Weiss.
And seeing as how that monstrous Grimm had also somehow created feelings of guilt in her head, she might as well come clean with this.
"I'm glad to see that you're alright," Weiss softly said. Then, without warning, she wrapped one arm around Ruby's waist and placed her head on her shoulder. The girl seemed to be aware of Ruby's injuries, as she was very careful not to hurt her. Her touch was gentle and careful and Ruby shuddered when Weiss' hand rested on a patch of exposed skin on her stomach. It was completely unintentional of Weiss to do so, but Ruby's body replied as if she had just been caressed by a lover's hand.
"Was it that bad?" she asked Weiss before she could properly think it through. It was almost as if her brain was looking for a way to lessen the obvious tension that was hanging in the room…but she didn't want to sever that tension. She wanted more. Bad brain.
"Yes," the Heiress softly replied. Even with the girl's head pressed against her shoulder, Ruby could see that she was having a really hard time. "When you fell…when that…that thing walked up to you…it would have murdered you. And there wouldn't have been a damned thing I could have done."
Ruby's heart ached. Hearing Weiss like that…it was awful.
"I didn't feel that much," she told the pale girl and gently placed her own hand on Weiss' body, making sure that she wasn't touching anything…soft. Private. "I was sort of knocked out."
"It was so slow and deliberate," Weiss said and looked up, meeting Ruby's eyes with an expression that screamed desperation and pain. "Almost like it wanted me to watch it happen. I screamed and begged…but it didn't work. You would have died before my eyes…and I would have had to watch, knowing that I was too powerless to-"
"Weiss," she interrupted her friend. "It's fine…right? I'm here…I'm here and I am still alive. A lot of things could have happened that day. And from what I heard, you did try. You got broken while trying to save me."
Weiss sniffed once and then chuckled. Good. Chuckling meant appreciation of humor, which wouldn't be there if she was depressed. " Yes…can you please lower your hand?"
"Why?" Ruby replied and quickly did as she was asked. Had she hurt Weiss? She had heard that the girl had at least two broken ribs and she really did not want to hurt her. "Did I hurt you?"
"No," Weiss replied with a hint of amusement…and playfulness. Ruby felt her cheeks give in to the hated blush-effect. Heat stung her face and the temperature suddenly rose a few degrees. Or was that just her?
"I…"
Come on brain, think. Don't be a jerk now, use words!
"I…I'm glad to see you're not hurt either…"
…you had one job.
Weiss giggled, which caught Ruby even more off-guard. Any other person would have thought it to be completely out of the moment, but not her. She could see that Weiss had been hurting purely because she didn't know whether Ruby was alright or not. Not only hearing but also seeing that she was better than fine was the perfect way for Weiss to ease up…and perhaps more. "I'm fine…more than fine, actually."
She knew it. And it nearly killed her cool. She was sweating now and it was getting increasingly hard for her to form a coherent sentence. She did not want to stutter now. "Ehm…well, me too really. Uhh…more than fine?"
"Mhmm," Weiss verified. "I have been…thinking…about things. I know that you are somewhat younger than I am…and you're our leader…but things have gone a bit strange lately."
She dared not breathe, lest she mess something up.
"And," Weiss continued matter-of-factly, "I think you would agree that things have changed."
She nodded slowly and opened her mouth to formulate a careful reply. But what actually came out was less careful than she had intended to say. "They did…but that doesn't necessarily have to mean anything because things are fine and I really don't mind them and I don't want things to be awkward and-"
Weiss –without looking at Ruby's face- gently placed a finger on her lips. The sudden contact was enough for Ruby to shut up and for that, she was thankful.
"Just hear me out, would you? I don't know about you…but I have never thought about boys in a way that implied romantic thoughts...they never piqued my interest. But…you do."
Ruby´s heart left her chest cavity and nestled within her throat. It dried up. `R-really?"
And then Weiss' confident attitude broke. She had so obviously been trying to keep a strong posture, but such things were impossible. "Yes. I…I've…damn, I had thought this through so well I…I have been having these feelings for a while now and…and…"
Ruby didn't allow the silly girl to continue and did the most stupid thing she could ever imagine. Never in her life had she imagined that she would something like that, but she did. She did the one thing she had imagined doing in her daydreams and leaned towards Weiss, gently placed her hand near her neck and pressed her lips against Weiss'. The moment had to have been brief, as she didn't intent it to last long or be deeply passionate, but her mind still spun a wonderful cocoon of emotions around her rational center. The moment was so wonderful; it was innocent, yet set her entire body on fire. Every fiber of her body screamed for more and she could feel the softness of Weiss' lisp on her own. She had her own eyes closed, but she could imagine her partner's intense blue eyes staring at her in confusion…and passion.
Then Ruby pulled away, not wanting to force Weiss into doing something that she might not want to .She had consigned, right? Weiss had said that she was in love with her…right? She…she hadn't made a mistake, had she?
For one heart-freezing moment, Weiss stared in her eyes with a mixture of shock and confusion and Ruby feared that, at perhaps the most crucial moment in her life, she had read the wrong sign. But then Weiss moved forwards and kissed her back, pressing her soft lips against Ruby's in a gesture that was every bit as magical as the previous one -and even more passionate. The girl leaned against her and gently pushed her closer to the bed, cradling her hair with one hand and caressing her back with the other. Every feeling of doubt and worry simply melted away as she felt that warmth near her face and she gripped Weiss closer, wrapping one arm around the girl's chest and the other one way lower, near her bottom but not quite on it. Ruby wanted to close her eyes and give in to the most amazing sensation of a lifetime, but she couldn't aver her gaze from Weiss' features. The scar that gave her a raw beauty…the attractive white hair that she could run her hands through unopposed...it made her chest beat even wilder. She could feel the girl's tongue slip inside of her own mouth for a fleeting moment before disappearing again.
Weiss broke the kiss and pulled away slightly, smiling at her with an expression that made her want to melt away in the Heiress' arms. It came as a shock to her that Weiss would break it off and it left her questioning what she wanted. But the expression that lay in the girl's face was enough for her to understand that, today, all hints of doubt and fear would be gone. No longer would she have to fear the reaction of others to the choices that she made. No longer would she fear being alone in the dreadful moments that had yet to come.
She slowly and cautiously cupped Weiss 'cheek with her hand. She could barely believe what was happening and she didn't even know what to say. Should she say anything?
Weiss wrapped her arms around her neck and gently lay down next to her, staring in her silver eyes with that same tender, loving expression. "You're so cute…"
…there really wasn't anything left to say. Ruby carefully cradled Weiss' still wounded body and closed her eyes again, feeling happier than she had felt in months. The warm, soft contact that she was having was a new contact entirely…and she didn't want it to end. Not now. Not ever.
Now, she wanted to savor every single second of this wonderful experience and spent some time with her friend…more than friend.
With Weiss. Her Weiss.
"Be advised: target has been evading all authorities in the continent for years now, including Onyx agents sent to deal with her. She is classified as an extremely potent Aura-user, specializing in mental combat. This woman has clashed with our assets in the past and if she were to meet them, the consequences will be catastrophic. And on our hands.
Radio conversation between code-name "Yale" and Lima Two-Three, continuation.
Disclaimer-thingie: I find working with emotions to be an extremely challenging and difficult part of writing. Whether the scene is romantic, sad or filled with anger, I feel like I cannot really bring the feelings about in a realistic way. Of course, this could still be me. Please let me know whether I made the last scene a good one, as this is the very first romance scene I have ever written…in my entire life. So uhm…feedback would be appreciated.